Category: Shareware

I was actually unsure whether to call System Silencer freeware or shareware. While the application itself is free, there are "extras" that are only sent to "donors." It's not crippled in any way, it doesn't nag you, and none of the extras are vital per se. I still decided to go with shareware, as it is obviously an application that's expected to generate some revenue. But the way the developer ...

"I need a new computer!" is a cry often heard by parents and system administrators alike. But often, the problem isn't in the hardware – if the user isn't an avid gamer or using a really ancient system, more often than not the problem is a crudded-up Windows installation (yes, I know, "this doesn't happen on Linux"). Proving to your user/kid that the hardware isn't the problem is often ...

Listary is a quick-search utility that I first heard about back in February. Back then, I wasn't too impressed with it. However, Listary's developers have been hard at work, and they have recently released version 2.0 -- which has some nifty new features. While I cannot find a change log listing all of the new features, at least one feature is certainly worthy of mention. You can now use Listary ...

Christian Ghisler just published Total Commander 7.55 RC1. This is very exciting news for all Total Commander users, of which there should probably be more. I've been using Total Commander for years now -- since the time it was still called Windows Commander. But rather than wax nostalgic, let me tell you about the single coolest feature in this new release: It is fast. I mean fast. Christian ...

qStatus is a reasonable-looking piece of shareware. It lets you update your Twitter and Facebook status from the comfort of your desktop, via an interface which is far too elaborate for my tastes. It's all Aero Glass and slick and smooth, but I guess most people like that sort of thing. To be fair, I haven't tried it, and for all I know, it may be great or horrible (tell me in the ...

Google Reader is really dominating in the world of RSS readers, but if you're looking for a desktop experience that has the best of what Google Reader offers, but a faster and more desktop-like experience on Windows, you definitely need to check out FeedDemon. The latest version of FeedDemon, newly release 3.1 offers some serious performance improvements from 3.0, which was a feature release that ...

Let's start with a disclaimer: I'm strictly a Windows guy. Have never used a Mac. But I do know what Time Machine is supposed to do, and I was quite envious of my fellow Macheads when it was released. I have a serious backup fetish, and my combined backup strategy (remote + complete local mirroring) was lacking in just that one area -- intuitive versioning which stays out of your way but is ...

Ever since Palm and Apple started their dance about the Pre's ability to sync with iTunes, I've been keeping an eye out for alternative ways to move media to my Pre. Over the last few weeks I've been putting three applications through their paces with my Pre to find a suitable workaround for this glaring omission on Palm's part: MarkSpace's GoGadget for webOS, Salling Software's Media Sync and ...

I'll admit I'm not a particularly avid gamer on my iPhone, however over the Christmas period I've found myself playing Charadium: a stylish take on the classic game Charades. Using the ngmoco Plus+ network, you play against friends (or complete strangers) and your task is to draw the prescribed word for other plays to guess. You each take it in turns to guess and draw, with players being ...

It frustrates me that so many different services have a calendar function, and yet it's still a pain in the ass to make sure that my personal calendar is up to date. More often than not I find myself manually creating events using copy-and-paste, instead of the event being automatically created for me by whatever service I'm using. If you happen to be a Facebook Events user, a utility called ...

Every now and then I find myself working on slides in Keynote and writing Download Squad posts - and struggling to find a suitable image. Of course, Flickr is the best way to find images - their clear licencing and Creative Commons support makes finding images fairly straight forward. However, getting the image into Keynote isn't entirely painless. The workflow of browsing search results, viewing ...

We've covered a bucketload of image editors here at Download Squad recently: from Photoshop Elements, to stylish OS X apps to great Windows image manipulators. But if you're someone who works with icons and screen graphics, you're probably using something other than Photoshop Elements to create your stunning vector icons and glyphs. Sure, there's the brawn of Illustrator if you want to spend big ...

I'm willing to bet that while reading Download Squad, you've discovered some great applications that you now use on a regular basis. Although we all use our machines in a slightly different way, I always find it fascinating to hear about which applications other people use and often when chatting to friends or colleagues I'll learn about an application that i've never used before - there's ...

Hot on the heels of stylish Mac OS X image editor Pixelmator hitting version 1.5, Acorn - the simple (yet powerful) image editor from Flying Meat software has reached version 2.0. This all-new release is one of the first applications we've seen to require Mac OS X Snow Leopard, and comes a tonne of new features including: layer-based screenshot capture; RAW image support; layer groups; ...

A new version of Total Commander for Windows is available - version 7.50. Total Commander is a file manager / windows explorer replacement that is positively packed to the rafters with features such as side-by-side windows, compression and decompression of most popular (and unpopular formats), a fully featured ftp client, file and folder comparison, parallel port linking (remember that?), ...