2.0

Fences 2.0 doesn't mess with what worked in the first version, which we loved when we looked at it three years ago. You get the same easy functionality of creating shaded areas (aka fences) on your desktop for organizing your files and folders. It lets you create rules, as you could with the old Fences Pro version, which automatically direct certain types of files to particular fences. Fences 2.0 introduces two new and useful features -- Folder Portals and Desktop Pages -- but before we get to them, let's quickly go over how the app works.… Read more

Xilisoft's Video Cutter 2 is an easy-to-use shareware video-editing tool. It's designed to make quick work of cutting and saving excerpts from videos. You simply drag arrows to set the beginning and end points of the clips you want to extract, and Video Cutter does the rest. Video Cutter works with most video file types, including Flash video, so you won't need to convert your clips to post them on sites like YouTube. But Video Cutter can also convert your files on output, if you tell it to. Video Cutter is free to try, but the trial … Read more

Nearly everyone who plays videos on a PC will come across a file that can't be played. The quick answer is to convert the file to a format your media player can handle. Your media player might even include a file converter, but finding it and figuring out how to use it could take longer than simply downloading and running Hamster Free Video Converter. Its wizard-style interface walks you through each step of converting your unfamiliar video files to a format you can play. You can also use it to standardize your videos in one universally compatible format. Hamster … Read more

Facebook is a great way to keep in touch with friends, and that chat feature is especially useful; you can chat with everyone from your best friends and colleagues to high-school classmates and far-flung relatives. If you don't want to always have your browser open in order to use Facebook's chat feature, there are a variety of clients that let you take chat and other Facebook features off the Facebook Web site. Unfortunately, Facebook Messenger is not the best option for this. Although the interface looks good, functional problems make this program hard to recommend.

Our first hiccup … Read more

Although Smart Converter promises better and faster results than most of its competitors, it fails to achieve this goal. Its simple, intuitive user interface is excellent, providing a great user experience; beginner-level converters will appreciate it. The results aren't as stellar as expected, especially the audio, but the movie conversion is worth the additional minutes spent waiting.

Smart Converter could easily become one of the most convenient beginner-level converter tools, because users will love being able to just drag and drop their movie or audio files and choose an output format from the available list -- which is kind … Read more

While Blood & Glory: Legend resembles Infinity Blade in some respects, its well-designed user interface and great graphics and storyline enhance the overall user experience. Given the fact that it is free, anyone who liked the app's predecessor, Blood & Glory, will surely enjoy the enhanced game. Still, we found that the game doesn't quite differ enough from the previous version.

We like games that have a story, and the developers of Legend have given users a reason to kill all those monster competitors besides staying alive. The game has a central figure, Crimson, who has to pass … Read more

Viber gives Skpe a run for its money, and we think it comes out ahead. It ships with a good-looking interface dominated by the color purple that will have you placing VoIP calls in no time.

The app integrates with iOS perfectly and, fortunately, doesn't require a username and password to register. Instead, it uses your phone number as your ID. Once you have allowed the app to scan your address book, the contacts registered in the Viber network will appear, and you can start calling them, even if they're based internationally.

We were pleasantly surprised by the … Read more

Although Macs come with some decent audio software such as GarageBand, Audacity goes beyond the Apple-designed app in many ways. The one area it isn't so successful in is its user interface, which can be overwhelming.

As you launch Audacity, you'll be greeted by a pop-up window that leads you to multiple Help files. You'll need these files if you want to use all the great features that the small application has in it. You'll likely be overwhelmed by the number of tools that are available, but you'll get used to them as soon as … Read more