utilities

This is an update of a deal I posted several months back.

How's your system running these days? A little pokier than usual? Occasional crashes or lockups? Think there might be some malware lurking beneath the surface?

Whatever's ailing your PC, a repair/optimization utility might help. Today only, you can score IObit's Advanced SystemCare Pro 5 absolutely free. It normally sells for $19.95 (for a one-year license).

The only bummer here is that this Giveaway of the Day giveaway includes only a six-month license. Of course, that should be more than enough time to get … Read more

Introducing Cosmos, Support.com's brand-new suite of system care tools that's meant to clean, optimize, and secure your Windows PC.

As is typical with Support.com products, much of the functionality of Cosmos is wrapped in a single, comprehensive dashboard. There are a few tabs and panels, but no exhaustive drop-down menus (thank goodness). Overall, this design seems to suit Cosmos quite well, as it makes the program more visual and easier to use.

Everything Cosmos has to offer is broken down in the tabs along the left side of the interface: Security and Privacy, Backup and Recovery, … Read more

An important law that would protect California consumers from state-level regulation of VoIP and other IP-based services passed the California State Senate late last week on a bipartisan 30-6 vote.

The bill, SB 1161, now moves to the State Assembly, which has scheduled hearings for June 11.

SB 1161 is short and sweet. It prohibits the state's Public Utility Commission "from regulating Voice over Internet Protocol and Internet Protocol enabled service...except as required or delegated by federal law" or otherwise authorized by statute, until at least 2020.

Its goal is even more straight-forward. As the bill'… Read more

Anyone with a digital camera knows how easy it is to end up with a slew of images with meaningless file names; they're often a string of numbers and letters that tell you absolutely nothing about the image. Namexif is a simple utility that can rename images based on their EXIF data, creating new file names based on the date and time the image was created. We think that this is a great way to quickly assign meaningful file names to large batches of images.

Using Namexif is a piece of cake thanks to its wizard-style interface. First, select … Read more

NirSoft's SysExporter is a simple, free tool that does something seemingly simple very yet valuable, saving time and reducing errors. The program is made to grab and save the data in all sorts of views in Windows, including standard list views, tree views, list boxes, combo boxes, and other such displays, and save that data as a text, HTML, or XML file.

SysExporter's simple but effective user interface is split horizontally between an upper list view and a lower window for displaying selections. The program scanned our system, displaying a wide range of system messages by title, including … Read more

Chances are that you've deleted a file by accident. Sometimes you're lucky enough to still have it lingering around in your recycle bin, other times you panic after realizing you emptied it three days ago.

Undela is a Windows application that seeks to give you a second chance with your deleted files. Much like a similar app named Recuva, this app will attempt to analyze your free disk space for deleted data and display a result list of its findings. Once you find the file you're seeking in the list, you're just a … Read more

Still plugging along with Windows XP or Vista? Dreading the prospect of upgrading to Windows 7 because Microsoft offers no direct upgrade path? (More on that in a bit.)

Help is on the way. Today only, in honor of its 29th birthday, Laplink is offering PCmover Windows 7 Upgrade Assistant absolutely free. It regularly sells for $29.95.

To get the software, click here, then click the little "Add to cart" box in the upper-right corner of the free-PCmover banner. Scroll down and click "Proceed to Cart." Follow the instructions on the following page.

Not interested? … Read more

As I've mentioned before, the makers of DVD rippers and video converters seem to offer a new giveaway every month or two -- meaning there's little point in actually buying their products. (Don't feel guilty; this obviously works out for them, otherwise they wouldn't keep doing it.)

Digiarty Software, for example, is currently running two separate giveaways on five different programs. Sort of. Stay with me, because this gets a little confusing.

From now until May 20, as part of its Hello Summer promotion, you can get Digiarty's WinX DVD Ripper Platinum (Windows) for free.… Read more

There are several ways to display disk usage in OS X, with some of the more-common options being the Finder's status bar, or to get information on your hard disk in the Finder, or to use Apple's Disk Utility program. However, while these options will display the available disk space on the system, in OS X Lion you might see some differences between the numbers reported in these areas.

For example, on my Mac running OS X Lion there is currently 184.43GB of free space reported as being available on the disk if I get information on … Read more