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Would you pay for a desktop wallpaper slideshow? Let's rephrase that: Would you pay for shareware to create a desktop wallpaper slideshow? You might, if it's Wallpaper SlideShow Pro. What makes it so much better than the many free slideshow apps? Like the one that comes with Windows? Lots of things, starting with multiple monitor capability. You can custom-fit each separate image, too, so you no longer have to choose whether to center, fit, or stretch them all. You can add overlays like calendars and text, too. As we noted, Wallpaper SlideShow Pro is shareware, but it's … Read more

A U.K. court has decided that three torrent sites should be blocked by the country's largest Internet service providers for alleged piracy.

The U.K.'s High Court today ordered U.K. ISPs to block Kickass Torrents, H33T, and Fenopy after the country's British Phonographic Industry (BPI) claimed that the sites were infringing copyrights on a "significant scale." The BBC was first to report on the story.

Today's ruling comes just months after the BPI asked U.K. ISPs, including BT, Sky Broadband, and others, to block the three sites. The ISPs made clear … Read more

IrfanView is one of the longest-serving and most popular freeware image editors available. Fast, compact, and flexible, IrfanView is also packed with features and extras, including TWAIN support, frames and borders, and slideshows, wallpaper, and screenshots. IrfanView plays music and videos, too; in fact, it's long been prized for its ability to open a huge range of files. It's also widely customizable, with lots of options.

IrfanView's setup wizard is one of the most comprehensive we've seen, with many options to set, such as which file types you want the program to open. When you install … Read more

Despite the ubiquity of Microsoft Office, it's not outside the realm of possibility that you've found yourself needing to show a PowerPoint presentation using a computer that didn't have PowerPoint installed. Flip Powerpoint is a clever program that solves this problem by saving PowerPoint presentations as flipbooks in a variety of different formats. We think it's a great choice for ensuring that your PowerPoints are accessible no matter where you go.

It's important to note that in order to use Flip Powerpoint, you have to have PowerPoint installed on your machine. Assuming that you do, … Read more

Whether you're doing graphic design, Web design, desktop publishing, or some other task where proportions and positions matter, it can be useful to have onscreen markers that denote specific spots on your screen. Screen Markers is a simple program that does exactly that. It's not fancy, but it will do the job if you need a reminder of an object's size or location on your screen.

The program's interface is all business, and it's adorned with various abbreviations that took us a minute to figure out, though our background admittedly is not in design. If … Read more

Windows 7 has quite a few built-in enhancements and tweaks, and it enables still more. Most of these tools are scattered throughout Windows or just aren't convenient to use. We've tried many programs that bundle a variety of Windows 7 tools, tweaks, and cleaners into a "one-stop" solution. SeriousBit's EnhanceMySe7en Free offers most of the features of a premium Pro tool, including Registry and security cleaners, and customizations. It omits the Most Used Tweaks features, context menu integration, and hard-drive monitor. But we were surprised to see that the freeware also omits access to many … Read more

Most people think of NASA as an organization full of rocket scientists. But while the U.S. space agency has spent decades launching spaceships and working on other important projects, it also puts some of its resources into much smaller efforts, such as making video games.

The list of games NASA has worked on is quite long. Among other things, it's created space station and space shuttle titles, it's given players a virtual walk on the moon, and it's put users in charge of space flight communications.

In recent weeks, the space agency has launched two new … Read more

There's nothing like hitting the ski lodge for a warm beverage after a few hours on the slopes, but trying to round up the troops can be a pain when you have to dig through your winter layers to find your cell phone and then shout instructions over all the swooshing and ambient noise around you.

If you're sick of dealing with this first-world problem, let us introduce you to the Buhel SpeakGoggle G33. These high-tech goggles connect to your cell phone or smartphone via Bluetooth and feature a bone conduction mic integrated into the frame that translates speech using the vibrations from your nose. The advantage of bone conduction technology is that it blocks outside noise, so you can have a clearer conversation with your friend. … Read more

Do you handle a lot of image files? Snapshots, archives, and pictures to upload can pile up, especially when they need to be resized, cropped, converted, or watermarked. Sometimes you just want a quick, easy way to do those jobs. Or maybe your PC didn't come bundled with a big-box graphics package and you just want a simple assortment of essential image tools. How about Image Tools? That's the name of IMDrops' free bundle of fast, powerful image apps that handle all the basics we mentioned, and more, including sharing screenshots and uploading image files.

Image Tools has … Read more