7.2

When you hear the words "Fake Webcam," you might picture a cheesy plastic gadget that does nothing more than sit on top of your computer screen, pretending to be a Webcam, but most of the time it means software that simulates a Webcam feed using video files, images, screen captures, and other sources. Perfect Fake Webcam is such a tool. It can play video and still images over a simulated Webcam feed. Templates let you add backgrounds, frames, and animated themes to your video chat feeds, too. Perfect Fake Webcam is free to try for 30 days, though … Read more

PeaZip is a free tool for creating and opening ZIP files quickly and easily. PeaZip can read RAR files, but it cannot write them, the one missing archive format we wish PeaZip could support.

We found PeaZip's interface to be well-designed and user-friendly, but users need to take care when installing this utility as it will install the AVG Security Toolbar and change your homepage and search functions to AVG Secure Search with the default settings. Fortunately you can choose a custom installation that avoids the add-ons. Once installed, the right mouse button brings up the traditional Explorer menu … Read more

Minesweeper was one of the more addictive games on Windows, and a few ports have been made to the Mac platform. Minesweeper 101 is a free app that implements a version of Minesweeper under Mac OS X 10.6 or higher. Minesweeper 101 installs and launches quickly.

Minesweeper 101 has a few nice features. The playing field can be resized to any dimensions you want, and to help speed to a solution, your first click on the board opens up an area (instead of sometimes just highlighting one square). You can also save, load, and replay games, which is a … Read more

Photoshop still reigns supreme as the professional image editor of choice, but for users who don't want to shell out that much money and are willing to make a few compromises on design and features, free alternatives abound. Photobie is one of the better free image editors we've tried. It's not perfect, but for users seeking a program that can handle layers and other more advanced features, it's worth checking out.

Photobie has a straightforward interface that will look familiar to anyone who's used an image editor before. A selection of palettes, toolbars, and menus … Read more

Style 7's Theme Clock-7 is a free screensaver that displays an excellent representation of the good-old analog wall clock that has served so many classrooms, waiting rooms, and hallways for so long. It has second-hand settings, a date display, and a text feature, but few other options. Its appeal is its standardized, black-and-white, old-school look, a masterpiece of industrial design that has never been bettered. It's familiar to nearly everyone who can tell time by a clock face, and those who can't can use it to learn how. It's clearly visible across most rooms on most … Read more

Black Castle Software's Song Mixer is a free music manager that makes it especially easy to create playlists and party mixes out of multiple file libraries and locations. You can browse, play, rip, copy, and organize your tunes for burning, or take advantage of its advanced randomization and "mood ring" features to let Song Mixer create playlists based on your preferences. It's based around some familiar open-source tools, such as LAME, WGET, and Free DB, with appropriate credit given, too.

Song Mixer's colorful interface and friendly fonts give it an old-school look and feel that … Read more

iCloud and iOS 5 brought with it a slew of new features with them when Apple launched the software duo earlier this month. One of the advertised features was the ability to sync iWork documents (Pages, Keynote, Numbers) using iCloud with the iWork apps on iOS. … Read more

Mission Control was touted by Apple prior to Lion's release as a feature that would increase OS X user productivity by providing quick access to various windows and apps. Instead, many users have found the feature lacking, specifically lacking the ability to rearrange desktop spaces and full-screen apps in their order of preference.… Read more

If you use Microsoft's Lync enterprise messaging and conferencing tool, you may experience crashes with the program if you update your Mac to OS X 10.7.2.

Microsoft is reporting on its Office for Mac blog that OS X 10.7.2 contains some invalid certificates that result in a conflict with its enterprise messaging program that is causing the crashes.

A true fix to this issue will require Microsoft to update its software to properly contend with invalid certificates if and when they arise, but until then if you need to use the software you can implement … Read more