Monday, July 30, 2001		Downloads of the week

Windows is wonderful and you can add a lot of magic to it by using tweaks. Tweaks are specially designed programs for Windows for enhancing its features. The user can search and download tweaks from the Microsoft’s site. But if you want them at one place, then Magic Set is the program for you. Magic Set contains an extensive collection of useful Windows Tweaks. The Tweaks in these programs are categorised according to the operating system and there is one set for Windows ’95, ’98, Me, and the other set for Windows 2000 and XP. Both these sets are full of options and offer enough power to customise your operating system as per your requirements and make them user-friendly. In this software tweaks are organised into 20 categories that covers every area of your system. The range of tweaks cover from simple to complex and from functions like rearranging your desktop and Start Menu to editing your Control Panel entries. This program can boost the performance of computer in many ways. Using this program, you can customise it to make it more efficient and also by adjusting the computers performance by adjusting virtual memory and other parameters. Furthermore, you can also change boot modes, keyboard input and network settings etc. using this software. The Tweaks included in this software also cover common Windows annoyances, security concerns and also the registry problems as it includes a feature called RegOpt. This is basically a registry cleaner and healer that scans the Windows registry for any junk files, which unnecessary makes your registry fat and your computer slow. However, you can also keep a back up of your registry for trouble-shooting in case something goes wrong in deleting the junk files. This utility can be downloaded from www.superrsoft.com

E-mail has become the lifeline of modern communication system today and now with convergence of voice with text, the utility of e-mail has grown many folds. Now you can listen to all your incoming e-mails rather than reading them. For using this service all you have to do is to download and install the software Speak and Mail 2000 from www.shadisoft.com. This software is a text to speech application and can be used to read not just mails but also any text on your clipboard, Web pages, contents of your word processor, help files etc. Since this program is being made to be compatible with the e-mail server, thus it can read all your incoming messages. You can customise this program to automatically check for new messages and also sound an alert for the new message at the time interval specified by you. This software also provides voice recognition for performing various computing tasks using simple voice commands. It uses Microsoft agent text to speech technology and incorporates personal assistant in the form of animated cartoons to assist you not only in e-mail but also in other features, which involves text to speech feature. Thus you can use this software as a PIM or personal information manager and manage all your appointments and schedules. You can also set this software to announce time and customised messages, which could include Jokes or even songs. The choice of animated character is wide and you can choose from a wide range of cartoon characters featuring male or female voice. You can also customise the pitch and speed of voice as per your requirement.

Handling data disks is not always an easy task and many a times, it not only consumes time but also causes a lot of inconvenience. The problems related to data disks could range from formatting, managing and repairing. Out of the above-mentioned things repairing the data disks is one of the most cumbersome tasks. However, now with software like GRDuw handling the data disks could be fun. GRDuw is a disk utility for Windows 9X and Windows Me for formatting, duplicating and repairing the data disks. This program is designed to enhance the standard Explorer function when formatting and disk duplication is to be done. Moreover, its easy to use interface also makes it user-friendly. The main feature of this program includes optimised formatting as it formats disk in optimised layout, which enhances the read or write process. Duplication of disks is also made simple by this software as it duplicates the disks in 2-pass process easily and quickly as it reads the source disk and writes the destination disk directly. This program is also capable of repairing FAT 12, FAT 16 and FAT 32 formats and supports all removable and non- removable disks. Since it supports all types of disk and diskettes therefore it also supports all type of formats for small diskettes like 720 KB, 1.44 MB and 1.2 MB. Besides this also support the density 1.72 MB and 1.68 MB known as the MS DMF format. This disk utility can be had from www.grsoftware.net/disk/software/grduw.html