Monday, April 22, 2002		Downloads of the week

While working on the Internet, there's nothing more irritating than the pop up Windows, which comes up every now and then and create a lot of problems for the Internet surfers. These pop up Windows are basically advertisements that hinders the normal surfing. Sometimes, these Windows opens in such a large number that the window where you were earlier surfing gets lost and sometimes even the computer gets stuck up and hangs. Now there's a smart solution to this problem of Windows pop up in the form of software called Zero Popup. Zero Popup is an add-on to the Internet Explorer 4.0 or higher. This software normally sits in the system tray and swings into action to kill the popping up Windows, as and when they come out, without bothering you. However, you can instruct this software not to kill any specific popping up Windows or pop-up windows of any particular site. These would also be called authorised pop up Windows. You can thus maintain a list of sites, which has information on the blocked sites or the authorised sites. You can always edit these lists and can add or remove any sites from the blocked lists. This software is capable of handling another major Internet problem related to banner advertising as it can also remove any banner advertising that tries to load while surfing. While working, this software makes a sound alert, which notifies that the popping up Windows has been killed. This software is designed to use little system resources and requires almost no user interaction. Therefore it does not consume any significant system resources and is also easy to operate and use. A shareware version of this software can be downloaded from http://tooto.triasite.net

In the present day world, text chatting is passé and videoconferencing is haute. Now with opening up of the Internet for voice, new vistas have opened for voice over Internet and that too in a very cost-effective way. Videoconferencing is an effective tool for communication but since it involves a lot of Internet bandwidth, therefore it was limited to the high bandwidth networks. However, now with a use of latest technologies and software like Microsoft Portrait, videoconferencing would be for anybody who's having access to the Internet. Though videoconferencing through the Internet was available earlier also, but due to low bandwidth and poor Internet connectivity, it was not successful. Now with Microsoft Portrait, you can view and let others view you over the Internet right from your desktop. Portrait is an interesting new product from Microsoft Research and offers low bit rate video teleconferencing for desktop and handheld computers. For the desktop computers, this software supports MSN Messenger and Internet Locator Service (ILS) and it can run on any kind of Internet connections like dial up, wireless, LAN, cable or DSL connections. The best feature this software is that it can work on very low bandwidth of as much as 9.6 KPS and also supports high bandwidth options like leased lines, DSL etc. Moreover, it's optimal for delivering black and white video for networks that can't support colour. In fact, the "portrait" video is so small that it can also be transmitted through an HTTP proxy as text. But despite being such a useful program, this is an easy to operate software and does not require any special training or skills. Practically, this software works like any other instant messenger, where you can maintain a list of all your friends and can call them directly by clicking on them in the software. You can also place a call using this software directly through the Internet protocol, if you know that IP address of the other user. This software is also compatible with all kind of web cameras, microphones and provides many options for streamlining the communication process. A good Internet communication software for videoconferencing and can be downloaded from http://research.microsoft.com. Best of all, this software is free.

It’s a common habit of the PC users to try out new software. Thus, software on the PC is being loaded and unloaded very often. Most of the software comes with uninstaller utility, but some programs do not have them. So when this software is removed from the system quite a number of files remain on the system and unnecessarily occupy the precious hard disk space. In other cases also, where the uninstaller is available, unwanted files remain on the system. The presence of these files slows down the performance of your computer. For cleaning these unwanted and unnecessary files from your hard disk, you can download software called Tidy Disk from www.americansys.com/TidyDisk.htm and load it on your system. This software also cleans temporary files, Internet cache files etc. It can be configured to remove exactly the files you want deleted by selecting certain file types or using wildcard characters. This is a good shareware utility for all computer users.