ALZip, a WinZip alternative

Posted on July 15, 2009 at 5:17 am

ALZip is an archive and compression tool that supports more than 30 archive formats. You can use this utility for compressing files to reduce their size. You can also use ALZip to create a self extracting archive and a password protected archive, this is useful in securing your data.

Other alternatives to WinZip that I have mentioned in the past include 7-zip, Jzip. Also make sure to read my comparison between 7-Zip and WinZip.

Trivia: The AL part in ALZip is a transliteration from the Korean aljip literally EggZip. Other ALTools feature similar egghead cartoon characters as mascots for each program.

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How to repair corrupted or damaged AVI files

Posted on July 14, 2009 at 5:03 am

There are reasons that Windows Media Player might have trouble playing a
video other than a missing or broken codec—namely, problems with the video file itself.

First, make sure your video file is complete; if you downloaded it
from the Web, try clearing your browser cache and downloading the file again.

If you’re unable to obtain an intact version of the video, you may be able to repair it with the free MPEG Header Corrector, available at

http://www.vcdhelp.us/html/tutmpegheadercorrector.html

although this typically only works on true .mpg files.

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How to hide sensitive data using WinMend

Posted on July 13, 2009 at 5:44 am

There are times when we want our files and folders hidden from others – especially when someone borrows our computer or uses it. A tool from WinMend called Folder Hidden allows us to hide those sensitive files and folders so that when someone explores your computer’s drive, they will not see them. The free software is download-able here:

http://download.cnet.com/WinMend-Folder-Hidden/3000-2092_4-10915630.html

WindMend folder hidden is a freeware used to hide and unhide files and folders on your computer.

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Moblin – Mobile OS for netbooks and nettops

Posted on July 12, 2009 at 5:58 am

Moblin, short for Mobile Linux, is a free and open source OS from Intel designed for netbook hardware. It is designed to be an eye candy and user friendly OS targeted to the standard home user – meaning for emailing, twittering, browsing, media playing and such – unlike the more “serious” flavors of Linux like CentOS.

It is designed to be lightweight with minimal footprint so that it will run extremely fast on Atom-based computers like netbooks. You can download the beta V.02 image file from this URL http://moblin.org/

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ALSong – Free media player that displays lyrics to songs

Posted on July 11, 2009 at 5:07 am

ALSong is one of the better media player utilities from ESTsoft. I was particularly intrigued by it because it supports real time lyric displays as your songs play. The minimum system requirements are a mere Windows 2000/XP/Vista with a CPU 333MHz + and RAM 64 MB + of RAM. This media player plays mp3 music and has an integrated web radio, which you can use to play songs from a broadcasting radio on the web.

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Add a picture over text using Photoshop

Posted on July 10, 2009 at 5:23 am

Sometimes fonts and font colors are not enough to deliver a message. In this tutorial I will show you how to use a picture as a text foreground so you are not be limited to plain font foregrounds. The end product is something like below with an image inside the text.