Category: Geek Software of the Week

I liked this week’s GSotW so much, I bought the full version! And that is really rare!

Jaksta – Download Video & Music from YouTube and 100,000+ Other Sites!

Jaksta Media Recorder

“Download Video
from YouTube and over 100,000 other sites.

Download Music
from Spotify, GrooveShark, Pandora, Jango and more.

Auto Converts
to all popular device and file formats.

It’s Fast
Download at up to 10x playback speed.

It’s Easy
Surf the web. Everything you watch or listen to is downloaded.

Fast and Easy
Downloading video and music has never been simpler.
Just play the video or music in your browser and it automatically downloads and converts to the format you choose. It’s that simple.

Best in Class
Our recorders and converters are the best available.
Jaksta recorders and converters support the latest protocols and formats. We constantly update to ensure you can capture the web’s best content.

Wonderful Support
A dedicated support team is standing by to help you.
Our support guys and girls know their stuff and are fast, friendly and speak English! They are located across the USA and cover all time zones.”

This week’s Geek Software of the Week is a utility to swap files between different formats. I know, I know, sounds familiar, but really, this one is better than the last one!

Format Factory

Format Factory is a multifunctional media converter.
Provides functions below:
All to MP4/3GP/MPG/AVI/WMV/FLV/SWF.
All to MP3/WMA/AMR/OGG/AAC/WAV.
All to JPG/BMP/PNG/TIF/ICO/GIF/TGA.
Rip DVD to video file , Rip Music CD to audio file.
MP4 files support iPod/iPhone/PSP/BlackBerry format.
Supports RMVB,Watermark, AV Mux.

Format Factory’s Features:
1) support converting all popular video,audio,picture formats to others.
2) Repair damaged video and audio file.
3) Reducing Multimedia file size.
4) Support iphone,ipod multimedia file formats.
5) Picture converting supports Zoom,Rotate/Flip,tags.
6) DVD Ripper.
7) Supports 62 languages

OS requirements: All Windows OS”

My favorite audio converter is actually AVS4You Audio Converter, but you do have to pay for that one. This is free, open Source, and great as well!

TAudioConverter Audio Converter

“TAudioConverter is an advanced, multithreaded audio converter and extractor. It can convert any audio format to aac, mp3, wav, flac, ac3, ogg, opus, mpc, ape or tta. It can also, extract audio streams from video files. It can apply various effects to audio streams.”

Features:

• Multithreaded
• Convert audio files to audio files
• Extract audio files from videos and encode them
• Encode to aac, aac+, ogg, mp3, flac, wav, opus, ac3, mpc, ape, tta, tak, alac
• Copy embedded artwork to output folder
• Select between multiple encoders
• Both portable and setup versions are available
• Apply effects to audio files
• Simple clear interface
• Shell extension to start encoding with right clicking

You have a LOT of passwords to keep up with. Now, you have a free, Open Source, secure way to do so!

Password Safe Web Site

“How Many Passwords do YOU have to secure?

Whether the answer is one or hundreds, Password Safe allows you to safely and easily create a secured and encrypted user name/password list. With Password Safe all you have to do is create and remember a single “Master Password” of your choice in order to unlock and access your entire user name/password list.

Security starts with you, the user. Keeping written lists of passwords on scraps of paper, or in a text document on your desktop is unsafe and is easily viewed by prying eyes (both cyber-based and human). Using the same password over and over again across a wide spectrum of systems and web sites creates the nightmare scenario where once someone has figured out one password, they have figured out all your passwords and now have access to every part of your life (system, e-mail, retail, financial, work).

• Start your safe and simplified digital life
• Free open source software
• Installation in minutes on Windows XP, Vista, 7 and 8
• Designed by renowned security technologist Bruce Schneier
• Over 4 million downloads”

Another great, free anti-virus! Come on folks, you have no excuses now! Use Anti-virus!

Panda Free Cloud Anti-Virus for Home

Light
Only works where necessary. It’s so light you won’t even notice it.
Easy
Don’t worry about complicated decisions ever again. Panda Cloud Antivirus will make the best decisions for you to keep your PC protected.
Secure
Panda Cloud Antivirus is based on Collective Intelligence, a system that continuously collects and analyzes viruses and other threats gathered from the community of millions of Panda users around the world.
Free
No tricks! Panda Cloud Antivirus has a free version that protects you against viruses and malicious websites.

Panda Cloud Antivirus is based on Collective Intelligence, a system for detecting and disinfecting viruses and other threats that feeds off the knowledge shared by millions of users. Thanks to it, the computers that are part of the Panda Community instantly share and benefit from all the information stored in the cloud.

Features:

• Real-time Antivirus & Antispyware
• Behavioural analysis protection
• Process Monitor
• Automatic & transparent upgrades
• URL & web filtering
• Translated into 20 languages
• Community Firewall
• Protection in public WiFi networks
• Automatic USB vaccination
• VIP support. Multilingual 24×7
• Ad free

So, you want to be super safe and fully incognito when you surf? Are you paranoid? Do you want to protect your privacy? Well, this week’s Geek Software of the week is for you! You must be using the Chrome Browser (but, of course, you are already!) This is a Chrome extension, check it out!

Go to the Google Chrome Web Store, and look up “Incognito-Filter” exactly as shown in the quotes. Good stuff!

“Open specific websites in a sandboxed Incognito Window, permanently.

Why am I safer with Incognito Windows?

Services like Google+ or Facebook can log any website you visit with their Like or +1 buttons on third party websites, if you are logged into their network. Enter facebook.com or accounts.google.com into Inkognitorizer to open these pages in a save Inkognito Window and stop those services from hijacking your surf history.

Malicious Chrome extensions could log your passwords or manipulate sites you visit.

Chrome extensions are inactive in the Inkognito modus, useful for ‘paypal.com’ and your online-banking sites.

Alternatives:

A similar extension is “Incognito Regex”. Unfortunately, this is much slower because it loads websites twice (once in Normal Mode and later in Incognito Mode). Incognito-Filter, however, opens the urls immediately in the Incognito Window.”

Yes, you read that right, a FREE anti-virus. And it comes very highly rated, and recommended! Let’s face it, Microsoft Security Essentials really isn’t up to today’s evil minions of virus writing! But this is truly commercial quality, and is free too!

Ad-Aware Free Antivirus+

“Combining our legendary anti-spyware with a powerful antivirus, Ad-Aware Free Antivirus+ enhances them with real-time protection, download protection and continuously updated filters against malicious URLs, providing top-of-the-line anti-malware protection for the casual computer user.

Complementing its proprietary anti-spyware technology with one of the best antivirus engines available today (Bitdefender), Ad-Aware 11 features a packed, lean and powerful anti-malware solution, without the conflicts or slow-downs typically associated with running multiple security programs.

Our extensive in-house tests have revealed that even our free product, Ad-Aware Free Antivirus+, easily bested some of the most complete security suites from our competitors. This testing revealed that Ad-Aware will closely match Bitdefender’s impressive test results in independent lab tests. With such a powerful engine at its core Ad-Aware 11 will provide serious protection against even the most advanced threats.

Features:

Fast Antivirus
It’s a superfast antivirus that complements Ad-Aware’s legendary anti-spyware.

Download Protection
Scans your downloads regardless of the file format before they have a chance to damage your PC.

Automatic Threat Updates
Stay protected against the latest threats.

Game Mode
Silent mode protection that allows you to play your games and watch your movies without being disturbed.

Safe Browsing
Protects you while you browse the web by validating a constantly updated list of known bad URLs and websites.

Legendary Antispyware
Ad-Aware is the world’s most downloaded security software. 450 million downloads and counting…

Real-Time Protection
Blocks or suspends malicious processes and infected files before they try to start or connect to your system.

Pin-Point Scanning
Scan only the files or folders you want directly from their original location.

Malware Sandbox Emulator
Emulation technology that helps protecting users from unidentified or new variants of malware.”

This is a neat Open Source/Freeware tool to check common connections issues. It is pretty slick!

“Why Can’t I Connect?”

“‘Why Can’t I Connec’ makes it easier to resolve TCP/IP connection errors. Use it to diagnose connections to common server types and create generic clients and / or servers. A source tar, a 32 bit rpm, a 32 bit deb, and a 32 bit Windows install exe are available. The 32 bit Windows executable runs fine in 64 bit Windows systems. 64 bit Linux systems, however, should compile from source. Look in Wiki -> Help / Instructions or the web site for details. Look in Wiki -> Knowledge Base to make requests, report bugs, ask questions, and view solutions.”

This week’s GSotW is Open Source, and, therefore, free! It is also very handy, in these days of the resurgence of GIF’ery on the Interwebs! Check it out! It is a video-based animated GIF creator. Fun to play with!

QGifer – Animated Gifs from Videos

Features

• GIF extraction from a video file
• Color palette editor
• Variable color palette support
• Dithering
• Text rendering
• Graphics insertion
• Object interpolation
• Cropping
• Filtering
• Looping by appending reversed copy
• GIF optimization through ImageMagick
• Project management
• Translations: English, Swedish, Japanese, Polish, Russian, Czech, Chinese, German

Here’s a neat tutorial for how to use QGifer.

How To Create A GIF from Video on Ubuntu With QGifer

This Geek Software of the Week is one of those rare FREE programs that looks, and works, as well as any paid program! Awesome! If you are looking for a Windows based WYSIWYG web page editor, check out Trellian Webpage!

One note… pay attention during the install of this program to avoid a toolbar install. Answer the questions carefully.

Trellian Webpage

Trellian WebPage Features

• Intuitive Interface.
• Imports pages compatible with today’s browsers.
• Absolute positioning of HTML elements.
• Color Highlighted HTML Editor.
• Meta Tag editor.
• Drag & drop interface.
• Imports all major image formats including PNG & JPEG.
• Support for current Internet technologies.
• Built-in document spellchecker.
• Support for 1000’s of Photoshop Plugins.
• Easy image conversion and resampling tools with unlimited undo’s.
• Create Search engine friendly pages, so that your site can be found.