Category: Geek Software of the Week

Lost your product key, but you really DO own the copy of the software that you have installed locally? Want to safeguard it away for posterity? You need this FREE software!

ProduKey v1.53 – Recover lost Windows product key (CD-Key) and Office 2003/2007 product key

“ProduKey is a small utility that displays the ProductID and the CD-Key of Microsoft Office (Microsoft Office 2003, Microsoft Office 2007), Windows (Including Windows 7 and Windows Vista), Exchange Server, and SQL Server installed on your computer. You can view this information for your current running operating system, or for another operating system/computer – by using command-line options. This utility can be useful if you lost the product key of your Windows/Office, and you want to reinstall it on your computer.”

OK, so for years I have used Viper’s Video QuickTags for my WordPress blog to embed YouTube videos on the page. And, I always upgrade when an upgrade is available. This recent upgrade broke it BIG TIME! (The video’s aren’t really embedded, they just take you to YouTube directly. What!?) So, since I only use it for YouTube video embeds, I searched for another option, and here it is: Artiss YouTube Embed! The cool thing is, it uses the same embed codes as does Viper’s! So, disable Viper’s, enable Artiss YouTube Embed, and you are good to go! I love it!

Artiss YouTube Embed

“Artiss YouTube Embed (formally YouTube Embed) is an incredibly simple, yet powerful, method of embedding YouTube videos into your WordPress site. Options include:

• XHTML and HTML5 compliant – works with all the latest browsers
• Multiple embedding methods available – OBJECT, IFRAME, CHROMELESS and EmbedPlus
• Dynamic video sizing for responsive sites
• Allow users to add videos to comments
• Build your own playlists and play them back however you want
• Create multiple profiles – use them for different videos to get the exact style that you want
  Google compatible metadata is added to the video output – great for SEO!
• Code is cached for maximum performance
• Using a different YouTube plugin? Documentation and tools are provided to help you migrate to Artiss YouTube Embed
• And much, much more!

It has all the features of other similar plugins – Smart YouTube, for instance. In fact if there’s a feature in another YouTube embedding plugin that this doesn’t have, let me know – I haven’t come across it!”

I didn’t have a GSotW last week, but this week’s makes up for it BIG TIME! This is the best, most amazing, FREE software I have EVER seen… and as you know… I look at a LOT of software! Seriously, this is super high quality software to virtualize your applications… it is cleaner, better and more amazing than commercial software big enterprise companies pay HUGE bucks for! I was able to virtualize a software package that I could not get to virtualize using a major commercial package… you simply MUST try this!

Build a simple, unpatched, Windows XP image in your favorite hypervisor, then run Cameyo, then install your software package, click the “End Install” option in Cameyo, and you will have one simple executable that you can put on a file share, USB drive, whatever, and run a fully virtualized application session independent of your local Operating System. WOW!

Cameyo – Free Application Virtualization!

“A virtual app (or portable app) is a single .EXE file that holds an entire application, including files, DLLs and registry. Virtual apps can be copied & moved around like regular files and launched from anywhere without installation: home, office, Dropbox, USB disk-on-key, laptop, network shares. With Cameyo’s app virtualization, you can take your apps and data with you, anywhere.

With Cameyo’s application virtualization, you can package an entire application – including all its files, DLLs, registry – into one single file and take it with you anywhere, along with the app’s settings & data. On your Dropbox drive, on a USB stick, at work, at home, on your laptop – using application virtualization you will no longer have to reinstall your apps again and again everytime you move from one computer to another. Virtual portable apps also keep your computer stable, isolating apps from your system. Whether your are a home user or an IT administrator, Cameyo will save you precious time… and frustration.”

Check out this video! If you are virtualization guy, like me, you will be as jazzed as I am!

By the way, the new (Beta) version is “Cloud Aware” – including full support for DropBox! Think about setting up your apps in the cloud and running them on any computer you have a DropBox share on! Wow, wow, wow!

Do you need to undelete files that you accidentily deleted? Well, here you go!

OfficeRecovery’s FreeUndelete

“FreeUndelete restores deleted files, including those removed from Windows Recycle Bin. In case of accidental removal of files on a NTFS (1.0 and 2.0) (default for Windows Vista, XP, 2000 and NT), FAT32, FAT16 or FAT12 file systems this is the utility to help.

Supported file systems:
NTFS 1.0, NTFS 2.0, FAT12, FAT16 and FAT32

The recovered files are saved into a new user-selected location to prevent overwriting the deleted files on the original media.”

Do you need control over your Windows booting process? Well, now you can have it! Free for a non-commercial (home) user, and a very small fee for commercial!

NeoSoft EasyBCD

“EasyBCD is NeoSmart Technologies’ multiple award-winning answer to taking control of your bootloader. EasyBCD extends and revamps the Windows Vista/Windows 7 BCD bootloader, and with EasyBCD, almost anything is possible. Setting up and configuring a dual-boot between Windows 7, Windows Vista, older versions of Windows such as XP & 2003, Linux, Ubuntu, BSD, and Mac OS X is a breeze. You just point & click and EasyBCD does the rest. EasyBCD is free for all private, non-commercial use. For non-private/commercial/for-profit use, please purchase a license from our online store.

EasyBCD is geared for users of all kinds. Whether you just want to add an entry to your old XP partition or want to create a duplicate for testing purposes; if you’re interested in debugging the Windows Kernel or septuple-booting your seven test operating systems, EasyBCD is the key.

Boot into XP/Vista/7/Ubuntu/OS X and more!

• Boot from USB, Network, ISO images, Virtual Harddisks (VHD), WinPE, and more!
• Repair the Windows bootloader, change your boot drive, create a bootable USB, and more!
• Rename entries, set default boot target, change BCD timeout, hide the boot menu, and more!
• Create your own custom boot sequence, hide drives on boot, backup and restore configurations, and more!

EasyBCD is used and/or recommended by Microsoft, PC-World, PC-Magazine, Softpedia, PC-Welt, Activision, and hundreds more! Don’t get left out – download it today, it’s free!!”

I know, I know, I am ALWAYS looking for better and better video converters! And, I confess that as many as I have looked at, I now use ffmpeg on Linux more than anything else! But, this one is really nice!

Sothink Free Video Converter

“Sothink Free Video Convertor is a universal Video Converter freeware that converts rich video and audio formats with high definition and top speed. Let you get excellent video experience on all platforms, from PC, MP4 players to Mobiles and Tablets.

Full Media Formats
Convert AVI, MP4, FLV, ASF, WMV, MKV, MOV, MPEG, H.264, RM, 3GP, M2TS, MP3, WMA, AAC, OGG, WAV, YouTube, CD/VCD/SVCD/DVD.

All Devices Playable
Perfect transfer to PC, laptop, Apple iPad/iPod/iPhone, Sony PSP, Zune, MP4 players, Android, BlackBerry, Nokia, HTC, Xbox, etc.

Support HD
Convert high-definition videos and any other formats, like HD MP4, HD AVI, MOV, MKV, M2TS, M2T, MTS, etc without quality loss.

HTML5 Video Converter
Convert videos to HTML5 video formats (OGG, MP4, WebM). Create HTML5 video codes directly for display, no hand-code required.

Fast & Friendly
Convert multi-files simultaneously with the shortest time in batch. Realize multi-threading video conversion. Recall last settings.

Video Editing
Trim video clips, edit video codecs, dimension, zoom, bit rate, frame rate, sample rate, channel, video/audio quality. Support instant preview.

So, you want the LATEST ISO of the top hundred or so Linux distros! Is that what you want? Well, do I have a great Windows program for you! Yes, a Windows program to find the latest Linux distro… how geeky is that?!?! And, it is free and Open Source! (Of course!)

GetLinux

“Get Linux is a portable and open source download client, which interacts with a server side library for downloading numerous Linux-based operating systems. With the help of this utility, you can download more than 100 Linux distributions, by simply selecting their name from the available list. This makes it easy to obtain the most updated Linux OS, without having to manually search and download the ISO file via a browser.”

It has a nice, clean graphical presentation of the information for the distros as well!

Cloudberry Explorer, the freeware version for Windows XP and Windows 7 is awesome… however, the Pro version (which costs money, well, $39.99) is even MORE awesome! It allows something that I REALLY want, the ability to transfer via FTP from an existing (external) host to your S3 account WITHOUT bringing it down to your local PC first. Very, very cool stuff! Highly Cloud geeky!

Cloudberry S3 Explorer – Freeware Version

“CloudBerry Explorer makes managing files in Amazon S3 storage EASY. By providing a user interface to Amazon S3 accounts, files, and buckets, CloudBerry lets you manage your files on cloud just as you would on your own local computer.”

So, I needed a way to automate updates on my Citrix servers from a script, so I searched for a command line utility that would simpify all this. And, hooray! There is a tool that is freeware called WUInstall! It works with or without WSUS! Cool stuff!

There is also a Pro version with additional features. However, the Free version can be used commercially, or at home!

WUInstall – Automatic Command Line Windows Updater

“WuInstall enforces Windows updates and makes the entire updating process user friendly. The basic version WuInstall 1.1. is freeware.

Basic functions

Searching for updates:

/search – lists all update which are available. It either searches on the Windows Update Server in the Internet, or, if configured, on your WSUS. It has no impact on your system at all, it just does a search and lists what was found.

Download updates:

/download – does the same search as WuInstall /search and then downloads the updates which were found. WuInstall itself does not download anything, but it triggers the Microsoft Windows Update Engine, which downloads the updates.

Install updates:

/install – searches the updates, downloads them (if they have not already been downloaded by a previous wuInstall /download command) and then installs them.

New features in version 1.1:

/reboot [nseconds] possible in combination with other parameters, reboot is done after executing WuInstall with a delay of nseconds (default: 10) seconds

/criteria “query string” – searches for updates, which match the query string. For query strings see MSDN. The default criteria is “IsInstalled=0 and Type=’Software'”.

/match “search string” – searches for updates which match the search string (no regular expressions possible so far!)”

So… there was no GSotW last week, so, we have two this week! How’s that!?! This is a good one! I use it all the time. It is a purchased product rather than free, but it is really nice and very convenient!

Flashboot – Create Bootable USB Media!

“FlashBoot is a tool to make USB storage devices bootable. FlashBoot supports USB thumbdrives and USB HDDs. FlashBoot partitions, formats USB storage device and then automatically installs operating system files to it. Supported operating systems: Windows 7/Vista, Windows XP, SysLinux-based disks, GRUB4DOS disks, Linux kernel etc.

You may create blank bootable USB flash with minimal set of system files and then manually tune it for your needs, or convert a full-featured bootable CD-ROM or floppy disk to bootable USB Flash keeping all functionality.

Most popular FlashBoot feature is a convertion of Windows installation CD/DVD into bootable USB disk to install Windows XP from USB or to install Windows 7 or Vista from USB on netbooks and other devices without CD/DVD drive.

FlashBoot is a tool with rich feature list:

• Convert Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7 installation CD/DVD disc to bootable USB disk (to install Windows on netbooks and other computers without CD/DVD drive)
• Create USB disk to reset password for any user of Windows XP/Vista/7
• Extract Windows XP recovery console from Windows XP installation CD to bootable USB disk
• Convert BartPE bootable CD to bootable USB disk
• Convert IsoLinux, SysLinux, GRUB4DOS and DOS bootable CDs/DVDs/floppy disks to bootable USB disks
• Duplicate USB disks

You get all the features “in one box” if you use FlashBoot.

FlashBoot can either format physical disk or write an image file. So you may create customized USB disk manually or with another tool and use FlashBoot to create image out of it and redistribute it in local network or online.