Category: Geek Software of the Week

This is a strange Geek Software of the Week, but I was trying to think about free software that I use all the time, and, bam! It came to me! The Kindle App is awesome and powerful!

The Free Kindle Reading App

“Take your Kindle books with you
The Kindle app is available for most major smartphones, tablets and computers. That means with our free Kindle reading apps, you can buy a Kindle book once, and read it on any device with the Kindle app installed*. You can also read that same Kindle book on a Kindle device if you own one.

Sync to the furthest read page
With Amazon’s Whispersync technology, you can automatically save and sync your furthest page read, bookmarks, notes, and highlights across all your devices. That means you can start reading a book on one device, and pick up where you left off on another device.

Load up with books and more – Sample Books Before Buying

Easily shop for eBooks and read the first chapter for free before you decide to buy.

Read Free Books
Read thousands of free books including popular classics like The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Pride and Prejudice, and Treasure Island.

Borrow Library Books
Go into your local library to check out an eBook, and have it delivered wirelessly to your Kindle app.

Read Magazines & Newspapers on Android devices
Read magazines and newspapers with high-resolution, vivid color images on Android devices. You have the flexibility to buy a single issue or a subscription.

Get the best digital reading tools
Personalize: Adjust the text size, change the screen’s brightness, choose your background color, and read in either portrait or landscape mode.

Look Up Words
Tap and hold any word in a book to view the word’s definition with the built-in dictionary or use the Google or Wikipedia links to get more information.

Collections
Organize your books, docs, and magazines into categories with a few easy taps.

EXCLUSIVE – X-Ray for Books
Tap on any page as you read to access X-Ray, an easy way to uncover more from the books you love. Instantly find chapters and locations that mention ideas, characters, and important places, as well as background info, biographies and more from Shelfari and Wikipedia.”

This is an odd, but simple utility to speed up your web browser.

[eMo]Web Browser Optimizer

[eMo]Web Browser Optimizer is a free software that provide means for memory optimization of browsers. It’s a handy and lightweight tool that lets you quickly and easily optimize memory for the chosen browser. [eMo]Web Browser Optimizer supports all major browsers including Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Opera Mini, Safari, GreenBrowser, Maxthon, Pale Moon etc.

Key Features of [eMo]Web Browser Optimizer:

• Free memory optimization tool for browsers.
• Works with all major browsers.
• Also supports some less-popular browsers like Flock, Netscape, Avant Browser etc.
• Adjustable optimization time.
• Minimize to system tray.
• Run on startup.
• Simple interface.
• Lightweight and handy.
• Easy to use.
• Save setting browsers.
• Add Manual Others Browser. – New

SpaceSniffer is our Geek Software of the Week! It provides a TON of information on your PC’s disk usage! If you are trying to clean up, this is the tool you need!

Uderzo Software SpaceSniffer

“Description

SpaceSniffer is a freeware disc space analyzer for Windows that make use of the Treemap concept to view the current disk usage. Among the most notable features you’ll find drag and drop support, intuitive structure layout (multiple views for different media), zoom elements (browser-like navigation), powerful filtering (you can filter your results based on size, file name age), customizable options (geometry, colors, behavior), fast scan of your hard drive (navigation works even when the scan didn’t finished), support for NTFS Alternate Data Streams and so on. Finally, this program is fully portable on all popular Microsoft Windows versions (doesn’t have a setup file, therefore it doesn’t mess up with your current registry – it just adds a XML configuration file). You can use the executable file on other Microsoft Windows OS, there’s no need to extract the archive each time.

SpaceSniffer Review

Install: There’s no setup file, as this software is delivered as a compressed Zip archive where all you have to do is to extract its content and run the program. If your archive manager doesn’t create (automatically) a folder for you, make sure that you first create one and extract the content of SpaceSniffer archive in it, otherwise it will extract multiple files and you’ll have to look for ‘SpaceSniffer.exe’. The current version (1.1.4.0) has been tested on Windows 7 Ultimated Edition (32-bit) and Windows 8.0 (64-bit) and it worked well on both Microsoft Windows versions.

Main usage: You’re here because you probably have no idea where the HDD drive space disappeared or you just want to see if you can delete some occupied space with all kind of files that you forgot but there are so many that it’s time consuming to manually review them. SpaceSniffer will help you to reclaim space in seconds (maybe minutes on large hard drives/partitions). For those who never used this software before, I will split the action in three categories: scan process, taking action and (optional) saving data.

Scan process: The first thing to do after you run SpaceSniffer for the first time is to choose a partition and perform a quick scan (the program will ask you to choose the drive partition or type the path). The scan should finish quickly, there’s a status indicator on the right-corner (up) of the main software interface.

Important: If you scan the system partition (the one that Windows is currently installed) make sure that you don’t delete files that are required by your operating system to run. It’s easily to feel ‘lost’ in your operating system data but you shouldn’t mess with those files, unless you really know what you’re doing.

Taking action: Once the scan is finished, you will be presented with a window containing a list of all files found grouped by their data type (free space, operating system files, other type of data). From this point, you can ‘browse’ or better said ‘zoom’ inside each file so that you can discover other files included in a certain folder until you get to the last one. For instance, if you have a folder that contains other 10 folders and each one has others folders, you can easily take a look to see what’s inside of them. Once you identified the type of the files and their size you can choose a further action: delete or keep them with a single ‘right-click’ of your mouse on that file and choose ‘Delete’. Just in case that you feel lost after browsing through your hard drive space you can always ‘Go Back’, ‘Go to upper leve’, ‘Go Home’ or even ‘Perform a new master scan’ – you have all of these buttons in the navigation bar of SpaceSniffer.

Saving data: A powerful feature that you won’t find at other similar tools is the ‘Export to file’ option. For any reason, if you want to export the data found with this tool, you can use the ‘File’ option from you menu and from there choose ‘Export to file’. To customize your export form choose your data type (please note that you have a customization option next to ‘Configuration’): ‘Grouped by folder’, ‘Simple file list’ or ‘Summary’ and save the stats.

Conclusion: There’s much more to say about SpaceSniffer. If you’re a system administrator or an advanced user you can search for specific files using filters (you can even combine multiple filters), tag certain files to keep track of examined files, exclude tagged files, etc. You can customize this program in many ways, although the Tips and Tricks section doesn’t list many of them. There are many other options included, I didn’t listed all of them. My personal opinion is that the largest base of users are regular home users that simply wants a free disk usage analyzer that can help to clean/free some occupied space on their computers. Without a doubt, this is an excellent disk usage (hard drive) visualization tool that works great for both novice and advanced users. Considering its free, clean and portable I would highly recommend a donation to the author to support his wonderful work.”

Our Geek Software of the Week this week is actually already installed on your PC! It is MSConfig! It is the built-in PC configuration utility, with a GUI, that you can active by going to “Start” and type into the “Search” area “msconfig” (no quotes.) You wil then see this screen:

One particularly helpful option is in the “Startup” tab. You will see a list of all the utilities, etc. that run automatically on startup. You can speed thing up by trimming down the number of things listed here. Just don’t go to crazy, or something you need might not work!

Wikipedia says, “MSConfig (officially called System Configuration in Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8 or Microsoft System Configuration Utility in previous operating systems) is a system utility to troubleshoot the Microsoft Windows startup process. It can disable or re-enable software, device drivers and Windows services that run at startup, or change boot parameters.

It is bundled with all versions of Microsoft Windows operating systems since Windows 98 except Windows 2000. Windows 95 and Windows 2000 users can download the utility as well, although it was not designed for them.”

• In Windows 98 and Windows Me, it can configure advanced troubleshooting settings pertaining to these operating systems. It can also launch common system tools.
• In Windows 98, it can back up and restore startup files.
• In Windows Me, it has also been updated with three new tabs called “Static VxDs”, “Environment” and “International”. The Static VxDs tab allows users to enable or disable static virtual device drivers to be loaded at startup, the Environment tab allows users to enable or disable environment variables, and the International tab allows users to set international language keyboard layout settings that were formerly set via the real-mode MS-DOS configuration files. A “Cleanup” button on the “Startup” tab allows cleaning up invalid or deleted startup entries.
• In Windows Me and Windows XP versions, it can restore an individual file from the original Windows installation set.
• On Windows NT-based operating systems prior to Windows Vista, it can set various BOOT.INI switches.
• In Windows XP and Windows Vista, it can hide all operating system services for troubleshooting.
• In Windows Vista and later, the tool gained additional support for launching a variety of tools, such as system information, other configuration areas, such as Internet options, and the ability to enable/disable UAC. An update is available for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 that adds the Tools tab. It also allows configuring various switches for Windows Boot Manager and Boot Configuration Data.

Have you ever wanted to try one of the many, many Linux Distros? Now it is easy with LinuxLive USB Creator! Use it to install a distro and reboot using your USB drive as your boot drive (you will have to set your computer BIOS to boot off the USB stick first.) Very cool!

LinuxLive USB Creator

“LinuxLive USB Creator is a free and open-source software for Windows. It will help you in your journey of discovery with Linux.

For you, LiLi creates portable, bootable and virtualized USB stick running Linux.

Free and Open-source

LinuxLive USB Creator is a completely free and open-source software for Windows only. It has been built with simplicity in mind and it can be used by anyone. All you have to do is to pick up a Linux in the list and give it a try.

No reboot needed

Are you sick of having to reboot your PC to try Linux? No need with LinuxLive USB Creator. It has a built-in virtualization feature that lets you run your Linux within Windows just out of the box!

Supports many Linux distributions

Wow! Did you see that never-ending list? They are almost all there: Ubuntu, Fedora, Debian, OpenSUSE, Mint, Slax, CentOS, ArchLinux, Gentoo, PCLinuxOS, Sabayon, BackTrack, Puppy Linux …

Persistence

Having a Live USB key is better than just using a Live CD because you can even save your data and install software. This feature is called persistence (available only on selected Linux).
Read the FAQ for more information.

SmartClean & SmartDownload

SmartClean uninstalls properly any previous Live USB installations and SmartDownload lets you download any supported Linux in 2 clicks automatically selecting the best mirror to download from.SmartClean also lets you clean your USB key in 1 click.”

My last software to perform updates may have been malware according to a viewer’s report and research, so please DO NOT USE Patch My PC! I have deleted the entry for “Patch My PC” from my Geek Software of the Week! I will cover it more in this week’s show.

The Ninite Web Site

Ninite installs and updates all your programs at once…

Trusted by Millions
We install and update over 500,000 programs each day for millions of home users and Ninite Pro subscribers like NASA, Harvard Medical School, and Tupperware.

1. Click all the apps you want
You can learn more about a program by hovering over it.

2. Click Get Installer and run it
Ninite installs apps for you in the background. No clicking next. We say NO to toolbars or other junk.

3. Run it again later
Your installer will update apps to the latest versions. If something is up-to-date we’ll skip it.

Ninite will:

• start working as soon as you run it
• not bother you with any choices or options
• install apps in their default location
• say no to toolbars or extra junk
• install 64-bit apps on 64-bit machines
• install apps in your PC’s language or one you choose
• do all its work in the background
• install the latest stable version of an app
• skip up-to-date apps
• skip any reboot requests from installers
• use your proxy settings from Internet Explorer
• download apps from each publisher’s official site
• verify digital signatures or hashes before running anything
• work best if you turn off any web filters or firewalls
• save you a lot of time!

Do you need to check stats on your web sites? This is the tool for you!

Apache Log Viewer

“Apache Logs Viewer (ALV) is a free and powerful tool which lets you monitor, view and analyze Apache/IIS/nginx logs with more ease. It offers search and filter functionality for the log file, highlighting the various http requests based on their status code. There is also a report facility, thus you can generate a pie/bar chart in seconds. Together with this there are also statistics where you can get the top hits, top errors, number of status codes, total bandwidth and more.

Apache Logs Viewer is a great tool to use for web analytics. Use it to get your website more productive, detect any errors and fix them. You can determine the visitors originating country and if the referrer logging is enabled than it is easier to see from which website the clients are coming from, the search terms used and which pages where visited.

Features

• Easy installation (Windows/Linux Application)
• Does not require installing on Apache Server/IIS/nginx server
• Color log according to status codes
• Translate IP to Country (fast with no lookups)
• Search for IP Address, Request String, Date, Referrer (and others)
• Filter by any column
• Export to text file/comma separated value, txt/csv
• Visual Reports (Pie/Bar Charts)
• Statistics

Some of the available Reports: (Pie/Bar Graph)

• User Agents
• Hits each Day
• Visits by Country
• Visits by Request *
• Visits by Referrer *
• Visits by IP *
• Visits by User Agent (Browser) *
• Visits from Country *
• Unique Hits *
• Bot Hits *
• Request Analysis *
• Visual Country Visits

* Report is available with a valid Unlock Code (see below).

Supported Web Servers

• Apache HTTP Server
• Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS)
• Nginx
• Wamp

UNLOCK

Apache Logs Viewer is free for unlimited use, however some features are locked. To unlock these features please support this app by a small donation €12 (approx. $16.50) (for individuals). You will be given a unique unlock code which will unlock the locked features. This unlock code also includes free upgrades for that version whenever they are available. Locked features are distinguishable because they are greyed out.”

Combine your cloud accounts into one awesome service with MultCloud!

MultCloud – Put multiple cloud drives into one Free App for Managing Files across Cloud Drives

“File Transfer across Cloud Drives
Help you transfer files among multiple cloud storage services easily. For instance, move files from Dropbox to OneDrive.

Cloud File Manager
Use MultCloud as if it were the Windows Explorer. It comes with all-in-one files management, including upload, download, cut, copy, paste, delete, rename, search, share and so on.

Combination of Cloud Space
Every cloud drive provides a certain amount of free storage. MultCloud allows you to combine together.”

This is a cool service that is free for 50 gig, and then is only $25.00 per year for 100 gig! This is the lowest price for this kind of service I have ever seen! You HAVE to check this out! Plus, it is one of the few services that let you use SFTP to transfer files!

ADrive Cloud Service

Securely Store & Manage Your Files in the ADrive Cloud:

• Centralize Your Files.
• Securely store, manage and share all of your music, videos, photos, documents & more!
• Anytime, Anywhere Access.
• Securely access, manage, edit and share your files anywhere at anytime.
• Back It Up.
• Computer crashed? Lost your laptop? By storing your files in the ADrive cloud you always have a copy. Toss those external hard drives, USB drives and other backup devices!

This week’s Geek Software of the Week is actually pretty exciting for me… mainly because it’s nostalgic. When I started the Dr. Bill podcast, which, believe it or not, was almost 10 years ago, I used an Open Source piece of software called Podstation. Podstation is no longer being developed… and actually, it was quite buggy in several of its features. However, I used it exclusively to make, what was then, an audio podcast. This week’s Geek Software of the Week is a virtual audio board on your computer, similar to the old Podstation software, but it is designed for gamers, podcasters, and users of Skype that want to do audio conferences. It is called Voicemeeter! If you’re in need of an audio mixing board on your computer.. check out this software!

Voicemeeter – Virtual Audio Mixer

The Virtual Audio Mixer

“VoiceMeeter is able to mix audio sources coming from audio device as well as from audio applications. it mixes 3 Inputs to 3 outputs though 2 buses. Then Microphone, Music, Movie, Skype call, video game sound, net radio… can be mixed and sent to different audio outputs, VOIP or Recording Application…

as Virtual Audio Device

Voicemeeter is an application endowed with Virtual Audio I/O and can be used as main audio device by your system, like it was hardware mixing console. Voicemeeter supports all audio interface: MME, Direct-X, KS, WaveRT, WASAPI, and ASIO to connect audio pro DAW or musical instrument.

Voicemeeter new audio experiences

[1]- To mix your voice with your music on Skype or Google Voice and make your live podcast or own radio program.
[2]- To use 2x USB Headset on a computer, for VOIP applications or online educational program.
[3]- To Play Video Game in 5.1 and keep the MIC for communication with your team.
[4]- To make tutorial with your preferred audio/video capture software.
[5]- To Record Conference or Interview in multichannel for post production.
[6]- To use different Audio Application together and record the performance in live with your preferred DAW.
[7]- Finally to manage simply whatever sound sources on your computer in an easy way.

Voicemeeter Mixing Console

Voicemeeter is the first Application working as a virtual Mixer, able to manage every audio sources and audio points

By Including various DSP algorithms from VB-Audio, Voicemeeter is a concentrate of technology letting you control the sound as you want, without worrying about any limitations. Made it your way and retrieve feeling of vintage analog mixing console !

Voicemeeter is a Unique Application designed for everyone willing to manage audio in a smart way! For VOIP users, Broadcasters, Podcasters, Video gamers, Musicians, DJ’s and whatever Sound Lovers, P.A. System tweaker, Home-Cinema audiophiles…”

How to Use Voicemeeter to blend two Skype Account’s Audio