Fast Track to Freeware By Team Digit Almost everything we speak about here, we’ve provided on our CD/DVD for this month. Credits The People Behind This Book EDITORIAL Deepak Ajwani Editor Robert Sovereign-Smith Writer, Copy Editor Ram Mohan Rao Copy Editor Nimish Chandiramani Writer, Copy Editor Karmanya Aggarwal Writer Abey John Writer Srikanth R Writer Prakash Ballakoor Writer DESIGN AND LAYOUT Shivshankar Pillai, Vijay Padaya Layout Designers Sivalal S Layout and Cover Design Harsho Mohan Chattoraj Illustrator © Jasubhai Digital Media Published by Maulik Jasubhai on behalf of Jasubhai Digital Media. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher. March 2007 Free with Digit. Not to be sold separately. If you have paid separately for this book, please e-mail the editor at [email protected] along with details of location of purchase, for appropriate action. Introduction No Strings Attached his little guide is indispensable, even though we’re saying it Tourselves! We simply must, because what we’ve put together here is a collection of freeware in all the categories of computer usage that matter, from an office suite to prank software you can use on a friend. It’s all there. Some amongst us have gone bad and prefer to pirate stuff, which we don’t like. We like our software either paid or free—and interestingly, there’s free stuff for almost everything you’d need to accomplish. Covered here are system tools, which affect every aspect of your computer; multimedia tools to play and manipulate your media files; software you’d use when connected to the Internet; applica- tions for your mobile phone; tools to increase your productivity, whether at work or at home; desktop enhancements and such; and developer tools. We’ve also thrown in a few free games, and a guide to where you can find entertainment online. Like we hinted at, the best thing about this guide is that you’ll want to install almost everything—unless you’re a pirate. Except for the chapter on “fun” software, every software we’ve covered here will be useful to most people. It’s not true in the software world that the best things come free, and we naturally have to admit that some freeware don’t per- form as well as their paid counterparts do. But that’s to be expect- ed, and the beauty of it, in fact, lies in the reverse assertion: some freeware are as good as their paid equivalents! Also, we should add that majority of what we present here is not “nagware,” software that prompts you to buy the full version. We’ve made a conscious effort to keep much of the nagware out, so you won’t feel any guilt pangs. We’ve made it simple for you—almost everything we speak about here, we’ve provided on our CD/DVD for this month, and some more— so you won’t need to download a thing. As you use these software, don’t forget to thank all those developers out there—if you can’t trace them and send them a postcard, a silent prayer of thanks will do! CONTENTS Chapter 1 Developer Tools 9 1.1 Integrated Development Environments 10 1.2 Other Tools 18 Chapter 2 Games 21 2.1 War§ow 22 2.2 KLUELESS 24 2.3 Nexuiz 26 2.4 Ac!dbomb 27 2.5 Area 2048 29 2.6 Neo Sonic Universe 31 Chapter 3 Multimedia 33 Chapter 4 System Tools 51 4.1 Clipboard Utilities 52 4.2 Windows Explorer Enhancements 53 4.3 Desktop Search Utilities 55 4.4 Privacy Tools 59 4.5 Anti-Spyware 60 4.6 File Recovery Tools 62 4.7 Partition Tools 64 4.8 Firewalls 65 4.9 Hardware Monitors 67 4.10 RAM Optimisers 68 4.11 Hard Disk Optimisers 68 4.12 An Encryption Utility 69 4.13 A Display Optimiser 70 4.14 Process Explorer 71 4.15 A System Tweaker: Fresh UI 72 Chapter 5 Internet Applications 73 5.1 Browsers 74 5.2 Download Managers 80 6 FAST TRACK 5.3 Internet Optimisers 82 5.4 Bandwidth Monitors 85 5.5 Offline Browsers 86 5.6 E-mail Clients 87 5.7 IM Clients 90 5.8 Anti-spam Applications 92 Chapter 6 Essentials 95 6.1 Opera 9.1 96 6.2 VLC Media Player 100 6.3 IrfanView 102 6.4 K-Lite Mega Codec Pack 104 6.5 Avast! Home Edition 4.7 105 6.6 Spybot Search & Destroy 1.4 107 6.7 ZoneAlarm 109 6.8 WinRAR 112 6.9 Winamp 5.32 116 6.10 Foxit Reader 2.0 Build 1316 117 Chapter 7 Commute Computing 119 7.1 Mobile Managers 120 7.2 Applications 129 7.3. Games 134 Chapter 8 Productivity Tools 141 Chapter 9 Fun Stuff 157 Chapter 10 Desktop Enhancements 173 10.1 Electronic Post-it Notes 174 10.2 Program Launchers 175 10.3 Virtual Desktops 176 10.4 Miscellaneous Applications 178 Chapter 11 Free Entertainment Online 181 11.1 Tools of the Trade 182 11.2 Copyright And Piracy 183 11.3 Content Sites 183 FAST TRACK 7 Developer Tools ot that programming itch? You couldn’t have had it at a better Gtime. Bar a few, most popular Integrated Development Environments (IDEs)—including Microsoft’s Visual Studio—have their own free versions. The Community wave is upon us, and software vendors are always looking to get the regular user into software development. There are also a bunch of tools to create your own installers and integrate with SourceForge (if you’re developing an open source project) as well. All you need is the talent! DEVELOPER TOOLS I FREEWARE 1.1 Integrated Development Environments If you’re building applications on complex platforms like C++, Java or .net, you could just use Notepad, but to get your work done faster, you’ll need an IDE. 1.1.1 Microsoft Visual Studio Express Editions In the spirit of encouraging bud- ding developers, Microsoft now releases its immensely powerful Visual Studio IDE free of cost as Visual Studio Express Editions, with the difference that instead of one suite for all platforms, you have to download a separate Express Edition for each lan- Nothing beats VCS if you’re a .net programmer guage you want to use. This month, you’ll find Visual C# Express Edition (we’ll call it VCS now) on our DVD. If you’re new to C#, you couldn’t ask for anything more. From the “starter kit” to the extensive documentation online and IntelliSense—the code-com- pletion engine—you’ll rarely, if ever, find yourself stuck in a bind. The default install comes with two starter kits— Fiddle with the starter applications to see what you can create Screensaver and Movie Collection. They’re fully-functional as is, so you can study the code for your own reference—it’s very well documented—or modify it to create your own customised application. Let’s mess with the Screensaver starter kit, for instance. 10 FAST TRACK DEVELOPER TOOLS FREEWARE I The following assumes you have Tip some basic knowledge of C#. To see all the files in your pro- Modifying Your Screensaver ject’s directory, use the Show All Let’s get started with a simple Files button in the Solution hack: changing the default Explorer—it’s the second one images in the screensaver. In from the left VCS’s Start page, click on Create (or File > New > Project) and select the ScreenSaver starter kit. You’ll see the project’s documentation page, which tells you how to use the project, get to the screensaver’s options and so on. We recommend giving this a good read—it also tells you which code file contains what and how the project itself is structured. The first thing you need to do is add (or remove) images in the project’s resources. In the Solution Explorer, expand Properties and double-click on Resources.resx to modify it. You’ll see a table with DefaultRSSText—ignore this for now. On the top left, you’ll find a button labelled Strings—click The graphical way to edit your project’s on the arrow next to it and resources. Resources.resx is actually just an XML file that points to the files— select Images. This is where you be they documents, icons or images can remove the two default images; use the Add Resource button and choose Add Existing File to add your own images. Now that you’ve changed the default images, you need to go change the code that calls it. Double-click on ScreenSaverForm.cs. You’re first taken to a blank Windows form—just right-click on this and select View Code (you can do the same from the Solution Explorer itself, instead of bothering with this). Go to the definition of LoadDefaultBackgroundImages()—this is the function that is called if you haven’t selected an image folder in the screensaver FAST TRACK 11 DEVELOPER TOOLS I FREEWARE options. You’ll see this code, which adds images from the project’s resources to the list of default images: backgroundImages.Add(Properties.Resources.SSaverBackground); Replace “SSaverBackground” with the name of your image— use one such line for each of your images. Voila! Obviously, there’s a lot more you can do—including adding support for multiple RSS Feeds, but the procedure is somewhat lengthy, and beyond the scope of this Fast Track.