One Year Ago: Cocoon, CustomExplorerToolbar, Search Connectors, Sendtosendto and More

A hand-picked selection of articles published between July 8 and July 21 of previous years.

1 Year Ago

• Cocoon: Web Proxy Firefox Privacy Add-on Goes Free
• CustomExplorerToolbar Adds Custom Buttons to Windows 7 Explorer
• Sendtosendto: Add New Locations to ‘Send to’ Menu

• Search Your Favorite Sites From Windows 7 Explorer With Search Connectors
• Automatically Play YouTube Videos at Preferred Quality or Size
• iMacsoft Free DVD Ripper For Windows is The Best You Can Get For Free
• Start Menu XP Adds Fly-out Menus, Groups to Windows 7 Start Menu

2 Years Ago

• SpeedCrunch is an open source power calculator for those who can’t remember formulas
• How to embed a font in Word document or PowerPoint slide
• Create Ken-Burns style video slideshows from pictures with PhotoFilmStrip
• Sound Alert when Internet disconnects with NetSNSOR
• Widestream – Open source download manager and FTP explorer
• Open source hardware sensor monitor
• Make Windows remember window position, size and more with Winsize2

3 Years Ago

• Dvdisaster protects data on optical media against damage
• Easily locate important folders by colorizing it
• Remove stray objects from your photos with Tourist Remover

4 Years Ago

• Put the CapsLock key to better use with CAPshift]
• Automatically create shortcuts to removable (and fixed) drives on your desktop
• Automatically correct typing mistakes in URL with URL Fixer

One Year Ago: Instantbird, OSForensics, Excel Accelerator and More

A hand-picked selection of articles published between June 24 and July 7 of previous years.

1 Year Ago

• Cross Platform, Multi-Protocol IM Client Instantbird Released
• OSForensics: Windows Forensic Investigation Tool

• When’s The Best Time To Buy a TV, Camera or Laptop? Decide Tells You
• Excel Accelerator: Collection of Useful Excel Tools
• Cannot Boot Into Windows Safe Mode? Try SMFixer
• Automatically Restart Firefox When Memory Usage Become Too High

2 Years Ago

• How to edit text in your favorite text editor from anywhere
• uTFilterManager - RSS filter manager for uTorrent
• How to use AutoCorrect to draw tables in Word 2007
• Access recently modified, created files with Piles
• 5 best wardrobe management software for managing clothes and accessories
• 7 alternative firmware for wireless routers

3 Years Ago

• Tribler, a decentralized BitTorrent client
• LinuX-gamers, a Linux Live DVD of games
• How to make Word documents read only, selectively editable or password protected

4 Years Ago

• How to find drivers for Unknown Devices
• Create floating pop-ups in Word document
• Periodic Table Explorer - Your new chemistry teacher

One Year Ago: 7Tokens Manager, Filler Image Generators, and VLC Player Tricks

A hand-picked selection of articles published between June 10 and June 23 of previous years.

1 Year Ago

• Backup Windows 7 Retail, OEM and MAK Activation With 7Tokens Manager
• 8 Placeholder/Filler Image Generators For Designers
• Desktop Embeddable Interactive Calendar

• How to Make Pictures Pop-out in Office 2010
• Smart Desktop: Gorgeous Start Panel For Windows
• MKV Chapterizer Adds Chapters to MKV Files
• Auto Shutdown Computer After VLC Media Player Finishes Playing Video

2 Years Ago

• 6 Tracker Checkers to find private BitTorrent trackers with open signups
• Remove objects from photos with Photo Scissors Pilot
• Use Windows Vista/7 Reliability Monitor to track system stability
• OnTopReplica – Clone a window, miniaturize it and keep it on top
• Trix performs common tasks with a simple click, aids productivity
• Password protect video and media files with GreenForce-Player

3 Years Ago

• Unattended software installation with Windows Post-Install Wizard
• gMote brings mouse gestures to Windows
• Build a customized SUSE distribution with SUSE Studio
• 5 Gmail Notifiers to keep tab of your Gmail messages
• 3 tools to add a start menu to USB flash drives
• Pen Drive Reminder reminds you to remove pen drive before leaving

4 Years Ago

• How to play YouTube videos in a loop
• Lend your computer's spare CPU time to scientific research
• Don't type. Search Flickr by sketching
• Download old radio shows at Old Radio World

One Year Ago: PhotoMove, Evolution Player and Relocate Firefox Download Dialog

A hand-picked selection of articles published between May 27 and June 9 of previous years.

1 Year Ago

• Automatically Move Photos to Folders Based on Exif Date
• Put Firefox Downloads In Menu Bar, Tab Bar or Status Bar

• Evolution Player: Media Player With Music Sharing Features
• Free Opener: Single Program Opens 75+ File Types

2 Years Ago

• 21 fresh cursor packs for Windows XP and 7
• GiMeSpace Desktop Extender
• VMWare Tweaker lays bare dozens of hidden VMWare settings
• Load Tabs Progressively in Firefox
• How to use VMware Guest Console to control Guest OS from host remotely
• Bring back File Type Association and Edit File Type option in Windows 7

3 Years Ago

• Gimp FX Foundry: 115 ready to use scripts for Gimp
• The complete guide to Windows Registry in an easy searchable format
• Gmail Backup, the easiest way to backup and restore Gmail accounts
• Customize your Linux distro before downloading with Slax
• Moovida, the open source media center for Windows and Linux
• Recent post with thumbnails widget for Blogger

4 Years Ago

• Listen to Internet radio stations in Google Talk
• DailyLit - Read books by email or RSS
• Learn to make attractive paper models with Paper Folding 3D
• Automatically rotate your browser's homepage through multiple websites
• Extract installed drivers from hard disk, backup and restore with Driver Magician

One Year Ago: Mp3 Folder Structure Maker, Marble and Tab Badge

A hand-picked selection of articles published between May 13 and May 26 of previous years.

1 Year Ago

• Marble: Google Earth-Like Virtual Globe Software
• Mp3 Folder Structure Maker Moves Music Files Into Folders By Artist, Album Name

• Zoom vs Magnification: What Digital Camera Manufacturers Won’t Tell You
• Show Facebook Chat Message Count in Favicon

2 Years Ago

• NASA seeks your help to find craters on the Moon
• Nitro PDF Reader - Free PDF reader, editor and creator
• Speed up Windows boot time with Soluto
• Password protect specific bookmark links on Firefox
• Jumplist Extender adds Windows 7 Jumplists to any programs
• WiseStamp adds customized email signatures on any webmail
• What’s behind Wikipedia’s puzzle globe?
• Windows Media Player Plus! plug-in for WMP

3 Years Ago

• ArcConvert, the archive file format converter
• RunPee tells you when you should take a bathroom break during a movie, and what you missed
• File defragmentation tools: WinContig vs Defraggler
• Http Explorer – A powerful web server for file sharing
• How to normalize or increase/decrease audio volume of a video
• Server2Go, a web server that runs from the CD ROM
• Animata creates animations out of still images
• AnalogX LinkExaminer detects broken links, duplicate content and incorrect SEO on your website

4 Years Ago

• TinEye – The Reverse Image Search Engine
• Generate pictures on Microsoft Excel from bitmap images
• Free Personal Learning Edition of Autodesk Maya and VUE
• Surf anonymously on Opera with OperaTor

One Year Ago: Lost Camera Finder, Conflict History and iPrint

A hand-picked selection of articles published between April 29 and May 12 of previous years.

1 Year Ago

• Search Engine to Find Your Stolen/Lost Camera
• Conflict History: A Historical Timeline of Global Wars And Battles

• Sysinternals Suite: All Sysinternals Tools in One Pack
• Online SLR Simulator Teaches You SLR Camera Basics
• Classic Opera Brings Opera Tab Features to Firefox
• iPrint: Print Multiple Pages on a Single Paper
• Movie Monkey: The Easiest Movie Organizer Ever

2 Years Ago

• Recover lost hard disk space with DiskMax
• Driver Sweeper removes leftover after driver uninstall
• Create custom Windows Run Commands with Run Manager
• AM-Notebook is an All-in-One life organizing utility
• Zoner Photo Studio Free – Photo editing tool for the masses
• Timeshot makes wonderful time lapse photo manipulation
• Enhance, fix shaky home videos with vReveal
• Granola reduces computer power consumption by scaling the CPU

3 Years Ago

• Subsonic – Streaming music from your PC
• Add custom locations to Windows Open/Save dialog box with Melloware PlacesBar Editor
• Lazarus for Firefox saves and recovers typed data in forms
• Mz Cpu Accelerator automatically increases priority of active applications
• Add Wi-Fi to any digital camera with Eye-Fi

4 Years Ago

• Playback your drawings with DrawSwf
• Free Launch Bar - The Quick Launch replacement
• How to download torrents without a torrent client
• Convert Audio and Video Files to Self Playing EXE files

One Year Ago: Vectorian Giotto, CouchPotato, Dolphin Text Menu and More

A hand-picked selection of articles published between April 15 and April 28 of previous years.

1 Year Ago

• 3D Sound From Ordinary Speakers
• Go800 Turns Twitter Names Into Phone Numbers

• Microsoft Image Composite Editor Now Makes Video Panorama
• Create Flash Animation Without Adobe Flash With Vectorian Giotto
• Add Extra Functions To Any Text Editors With Dolphin Text Menu
• An Incredible Portable Image and File Uploader
• MailNesia: Disposable Email Service That Automatically Clicks Activation Links
• Know What The Power Button Symbol Says
• Automatically Download Movie Torrents/NZB Of Preferred Quality With CouchPotato

2 Years Ago

• Bccthis lets you send secret emails from Outlook, Gmail
• AeroZoom turns Windows 7 Magnifier into a presentation tool
• How to remove watermark from an image or picture
• Chemitorium – 3D visualization of molecules
• YoWindow – Beautiful weather reports on desktop or screensaver
• Kylo, the web browser for big screens
• SpyBubble – Spy or eavesdrop on any mobile phone

3 Years Ago

• WirelessGet – Copy files over wireless
• Automatically update setup packages with Ketarin
• How to use twitter at work and not get caught
• How to prevent file copying, deletion and renaming?
• Pencil – A simple 2D animation software
• SyMenu – Customizable start menu and program manager for USB drives

4 Years Ago

• winPenPack - The best portable applications for your pen drive
• Pismo File Mount - Access contents of ZIP and ISO files without extracting
• How to get emails on your phone as SMS
• How to bookmark a page in PDF

One Year Ago: History of Facebook Likes, Transmission for Windows and VirtualDub Plugins

A hand-picked selection of articles published between April 8 and April 14 of previous years.

1 Year Ago

• How to View All Your Facebook Likes
• Unofficial Transmission Bittorrent Client for Windows

• VirtualDub Filter Pack: 200+ Plugins
• How to Make FeedDemon Portable

2 Years Ago

• Make Firefox remember zoom levels, colors for a site
• Tabbles, a file tagging software inspired by WinFS
• SyncDesk synchronizes files using an external disk

3 Years Ago

• 6 Windows Command prompt tricks that make life easier
• LiveSwif: Poor man’s Adobe Flash
• Synfig: Free vector-based 2D animation software
• Rightload uploads files to FTP server from the context menu
• Returnil Virtual System – An undo button for your PC

One Year Ago: UMPlayer, Aura and Multiple Bookmarks Bars in Chrome

A hand-picked selection of articles published between April 1 and April 7 of previous years.

1 Year Ago

• Multiple Bookmarks Bars in Chrome
• UMPlayer – MPlayer Based Media Player With YouTube And SHOUTcast Support

• How to Create Animated Wallpapers (GIF) or DreamScenes
• How to Prevent Gmail From Automatically Adding Contacts
• Aura: Change Windows 7 Aero Color by Wallpaper And Taskbar Icon

2 Years Ago

• 7plus – Extra features for Windows Explorer
• DScaler is a must have for TV tuner cards
• ZeuAPP – A collection of 80+ freeware programs
• How to synchronize multiple computers that are not connected to a network

3 Years Ago

• Free NaturalMotion Endorphin Learning Edition
• Free Adobe Flex Builder Professional for unemployed developers, students and teachers
• The Story of Lenna, the famous test image
• Microsoft makes SharePoint Designer 2007 freeware
• Sockso – A music server on your personal computer
• Discover new music by tune with Mufin player
• Extract images from PDFs with Some PDF Image Extract
• Prompt – Your personal teleprompter

4 Years Ago

• Download complete websites for offline browsing with HTTrack
• 6 services to send and receive snail mail through the web
• Speed up your browsing by setting up a local DNS cache
• Automatically backup multiple versions of your files with DocShield

One Year Ago: BabelMap, qBittorrent, BitNami and More

A selection of hand-picked articles published between March 18 and March 31 of previous years.

1 Year Ago

• Fake Your Location in Firefox With Geolocator
• BabelMap: Complete Unicode 6.0 Character Map For Windows

• Different Ways to Read New York Times For Free
• qBittorrent: Open Source Alternative to uTorrent
• Sumatra Releases PDF Plugin For Firefox, Chrome, Opera
• BitNami: Automated Installers For Wordpress, Blogs, Forums And Other CMS
• Add Subtitles to PowerPoint Embedded Video and Audio
• 33mail: Free Personal Temporary Email Service

2 Years Ago

• How to complete a burning job using fewest number of optical disks
• GMapCatcher – View maps online, offline or download
• Insert chemical symbols in Word documents with Chem4Word
• Spiceworks IT Desktop – Toolbox for network administrators
• How to politely ask people to stop forwarding junk emails
• GnuWin32 – GNU software for Windows
• Remove unused file types in dialog boxes with Formats Customizer

3 Years Ago

• How to identify flags of the world?
• Doculicious - Fillable PDF documents for your website
• UltraStar – The game that judges how well you sing
• 8 browser addons and scripts for better YouTube experience
• How to spot the International Space Station in the night sky
• Create album cover mosaic wallpapers with Last.fm Desktop Generator
• Assign keyboard shortcuts to open URLs in Firefox
• 5 free ways to create a mobile version of your website

4 Years Ago

• How to setup your own web server at home
• Avoid repetitive typing with PhaseExpress's universal autocomplete
• Create photorealistic landscapes with Terragen

One Year Ago: MS Paint as Music, BitThief, and Windows UI Customization

This “One year ago” post is two weeks overdue, so this week’s post will cover a period of three weeks. Following is a handpicked selection of articles published between February 26 and March 17 of previous years.

1 Year Ago

• Convert Partial RSS Feed to Full Feed And Full Feed to Partial
• Incrementally Backup Gmail or Any IMAP Email Account
• Microsoft Paint Interpreted As Music

• Create Beautiful Music by Slowing or Stretching Sound
• BitThief Downloads Torrents Without Uploading
• Hotmail Alias Users, Beware Of Your Signature
• Get Windows XP’s Paint Interface in Windows 7
• WeatherSpark: Weather History, Forecast And Visualization
• Change Windows 7 Explorer Navigation Buttons
• Add or Remove Items From My Computer
• Group or Organize Windows 7 Taskbar Icons With Bins

2 Years Ago

• Why progress bars are inaccurate
• Universal Print Driver - Single driver for all HP printers and MFDs
• Send any sample and get it scanned by Electron Microscope for free
• Enhance your portable MP3 Player with Rockbox firmware
• Create a customized, unattended Windows 7 installation disk or USB drive
• Desktopify converts web widgets into desktop widgets
• Worksheet Database – Powerful spreadsheet program to manage lists, projects etc
• ReadPal – Clutter and stress-free document reader
• FlowHeater - Import/Export data between different database formats

3 Years Ago

• Print out Wikipedia articles as books
• Qimo - Linux for kids
• suDown brings Unix like sudo to Windows XP
• Discover free tools to open files of any extension with OpenWith.org
• Convert Microsoft Word into a multi-user collaborative word processor with CoWord
• 9 Firefox addons to cover your dirty browsing tracks

4 Years Ago

• How to run applications as non admin in Windows XP to avoid malwares
• How to stream music from your home computer to your office
• How to view all unread mails in Gmail
• How to turn any application portable and run from a USB drive
• Customize Windows XP's common task folder panel with FindeXer

One Year Ago: Static Websites on Google App Engine, and CPU Throttling

A selection of articles published between February 12 and February 25 of previous years.

1 Year Ago

• Host Static Websites on Google App Engine for Free: Rock solid server, near 100% uptime, plenty of bandwidth, for the sweet price of nothing. Who can beat that?

• Disable CPU Throttling on Core 2/Core i CPUs: Laptop CPUs are commonly throttled down to conserve power and reduce the amount of heat generated by the chip, for a price – reduced performance. But you can remove the bottleneck.

A number of software that were once commercial-ware were released as freeware during this period. These are:

• WinX DVD Author, a very powerful DVD authoring and DVD burning solution.
• BufferZone Pro, a sandboxing software that allows users to run software in isolated environments for security.
• Spider Player Pro, a free music player with built in Internet radio stations with recording capabilities, a CD ripper and music converter.
• Chasys Draw IES, is a suite of application consisting of a layer-based raster graphics editor with animation, an image viewer, a multi-threaded image file converter and a tool for processing RAW digital camera image files.

2 Years Ago

• Nuance PDF Reader is a free Adobe PDF Reader with annotation capability and an integrated online PDF to Word, Excel, RTF converter.
• TVersity is a media streaming software package that can stream any video to any device regardless of the limitation of the device, by automatically transcoding videos to the proper format on the fly.
• Alcohol 52% – Free CD/DVD emulation software. A lighter version of Alcohol 120% that supports up to 6 virtual CD DVD-ROM drives.
• Interesting hard drive facts you probably didn’t know

3 Years Ago

• 4 tools to get the most out of your screen real estate with efficient window management.
• GE-Graph is a fantastic visualization tool for Google Earth that takes data in a simple tabular format and then lets you plot it as 3 dimensional polygons and bars directly over Google Earth.
• Orbiter is a free flight simulator for Windows with emphasis on realism. It lets you fly a number of spacecraft, from the realistically modeled Space Shuttle Atlantis to the fictional Delta-Glider. Travel around the solar system or perform orbital and sub-orbital space flights or try docking to the International Space Station.
• Hawkscope is cross-platform Java based program that allows you to access your hard disk’s content from the system tray.

4 Years Ago

• How to pin Microsoft Outlook Calendar on your desktop
• How to customize Windows messages, tool tips and dialog boxes

One Year Ago: Automated Software Installs, Excel Task Manager and Windows Registry Shell Extension

A selection of articles published between February 5 and February 11 of previous years.

1 Year Ago

• Guide to Automated Software Installation: Install your software unattended, silently and in bulk. The complete guide.

• Browse And Edit Windows Registry From Explorer: A shell extension that integrates Windows Registry with Windows Explorer allowing users to browse and edit the Registry like they are folders and files.
• Microsoft Excel Task Manager: A partially functional task manager created in VBA and runs inside Microsoft Excel that allows you to view, kill or suspend selected processes.

2 Years Ago

• Automatically mute sound by window title text: Mute sound of a specific application when the title of a window contains text patterns defined by the user. Can be used to successfully mute audio ads on Spotify.
• Minesweeper or Flower Garden: Do you know Windows defaults to a different Minesweeper game style based on location of the user, because some people find mines offensive?
• iTuner: A system tray companion to iTunes that allows controls like global keyboard, lyric discovery and display, track dashboard, playback, and library maintenance from a mini player.

3 Years Ago

• How to interpret hard disk model numbers: The model number of a hard disk can reveal a lot of information about the drive if you know how to read it.
• Automatically organize files into dated folders: Reorganize the contents of a folder according to the date of creation of the files within that folder.
• Stardock Fences: A free program that allows you to draw “fences” around groups of desktop icons which then become movable and resizable containers.

4 Years Ago

• NetDefender: An open source Windows firewall
• Orbitron: Track positions of more than 20,000 satellites in the sky in real time.
• Enhance Windows' usability with DM2: DM2 can minimize any window to "floating icon", minimize window to tray, make it "on-top", adjust transparency and provide favorites files/folders in common Open/Save dialogs.

One Year Ago: Online Group Policy Search, EvImSync and BlueGriffon

A selection of articles published between January 29 and February 4 of previous years

1 Year Ago

• Sync Evernote Notebooks With Gmail: If you use both Evernote and Gmail this free tool will synchronize Evernote notebooks with a GMail account. The notes in Evernote are uploaded to your GMail account as emails, and stored in a folder of your choice.

• Online Group Policy And Windows Registry Search: Better than searching on Google and jumping through blogs and forums.
• Hotmail Email Aliases: Well, if you are not aware, Hotmail added Gmail like email aliases more than a year ago. Learn how to use these alternative email addresses.
• BlueGriffon: HTML5 and CSS3 Supported WYSIWYG Editor: BlueGriffon is a new, graphical WYSIWYG web editor that supports the latest HTML5 and CSS3 standards, and is based on Gecko 2.0, the rendering engine that powers Firefox 4.0.

2 Years Ago

• OfficeTab – Tabs for Microsoft Office: OfficeTab is a free plug-in for Microsoft Office that brings a tabbed interface to the office suite. New features added to version 8.0.
• 5 best screen color pickers for Windows 7
• Project Butterfly: Web based CAD application from Autodesk that lets you edit and share AutoCAD drawings online from a Web browser.

3 Years Ago

• Tools that remind you to take computer breaks: Eyes are precious.
• Attribute Changer – Change file and folder attributes: A freeware application for Windows that allows users to easily change attributes of files and folder via the context menu. For image files, Attribute Changer quickly enable you to modify EXIF information too. (Now supports Windows 7)
• What’s the best distance to watch a TV from?: Don’t sit too close to the TV. You’ll ruin your eyes!
• Universal Maps Downloader: Download images from Google Maps, Yahoo Maps and Microsoft Maps.

4 Years Ago

• 8 sleek Alt+Tab replacements for Windows: Some cool window switching utilities that uses a combination keyboard shortcut and mouse input.

One Year Ago: Free US VPN, Earthquake Alerts, Movie Censorship and More

A selection of articles published between January 22 and January 28 of previous years.

1 Year Ago

• Hostizzle: Free OpenVPN based VPN service with 100 GB monthly bandwidth. Servers are based on the US. Paid accounts start at $4 per month and includes 1TB of data transfer.

• Get Earthquake Alerts Over SMS, Email, RSS, Twitter: Tens of different ways to keep track of get notified of earthquakes around you or anywhere on earth. Notification can be received over SMS, Twitter, and Email. iPhone and Android apps are also available.
• AllVideoDownloader: A free software that can download videos from more than 280 websites including popular names such as YouTube, Vimeo, Dailymotion, Megavideo, Reuters, National Geographic, BBC, Spiked humor, break, college humor, crackle, i-am-bored, liveleak, msnbc, veoh, videojugg
• Movie Censorship: A fascinating website that provides amazingly detailed comparisons between different versions of movie releases – theatrical release, DVD release, Director’s Cut, Unrated edition and releases in different languages. You can learn what extra has been added into the director’s cut, and find out about scenes which has been deleted from the movie.
• Historic Aerial Photographs: An alternative to Google Earth’s historical imagery providing a large database of aerial photography dating back to the 1930s.

2 Years Ago

• Digital Atlas of the Known Universe is an accurate 3D digital atlas of the Universe that maps planets, moons and stars and galaxies from the local solar neighborhood out to the edge of the observable Universe.
• Media Browser and Media Center Master for Windows Media Center: Two plug-ins that bring rich library management feature to Windows Media Center

3 Years Ago

• FileMenu Tools allows you to customize the context menu of Windows Explorer, as well as add a handful of utilities to perform operations on files and folders.
• TaggedFrog: A free software that allows you to tag any files on your disk with keywords and access them through the familiar tag cloud you see everywhere on the web.
• 21 places to swap used books and DVDs: A large number of places where you can exchange, trade or swap books and DVDs you no longer need, for a fresh one.

4 Years Ago

• OpenExpert: An application that makes it easier for you to configure the Open With menu that you get when you right click on any file.
• Use Process Lasso to prevent your computer from freezing: Automatically adjust the allocation of CPU cycles so that system responsiveness is improved in high-load situations.
• 5 Free offline dictionaries because you cannot always trust your network connection.