Hardware Monitoring Software

There are many factors in a system which are not known from default Windows "Computer management" section (Right-click "My Computer"> "Manage"). Some of these factors are Hardware temperatures, details of BIOS, PCI, Network Cards, Ports etc. Many a times knowning such info of system is handy while troubleshooting system.

Following are some free such tools that lets you study in detail of system hardware.

SIW System Info

SIW is an advanced System Information tool for Windows that gives detailed information about your system and settings.

The system information is divided into few major categories: (From Manufacturer's website)

Software: Operating System, Installed Software and Hotfixes, Processes, Services, Users, Open Files, system update, Installed Codecs, Software Licenses (Product Keys / Serial Numbers / CD Key).

Hardware: Motherboard, Sensors, BIOS, CPU, chipset, PCI/AGP, USB and ISA/PnP Devices, Memory, Video Card, Monitor, Disk Drives, CD/DVD Devices, SCSI Devices, S.M.A.R.T., Ports, Printers.

Network: Network Cards, Network Shares, currently active Network Connections, Open Ports.

Tools: Password Recovery, Reveal lost passwords hidden behind asterisks, MAC Address Changer, Shutdown / Restart.

Real-time monitors: CPU, Memory, Page File usage and Network Traffic.

Download: SIW
[http://www.gtopala.com/]

HSLAB Free Sys Monitor

Manufacturer's Description: HSLAB Sys Monitor is a real-time monitoring and statistics tool that allows you to keep an eye on a specific system performance value. You can choose from CPU, memory, network connections, network traffic, disk space, connected users and more. You can only monitor one of these values at a time, but easily switch between them as needed. The small display can be placed anywhere on your screen and takes up very little desktop space.

Download: HSLAB Free Sys Monitor[http://www.softplatz.com/Soft/Utilities/Other/HSLAB-Free-Sys-Monitor.html]
.

EVEREST Home Edition 2.20

Everest Home Edition is a freeware system information, system diagnostics and benchmarking program.


Here are some key features of "Everest Home Edition":

- Full hardware information

- DirectX information

- Overclock information

- UPS, tape drive support

- Diagnostics module

- Benchmarks

- Tweaking features

- Built-in hardware database

Download: Everest Home Edition

[http://www.lavalys.com/]

Note: Lavalys has discontinued development of free version. This is the last free version from them.

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Speed Fan (Recommended for advanced Users)

Manufacturer's Description: SpeedFan is a freeware program which monitors voltages, fan speeds and temperatures in computers with hardware monitor chips. SpeedFan can access S.M.A.R.T. info for those hard disks that support this feature and show hard disk temperatures too, if supported. SpeedFan supports SCSI disks too.

Download: Speed Fan

[http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php]

Software Release of the Week - Blender

Blender

Blender is the free open source 3D content creation suite, available for all major operating systems.

Blender is used to create 3D visualisations, stills and also allows you to create movie quality video.

Main Features:

- Offers a wide range of tools for the creation of 3D content, imaging, modeling, uv-mapping, rigging, shading, animation, physics and particles, rendering, compositing and others.

- Cross platform, supports Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP, VistaMac OS X (PPC and Intel)Linux (i386) Linux (PPC) FreeBSD 5.4 (i386) SGI Irix 6.5 Sun Solaris 2.8 (sparc)

- Free support via http://www.blender3d.org/;

Minimal specifications for Hardware:

300 MHz CPU, 128 MB Ram, 20 MB free hard disk Space, 1024 x 768 px Display with 16 bit color, 3 Button Mouse, Open GL Graphics Card with 16 MB Ram.

Free Download: Blender

[http://www.blender.org/] Tutorials and Help

Download Managers

Ever increasing size of internet downloads and internet speeds means one need a good download manager.  Some of internet browers like Opera has in-built download manager.

Why is download manager necessary?

- To optimize internet download speed
- To manage downloads easily like pausing and resuming downloads at will
- To be able to schedule a download at specified time
- To be able to allocate bandwidth to download and be able to browse internet at the same time
- For finding mirror sites that provide the same download content which inturn help in choosing the best server

Some popular free downloads managers

Free Download Manager (FDM)

Free Download Manager is a popular download manager. Apart from usual download features like pausing and resuming downloads, FDM also provides a user review system.  Users can ask for users opinion who download the same will get an idea of the popularity of the download. It also includes a FTP explorer and the ability to download entire website for offline browsing. FDM allows you to limit the downloading speed. There are 3 modes of network usage: Light, Medium and Heavy.

Download: Free Download Manager

[http://www.freedownloadmanager.org/]

FlashGet

FlashGet can call anti-virus automatically to clean viruses, spyware and adware after finishing download. It supports HTTP, FTP, BT, eMule and other various protocols. You should download and install a add-on to integrate FlashGet to Firefox and Opera. The add-on is available at http://www.flashget.com/en/addons.htm. However it integrates into Internet Explorer straight away out of the box.

Download: FlashGet
[http://www.flashget.com/index_en.htm]

Fresh Download

It supports FTP, HTTP and HTTPS protocols.  It integrats into almost all Internet browsers.  It has built-in Zip file extractor. It can call anti-virus automatically to clean viruses, spyware and adware after finishing download.

Download: Fresh Download

[http://www.freshdevices.com/freshdown.html]

Orbit Downloader

Orbit Downloader supports HTTP/FTP/HTTPS/RTSP/MMS/RTMP protocols. You can download music and video from social music/video websites including Pandora and YouTube. It also supports many file popular file sharing sites.

Download: Orbit Downloader

[http://www.orbitdownloader.com/index.htm]

Hard Disk Optimization Software

Upon use, Hard disk will be cluttered with unwanted system files. These files includes temporary system files, invalid registry entries which is termed as junk files. These files are useless and occupy unwanted space in your Hard disk drive. Due to these junk, PC performance is degraded.

Also, upon prolonged use which involves moving of files, copying files etc, hard disk structure is not linear. This also leads to decrease in system performance.

Following are the free tools that will keep Hard disk drive in optimized condition.

Iobit Smart Defrag

IObit SmartDefrag helps defragment your hard drive. This is different from Windows default disk defragmentation. Iobit Smart Defrag will run in background continously. Hence it performs automatic defragmentation. Iobit works in background only when CPU is idle. Hence it doesn't bother you.

Download: Iobit Smart Defrag

[http://iobit.com/iobitsmartdefrag.html]

Ccleaner

Ccleaner is a free junk file cleaner. It removes unwanted files from your system such as temporary files and unwanted registry entries. It also cleans traces of your online activities such as your Internet history.

Download: Ccleaner
[http://www.ccleaner.com/]

HD Tune

HD tune monitors temperature and maintains hard disk. It can also scan hard disk and fix errors. In all, it is a good freeware.

Download: HD Tune
[http://www.hdtune.com/]

SeaTools

SeaTools is a diagnostic tool that helps you determine the disc condition. It is a freeware from by Seagate- a popular manufacturer of Hard disk drives.

Download: SeaTools
[http://www.seagate.com/]

Security Update for Microsoft .NET Framework, Version 2.0 (KB928365) not installing

If you have Windows Automatic updates "ON", you may face problem of failed Security Update for Microsoft .NET Framework, Version 2.0 (KB928365). Automatic Update keeps on popping up that security update need to be installed. To get rid of this problem, follow this procedure:

1. Turn OFF Windows Automatic Update

2. Download .NET Framework 2.0

3. Go to "Add/Remove Programs" in Control Panel and uninstall the following in the same order:

• Microsoft .NET Framework 1.0
  
• Microsoft .NET Framework Security Update
  
• Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 (If present)
  
• Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0
  

4. Install Microsoft .NET Framework 1.0

5. Install Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0

6. Now go to : Start>All Programs> Windows Update

7. Install all the updates that is displayed.

8. Now Windows is fully updated including KB928365 which didn't get installed earlier.

9. Restart Windows at any stage of installation/uninstallation as required.

10. Turn "ON" Windows Automatic Update.

Enjoy!

'Life Is Beautiful' Virus!

Recently a chain mail has started making rounds. This one started way back in January 2002 and is till now circulated all over. The email says:

Important news

This information arrived this morning, from Microsoft and Norton.

Please send it to everybody you know who accesses the Internet. You may receive an apparently harmless email with a PowerPoint presentation called: "Life is beautiful.pps."

If you receive it DO NOT OPEN THE FILE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, and delete it immediately. If you open this file, a message will appear on your screen saying:

"It is too late now, your life is no longer beautiful", subsequently you will LOSE EVERYTHING IN YOUR PC and the person who sent it to you will gain access to your name, email and password.

This is a new virus which started to circulate on Saturday afternoon.

The antivirus Softs are not capable of destroying it.

The virus has been created by a hacker who calls himself "life owner", and who aims to destroying domestic PCs and who also fights Microsoft in court! That's why it comes disguised with extension pps. He fights in court for the Windows-XP patent.

MAKE A COPY OF THIS EMAIL TO ALL YOUR FRIENDS.

This is a hoax chain mail! There is no such virus infection from this mail. 
So chill out even if you accidently happened to open this mail!

Software Release of the Week - SUPER ©

SUPER 2007 Build 23

SUPER © Simplified Universal Player Encoder & Renderer.
A GUI to ffmpeg, MEncoder, mplayer, x264, mppenc,
ffmpeg2theora & the theora/vorbis RealProducer plugIn.

This is a simple and efficient tool to convert (encode) almost all video formats. The most important thing is that it is a freeware!

Changes in SUPER © v2007 Build 23 (July 4, 2007)

- [ADD] Nintendo DS profile to output .dpg files
- [ADD] ADPCM IMA & MS to avi, avi (for Pocket PC), asf, wmv, wav
- [ADD] Extended VideoScaleSize and FPS selection values
- [ADD] Extended VideoScaleSize with the Gif profile
- [ADD] Custom VideoScaleSize and FPS selection
- [ADD] option to 'Save Every Output File In The Same Folder Of Its Respective Source File'
- [ADD] a frame Muxer when using the File Joiner
- [ADD] A Custom Meta Tagger when rendering .flv files
- [FIX] Many internal routines were optimized for stability and speed using pure assembly language

Free Download

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