Chat with friends and family via an instant messenger or other video-based client and it's the same old video chat that can make you look rather formal, boring and unexciting. There are times when you might want to spice up the chat and add a bit of fun to the video call. For instance, if your nephew is on the other side of the world, celebrating his 10th birthday, it would be ideal if you could set up a video call with a birthday theme, which will appear as if you're holding a party on his behalf, at home.

Cyberlink YouCam 1 is our free full commercial download in the latest edition of Computeractive, issue 267, which is on-sale right now. This tool enables you to add effects and themes to your outgoing video calls, through your instant messenger clients.

Computeractive 267 link.

Many people have programs or utilities they prefer to use, especially if they work with computers on daily basis. Some small utilities make certain tasks far easier if you are used to doing things within certain applications. The trouble is, there may be the odd occasion where you may have to use a different computer, and working from a machine without your favourite apps could hamper your work rate. Unless of course, you keep portable versions of your favourite applications on a portable drive so you can take them with you.

WinSnap Portable 2.1.3 is the portable version of a very useful screen capture tool. Although it’s small, it could prove indispensible for certain tasks. This tiny tool can now be taken with you, for use whenever you might need it.  

There are various applications available to help you create websites, but many of them still require you to have a basic knowledge of building web sites or pages. However, if you have no understanding of how websites are put together, but you want to create your own site, is there a solution? Luckily, some website builders enable you to create sites by dragging and dropping text and images into pre defined templates, providing numerous options for colour and layout so the finished article could look completely different to the initial template.

CoffeeCup Visual Site Designer 5.9.4 is an easy-to-use what you see is what you get (WYSIWYG) website builder. Simple enough for even the most inexperienced user to use and understand. Although not the most complex, almost anyone can achieve professional looking results with this application.  

Although we are constantly warned of online threats, it’s almost inevitable that we encounter some form of malicious software. Whether it’s spam in our inbox, or a full on virus, even the most comprehensive antivirus packages will not provide protection against all threats. Luckily, the average computer user is aware of the potential threats posed by browsing the web. So is it really necessary for the average user purchase an expensive security package?

Avast! Home 4.8.1195 is a free yet capable antivirus package that’s well equipped to deal with general online threats. It has an access scanner, on demand scanner and it will also scan your inbox, everything you’d need to protect your PC.

Even with a fast broadband connection, downloads can sometimes seem painfully slow. However, with the right download manager, it’s possible to increase download speeds without changing your broadband connection. Multi-threaded download managers split files into several parts, or sometimes download from multiple sources simultaneously. Using such an application will also enable you to schedule, monitor and resume broken downloads, amongst other helpful features. 

HiDownload 7.17 is a multi-threaded download manager that enables you to download single or multiple files from web or FTP sites. Whilst you’re downloading, it attempts to maximise your connection speed whether you’re downloading single or multiple files and you can also use it to stream audio and video files.

Importing audio files and adding them to your audio library isn’t always straightforward, especially if you’re extracting from an analogue source. Rare or original recordings over a certain age would not have been recorded digitally, and some recordings may still only be available in analogue formats. If you do have original, live or rare recording, how do you add them to your library and make them more accessible?

REAPER 2.205 is a recording, editing and mixing tool for rendering audio. Use it to create original compositions, or use it to extract and edit audio files for exporting to your music collection. This makes listening to your old tracks much more user friendly, you can even put them on your portable MP3 player.      

Most of us are familiar with, or have used an online chat service such as Live Messenger. It seems we cannot get enough of communicating with our friends and family, especially if it’s free. Even the social networking community Facebook has now incorporated the facility to chat amongst online friends. The trouble is, communicating in this way can often be tedious, and it’s difficult to communicate with more multiple users simultaneously.

Messenger Plus! Live 4.60 is an add-on for Windows Live Messenger that ships with numerous features that enhance functionality. These features include multi-chat within a single window, message shortcuts and it also has a fully customisable interface.

When moving folders and files, it’s frustrating when you come across a ‘locked’ file which cannot be deleted or moved. You may be required to shutdown or restart your computer, the file then becomes free again, but restarting your machine time and again just to organise files can be extremely laborious. It would be handy if these files could remain free or unlocked at all times, after all, moving files shouldn’t be that difficult.

Unlocker 1.87 is a basic tool that enables you to move or delete system files whenever you need to. It does this by freeing up system resources which may be locking a file and in turn, keeps it free to move or delete as you wish, Just click your right mouse button whenever you require. 

People have very different ideas of what a good game is, but most of us recognise good graphics when we see them. It seems though that’s all alot of modern games have to offer, so how did computer games in the past become so successful and are still recognised today? Classic games such as Tetris were not reliant on graphics, but game play, and like many other games from the past it was the original idea and addictive game play that made it a huge success.

MAME 0.125 is an application designed to emulate classic computer games by using old data files. You can use web archives to source files, giving you a choice of thousands of games from the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s. If you’re an avid gamer, or using it to reminisce, its great fun.   

It is not uncommon for people to own or work from more than one computer, a desktop at home or in the office and a laptop for working on the move. It's very useful if you are able to work from multiple machines as it gives you greater flexibility, however its important to keep your files synchronised between computers, this enables you to keep your work up-to-date and save con fusion when opening and saving documents.

GoodSync7.2.2 is a helpful synchronisation tool, enabling you to share documents and files between multiple computers. This way it's possible to start work on the train using your laptop, sync with your work computer when you arrive and carry on working at your desktop.

Computers accumulate files easily, even if they are unimportant they may still remain on your PC. Installation of software, browsing the web and unwanted files that are yet to be deleted may eventually contribute to system slow down. However, some information such as passwords and browser history is also stored on your PC and if somebody else gets access to this information, they have access to private or sensitive information.

CCleaner 2.07 is a cleansing tool designed to remove any information stored by applications that have access to the Internet. Use it to remove temporary and log files aswell as clearing you browser history. This application will also clean through registry files.

If you are capturing or downloading images and pictures, we generally try and use the highest quality files available. However, if you want to send these images via email, large files are a little more problematic. You can compress files for sending, but this may alter proportions or distort your image. A compression tool that keeps the correct proportions would be a more viable option, especially for sending photographs to friends or family.   

Pixresizer will enable you to compress your image files, without distorting them. You can use it to keep or convert the original file format to make it easier for friends and family to view your pictures. You may even use it to rotate or print images directly from the software. 

When we extract audio from our CDs, many applications simply convert audio to mp3 alone, wouldn’t it be nice to have bit more control over how your audio is compressed? There are better ways of compressing audio, especially if you’re a keen music fan and although it may not be like listening to a CD, it’s still possible to get better audio quality from compressing your files.

Easy CD-DA Extractor 11.5.1 is primarily designed to extract audio from CDs, and fortunately it’s not restricted to mp3s. You can convert your music into almost any audio format available, so rather than just ripping and naming you music, you’ve got control over what your tracks sound like.   

Even if you may not require one very often, a versatile screen grabbing tool may be useful. For work, you can use it to take grabs of what’s visible on your monitor, and you can then use grabs as a reference tool when working on, or presenting a particular project. Screen grabs are useful in many areas, and some more able tools enable you to take grabs of images, open applications and even text.

HyperSnap DX 6.30.02 is an intelligent utility that not only enables you to grab photos, images, error messages and text but you can also use it to grab sections of editable text. This could come in handy when the standard copy/paste function doesn’t work. It’s easy to use, but still very capable.  

How many email clients effectively identify incoming junk mail? It seems no matter what we do spam always seems to slip through the net, or even more annoyingly, your email client identifies incoming mail incorrectly and it ends up in the wrong folder. Spammers are always finding new ways of getting messages into your inbox, so the only way of stopping the barrage of junk is a filter that can identify even the latest threats.

Spamihilator 0.9.9.41 is a filter for your email client that uses a word filter to identify potential spam messages. Another useful feature is its ¨learning¨ filter, so the recognition rate for spam emails will constantly increase.      

Sending and receiving information over the Internet is common practice for many of us. With faster connection speeds, and greater reliability it has become the number one choice for transferring files and information. As with any Internet based activity, it’s important for your files to remain as secure as possible, especially if they contain private or confidential information.

Lavasoft Digital Lock uses encryption technology to safeguard any private information that may be contained in your files. Keeping your personal information protected when transferring files could prevent you from becoming a victim of online fraud.  

Although download managers are no longer essential, there are plus points to using one. Ok, you may have a fast internet connection but download managers obtain files in a more intelligent way, often separating files and splitting downloads into smaller sections, enabling you to download these smaller parts faster than one larger file. Another advantage is resuming broken downloads after loss of connection, saving you time locating and downloading incomplete files.   

Flashgot 0.9.7 is a useful download manager that works with your Firefox browser. A simple yet effective tool for handling single or multiple downloads, and as its integrated with browser, its there whenever you need it. This latest version also supports the latest previews of Firefox. 

When we move files to our recycle bin, we click delete and there removed, well that’s what many of us assume.  In fact, these ¨deleted¨ files are simply moved, even though they don’t appear in any folders, they still remain on your hard drive, intact and recoverable. This obviously raises certain security issues, especially when you are attempting to remove sensitive information from your PC, whether you’re at work or at home.

Lavasoft File Shredder enables you to completely remove any unwanted files from your PC, shredded files will not remain intact, therefore can not be recovered. This ensures that any sensitive information can be erased in total confidence.

Without having an in-depth knowledge of your Windows operating system, it’s not all that easy to tweak. Most PC users aren’t knowledgeable enough to begin manually editing their registry, which is where you’ll find the majority of these options. The easiest and safest way of tweaking your operating system for personal preference is to use an optimisation tool, there’s far less risk in using a specialised application than editing your registry, especially if you don’t know exactly what you’re doing.

Fresh UI 8.05 is a free and useful tool for configuring windows, use it to personalise Windows to your taste without the risk of editing you’re registry and potentially damaging vital areas of your operating system.

Malicious software is something almost everyone who uses a PC is aware of, most of us know it’s not a good thing, but how and to what extent does it affect our computer? For example, a potential threat known as ¨bots¨ can secretly take control of multiple computers without a user knowing, they then use a network of machines to relay spam and other illicit material and even recruiting more machines in the process.   

Trend Micro RUBotted is an application that monitors your PC and performs regular checks via an online service to identify potentially suspicious behaviour. If your computer is infected, the software will enable you to perform system scans and then remove any threat.

Installing software is easy, so why does removing it completely have to be so difficult? Traces of software may remain on your computer even after using the Windows Add/Remove utility. Although it’s usually enough to remove unwanted software, some applications cannot be removed and require a third party tool that’s a little more effective. Some removal tools will monitor installations, and will then remove files and folders wherever they are placed on your system.

Total Uninstall 4.9.0 enables you to completely remove any trace of installed applications. It does this by monitoring any changes made to your drive during instillation, so it knows where all files and folders are stored, helping it to remove apps far more effectively. 

For most of us, gone are the days of carrying a diary, organiser and even business cards around in a briefcase. Not to say that these things are no longer used, but many of us will only require a laptop and mobile phone to stay organised. Your computer can be the best way of staying organised, especially if it’s equipped with a good personal information manager. Managing contacts, arranging meetings and staying in touch can all be done within a single application.

EssentialPIM Free 2.5 is a free personal information manager which will enable you to stay organised. Use it to keep track of your daily schedule and other important tasks.

There are a number of applications that may be considered essential for most PC users, like a word processor for example. There are other utilities though that we don’t think about until we need them to perform a specific task, such as a screenshot capture tool or a file renaming tool. File renaming tools are extremely useful for renaming multiple files, which is far easier than going through each file and manually editing individual file names.

ReNamer 5.25 is a small and flexible renaming tool that enables you to edit the names of multiple files at one time. Although it’s a small and simple application, it may save you a lot of time when organising folders and files. 

Within the first few months of use, a new PC almost feels as though it can carry out any task you ask of it, almost effortlessly. Programs launch and run smoothly, your PC boots quickly and you’ve got a clutter free hard drive. However, after the honeymoon period, the accumulation of files, folders and unused software slowly begin to build up taking there toll on system resources and eventually leading to the fragmentation of your hard disk.

IObit SmartDefrag 5 is a free defragging utility, enabling you to rearrange and consolidate hard disk space. This will increase performance generally and also help your machine launch and run applications with more efficiency.

New computers ship with operating systems that are designed to work on a multitude of hardware configurations, as these operating systems are not specific to a particular machine it’s unlikely they get the most from a computers hardware. There are a number of general tweaks you can perform, but to really optimise your PCs performance you should consider a standalone tweaking and optimisation tool.  

Ashampoo WinOptimizer 5.03 is an optimisation tool that enables you to get the most from your operating system, depending on your hardware configuration and software installed on your machine. You can also use it to tweak your registry and even defragment your hard disk.

Although the use of an FTP client has become less relevant since the advent of faster broadband, it’s still a good way of transferring files to and from the Internet. Most users won’t ever have to use a standalone FTP client as this facility is now built in to most web browsers. This built in facility is all well and good when downloading files, but when it comes to uploading, you may find you need an FTP client to get files uploaded quickly.

Filezilla 3.0.9.1 is an FTP client that enables you to transfer files to and from the Internet. With most people benefitting from faster broadband speeds, you can take advantage of your home page and get files online quicker than ever. 

Email clients such as Outlook are used by many, for personal and business use. Like Microsoft’s Word, it’s so familiar to most of us we wouldn’t consider opting for an alternative. Although there are a number of alternatives, it’s often more convenient to carry on with the same email client. What if there was another option that wasn’t too dissimilar to Outlook?

IncrediMail 5.7.0.3505 is a comprehensive email client that’s similar in look and feel to Outlook. The main difference is the extra features, such as 3D animated menus, effects and images that can be added to outgoing emails. All these extras help give your email a more individual feel.

Download managers, or manufacturers of download managers tell us their products can increase download speeds, maintain constant download speeds or continue cancelled or accidently quit downloads. Most of us have used one at some point, for one, or all of these reasons. Unfortunately they don’t all seem to do what they say on the tin and most of the time, finding a good download manager can be a matter of trial and error.

Download Accelerator Plus 8.6.5.0 claims to increase speeds by up to 400 percent by searching for the most effective serving download. It will also resume downloads from lost connections, it will also enable you to schedule or even tab your downloads. This particular download manager is also fully integrated with Netscape, Internet explorer and Opera.

More of us are beginning to turn to the Internet to quench our thirst for on-demand television. As technology moves forward online TV has become a more feasible option, especially as large, popular television networks such as MTV begin to provide content. As larger companies begin to cash in on next generation television, technology and services also improve, which all benefit the end user. Whether it’s your favourite television series or the latest music video, it won’t be long until you see it first, online.

Adobe Media Player 1.0 is the debut media player from Adobe, enabling you to download and stream television and video, which may be watched on or offline. Although there’s not a huge amount of content available at the moment, that will undoubtedly increase in the near future. 

After extensive use, PCs begin to gather unwanted and unused software, files and folders. By browsing the Internet on a daily basis, this may happen even more quickly, as your machine is subjected to a barrage of malicious software, spam and other potential junk. It’s no surprise then that over a period of time, all these factors contribute to your PC becoming crippled, sometimes with hundreds or even thousands of useless files.

Auslogics Boostspeed 4.1.2 is a tool that will enable a user to tweak and optimise your machines performance in numerous areas. Tweak your memory, clean your registry and adjust your browsing options within this one application.

With every good intention, many of us decide we’ll design and build a website but quickly realise that creating a professional looking site isn’t particularly easy. There are many applications available, but unless you have a good understanding of code, producing a well made site can be very difficult. One option is to pay somebody to do it for you. Another option could be a template driven web design tool. This way you can choose the most suitable template, fill in some simple text, drop in your images then upload your site.

Rapidweaver 3.6.7 is a very easy to use, template based website design tool for Mac. The templates and page styles are good enough for professional designers so should enable anyone to create a good website. If none of the templates suit your needs, you can even edit the templates yourself to get exactly what you want. 

Those of us with office-based careers use tools and applications to help organise our working lives. Email plays an important part of communicating, especially within a corporation, and clients such as Microsoft Outlook incorporate a personal information manager (PIM) to help you schedule meeting, organise contacts and various other features to keep you organised. The trouble with Outlook is that it’s expensive, not everyone may choose to use the technology and it works most efficiently with an Exchange server, which may be out of reach for small enterprises.

Mozilla Lighting 0.8 for Thunderbird is an add-on which enables you to add PIM features to your Thunderbird email client, giving you a free alternative to Outlook. Use it in the same way to track calendar items, organise meetings and synchronise devices such as your iPod or mobile.

External hard drives, MP3 players, mobile phones and digital cameras; the list of devices connected to your PC via USB is endless. It’s no wonder then that were easily confused over what’s connected, let alone to which port. So if you have an external hard drive which needs removing safely, the last thing you want to do is tug at the wrong cable, it’s important to know what’s connected.

USBDeview 1.17 is a free yet handy tool that shows you which devices that are connected to your machine, preventing you from pulling out the wrong device. It’s showed to you clearly so there is no room for error, so there’s no need to worry when removing any device.

If you work as a developer, writer or document analyst, you’ll often need to compare work side-by-side. Programmers find it’s useful for them to make changes or debug a document whilst comparing it to an previous version. It’s more beneficial to correct bugs when you have a copy of the document to compare it to, that way you know how much you’ve done, without reverting to a saved version the next day and not being able to find where you had got to.

WinMerge 2.8 is designed to compare and merge documents, also a useful when merging old and new parts of old code or editorial. Use it not only for text documents, but in other areas too. Its main use is to compare edited documents, especially those updated by other people.

If you only regard your work files, audio tracks or perhaps your fonts as the most important files on your system, there's little point backing up your entire drive. It might be as easy to select the files you'd want to backup, the destination and then schedule a regular backup. There's no reason why you couldn't backup your files to a remote homepage, server or USB stick.

With the latest issue of Computeractive, issue 264, on-sale today, you can get the free full version of East-Tec Backup 2007, which is fully Vista compatible. This backup and restore tool will enable you to backup your files to multiple locations and then restore if you lose them at a later date.

Computeractive issue 264 link.

Rather than backing up individual files and folders, we’d advise that you make a complete copy of your drive, including all folders and files, which means you can restore your entire drive if you experience issues in the future. To do this you need a tool that will backup a drive and then enable you to perform an incremental or differential backup, backing up only the data written to the drive since the previous backup.

Acronis True Image 11 enables users to backup an entire drive or drive partition. Better still, you’ll notice that we have current promotion that enables you to get upto 30% off the retail price of Acronis True Image 11, along with a free download of Acronis Disk Director Suite 10! Bargain

Not so long ago, peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing has experienced its fair share of bad press. We all remember Napster and the controversy surrounding it in the early years, yet we still have applications such as Limewire who still offer a free, stripped down version of its search software. In some ways this P2P technology has been self-regulated somewhat and started to balance in favour of hosting legal sharers.

Azureus 3.0.5.1 is a sharing technology, which unlike others, enables you to take advantage of connection speeds. Schedule downloads but also control and manage connection speeds by using the Autospeed feature. As it’s based on a Java platform, it offers a solution across multiple operating systems.

After spending months competing with Parallels over their virtualisation software for the Mac, many people wondered if VMware had lost some focus and were spending developer resources finding new features to outmanoeuvre their rival. However, tools such as VMware Workstation are essential to the ongoing success of the company as Workstation enables Windows users to host other operating systems (which does not include OS X), which is ideal for testing software across multiple editions of Windows.

VMware Workstation 6.5 is a beta preview of the forthcoming major release. It's available 'free' during beta testing so as many people can get involved as possible. One of they new features is the Unity support, which will enable you to open and show gueat application windows on your host operating system.

VMware Workstation 6.5 preview.

Probably the worst case scenario for any PC user is complete hard drive failure. Without a drive backup, all your data will be lost. Although it is one of the least likely problems you may encounter, your hard drive houses everything, personal information, music, photographs and any work you may have been doing. Most modern hard drives are able to monitor and check for problems themselves; however, being able to check for problems at intervals or over a period of time may be more useful.

HDD Health 3.2 will provide you with detailed hard drive information, enabling you to identify small problems before they become more troublesome. By analysing your drive over longer periods of time, it can even indicate how long this degradation may take.

If you’ve stored your rare songs or recordings on vinyl, in the loft, it’s unlikely you’d play them frequently either for fear of damaging your records or simply because listening to records isn’t as convenient as listening to a CD. Although old vinyl will crackle, it’s still the optimum format for listening when it comes to sound depth and quality. It would be ideal if you could record these high quality sources and be able to put them on a CD or even convert them to an MP3, maybe for your iPod.

LP Recorder 8.8 enables you to record from multiple formats such as vinyl, cassette, minidisc and even radio directly to your computer. You can then split tracks, create CDs or convert your music to an MP3 for use on your iPod or MP3 player. Not only does it make listening to your recording more convenient, you will not have to resort to using your rare original source.

Professional level image managers such as Adobe’s Lightroom and Apple’s Aperture offer a wealth of powerful features; such as the facility to manage, edit and view your image library. Whereas some of the features offered by these professional suites are not suited to the home photo enthusiast, there are a number of free photo managers, which may not be feature-rich enough for a user to create professional looking results. 

Pictomio 1.08 is a free photo management tool that, although isn’t as feature rich as Lightroom for example, it still enables you to achieve professional looking work. It’s more than capable of cataloguing, managing, and editing your images, even providing reference information about each photograph.

As computers are updated infrequently, and the cost of purchasing a new machine is reduced, it’s more than likely that you’ll either own more than one home computer or, perhaps, a separate laptop, where you want your files and work data to be synchronised between the machines. If you work between two or more computers, a PC synchronising application would be a useful tool that would automatically save any newly changed or edited documents, keeping your work up-to-date.

PCsync is a handy synchronisation tool that provides a number of useful features such as, automatic, scheduled and even unattended synchronisation. You can use it to sync files wirelessly; it even knows when files have been deleted, renamed or replaced with a newer or older version.

If you've used a tool such as Copernic Desktop Search or the OS X based Spotlight search function, you'll know that your search results are displayed almost instantaneously. Vista has a much improved search routine, but it's still not at the level of various competitors, who do the job more effectively. These tools work by indexing your system at a low level, whilst you are working on your PC. Once indexed, any new information you add to your PC is added to the search database. For instance, if you wanted to search for the term 'conference', any files, documents or email with this word will be displayed as a result.

Microsoft Windows Search 4 Preview is a technology preview of the new search function from Microsoft. This is based on the search function from Vista, with a few new features. For instance, with Windows Search 4 Preview, you'll be able to search across computers connected to your network.

Windows Search 4 Preview link.

There are many reasons why Windows and Microsoft Office are so popular. It's not always down to what's the 'best' operating system or office suite. Look at the original betamax v VHS debate. It wasn't what was best that ended up as the format winner. For this reason, people believe that they require Microsoft Word in order to fully compatible with the .doc format. Buy Microsoft Word 2007 as a standalone product, and you won't receive chance from a £100.

AbiWord 2.6 is a competent standalone and free word processor that enables you to read and write to Microsoft Word (prior to Word 2007) documents. It should also enable you to open documents created in both OpenOffice and Lotus Symphony. There is a portable version of AbiWord available if you want to take your word processor on the road.

AbiWord link.

Who would guess that there would be a run on disc burning suites that would enable you to pick up a professional burner, for nothing? First security software went from commercial to free, now the burning developers are keen to get their software on to your system, without charge. This means there are a number of excellent free burning tools from the recent BurnAware through to Ashampoo Burning Studio 6.6, which was released a couple of weeks ago.

StarBurn 10 is another. Up until fairly recently, this was a full commercial burning suite. However, the latest standalone version is free of charge (a version for networks is available at a cost). This software is aimed at semi-professional enthusiasts and isn't really a tool like Ashampoo Burning Studio to throw together a quick audio CD. For instance, one of the new features of StarBurn 10 is the support for creating UDF disc images. Most home users wouldn't even have heard of a UDF image.

StarBurn 10 download.

With numerous free and commercial applications offering to provide protection from spyware, where do you begin to look? Ok, there are plenty of free applications out there, most of which offer reasonable protection and there are also many commercial applications available, all varying in performance and price. A good place to start is with a trusted commercial developer, someone who specialises in PC protection and who have been doing so for number of years.

PC Tools Spyware Doctor 5.5 Starter Edition is full commercial anti-spyware technology and available as a world exclusive download from vnunet.com. Best of all, it ships with unlimited definition updates, so you’re always protected from the latest threats. The latest 5.5 has been re-written so it is lightweight on system resources and an ideal tool for your primary or secondary protection against spyware intrusion.

Spyware Doctor 5.5 Starter Edition download link.

Music libraries can be frustrating to manage, even more so when you have to manually find and then edit missing track information. This information could include the artist, track name or album artwork. The information is often void when you’ve downloaded audio prepared incorrectly by other people, as they’ve labelled them incorrectly. In this scenario, it would be helpful to have an application to assist the maintenance of your library.

MediaMonkey 3.0.3 is a music manager and player that enables you to catalogue your CDs, mp3s or other audio files and you can even get your missing album artwork from the net. Use the CD ripper and audio format converter to add your music to your library, create your own mixes and upload music to your mp3 player.   

The nature of the burning suite has gradually evolved. Basic burning applications are being replaced with media style suites which are becoming more difficult to use. A lot of the time all we need to do is burn a CD quickly, either to play on the move or even make a copy of something you are working on to take with you. You hardly need a large ¨media suite¨ to copy a CD quickly.

FinalBurner 1.29 is a free, slimmed down CD/DVD burner. Use it to create Data, DVD, audio or to create an ISO disk image. It enables to perform all standard burning tasks, as quickly and easily possible, Ideal for those of us who don’t need the feature packed ¨media suites¨.

Although it seems were spoilt for choice when it comes to antimalware and antispyware applications, it’s highly unlikely that one single application will do everything we’d like it to. Many of them claim to identify and remove all current threats, but its virtually impossible for an application to identify constantly updated malicious applications accessing your PC when.

Trend Micro HijackThis 2.0.2 Is a free application that enables you to search for these malicious applications, it scans your PC, giving you the results which you can then view. You can check your scans against an online database, so you can decide on your course of action. 

Losing important files is easy and has happened to most of us at some point. It’s one of the most frustrating elements of working with computers as your file may have simple been deleted, by mistake. Although PCs have become more stable, it’s a good idea to keep work or important files backed up. Even if you haven’t got a great deal of free hard drive space to do so, it’s possible to use an FTP server as a place to store files. 

Cobian Backup 9.11 is a popular and free backup tool. You can schedule backups for certain times and even locations. Your own web space could be this location, using usernames and passwords to keep folders and files safe and secure.

ZIP compression has been around for ages, but has become mainstream not because it is the most efficient, but because the developers behind the technology (and particularly WinZIP) knew that if they distributed it for free, users would quickly adopt it as the default archive management tool of choice. That happened and basic ZIP support is now available from within Windows, OS X and many third-party applications. However, space is limited and your digital media is huge. If you want to get the most from compressing your audio files or photos, do you rely on ZIP compression to save space?

Stuffit 12 is the latest version of the archive management software that enables you to maximise the compression from your media files. Shrink your photos by 30%, upload the archive to your homepage and enable your friends to download the complete collection.

Stuffit 12 link.

With regular and constant use, PCs start to accumulate files and folders which are of no use and reside on your computer. Browsing the web, uninstalled programs, cookies and passwords all contribute to system clutter. Most files aren’t necessarily a threat to your machine but as a collective, if you leave these files to build up, in severe cases they could eventually begin to take there toll on system resources. Not only this but it’s possible for someone to access websites and your browser history if these files remain on your computer.

CCleaner 2.06 is a free and powerful tool enabling you to cleanse any applications that you may use online. Wipe your temporary files, history and check you registry for a complete system cleanse.

We recently posted some forward information about the forthcoming OpenOffice 3, which is due to hit public beta in around September this year. Many new features are planned for this major release, so any interim update for the existing OpenOffice 2.x will be minor. More security and fixes than new updates.

OpenOffice 2.4 has been made available, with a long list of minor updates, fixes and enhancements. If you're an existing user of OpenOffice, it's worth upgrading. You can use the fully-fledged Microsoft Office compatible office suite to open and read or write to Word and Excel documents, as well as save in the open office document format, which is used by the recent Lotus Symphony.

OpenOffice 2.4 link.

The performance of your computer is obviously dependant on the components you installed in your PC. If you are seeking to upgrade any hardware, it''s important to choose components that suit the requirements of the user. For instance, a PC that is used to browse the Internet won't benefit from a large RAM upgrade. Any hardware upgrade will have a positive affect on system performance, but why spend money on upgrades which are not necessary? Run an analysis tool and perform checks on all aspects of your PCs performance. 

Everest Ultimate Edition 4.50 enables you to run full analysis of system performance. Compare it against other hardware, or simply test if components are performing correctly. The new version now fully supports Windows Vista and most of the latest hardware.

It’s safe to assume that you’ve spent time building, creating and storing your audio library on your PC; it’s a fairly straight forward exercise, copying your CDs to your hard drive. However, it does become more challenging getting old and sometimes rare recordings from audio tapes or VHS, to eventually get them on to a CD. Most old recordings need some form of editing such as cropping, noise reduction and rendering in order to make them audible.

REAPER 2.141 is an audio editing studio designed for you to record, edit and mix your audio files. It’s got an easy to use interface, helpful for amateurs but a large number of features that could aid a more experienced user. You can use it to create your own tracks or mixes that can then be exported. 

There a wide number of useful tool that you could regard as a necessity for your system. Keep them installed until you need to use them in the future. For instance, an effective screen grabbing tool that will extract a grab from an open application window, screen selection or other area. They enable you to capture text and images that you wouldn’t normally be able to grab.

HyperSnap DX enables users to grab almost anything you could need, text, photos, web pages and even open applications. Grabbed text can even be edited, where the usual copy/paste function wouldn’t work. With the large feature set, this is  a very useful tool.

Only yesterday we presented you with the full PC Tools Spyware Doctor with AntiVirus 5.5 Starter Edition, now we've got a full free digital media manager. If you're like most other people, you've probably imported your CDs, recorded music from your old LPs, downloaded and sourced various videos from the Internet, as well as keep a collection of desktop images. Ether way, you'll have a range of media files that you'll want to store, manage and then access through one central interface.

Ashampoo Photo Commander 5.4 is a full commercial application, currently on-sale for £30, which will enable you to search for, import and manage your photos, as well as other media files stored on your system.

Ashampoo Photo Commander 5.4 link.

When you bought your computer or upgraded your disc burner, you are likely to have kept the burning software that was pre-installed or shipped with the burner. That's fine, if you're happy with that software. However, there are plenty of alternatives. For instance, Ashampoo Burning Studio 6.6 was made available for free and we'd also recommend BurnAware.

With Computeractive issue 263, on-sale now, you can get the full free commercial version of Nero 7 Essentials, which is a basic version of the retail Nero 7. Fully Vista compatible, it will enable you to burn your discs quickly and easily and is primarily designed around disc burning, rather than media manipulation which you find in full burning suites.

Computeractive 263 magazine link.