PngOptimizer compresses PNG files without affecting image quality
Save an image as a PNG file and you can be sure it’ll be compressed to a significant degree -- but there could be scope for reducing the file size even further. You don’t have to resize the image, cut the number of colors or do anything to affect image quality, either. It’s just a matter of using PngOptimizer to rewrite your files in a more efficient way.
The program arrives as a single 246KB executable, and its interface is as basic as that size suggests. There’s just a window, with no toolbar or menus: you drag and drop your target onto PngOptimizer, and they’re automatically analyzed, optimized and saved.
Automatically add clipart-style masks to on-screen faces with Funny Mask
If you want to have a little fun with a picture of someone, then you could open it in a graphics editor, draw on glasses, add a clipart wig, maybe a hat. But if that sounds like too much work, you could just use Funny Mask to do much the same thing, at a click.
The program is small, portable and easy to use. Just launch it, and click "Draw On Screen". Funny Mask uses OpenCV (the Open Source Computer Vision Library) to look for faces, and adds one of twelve silly customizations to anything it finds (wigs, glasses, hats, a mustache, and more).
GifCam records screen activity as an animated GIF
Screen recorders are a great way to show others what’s happening on your desktop, as we saw with oCam earlier this month. But they usually save their results as videos, which can be a problem if you want to be sure they can be viewed by anyone, on any device (you’re embedding them in a website, for example).
GifCam can help by recording your desktop activity as an animated GIF. This means you won’t be able to include audio, of course, and file sizes will be larger. But they’ll be accessible to everyone, everywhere -- and the program is far better at tuning the results than you might think.
Quickly organize unsorted images with PhotoSift
Creating digital images is easy. Organizing them into appropriate folders takes rather more effort, though, which is probably why many people just let them pile up in the Pictures folder. But there could be a better way.
PhotoSift is small and simple tool which uses a keyboard-based workflow to sort your images. It’s basic, but can be effective, and in the right situation it’s extremely fast.
Get 1TB+ of free cloud storage with Yunio
Most consumer cloud services compete on storage space in a small way. Dropbox offers 2GB, SkyDrive starts with a free 7GB, Google Drive delivers 15GB, and so on.
If none of this gets close to what you need, though, you might prefer Yunio. Not only does it provide a chunky 1TB for free, but you’re also allocated a further gigabyte for every day you use the service.
Free Audio Video Pack handles all your audio/video conversion needs
Pazera Software has announced the release of Free Audio Video Pack 2.0, a renamed update of its Pazera Video Converters Suite.
As you’ll guess from the name, the package provides tools to handle audio and video and conversions between all the main formats (AVI, MPG, MP4, MP3, WAV, FLAC, AAC, MOV, WebM, WMV, WMA, OGG, WebM, FLV, OGV, 3GP). As a bonus, there’s also a program to extract audio tracks from CD images based on the CUE sheets.
Generate relaxing, natural soundscapes with Atmosphere Lite
If you’re working on the PC and would like a little background noise then you could launch your media player, stream something from the web, maybe just turn on the TV. These options could be a little distracting, though, making it more difficult to concentrate on your main tasks.
Atmosphere Lite takes a more effective approach. Much like Sound Valley, which we reviewed last November, it works by generating custom nature-based ambient soundscapes, like a forest stream, a woodland campfire, the ocean’s edge and more. You get the background noise you need, but it doesn’t demand your attention: it’s relaxing, more than distracting.
Convert images to HDR, EXR, TIFF and more with Imagenator
Imagenator is a portable, open-source tool for converting digital images between various formats: BMP, EXR, GIF, HDR, ICO, J2K, JP2, JPG, PBM/ PGM/ PPM (both RAW and ASCII), PFN, PNG, TGA, TIF, WAP, XPM.
The program supports a range of format-specific options. Export to ICO, say, and you can select an icon resolution from 16×16 to 256×256; JPEGs have Quality and Subsampling options; EXRs give you control over image compression (you can choose lossy, lossless, or none at all), and more.
AV-Test reveals the top security solutions for Windows 8.1
Independent testing lab AV-Test has revealed its list of the best security solutions for Windows 8.1, according to the company’s November/December 2013 tests.
Six suites were locked at top of the list for protection with maximum 100 percent scores in both months: F-Secure Internet Security 2014, Norton Internet Security 2014, Bitdefender Internet Security 2014, Avira Internet Security 2014 and -- after topping the AV-Comparatives table last month -- Kaspersky Internet Security 2014.
Create, convert, rotate, secure, crop and generally tweak your PDFs with PDFFill Tools
Most PC users need to work with PDF files, if only occasionally, and there are plenty of free tools around to help. Typically they’ll concentrate on a single function, though; just looking at their names tells you all you need to know about PDF to JPEG Expert and CHM to PDF, for instance.
PDFFill Tools is a little more ambitious, fortunately, cramming 15 functions into a single small and entirely free program. There are tools to create PDFs from images, PostScript files or direct from your scanner, and then you can add watermarks (text or image), headers or footers, merge or split the files, encrypt/ decrypt them, rotate the documents, crop them and more.
StereoPhoto Maker: create, view and work with 3D images
3D is everywhere -- at the movies, on TV, games consoles -- but finding PC applications with significant support for 3D images can still be something of a challenge.
If you need to work with 3D pictures, then, the simplest approach is to grab a specialist tool like StereoPhoto Maker. It’s free, compact and portable, and comes packed with options to help you view, create and process 3D files.
VLC for iOS gets a new look, Google Drive/Dropbox streaming
VideoLAN’s popular media player VLC for iOS has been upgraded to 2.2 with a revamped iOS 7-style interface, along with new multi-touch gestures for easier navigation.
Google Drive integration and Dropbox streaming should make it much easier to access your media. And if that’s not enough, the new build also adds support for HTTP Live Streaming, m3u streams and https playback.
Create quality video slideshows with IMGDissolver
Video slideshows can be a great way to share a set of photos, and tools like EXESlide make it very easy. Drag, drop, add a soundtrack, export the results, and that’s it: finished.
If you need a little more control over the finished slideshow, though, you might prefer the open source Java-based IMGDissolver. It’s not as straightforward as some of the competition, but the program’s powerful features and extreme configurability mean it could still be worth a look.
Uncover every detail of your PC’s hardware with RWEverything
If you need to find out more about your PC then you’ll probably turn to a system information tool. That will then access various low-level technical details about your computer, pick out the most important, and try to present them in a readable and accessible way.
Usually this works very well, but sometimes your chosen tool may strip out too much information, or perhaps miss the data you need altogether. And that’s when you might want to turn to RWEverything, a powerful program which doesn’t try to second guess what you might want to know: it just gives you absolutely everything, often in its most raw and basic form.
Easily save and restore your desktop icon layout with ReIcon
Organizing icons on your desktop can be as simple as dragging and dropping them into their new positions. Keeping this new layout is usually more of a challenge, though. Other users of your system can also rearrange the icons at any time, and running an application which changes your screen resolution may cause a similar desktop disaster.
ReIcon is an interesting free tool which offers a straightforward solution. Launch the program and click the Save button to save the current icon layout, or use the Restore option to reload it: easy.
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