Daily Freeware Reviews

One of the limitations of the Windows NT/2000 defragmentation interface is that it is not possible to defragment files that are open for exclusive access. Thus, standard defragmentation programs can neither show you how fragmented your paging files or Registry hives are, nor defragment them. Paging and Registry file fragmentation can be one of the leading causes of performance degradation related to file fragmentation in a system.

PageDefrag uses advanced techniques to provide you what commercial defragmenters cannot: the ability for you to see how fragmented your paging files and Registry hives are, and to defragment them. In addition, it defragments event log files and Windows 2000/XP hibernation files (where system memory is saved when you hibernate a laptop).

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GParted is a freeware hard disk partition manager that can be run from a live CD which is also available at the developers homepage. GParted which is an abbreviation of Gnome Partition Editor is able to create, destroy, merge, resize, check and copy partitions. If you are in need of a partitioner you might try GParted.

GParted understands lots of different disk formats like FAT, FAT32, NFTS, EXT2 and 3, HFS, Reiser, Linux Swap and XFS. To run it simply download either the standalone utility, the live CD or the live USB version and boot from that device afterwards.

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XPize is a GUI enhancer for Windows XP that replaces most of the non-XP icons, avis and bmps that Microsoft has always overlooked. It also includes some extras and a reloader, which you can use after visiting Windows Update. The installer simply automates the process of replacing resources in critical system files, making your XP’s look better.

It also includes some extras and a reloader, which you can use after visiting Windows Update. XPize does not contain any spyware or ad-ware of any kind. Uninstalling reverts all settings back to default which is great if you do not like the changes made by the program.

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TaskSwitchXP is an advanced task management utility that picks up where the standard Windows Alt+Tab switcher leaves off. It provides the same functionality, and adds visual styles to the dialog and also enhances it by displaying thumbnail preview of the application that will be switched to.

TaskSwitchXP also has a powerful process and window management capability that allows you quickly to close/minimize applications and their groups. The unique capabilities of TaskSwitchXP make it useful for tracking down multitudinous windows, and provide insight into the way Windows and applications work.

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Firefox has one big disadvantage: It uses the same connection settings for every type of connection. No matter if you are still using an 800 Mhz computer with a 64K line or a top notch 3+ Ghz computer with 16 Mbit, the settings remain the same. Firetune tweaks the connection settings according to your computer and connection speed.

Firetune offers other optimisations as well: You can enable additional performance tweaks common to all configurations, opt to display an error page instead of an error box, turn on autocomplete for urls and optimize the memory usage of firefox. The program can backup your current settings before making changes to the firefox configuration, this is highly recommended.

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BonkEnc is a CD ripper, audio encoder and converter for various formats including all major audio formats like mp3, mp4, m4a, ogg vorbis, aac, bonk and flac. It is able to rip music from CDs into mp3 or ogg vorbis files which are fully compatible with every mp3 player or hardware player.

A query to the CDDB database that holds records of albums, artists and songs adds information about the songs to the mp3 tags automatically, no need to name all files by hand. It is free, it is fast and it is good. Enough said. Go get it.

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