Normally, I reserve freeware addiction group therapy for Fridays. I’m breaking the rules today – which is okay, since I’m the one who makes the rules (and will likely not fire myself over such an innocent transgression). There’s just too much software out there for any one computer to handle, but it’s nice to know we have quite a selection!
Microsoft IntelliPoint 6.02 – “With IntelliPoint software, you can customize the unique features of your Microsoft mouse to fit your needs. Each mouse button—including the wheel button—can be reassigned to perform a command or keyboard shortcut such as Print, Close, or an application-specific function. You can also modify mouse settings, such as pointer speed and horizontal scrolling.” Yeah, but that’s not what’s so cool about this release today. The screen zoom tool has been integrated since v5.3, but v6.02 introduces an expose-type application (reminiscent of the feature found on OS X). If you have a Microsoft mouse, you can now use a button for better window management. Love it!
Trillian Astra – “Between loading multiple plugins, parsing and initializing XML-driven skins, and establishing connections to your IM accounts, the time it takes to fully load Trillian has a tendency to decay over time. We’ve improved performance across the board when loading Trillian to eliminate the needless ‘wait time’ between launching the application and actually using it.” It’s not quite available for download, but at least you can read more about my former favorite instant messaging client. I’m using the open source Miranda now, and it’ll be difficult to get me to switch back to Trillian.
Holiday Games – “Santa needs your help. Robots designed to help Santa’s elves have gone haywire and are trying to take over the North Pole. You must battle your way to Santa’s workshop to warn Santa before it’s too late.” Stardock has three free games for you to download and play with: Elves Incorporated, Northpole Showdown, and Stack ‘n Sac. I realize that we’re not yet past Thanksgiving… but I’m already in the Holiday spirit!
PhraseExpress Autotext – “There are many typing automation tools out there, but none of them beat PhraseExpress for ease of use. Selecting a text phrase for insertion takes just a single mouse click. New phrases are stored via the Windows clipboard in a snap.” You can’t beat the price, either. Maybe this will be the macro program that wins your heart? The network awareness is quite a hot little feature for those of us who are “stuck” on home networks.
AudioShell – “AudioShell is a freeware MS Windows Explorer shell extension pluggin which allow you to view and edit music files tags directly in Windows Explorer. AudioShell support mp3 (all ID3v2 tag versions), wma, asf and wmv, Apple iTunes aac (m4a and m4p) and mp4 files, ogg, flac (vorbis comment tags), mpc , mp+, monkey’s audio, wav pack, optim frog ( APE and APEv2 tags). AudioShell include full Unicode support.” This isn’t really a new release, but I was pointed to it this afternoon when I needed to edit ID3 tags for a new media file for The Chris Pirillo Show. Thanks, Jake (for reminding me).