smcglaughlin.com – got freeware?

MakeMKV is your one-click solution to convert video that you own into free and patents-unencumbered format that can be played everywhere. MakeMKV is a format converter, otherwise called “transcoder”. It converts the video clips from proprietary (and usually encrypted) disc into a set of MKV files, preserving most information but not changing it in any way. The MKV format can store multiple video/audio tracks with all meta-information and preserve chapters. There are many players that can play MKV files nearly on all platforms, and there are tools to convert MKV files to many formats, including DVD and Blu-ray discs.

http://www.makemkv.com

Factory-Reset.com aims to list factory reset codes and procedures for all types of products.

http://www.factory-reset.com

MiniTool Partition Wizard Home Edition is a free partition manager software designed by MiniTool Solution Ltd. Our partition manager supports 32/64 bit Windows Operating System including Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7. Home users can perform complicated partition operations by using this powerful yet free partition manager to manage their hard disk. Functions include: Resizing partitions, Copying partitions, Create partition, Delete partition, Format partition, Convert partition, Explore partition, Hide partition, Change drive letter, Set active partition, Partition Recovery.

http://www.partitionwizard.com/free-partition-manager.html

CrashPlan is our free computer backup software and backs up personal files once a day. Easily back up your photos, videos, financial records and more with just a few clicks. CrashPlan is free onsite backup, allowing you to back up to other computers and attached external hard drives. It is also free offsite backup when you back up to computers belonging to people you know, like friends and family.

http://www.crashplan.com

Whether you are having problems yourself getting something to work correctly on your computer and are working with tech support, or you’re trying to help someone else solve such problems, you have probably spent hours describing or explaining events over and over again because one party can’t actually see what is going on. This free and very easy-to-use screen-to-video capture program lets users easily record onscreen events to a small video file that can be shared with others, making it easy to record instructions or reproduce problems for more effective troubleshooting or teaching.

http://blogs.technet.com/b/tnmag/archive/2009/03/06/utility-spotlight-screenrecorder.aspx

Disk2vhd is a utility that creates VHD (Virtual Hard Disk – Microsoft’s Virtual Machine disk format) versions of physical disks for use in Microsoft Virtual PC or Microsoft Hyper-V virtual machines (VMs). The difference between Disk2vhd and other physical-to-virtual tools is that you can run Disk2vhd on a system that’s online. Disk2vhd uses Windows’ Volume Snapshot capability, introduced in Windows XP, to create consistent point-in-time snapshots of the volumes you want to include in a conversion. You can even have Disk2vhd create the VHDs on local volumes, even ones being converted (though performance is better when the VHD is on a disk different than ones being converted).

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/ee656415

WSCC is a free, portable program that allows you to install, update, execute and organize the utilities from various system utility suites. WSCC can install and update the supported utilities automatically. Alternatively, WSCC can use the http protocol to download and run the programs. WSCC is portable, installation is not required. Extract the content of the downloaded zip archive to any directory on your computer.

http://www.kls-soft.com/wscc

A recovery tool that can help you start an infected PC and perform an offline scan to help identify and remove rootkits and other advanced malware. In addition, Microsoft Standalone System Sweeper Beta can be used if you cannot install or start an antivirus solution on your PC, or if the installed solution can’t detect or remove malware on your PC.

http://connect.microsoft.com/systemsweeper

YUMI (Your Universal Multiboot Installer), is the successor to MultibootISOs. It can be used to create a Multiboot USB Flash Drive containing multiple operating systems, antivirus utilities, disc cloning, diagnostic tools, and more.

http://www.pendrivelinux.com/yumi-multiboot-usb-creator

The complete and simply to use backup solution for video portals. Only YouTube is available as for now, with support for other portals coming soon in near future.

http://sourceforge.net/p/vibafu

MiniTool Power Data Recovery is an easy-to-use and all in one free file recovery software for home users. With this most effective free file recovery tool, you do not need to have technical background to use it. All the data recovery steps are logical and easy like 1-2-3. Just follow the data recovery step, and you will get your lost data back. Unlike other free file recovery software. MiniTool Power Data Recovery is very powerful and professional. It not only helps you recover deleted files, but also recovers data from damaged, reformatted hard drive as well. Furthermore, MiniTool Power Data Recovery not only recovers data from hard disk and RAID device, but also supports to recover data from CD, DVD disks, memory card, memory stick, and flash drive.

http://www.powerdatarecovery.com/power-data-recovery.html

KeyFreeze is a FREE Windows application that blocks your keyboard and mouse without “locking” the screen. So your kids can safely watch a cartoon or have a videochat with their grandparents and bang the keyboard as much as they want.

http://www.keyfreeze.com

IP Geolocation tool helps you find the approximate geographic location of an IP address along with some other useful information including ISP, TimeZone, Area Code, State etc. Enter the IP address or the host name you want to locate and press “Discover” button, your IP will be tracked in seconds depending if the information of that IP is present in our database.

http://ipfingerprints.com/

If you find yourself needing to create multiple duplicate flash drives, ImageUSB makes the process painless with concurrent drive imaging. Batch the process and image as many drives as you have USB ports available.

Whether you need to stock USB drives for a promotional give away or you’re just the self-appointed Santa Claus of free software giveaways, ImageUSB makes it dead simple to load up lots of USB-based media in one swoop.

Launch the free app, check off the USB drives attached to your computer that you wish to image, select an image file, and let it rip. Whether you’ve got 2 or 10 USB devices in the queue when you return you’ll have a pile of neatly imaged drives that required no fussing on your part. ImageUSB is freeware.

http://www.osforensics.com/tools/write-usb-images.html

Windows: Windows 7 install discs are edition-specific—if you’ve got a valid license key, you still need the right disc for installation. The ei.cfg Removal Utility, however, lets you create a new, universal installation ISO for Windows 7.

Although your Windows installation disc may say “Home Premium Edition,” it still contains the other versions (such as Pro or Ultimate) on the disc—it just has a very small file called ei.cfg that tells the disc what version to install. The ei.cfg Removal Utility creates a new ISO of your install disc that ignores this file, thus letting you choose what edition you want when you start the installer.

While this tool is especially useful for computer technicians who have to install Windows a lot, it’s also nice to have for those of us that tend to lose discs often—especially in this day and age of emailed product keys. Now, if you need to reinstall Windows but can’t find your disc, you can just borrow a friend’s—even if it’s an edition that’s different than yours. You just need let the installer know which edition matches your product key (Note: Your disc still needs to be the same kernel as your key (i.e. 32 or 64-bit).

http://code.kliu.org/misc/win7utils/

If you’re setting up a new system or helping a friend to see how much great free and open source software exists, ZeuAPP is a portable installation tool for nearly a hundred applications.

ZeuAPP is essentially an installation dashboard for 82 applications. You can navigate to application types like CD Burners, P2P apps, Office apps, and more. Under each tab are applications for that category with a “Download” and “Visit Website” button which allow you to download the application and automatically launch the installer or visit the web site for more info.

http://blog.zeusoft.net/zeuapp

Clonezilla Live is a small bootable GNU/Linux distribution for x86/amd64 (x86-64) based computers. Clonezilla SE (Server Edition) has been developed from 2004, and it is used to clone many computers simultaneously. It is an extremely useful tool, however, it does have several limitations. In order to use it, you must first prepare a DRBL server AND the machine to be cloned must boot from a network (e.g. PXE/Etherboot/gPXE). To address these limitations, in 2007, the Free Software Lab at the NCHC has combined Debian Live with Clonezilla to produce “Clonezilla Live,” a software that can be used to easily clone individual machines. The primary benefit of Clonezilla Live is that it eliminates the need to set up a DRBL server ahead of time and the need for the computer being cloned to boot from a network. Clonezilla Live can be used to clone individual computers using a CD/DVD or USB flash drive. Though the image size is limited by the boot media’s storage capacity, this problem can be eliminated by using a network filesystem such as sshfs or samba.

http://clonezilla.org/

BulkFileChanger is a small utility that allows you to create files list from multiple folders, and then make some action on them – Modify their created/modified/accessed time, change their file attribute (Read Only, Hidden, System), run an executable with these files as parameter, and copy/cut paste into Explorer.

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/bulk_file_changer.html

Video chat with up to 20 people for free.  Tokbox requires no download, only an internet connection and a webcam.

http://tokbox.com

For those of you that remember and loved the TweakUI utility from Microsoft, Ultimate Windows Tweaker is a freeware tool that takes the concept of the old TweakUI and supercharges it for Windows Vista and 7. You can tweak hundreds of settings and variables—system tray icons, the menu pop-up speed, security settings for the control panel, and a lot of other things you can’t normally get to. It’s a 380 KB, stand-alone portable application.

http://www.winvistaclub.com/Ultimate_Windows_Tweaker.html

OfficeIns is a small, portable and free application designed to display all of the installed add-ins for Microsoft Office products including Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Project, Access, Visio, and FrontPage. Once displayed, you have the ability enable/disable them and change how they start up.

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/officeins.html

MailStore Home enables you to backup all your email messages from multiple applications and accounts into one secure and persistent archive. Lightning-fast search, one-click backup, powerful export – all information from your email is at your fingertips anytime. Never lose important email again!

http://www.mailstore.com/en/mailstore-home.aspx

“Everything” is an administrative tool that locates files and folders by filename instantly for Windows.  Small installation file.  Clean and simple user interface.  Quick file indexing.  Quick searching.  Minimal resource usage.  Share files with others easily.  Real-time updating.

http://www.voidtools.com

Take complete control of your PC’s safety. Based on solid commercial backup and recovery software from Paragon, the new Backup & Recovery 10.1 Free Edition will give you a rich set of features that you can trust.

Smart people backup; Backup & Recovery is smart backup.

http://www.paragon-software.com/home/db-express

For those of you who are not yet familiar with all the tools available in Windows 7 or you are the kind of person who has his desktop filled with useful shortcuts, we’ve created for you the biggest library of Windows 7 shortcuts. You’ve got almost everything you need and we are very willing to expand it. For starters, we’ve created 99 Windows 7 shortcuts which you can download and use. They are all created in such a way that they work on every Windows 7 computer. Also, if you want a shortcut which we don’t have in our collection, leave a comment and we will update it.

http://www.7tutorials.com/biggest-library-windows-7-shortcuts

LiLi USB Creator is a free software for Windows that allows you to create a bootable Live USB key with a Linux on it.

This software also offers an exclusive option of automatic virtualization to directly run Linux in Windows without any configuration nor installation.  Create bootable Live USB of Ubuntu, Fedora, Debian, Damn Small Linux, Puppy Linux and many others.

http://www.linuxliveusb.com

CrystalDiskInfo is a HDD health monitoring utility. It displays basic HDD information, monitors S.M.A.R.T. values and disk temperature.

http://crystalmark.info/software/CrystalDiskInfo/index-e.html

SoftPerfect Network Scanner is a free multi-threaded IP, NetBIOS and SNMP scanner with a modern interface and several advanced features. It is intended for both system administrators and general users interested in computer security. The program pings computers, scans for listening TCP ports and displays which types of resources are shared on the network (including system and hidden).

In addition, it allows you to mount shared folders as network drives, browse them using Windows Explorer, filter the results list and more. SoftPerfect Network Scanner can also check for a user-defined port and report back if one is open. It can also resolve host names and auto-detect your local and external IP range. It supports remote shutdown and Wake-On-LAN.

http://www.softperfect.com/products/networkscanner

Looking for a fix to a simple problem in Windows Vista or Windows 7? FixWin offers one-click solutions to dozens of Windows problems. Run the program and look through its menu for a description of your woe. When you find it, click a button, and your problem should be fixed. I used it to restore my Internet Explorer icon, for example, and it worked without a hitch.

FixWin doesn’t actually look into your system and uncover problems. Instead, it lists several dozen potential problems in five categories: Windows Explorer, Internet & Connectivity, Windows Media, System Tools, and Additional Fixes. It lists all the problems you might have, not ones that it knows that you do have. So, for example, it lists “The Recycle Bin icon is missing from your desktop,” even if the icon is there. You have to know you have a problem, and then use this program to fix it. It won’t uncover problems for you.

http://www.thewindowsclub.com/repair-fix-windows-7-vista-problems-with-fixwin-utility

You will be able to enter just about any query for a music group or artist, where it will be followed by a playlist that pops up alongside a thumbnail video and a description of the band. This is still an experimental product, so expect a number of kinks to be worked out still before it is polished as a final product.

http://www.youtube.com/disco

Saving something as a PDF file is a great way to preserve it for future reference or for sharing with others, without risking the site changing before you look at it again. PDFMyURL makes it easy to convert sites to PDF.

Point PDFMyURL at a website URL and it will convert the site into a PDF document. Not only can you do a simple conversion just by plugging in a URL but you can also modify the PDF with a wide variety of flags—see the advanced menu for a full list—that let you set the page orientation and size, header information, print orientation, and more. PDFMyURL also has a bookmarklet you can drag to your toolbar for easy access to the PDF creation service.

http://www.pdfmyurl.com

A great resource for figuring out what needs to be done regularly around the house is the home maintenance and repair. It’s packed with checklists broken down by month.

http://www.demesne.info

1. Pick the apps you want.
2. Start your customized installer.
3. You’re done!

Ninite installs apps with default settings and says “no” to browser toolbars and other junk.
Ninite checks your PC’s language and 64-bit support to install the latest, best version of each app.
Ninite runs on Windows XP/Vista/7 and works in the background 100% hands-free.
All Ninite does is install the apps you choose.  Not even Ninite is installed.

http://ninite.com

inSSIDer is an award-winning free Wi-Fi network scanner for Windows Vista and Windows XP. Because NetStumbler doesn’t work well with Vista and 64-bit XP, we built an open-source Wi-Fi network scanner designed for the current generation of Windows operating systems.

http://www.metageek.net/products/inssider

John’s Background Switcher collects images from Web sites like Flickr, Picasa, and more–or pictures from your own folders–and displays them as desktop wallpaper at intervals that you define. You can even subscribe to image sites that use RSS feeds.

Though you can access only one image source at a time–you can’t, for example, set the program to feed from both Flickr and your own My Pictures folder simultaneously–John’s Background Switcher gives you a tremendous amount of control over what you do see. Right-click the program’s icon in your system tray and you can jump to the next image in the queue, go back to a previous one, “blacklist” images you don’t like, browse the pictures that have been downloaded so far (though I couldn’t get this function to work), save images to your hard drive, and much more.

http://www.johnsadventures.com/software/backgroundswitcher

SyncToy 2.1 is a free application that synchronizes files and folders between locations. Typical uses include sharing files, such as photos, with other computers and creating backup copies of files and folders.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=C26EFA36-98E0-4EE9-A7C5-98D0592D8C52&displaylang=en

Free for personal use and $31.96 for professional use, Easus Partition Manager is a great alternative to Symantecs “Partition Magic”. The main features of Easus Partition Manager are the ability to format, resize, delete, add, copy, set active and change drive letters. It can even be used as a Bart-PE plugin.

http://www.easeus-software.com

If you’d like to save a web site for posterity without the mess of saving the page and all its files, the web-based HTML to PDF Converter can crank out a PDF.

The service is pretty straightforward, with a spot to plug in the link to website you want to convert, then click Make PDF and either save or open the file. Out of curiosity I tried non-HTML files from the web, including TXT files and image files like PNG and JPG. The site will convert all of them to PDF, but with mixed results for image files—it appears if an image is larger than an 8.5×11 sheet when “printed” at its native resolution, it gets chopped up. HTML to PDF Converter is a free service and the PDF files it produces are not watermarked or labeled.

http://www.html-pdf-converter.com

Using PDF-to-Word conversion technology, you can quickly and easily create editable DOC/RTF files, making it a cinch to re-use PDF content in applications like Microsoft Word, Excel, OpenOffice, and WordPerfect.

http://www.pdftoword.com

CalendarLabs is the one stop destination for all the needs of calendars. We provide different kind of free calendar for year 2008, 2009 and 2010. Here you can easily find and customize your desired 2009 calendar. Online calendar and holiday calendar are available for your quick reference. Calendar holidays are also available in iCal calendar format for different countries including United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Romania, India, Italy, Philippines, Singapore, Canada, Hong Kong, New Zealand and Malaysia. Year calendar and month calendar for any desired month and year can also be generated. You can download or print different varieties of printable calendar or blank calendar. You can download printable calendars template on Microsoft Word format, which can be customized for any month and year. Blank calendars are provided with calendar grid in different style for your easy use. If you are looking for PDF calendars, this is the perfect place to download one. Astrology Calendars are the best free daily horoscope calendar available online from CalendarLabs. Specific horoscopes like love, health, career, travel, money etc. are included into astrological calendar. Photo calendars are well formatted and can be generated easily. You can create your own calendar by choosing different photos and print from any browser easily.

http://www.calendarlabs.com

Spreadsheet Templates, Calculators, and Calendars.  Vertex42 is a leading provider of Excel templates, financial calculators, and calendars. We also host The Excel Nexus – The ultimate directory of 3rd-party Microsoft Excel resources, including add-ins, templates, tutorials, and consulting services.

http://www.vertex42.com

Dropbox instantaneously backs up and syncs your files over the internet and to any computer. After you install the application, it will create a Dropbox folder on your hard drive. Any file you put inside that folder will automatically be synced and monitored for changes, and each time a change is saved, it backs up and syncs the file again. Even better, Dropbox does revision history, so if you accidentally saved a file and wanted to revert to an old version or deleted a file, Dropbox can recover any previous version.

http://www.dropbox.com

Seagate DiscWizard is an OEM version of Acronis True Image, a popular disk imaging, cloning and backup software utility for computers. The full version of Acronis True Image Home edition will cost its user a hefty $49.99 for puchasing, while Seagate DiscWizard is free of charge.

Seagate DiscWizard is essentially same piece of software which is an OEM version of Acronis True Image 10 Home edition version 10.0.0.5077. The label of OEM edition means that it’s strip down version from full product of Acronis True Image with lesser functionality and features. But this fact does not reduce the usefulness and value of Seagate Disc Wizard, and can be used to complement the free Acronis True Image 8 Personal edition to provide disk cloning function from within Windows without having to use trick of Acronis True Image plugin for BartPE.

http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/downloads/discwizard

One of the most boring parts of reinstalling the operating system is having to find and install all drivers again. What if you don’t have the Driver CD that came with the computer or you have lost it or they are unavailable online? It can be quite difficult for example to find drivers for hardware installed in a notebook if the operating system has to be setup again. Luckily Double Driver can now lend you a hand with that and save you a lot of time!

Double Driver is a very simple and useful tool which not only allows you to view all the drivers installed on your system but also allows you to backup, restore, save and print all chosen drivers simply and reliably.

Double Driver analyzes your system and lists the most important driver details such as version, date, provider, etc and offers you the chance to update to the latest version. All drivers that are found can easily be backed up the application and easily restored at a later point in one go.

http://www.boozet.org/dd.htm

A couple javascripts I wrote that countdown the days remaining to Federal and Other holidays.

http://smcglaughlin.com/holidays.html

Hundreds of papers you can download and print for free. We’ve got graph paper, lined paper, financial paper, music paper, and more.

http://www.printablepaper.net

Apple iphone / touch mobile web sites.  Excellent resource for iphone webapps, tips, tricks, links and iphone / touch friendly websites.

http://istewie.com

The world’s largest social music platform. Show off your taste, see what your friends are listening to, hear new music, get personal radio, recommendations, and downloads, all for free.

http://www.last.fm

thesixtyone is an experimental game that transforms listening to new music into a fun, massively multiplayer adventure.

Despite the incredible wave of creativity that’s happening in music, most people have a difficult time overcoming their underlying “musical inertia” — why bother with the typical tediousness of music discovery when you can fall back into the comfortable familiarity of your iTunes collection?

Tired of seeing great music fade into obscurity, we wondered if we could harness our experience designing video games to make something that could challenge music geeks and attract average people to the exciting frontiers of new music.

http://www.thesixtyone.com/

Taskbar Shuffle is a simple, small, free utility that lets you drag and drop your Windows taskbar buttons to rearrange them.  Here’s a full feature list:

- Reorder your taskbar buttons by dragging and dropping them
- Reorder your tray icons in the same way
- Reorder tasks in a grouped button’s popup menu in the same way
- Middle-click to close programs on your taskbar
- Works with UltraMon taskbars
- Tweak taskbar button grouping

http://www.freewebs.com/nerdcave/taskbarshuffle.htm