Change the Color of your Windows Vista/7 Navigation Button with Vista-7 Nav Button Colorizor

Users of Windows Vista and 7 will know this, that the navigation button available in Windows Explorer are predominantly or shall i say, all are in blue color. And believe it or not, some people may have a problem with blue. But then changing the color of the navigation button is no novice's task. Users will have to dig deep into the Windows settings and edit some system files. In other words, it is risky, troublesome and time-wasting. 

Thanks to a genius called vasanrulez lurking around at DeviantART, we now have a tool called Vista-7 Nav Button Colorizer freely available to us all. This little tool simplifies the effort of having to edit system files by providing a friendly GUI for users to adjust the color of their Windows' navigation button. It works on 32-bit version of Vista and 7 only, but then 64-bit support are soon to come.

There are some common drawbacks you can expect from a new tool such as this. Firstly, Vasanrulez has warned us that some antivirus may took the tool as a malware which obviously is just a false positive. Also, you can expect some bugs and stuffs, though fixes and additional features will be coming our way.


For now, it might not be an attractive tool to download yet, but i reckon when vasanrulez iron out most of the bugs aside from adding supports and features, Vista-7 Nav Button Colorizer will soon hit big time. Interested users may want to follow the development at vasanrulez's DeviartART site where he host the tool.

Visit Vista-7 Nav Button Colorizer at DeviantART.com.

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Enhance Windows's 7 Features For Free with Preme

We'll never get bored of custom enhancement if it provides some measures of usefulness aside from bringing beauties to your desktop. Windows 7 is an awesome OS with many decent features and eye-candies but then enough is just isn't enough. There are lots of tools that are developed to enhance the usability of Windows 7, but none had been quite as impressive as this:

Preme is a new freeware tool which enhances some of the existing features in Windows 7, adding extra hotkeys and functions. Some of the features of Preme are as described below:

• Touch the upper left corner of your desktop to see all your open Windows either in Flip 3D or Alt-Tab style
• Hold mouse button on the title bar area of window to keep your window on top of other windows
• Move mouse cursor to title bar area and scroll down mouse wheel to minimize the particular window
• Hover mouse cursor on the title bar are and then click the wheel to close the window
• Right-click on the taskbar button and the mouse cursor will point to Close window option
• Press ESC button twice to close the active item
• Move cursor to Start button area to open Start menu automatically

According to the official site, Preme does not require installation; all users need to do is to copy its files to the startup folder in order to load it, or delete its startup entry to remove it. It is also lightweight, utilizing about 2 MB RAM at maximum. Other than enhancing your PC, Preme does not modify Windows 7's original looks and feel, so it is a pretty safe tool to use.

Preme is still under development and thus, there will be bug fixes and more enhancements added in the future. For now, if you want to try out Preme, go ahead and download it at the official site.

*Note: If you like the software then please do give feedback, encouragement and/or donation to its developer. The developer work quite hard on this little tool!

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Microsoft Releases Silverlight 4 Beta Client For Facebook

For the first time ever...to both Windows and MacOS fans~


Remember Fishbowl for Facebook? Well, for those who didn't, it was a Facebook desktop client released by Microsoft during their annual PDC back in late 2009. Fishbowl is developed by UXLabs@Microsoft and is entirely powered by Microsoft Silverlight, providing an incredible browsing experience of the popular social networking site. Question is, Fishbowl is slightly slow and can be a bit hard to get used to.


Worry not, for Microsoft came up with another alternative - a better one! Microsoft released a Silverlight 4 Beta Client just for Facebook as of now. Like Fishbowl, it runs Facebook using a desktop application instead of the browser, but compared to Fishbowl, it is much faster and more complete in features! This new desktop client for Facebook spots a dark and sleek interface, starting off with the Home screen right down to the Photo-browsing page. Even the photo uploader is pretty neat and workable compared to Fishbowl.


I would ditch Fishbowl any day for such an improvement, but there are setbacks too. If there's anything...anything that this desktop client lack in features, it doesn't have the chat function which is available in the browser-based Facebook. Besides, since Silverlight 4 will required reinstallation once it is out of beta, so it may be a troublesome thing that novice users will have to worry about in the future.


Some additional screenshots for your viewing pleasure:

 

For those interested to use Facebook poweredby the latest Silverlight 4 Beta, you can get them from this website.

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Recent Beta Program Updates

I have been busy learning new stuffs in and out during my holidays, so i couldn't fulfill my promise as stated in my announcement area. Nevertheless, i felt it's time i pull myself away from all this learning and started posting something here.



Today i'll not be introducing software or promotions to you, but i'll instead, give you a brief update on some of the interesting beta programs i keep tabs on throughout my holiday periods:

1. Avast! Antivirus v5

This popular antivirus has just came out of beta on the 20th of January. The new v5 has a revamped interface design, more user-centric charts and options plus several new features and scan engine updates. It is incredibly light on PC resources as well. Not bad for a free antivirus, i must say!


2. Trend Titanium

Remember my previous post about Trend Micro Security Beta? Well, this is essentially a renamed version of the previous Trend Micro Security Beta program. Trend Titanium is released as renamed, recolored and optimized feature. Having said that, it still keeps its virtue of operating from the cloud, so it is extremely light on resources. The beta program is still going on at Trend Micro Beta Portal and will proceed all the way into March 2010.

3. Mozilla Firefox 3.6 Release Candidate (RC)

Firefox is pretty much the trendsetter in terms of add-on features and security standards for browsers, but in v3.6, due to release in the coming weeks, Firefox developers are more focused on performance and speed improvements. Personal testing revealed that v3.6 is indeed, more responsive and produces minimal crashes for a beta program, but then it's speed significantly trails behind those of Google Chromes and the latest Opera v10.5.


4. Adobe Flash Player 10.1 Beta

Although the current Adobe Flash Player 10 works just fine with no reported vulnerabilities, the fact is that it is still slow...incredibly slow on graphic rendering. Imagine Youtube's hi-def videos going sluggish on your PC, or the Flash games on Facebook maxing out your CPU cycle, making your PC as slow as a snail! The latest beta version of Adobe Flash Player 10.1 bring GPU acceleration technology to your PC, or in other words, Adobe Flash Player now utilizes your PC's graphic cards in order to render high-definition flash videos and games, therefore reduce CPU stress! Bad news is, there are only some processors in the market that supports this new tech...


5. BitComet 2010 Beta

 BitComet's high times are over; people nowadays would rather recommend uTorrent or Vuze to manage downloads, but then to hardcore fans, BitComet serves them just fine. The new BitComet emphasizes on GUI improvements and  bug fixes, plus some minor network tweaks to improve overall experience.

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ASCOMP Backup Maker v6.001 [New Release], Synchredible v2.4 [Update], Secure Eraser v3.1 [Update] Free For Private Use

ASCOMP Software GmbH has a new release of  their main software product Backup Maker from v5.5 to v6.001 and this new release is also free for home users (Private Use) like the previous one. If you remember, In September 2009, I have already shared that ASCOMP Software GmbH is offering BackUp Maker v5.5, Synchredible v2.3, Secure Eraser v3.0 free for home users. They have also updated their other two main software: Synchredible v2.4 and Secure Eraser v3.1. These two software are also free for home users (Private use).

There is no difference between Standard Editions and Professional Editions except you are not allowed to use Standard Edition commercially. For commercial use, you need to buy same saftware.

You may be confused when visiting ASCOMP web site because of the contradiction in statements that at order page private users have to pay but at download page these software are shown as freeware. When you will install, you will see in main window Freeware for Private use. So, what is the difference between Private Use, Home Use and Personal Use? Whatever, these software are free for all these three uses.

Because of shortage of time, I was not able to review these software at all. So, if you would like, you can share your views.

Oh, I forgot to tell you once again that I might not be able to write articles as frequently as I have written in past era. You have noticed that I am already writing with delays. I am becoming more and more busy. I hope you will bear this delay with me.

Get Free:

Backup Maker v6.001:

Info:

http://www.ascomp.de/index.php?php=prog&page=desc&prog=backupmaker

Comparision: Standard and Professional Editions

http://www.ascomp.de/index.php?php=prog&page=func&prog=backupmaker

Download:

http://www.ascomp.de/index.php?php=prog&page=download&prog=backupmaker

Direct Download:

http://www.ascomp.net/backupmaker/bkmaker.exe

Operating Systems: 2000/XP/2003/Vista/2008/Win7

Synchredible v2.4:

Info:

http://www.ascomp.de/index.php?php=prog&page=desc&prog=synchredible

Comparision: Standard and Professional Editions

http://www.ascomp.de/index.php?php=prog&page=func&prog=synchredible

Download:

http://www.ascomp.de/index.php?php=prog&page=download&prog=synchredible

Direct Download:

http://www.ascomp.net/synchredible/synchred.exe

Operating Systems: 2000/XP/2003/Vista/2008/Win7

Secure Eraser v3.1:

Info:

http://www.ascomp.de/index.php?php=prog&prog=secureeraser

Download:

http://www.ascomp.de/index.php?php=prog&page=download&prog=secureeraser

Direct Download:

http://www.ascomp.net/secureeraser/sEraser.exe

Operating Systems: 2000/XP/2003/Vista

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Get Free Paragon Backup & Recovery 10 Compact [x86-x64] (Save $40)

Friends have used and confirmed that  Paragon Backup & Recovery Free Edition and they are satisfied. Now the time is to Get Free Paragon Backup & Recovery 10 Compact Edition. Yes, it is not professional but a specialized edition from V3.co.uk. Both X86 and x64 are available.

Paragon Backup The term backup originates from the time when the best way to protect valuable information was to store it in form of archives on external media. It's become now a general notion to mean making duplications of data for protection purposes. and Recovery 10.0 provides support for the major file systems presented on the market today:

· Full read/write access to FAT16/FAT32 partitions.

· Full read/write access to NTFS (Basic and all five types of Dynamic Disks) under Windows 95/98/ME, Linux and PTS DOS. Compressed NTFS files are also supported.

· Full read/write access to Ext2FS/Ext3FS/Ext4FS partitions under all versions of Windows, DOS 5.0 and later.

· Limited read/write access to Apple HFS+ partitions.

Get Free:

1: open the following webpage into your browser and download your required version of Paragon Backup & Recovery 10 Compact Edition.

x86 (32-bit)
Info

http://www.v3.co.uk/v3/downloads/2256031/paragon-backup-recovery-compact

(URL copy n paste)

Download
http://store.v3.co.uk/?act=details&id=2794

x64 (64-bit)
Info

http://www.v3.co.uk/v3/downloads/2256034/paragon-backup-recovery64

(URL copy n paste)

Download
http://store.v3.co.uk/?act=details&id=2798

2: During installation, you will be asked to enter serials. On the same installation window, you will see a button Get Free Serial. Press this button and a new webpage will open. Fill a short English form and submit it. Within 3 seconds you will get your serials. If the webpage does not open, open the following webaddress into your browser:

http://www.paragon-software.com/registration/brcompact.html

(URL copy n paste)

Use these serials to register your copy of Paragon Backup & Recovery 10 Compact Edition and enjoy it.

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