All posts in Software

Opera 10 (alpha) – 30% faster

by Ades on December 6, 2008 in Software with 15 Comments

Opera, my previous favorite web browser (before the advent of firefox) has released Opera 10 (alpha) version. It’s reportedly 30% faster than the current 9.62 version. It uses presto 2.2 rendering engine which makes it faster and more secure.

People behind opera has been doing some great updates lately. I think I might just shift back to Opera soon. It already supports lots of add-ons, but the most important feature that I missed the most is mouse gestures. Opera 10 makes it easy to update it too, it automatically updates the browser to the latest updates seamlessly – install once, and it keeps itself up to date. Wanna try? You should!

URL: http://www.opera.com/browser/next/

AdesClrPicker Stats (since it’s been freeware)

by Ades on October 5, 2008 in Personal, Software with 19 Comments

Two weeks ago (Sep 22, 08) I made my color picker software free and launched a new “product site” for it. So far, as of now, the software has been downloaded 543 times since it’s been freeware. (Total downloads to date: 15,680)

As for the product site, it’s showing very good results on Alexa stats – it’s up 11 million sites – with a current ranking of 349,873. That’s a lot of millions for a two-week old website to jump.

Traffic to the website now averages about 100 unique visitors daily. Most of the users being referred from StumbleUpon, my website, and my blog.

That’s the updates… Thanks to everyone who have emailed me with encouraging words! I appreciate it.

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Thanks to Kevin Muldoon of BloggingTips.com and Adi Wong of RiceBlogger.com for their link loves! Actually it’s more than a link love, they have both provided full-fledged product reviews. Thanks guys!

URL: http://www.adesclrpicker.com

Good News: AdesClrPicker is now FREE!

by Ades on September 22, 2008 in Personal, Software with 8 Comments

As I mentioned last week I am currently working on a new Font Manager software, which will a freeware. I was also saying that I am thinking of making my color picker application freeware too.

Well, the time has come. AdesClrPicker is now officially a freeware!

You can download the latest version of AdesClrPicker v2.2 at the new product site at http://www.adesclrpicker.com. All the new updates and information related to this software will be on this website from now on.

Do spread the news to your readers on your blog, to your friends, and to anyone who would benefit from this cool application.

Don’t forget to bookmark the site on Delicious, Digg it, or Stumble it! Thanks in advance and enjoy the application!

How softwares are created, my font viewer software

by Ades on September 18, 2008 in Personal, Software with 6 Comments

I am working on a new software at the moment. It will be a font viewer/manager type of software (it will be free). Often times, I found myself downloading free fonts from the net, usually in a zipped format. Each zipped file containing hundreds of fonts in it. Unless you are a fonts expert, you wouldn’t know which font was good and worth installing on your machine. Having in mind that you already have hundreds of fonts on your PC.

I don’t know about you, but I couldn’t afford to install additional new fonts unless I make sure they will be of use to me.

So, this software will address first and foremost the above stated problem. With it you will be able to preview fonts in any folder, including your C:\WINDOWS\Fonts folder. That means once you download a collection of fonts in one file, you can easily go through them and install only the ones that you like (software will have a “install this font” button beside each font).

You can type your own words in the text field provided and preview it with different fonts. You can change the color of the text, color of the background, bold, italic, font size etc.

Besides that, it will allow you to rate your fonts. For example if you wish to give some fonts in your C:\WINDOWS\Fonts folder 5-star (the best fonts) and some fonts 1-Star (this font sucks, but i have to have it since i am using it for particular project)… then you can do so.

It will also allow you to make your own collection out of the fonts that you have, and put it in a zip file, or in an existing folder, or send them to Desktop.

Below is the interface that I have drawn and send it to my programmer.

Currently it’s in its early development stage. I will post the first working version in a few weeks time so that you can check it out for yourself. Till then, if you have any other suggestions for the software please throw them to me (or just leave comment under this post). I will be glad to integrate it if they improve the usability of the software.

You would ask, why develop a software when there are already tons of other similar softwares out there? Well, I am sure there are other great tools out there that can do the same thing, but I just like to create a software that is according to my preference (the way I like it to be). And I am sure you wouldn’t mind to have a free software either, would you?

I will keep you guys updated on the development of this software.

P.S I am also thinking to make my color picker program free. So, stay tuned for the news!

Word Clock [Screensaver]

by Ades on September 16, 2008 in Flash, Software with 3 Comments

Here is a cool screensaver [play video below] for PC, Mac and iPhone. It displays a fixed list of all numbers and words sufficient to express any possible date and time as a sentence. Word Clock displays time by highlighting appropriate words as each second passes.

There are two display modes; Linear and Rotary which has a nice relationship with traditional analogue clocks.

You can see screenshots of other users who use Word Clock at http://www.flickr.com/groups/wordclock/pool/

URL: http://www.simonheys.com/wordclock/
Direct Download Link: click here

Portable Google Chrome

by Ades on September 14, 2008 in Software with 9 Comments

google chrome portable If you fell in love with Google’s new web browser and want to carry it around in your thumb drive, then Portable Chrome is for you. With this you don’t have to install the software on any computer, it can work straight away from your thumb drive.

Download: click here (or get it later at my shared folder http://www.adesblog.com/files.php)

Google Chrome – New web browser from Google

by Ades on September 3, 2008 in Google, Software with 22 Comments

Google Chrome is a new open source web browser from Google. It’s in beta and available only for Windows based machines at the moment. Mac and Linux version are underway.

Google says: Under the hood, we were able to build the foundation of a browser that runs today’s complex web applications much better . By keeping each tab in an isolated “sandbox”, we were able to prevent one tab from crashing another and provide improved protection from rogue sites. We improved speed and responsiveness across the board. We also built V8, a more powerful JavaScript engine, to power the next generation of web applications that aren’t even possible in today’s browsers.

Since it uses components from Mozilla’s Firefox (and Apple’s WebKit), at times you will think you are using a firefox browser with a different skin. They have kept all the latest browsing standards and have improved some functions like bookmarking, searching, tabbing, security etc. to make them more usable.

P.S Google search is activated directly in the URL field. So just type and press enter to search anything in Google. One less step to do the search on Google with this browser :)

Full features: read here
Download: http://tools.google.com/chrome/

Blaze Media Pro v8.02

by Ades on August 22, 2008 in Software with No comments

Blaze Media Pro is powerful, all-in-one media converter, editor, burner, and ripper software application supporting all popular media formats.

It has been my favorite software since 2004, being listed on my software pick page before (software pick section is no longer available though) and now on my shared folder (in favorite sharewares).

It supports two-way conversion for both audio and video files. You can convert DVD to AVI, MPG, WMV for example. Formats supported for audio conversion include CD, MP3, WAV, WMA, OGG, MPEG-4, AIFF, M4A, AAC, AC3, FLAC, and ALAC.

Other advanced features include video capture, video creation, combining, and extraction, video editing, copying of music CDs, audio and video merge (joining), MusicID audio recognition, lyrics search, audio tag editing, FreeDB support etc.

On top all these Blaze Media Pro is also a CD burning software, as well as DVD burning software. It’s being sold at $50.00 now.

Software URL: http://www.blazemp.com or http://www.mystikmedia.com

My Online Shared Folder

by Ades on June 24, 2008 in Online Tools, Software with 10 Comments

I have created a shared folder (see pic) at http://www.adesblog.com/files.php.

The folder will contain some useful freewares, sharewares and other interesting files that are worth to share.

The folder works in a Windows-like manner, so just click on the folder names to see their contents. Clicking on a file name will show the file information. In order to download a particular file, click on the link (globe icon) at the far right.

I am still in the process of uploading softwares and files, so make sure to check back later for more useful stuff.

How it is done?

The page is created using 4shared.com. It’s a free service that offers 5GB storage space and 10GB bandwidth/month for your file downloads.

As I discovered, disadvantage of the free service is: 1) it is with ads (of course!) and 2) you need to login at least every month, if you do not login more than 30 days, your account will be deleted.

The url of my folder on 4shared’s site is at adesblog.4shared.com.

Free Software: Extracting emails from a file

by Ades on May 16, 2008 in Software with 10 Comments

You probably won’t need this software, but when you do, it will save your day. It’s a small software that allows you to extract email addresses from files. You can choose folders, files or file types in your PC or network neighborhood. It can then search all the sub-folders for email addresses.

After releasing new version of my color picker tool, I wanted to send a free upgrade to eligible customers. However, I didn’t have their emails in one single file. I had them in RegNow system with other information like names, addresses, etc. But since I only needed their emails, this tool was a tremendous help. I could extract all the emails with one click. Check it out for your future use: http://www.a1soft.com/emextcom.htm

AdesClrPicker v2.2 is out!

by Ades on May 13, 2008 in Personal, Software with 11 Comments

I have been working on the new version of my color picker software – AdesClrPicker. The new v2.2 version is out now, you can download it here.

For those who are not familiar with AdesClrPicker, it’s a software for picking colors from anywhere on your screen. With one click you can get the color code of that spot in 5 different codes (HTML, RGB, Delphi, C++ and VB). For example if you click on a white space on your Desktop, it would give you #FFFFFF (it will be copied to your clipboard). Setting up your AdSense ads will be very easy with this program ;)

New features in this version

Floating Panel

Floating Panel (see image to the left) has been redesigned to include most used functions of the program. Previously it used to show the last 10 captured colors only. Now it has a lot more useful features on it. Floating Panel just sits on your screen, on top of all your windows. It’s small in dimension, so it can easily be positioned in any corner of your screen. If you do not want, you can always minimize it to taskbar.

Export Captured Colors as Image

New export feature has been added. Now you can export your captured colors as an image (jpg, gif or png) as well, in addition to Adobe Photoshop table export feature that it has. Exported images will have a colored box + color code. These images are useful if you want to share your colors with others. Instead of sending just the color codes, now people can actually send the colors together with the color codes.

This is how the exported image will look like (image + color code):

Change Preview Pane Size & Zoom Level

I have also added a new feature that allows you to change the preview pane and its zoom level. Some people suggested that they want to have a bigger zoom level. With new version that will be possible!

As you can see, a lot new exciting features are added to the new version. But it’s still small in size, only 1.5MB.

Promotion: Get 50% Discount

The program costs $9.99, but I am giving 50% off to all AdesBlog readers. Just use the following coupon-code on checkout page ACP-4CJB-BLOG and you will get $5.00 discount. Expiry date for this coupon is 20th May 2008 (another 7 days).

You can purchase with PayPal or Credit Card, click the button below:

Warning: Using cracked version, illegal copies , cracks and serials of this software is not allowed. Failing to do so will make you liable for legal action.

Koloroo products go “care-ware” i.e free

by Ades on May 5, 2008 in About Colors, Advice to Businesses, iPod, Software with 13 Comments

iPod and Mobile software developer Koloroo has decided to make its products free, or in their own words “careware”. Its products include Color Schemer (for Windows, iPod, and Mobile Phones) and Tip Calculator (for iPod).

What, exactly, is careware?

Careware is free Koloroo software … with one tiny catch — before you download it, you must agree to do something nice for someone. And it doesn’t matter how big or small your act of kindness is. ~ Koloroo

People are already reporting acts of kindness that they have done or plan to do on this page. It’s great that Koloroo came up with this kind of innovative way to give its products for free which promotes social responsibility. (i should have ended the post here)

Constructive Criticism of Koloroo

Koloroo has robust software development and user interface design skills. However, I think they are wasting their skills and efforts on the wrong products that do not make sense (i.e not really useful). For example, their color schemer software for iPod. How you are going to use it? It doesn’t make sense to have a color selection tool on your iPod. It’s not practical at all, and its application in real life would be like zero!

Few weeks ago they have developed a PC version of their color schemer. My question is “Why didn’t they start with the PC version from the beginning?!” Because at least PC version would have been useful to graphic designers.

I am pretty sure that Koloroo’s recent decision to make its products free was because they were not selling well, there was no demand for them. So, probably they thought “why sit on the products that do not make money, let’s give it away for free better!”.

Koloroo’s case is the opposite of FSCapture case. FSCapture started as a freeware in the beginning, but once it became popular the author suddenly wanted to make money on it. But then again that’s life… most of the thing revolves around money in this life.

Lesson: Anything you do (i.e projects) do it with long-term vision in mind. And of course, do your homework (i.e feasibility study) before you launch any product to the market.