Category: Software Reviews

  • New Image Viewer: Mouser’s Media Browser

    New Image Viewer: Mouser’s Media Browser

    Mouser at DonationCoder has restarted work on an image viewer that will be part of the site’s annual NANY (New Apps for the New Year).

    Mouser’s Media Browser is not aimed at competing with well known image viewers such as IrfanView and others but when running the program it does better than most in generating thumbnails for example. Its development has been fast in recent days with many releases and it has already improved in several ways, including the speed in which it generates thumbnails and how fast it scans recursively to find images within subfolders.

    The program shows a navigation tree with the user picking the folder to view, either via the tree or by browsing to a folder. It is also possible to filter files, for example showing only gifs by just typing gif in the filter bar. There is also a grid mode which eliminates the image preview pane. The program options (File —> Options) has settings with minimum and maximum thumbnail size.

    By default it comes with a thumbnail strip open. Another open by default view is the virtual tree which divides images by date showing how many by month and year. Future releases may include other virtual trees that divide media by tags or other attributes. These can be turned off via the Tree menu.

    The program can open an image using an external image viewer and it also integrates with Mouser’s other tools like Screenshot Captor and Automatic Screenshotter.

  • Keyword Tracking With Rankaware

    Keyword Tracking With Rankaware

    Search engine optimization remains crucial to all those who own or manage websites. Rankaware is one user friendly tool to keep a tab on a site’s performance on search engines.

    Rankaware installs easily and it is available for both Windows and Mac computers. The first step is to add a website to monitor. The program works in that it checks the position of a keyword on search engine results pages (SERP). The process starts by adding the site address of course, keywords that Rankaware will check on and up to three search engines. Google, Bing and Yahoo are available with their various country domains. The program allows the user to pick one, two or three engines.

    It is possible to set a schedule to run the program again and look for any changes that occur to the site’s keywords positions on the aforementioned search engines. Once a day, a week or month are available with the time of day to run as well. Optionally it is possible to run the check everytime the program is started.

    All that is left to click apply and wait for it to scan the engines and generate the results. The results page is simple but attractive with a pie chart showing the keyword position on the results page. Any position above 100 needs work and is not really considered a useful SERP.

    RGdot used to rank relatively high in several freeware keywords but that has changed with the inactivity on the site. Rankaware can track changes and will show them in the CHG column in subsequent runs of the program.

    Rankaware is available in three licences. A free version which only checks one site on one computer. The expert version can be used to monitor unlimited number of sites and generate reports with white label branding. The business version can run on more than one computer. The two paid versions currently cost $49.97 and $99.97 respectively, these are per year.

  • Taskade: Lists And Notes

    Taskade: Lists And Notes

    Taskade is an online “lists made easy” tool.

    The interface is a simple themed one, after signing up one can start creating lists right away. The background is set to show random images – the theme option is at the bottom left of the window – but can be changed to a solid colour or one of available images, there is no option to choose one’s own. The interface features folders or collections listed on the left hand side and shown and expanded on the right. One can create checklists, free form notes and outlines. It is of course primarily meant as a place to drop in to do lists and ideas.

    Lists can be starred and adding the # sign in front of any text creates a hashtag, there doesn’t seem to be a search function and finding other notes or lists with the same hashtag requires clicking on one. The keyboard shortcuts illustrate some of the other features of Taskade such as indenting text, highlighting text and changing them to mark as complete (strikeout), bold, underline or italic. A to do list will show a progress bar tracking the completion of items in it. Selecting or clicking on any text brings up a formatting menu as well with options like changing the text to a heading type.

    On sharing and collaboration, it is possible to send any list or note via email, embedding it on a page or sharing its link. It is also possible to invite others to view the note and work on it as a team.

    Taskade can be downloaded for Windows and Mac computers or alternatively be used as a Chrome or Firefox extension or addon.

    It is currently free with a premium version with support for file attachment and others features to come soon. There will be Taskade iOS and Android apps in the near future.

  • Buttercup Freeware Password Manager

    Buttercup Freeware Password Manager

    Buttercup (v0.21.0) is a new entry in the password manager field. It uses the usual method of storing passwords securely and locally, with an option to connect to online storage services.

    Aftewr installing the 35MB download the program launches automatically and offers to create a what it calls archive. A master password can be added here. When the program’s main window opens it is divided from left to right to the name of the archive(s) created and opened, the groups section, the entries and their respective details.

    Passwords can be divided into groups with new groups added using the button near the bottom of the section. Entries are added much the same way. When creating a new entry a password generator is an option. The user can configure the number of characters or words to be used and if it should or should not include letters, numbers or symbols. There is also a “memorable” option which generates passwords using only lower case letters. Each entry can also have custom fields associated with it, perhaps to add a note or the associated site.

    Buttercup can also import 1password (.1pif), KeePass (.kdbx) and LastPass (.csv) archives. One can also connect the program to Dropbox, Owncloud, NextCloud or a WebDav server for backup and remote storage (File —>Connect Cloud Services). A Chrome extension is also available.

  • Leaf Simple Notes For Chrome

    Leaf Simple Notes For Chrome

    Leaf: Simple Notes is another small notes or reminder extension for Google Chrome. Installing the extension follows the familiar permissions based method and the extension’s icon is added to the right of the address bar.

    Click on the icon and the interface is shown. Simply type any text and optionally add relevant details. Notes are stacked to the right of the text area. Click on the header or title of an existing note and the few available options become visible.

    Notes can be dragged and re-ordered. Any note can be moved to the top of the stack. Information on the note’s creation date is also available. A note can be edited by clicking the fourth icon (see screenshot) or by double clicking on it. Notes can of course be deleted.

    A needed more recent addition is the search function. It is also helpful that is a find as you type search.

    Leaf: Simple Notes is not the first minimalist notes extension and perhaps it is too simple but it serves its purpose well.

  • Simple Gmail Notes Chrome Extension

    Simple Gmail Notes Chrome Extension

    Simple Gmail Notes is a useful Google Chrome extension. It keeps permissions to a minimum and uses the user’s own Google Drive to store all data. For this alone it is a very good choice.

    Although given the ‘notes’ name it is somewhat awkward to use for storing personal or random notes because one has to use a gmail email for the notes. An email that exists in one’s inbox is presumably sent by another person. For the purposes of this review and for using the extension later I sent myself an email.

    Once the extension is added to Chrome reload gmail and click on an email to see the text area for the notes. One must log in to Google Drive and allow Simple Gmail Notes access. This has to be repeated on other computers where the extension is used.

    There is no text formatting. The text area itself only features the text background color option but the extension’s settings page includes options for font color and text size. The title of the note can be configured here as well and titles appear much like a gmail label when viewing the email list.

    Notes can be searched and notes history or revisions are enabled by default. These two features use the Google Drive page, when using these a new tab is used to navigate to the user’s Drive page. In a similar fashion there is an Add to Google Calendar option.

    There is also a way to share notes, this requires signing up for a gmail account and all those sharing notes accessing it. Again, as mentioned earlier, this is not the most intuitive way to work with notes but Simple Gmail Notes is an interesting extension that works well inside a popular tool that many use.

  • Freeware Astronomy With KStars

    Freeware Astronomy With KStars

    KStars is a an open source freeware planetarium program from KDE, the linux platform group. KStars is available for Windows, requires the Microsoft Visual C++ 2015 Redistributable to run on PCs and it will automatically download it if it is not installed.

    The program features 100 million stars, 13,000 deep-sky objects and thousands of comets, asteroids, satellites and other sky object in its catalogue. Objects can be added manually or via other downloaded add-ons (see the Data menu).

    As with other similar programs choosing a location is the first task after running the program. The program can import and use .fits images for detailed imagery. Moving the mouse object names are displayed as tool tips and right clicking on any provides a wealth of information about the object including viewing images and the option of adding it to a wishlist for observing.

    The program window can of course toggle on and off display of horizon, stars, deeps sky objects, planets, milky way, equatorial grid, constellation lines, names and art and also supernovae and satellite positions.

    Besides viewing the sky from any location one can also chose a time to view the sky, choose any set time or move in steps to the past or the future. The passage of time can also be sped up to view the changing sky faster. The Pointing menu can change the view based on which direction the viewer is looking at and also center on an object and keep tracking it.

    The Tools that come with KStars are really useful for both the amateur sky watcher – with an ‘auto suggest’ tool in the works – and the professional. The calculator provides a lot of information such as object positions, coordinates and radial velocities, Julian dates and sun and moon rise and set times. The Observation planner displays information based on a chosen object, a list can be created and saved for any upcoming sky viewing. The planner includes a ‘What’s up tonight’ tool and the objects added to the wish list can be viewed here. The Sky calendar displays or plots planets’ tracks in the sky.

    The program also supports interfacing – using INDI and KDE’s own Ekos platforms – with telescopes to drive the viewer to an object and capture images.

    A KStar handbook is accessible from the help menu that provides a wealth of info on every feature available.

  • Freeware Planetarium Hallo Northern Sky

    Freeware Planetarium Hallo Northern Sky

    Hallo Northern Sky is an educational, fun and fascinating planetarium program for windows and linux machines. It features around 30,000 objects and many more stars in its catalogue and can find any of them, provide descriptions and high resolution pictures with planets ones showing surface features. It can retrieve updated information online for more objects such as asteroids and comets too.

    The first action after installing the program is to save a location, the program prompts the user to do so on first start or if there is no location saved. The only input type requires the user to know his/her location’s longitude and latitude (as opposed to a program like Stellarium that can set a user location by name). The program settings is where one can download or update the aforementioned additional or newer lists and images. Within the same settings (File —>Settings) the program interface can be tweaked to use bigger fonts, different fonts (instead of the default Comic Sans) and different colors. The Settings tab of the Settings (!) has options to change local file settings, use different equinox epochs and make corrections for atmospheric effects.

    The program has multiple editors to load or edit astronomical data including images (.fits) files and asteroid and comet databases manually. The Search menu loads object (planets, moons, deep space objects, stars, constellations) names and can center on an object’s location. Supplementary or extra databases can be downloaded from the developer site and searched as well. These include additional galaxies and stars. The Objects menu is like loading specific supplements or databases and acts as a filter to view certain objects, for example to filter magnitude or use other deep sky maps that show farther objects. The Date menu can show the sky as it looks 1 hour from now, 1 day from now, tonight or any date.

    Moving the mouse on the program window and left clicking on an object provides information about it on the upper left side of the window. Name, brightness, right ascension, declination, magnitude and more is given. Right clicking offers more like centering on the object, downloading images of an object and if no object is selected using one of online resources to search that chosen area of the sky. The Animation option (Screen —>Animation) lets the user visualize movements in time increments and follow planets or star movements.

    Use the mouse wheel to zoom in and out or Ctrl+R for the aforementioned animation. The program has many hot keys built in. The extensive help file on the same page has lots more info.

    Information can be copied to the clipboard when it is displayed on the status bar, just left click on the status bar to copy information about the clicked on area. ASCOM is supported, Hallo Northern Sky can interface with compatible telescopes and direct them to point to objects.

  • LazLock Freeware Portable Password Manager

    LazLock Freeware Portable Password Manager

    LazLock (version: 2.4.2) is a freeware password manager, it is portable and available separately for 32bit and 64 bit computers as well as Linux ones. Just unzip and run the executable.

    On first run the master password is chosen and confirmed with the usual disclaimer that it can not be recovered as it uses 128 bit AES encryption. When the program starts empty URL, Username and Password fields tempt the user to start entering and save after typing but the only ways to add an entry is via the menu or icon.

    An entry can belong to any one of the 10 categories that are Banking, Education, Email, Media, Other, Shopping, Social Media, Software, Web or Work as seen in the screenshot. Associate an icon with the entry and then enter the details, optionally use the password generator and set parameters for the password. Here the length of the password can be set and it can include any one or all of uppercase, lowercase, numbers, symbols, brackets, or even spaces! The password generator can be used independently of an entry by clicking on its icon in the program’s main window.

    Other features include changing the master password (File —>Change password) and strangely Create backup, (File —>Create backup) which exports entries into a plain text file.

  • When Last Activity Tracker

    When Last Activity Tracker

    When Last Android App

    When Last a simple activity tracker Android app by DonationCoder that helps keep track of things done. As with everything else from DonationCoder this app stays true to being clean and in this case the permissions are the minimum of read the contents of your USB storage and modify or delete the contents of your USB storage. Network connections and access will also kick in when using the optional sync feature.

    The app comes pre-populated with several activities and categories. Each category is in its own tab, that is how activities can be organized. Create a new event or done activity by clicking the + sign, adding a label, choosing or creating a category on the fly, adding an optional remind in and overdue in and clicking ok. The time that it was done will be listed and shown under its label. The next time it is done click the Now button and the last done time will be shown. Click on the pencil edit button to the left of the title and a history of the activity is shown.

    The app supports sorting activities by modification date, performed date, alphabetical or time overdue. These are set either in the preferences or using the button to the right of the +. Using the same button one can toggle hidden items or to provide more screen space and toggle the revise (the edit or pencil) button’s visibility.

    The aforementioned hidden feature is a choice made when creating an item. Also the aforementioned sync feature is disabled by default and can be enabled in the app preferences (scroll to the bottom in the preferences). The three available options are using dropbox, public folder and your own sync tool and private folder and you own sync file. In each case a sync app needs to be pointed towards the folder and as mentioned in the When Last’s help file the public option is a subdirectory of the device’s downloads folder and the private one is a subdirectory of the app’s folder.

    When Last has also very recently added a search feature.

    The app includes a widget with settings for widget title, border, background color and the category to show. Check all DonationCoder Android apps and the newest edition of the N.A.N.Y. (New Apps for the New Year) for other programs available.