BladedThoth.com - News

News :: No Reviews July 14th-15th

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT

To all my loyal readers; There will unfortunately be no reviews this weekend, July 14th and 15th. I will be out of town on a camping trip and will be miles from the nearest cellular tower, internet connection and so forth. Reviews will return July 16th. As well, just as an early notice, July 31st and August 1st I will be away as well and unable to do a review due to a trip. This weekend’s downtime will give my (apparently) DNS population issue a chance to work itself out; It appears that some are still having issues reaching the new server and unfortunately I do not know if I will be able to post today’s review on the alternate server (I will see when I get to work.) As mentioned, we are on a new server altogether due to serious issues I had with my previous webhost (I’m sure you all have experienced the random 500 Internal Server errors by now.) I look forward to bringing you another 15-Minute Review on Monday. Until then, have a great weekend!

News :: Two Notices

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT

Hello everyone! I’m dropping a line to all my regulars, new-comers and everything in between that during this weekend, June 23rd, 2007 and June 24th, 2007, there will be no 15-Minute Review done by myself. I have to leave town for a wedding and unfortunately I have no means to do my reviews where I will be at. However, if you do want to check in on Saturday or Sunday on my forums throughout the day, one of our posters may come up with a review themselves. 15-Minute Review Forums is the forum it show up in. As well, during this weekend my webhost is being so kind as to move me to a different server to attempt to get this site a little more stability. With that said, the move should go smoothly. If not, the site(s) may be down until I can fix them on Sunday. If this is the case, I do appologize for any inconvieniences! Thanks all for your patience!

News :: Changes to Layout

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT

Over the next few days you will see some modifications to my site to reflect more of my direction with my site. Full Reviews and 15-Minute Reviews will be combined to reflect more of a commitment to quality reviews in my 15-Minute Review section. You will also see some of the areas of my site shifted around including the news being placed lower on the main page and my reviews and blog front-and-center. There will be a small ‘featured’ block added to the main page. On other news, for now (and possibly permanentally) I will no longer be hosting Google advertisements. I may have an article on this in the future depending on situation. If you are interested in having an advertisement on my site, feel free to drop by the forums and let me know via Private Message and we can arrange for something.

News :: Aimersoft DVD Ripper Issues - Review Delayed

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT

As noted last week when Giveaway of the Day posted this application, myself and many others were having launching issues as well as most having registration issues (and more specifically registration ‘expiring’ after one day.) I could not review the software last week because I was one of the many who were plagued by this bug. After trying for a good period of time last week, and when the giveaway came up this week, trying some more, I finally found what was causing my issues (And hopefully others.) It appears to be linked somehow to the software’s detection routine for drives. Read “here”: or the continued portion for the body of my comments made on Giveaway of the Day’s comments – Hopefully this can help the developer of the software revise this title to be a little more compatible, as well as help others who really want to use this title. With that said – Today’s 15-Minute Review of the title will be either delayed until this evening or cancelled. Work has me tied up today and do not have much time to get to this title to review it (Though I may do an article at a later time due to the face that I have an interest in seewing if this application works with my PSP.) A quick note: If my technique works for you, post in my forums or the comments at Giveaway of the Day which application/driver/etc you had to turn off to make it work – This will help the developers figure out the exact issue and hopefully rectify it.

News :: Ramping Back Up

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT

As mentioned before, the site would be a bit slow in new material except for the daily 15-Minute Reviews because I was moving and dealing with all the fun that comes from such an event. With my move complete, I am starting to work on new material for BladedThoth.com including more reviews, tutorials, articles and more. With that said, I would like to ask anyone who has a suggestion for an article or tutorials that I may be able to cover, drop me a line on the forums and I can see what I can do. As well, if you have a product (Software, hardware or otherwise) you would like a review on, let me know and we can work that out as well.

News :: No Giveaway of the Day Today

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT

Giveaway of the Day is not placing a software title online today. This is what Giveaway of the Day says: “Hello all, Today is technical maintenance day at GAOTD, we will be tuning our servers for maximum performance, checking the equipment and the software for problems and performance bottlenecks. We will be back with new software and exciting action game tomorrow, and we hope you will be there as well to download our new giveaways and provide us with your opinions on those. We also hope your friends and colleagues will visit our site too:) Yours sincerely, Giveawayoftheday.com team”
With that said, there will be no 15-Minute Review covering a software title from Giveaway of the Day – I will be doing a sponsored review for a website, as well as some site maintenance today. Sorry to all of those who directly come to my site first. Check back again tomorrow!

News :: Issues (Appear) Resolved

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Even though my host never stated it like they state they would on their status page, they had an issue with one of their network fileservers, which brought a lot of pages to their knees today, including mine for the better part of today unfortunately. If I keep having recurring issues with my host, I may need to start shopping for a new one. Anyways, it appears I am back up and relatively stable so we’ll watch it for the next while to see if I keep having issues. Let me know in the forums if you notice anything. Thanks for your patience!

News :: Major site issues

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Due to the severe site traffic being experienced today and my webhost consistantly canning my dispatcher, the site is experiencing outage issues. I am continuing to work on it as we speak but I am not making much headroom with the site constantly up and down and not able to test my attempted fixes effectively. Thank you all for being patient with me as we hit this growing pain rather hard. I hope to resolve this soon.

News :: AddThis down - Feed buttons down

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
If you have tried to subscribe to my site’s feeds today, you’ll have found out that they aren’t working. AddThis appears to be fully down right now, and if it isn’t back up soon, I will need to butcher them up some so that I can get them up and running. If you want to still subscribe to a feed, use the below links for now; It’s the same destination as the others, it just provides you a direct link to the feeds. Full Site Feed Lite Site Feed As well, I am in the process of moving, so likely for the next week the site will be a little slow beyond the daily 15-Minute Reviews. Stay tuned for future articles, reviews and more!

News :: Short Site Issues and New Items in the Shop

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Hello all! If you may or may not have noticed, the site was having some slowness issues. I reset the servers and all is running smoothly now. From what I can see, the issues were only for a few moments before I caught the issues, so no major problems. On that note, I’d like to also mention that I’ve added more products to my online store for you that I have personally used and recommended. Each has a short review attached as well for your reading pleasure. With time, I will add more. If you’d like to support BladedThoth.com, this is a good alternative as well, as since you get something out of the deal that I personally use myself and recommend as well.

News :: New Website Design Up!

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
With a month of hammering out the CMS into a form I much more preferred including my own flair, I bring you (albeit not 100 percent complete… Yet) the new BladedThoth.com. With the new version of BladedThoth.com, you may have noticed some of the new areas, most of which are not quite up yet due to lack of content so far. This brings my site more inline with my true goals for the website; A personal stomping grounds for all which I involve in. There is a blog section (Which I have given an option to avoid by RSS if you really want to miss the great content there); an reviews section including my exclusive 15-Minute Reviews as well as room to expand into full reviews when time permits; an articles and tutorials section where I will let known my theories, tips & tricks and more in the future; a blog section for ramblings, comments on sites and more which may not normally fit into the other categories; easier access to the forums for discussing all of my website as well as other discussions (I prefer forums – It is a lot easier to track and manage than comments on every single page, especially when you’re talking dozens of pages a month and in my opinion develops better conversations); as well as an information and downloads section to expand into in the future when I start publishing some of my personal works.

News :: 15MR: File Defender v1.1

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Hello all and welcome to another edition of 15-Minute Reviews! Today’s application is File Defender version 1.1 by Enplase Research Corporation – An application to encrypt files for protection from prying eyes.

News :: 15MR: Media Resizer v2.5

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Greetings and welcome to another 15-Minute Review! Today’s application is Media Resizer version 2.5 by Sibental, Inc.—An application for resizing images and video files alike.

News :: 15MR: Power Phone Book v1.6.0.11g

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Hello all and welcome to another 15-Minute Review! Today’s application is Power Phone Book version 1.6.0.11g by DG Software—An application for a personal or network-based phonebook.

News :: 15MR: MagicScore School v5.110 (Quick)

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Hello all and welcome to another 15-Minute Review! Today’s application is MagicScore School version 5.110 by DG Software—An application for creating music notation, including support for MIDI usage. This will be a quick review because while I do have a MIDI keyboard and equipment, it is currently in storage and as such won’t be able to test the MIDI functionality.

News :: 15MR: Website X5 v5.0.0.9 (Quick)

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Hello all and welcome to another 15-Minute Review! Today’s application is Website X5 version 5.0.0.9 by Incomedia—An application to quickly generate websites. This review will be a quick review because of the depth of the application as well as the time taken to get registered, (it took 15 minutes to get confirmation email.)

News :: 15MR: Watermark Factory v2.55

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Greetings and welcome to another 15-Minute Review! Today’s application is Watermark Factory version 2.55 by Sibental, Inc.—An application to quickly apply a variety of watermarks, as well as batch resize, filters, format change, and more to images.

News :: Site Redesign Coming Real Soon

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
For those of you who haven’t noticed the changed forums, there’s change in the wind. A site redesign is underway, and I’m almost to a point to where I need to start putting it live to finish. Over the next few days, there may be some site wonkiness to come. While I will attempt to keep the changes as sane as possible, there is a lot to the backend that is changing and will be based on how fast I can change the code out (With what I am using, its not as easy as it sounds unfortunately.) I will keep the downtime to a minimum during the daytime so that my 15-Minute Reviews will be kept up for my peak times. Please be patient while I upgrate the site for the better. Thanks!

News :: 15MR: VideoGet v2.0.2.27

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Welcome to another 15-Minute Review! Today’s application is VideoGet version 2.0.2.27 by Nuclear Coffee Software—An application to rip Flash-based video from various internet sites including but not limited to YouTube, Google Video and more.

News :: 15MR: Advanced PDF to JPG Converter v1.9.9.5

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Welcome to another 15-Minute Review! Today’s application is Advanced PDF to JPG Converter version 1.9.9.5 by IntraPDF—An application to convert from PDFs to JPGs, PNGs or many other graphical formats.

News :: 15MR: MultiWatch v1.50

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Hello all and welcomt to another 15-Minute Review! Today’s application is MultiWatch version 1.50 by ValixSoft—An application to remotely monitor up to 256 computers at once.

News :: 15MR: Green Fields Screensaver v1.4

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Hello all and welcome to another 15-Minute Review! Today’s application is Gren Fields Screensaver version 1.4 by Rixane Interactive
A note to those who read this through RSS as well; I will not be here tomorrow and as such I unfortunately will be unable to do a review tomorrow.

News :: 15MR: Crystal2Mobile v2.1b41 (Quick)

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Hello all and welcome to another 15-Minute Review! Today’s application is Crystal2Mobile version 2.1 build 41 by Crystal Reality—an application to simplify the process of converting DVDs or videos to a format compatible to an assortment of phones. As due to the fact that I do not have a phone which this application directly supports, I will only be reviewing the applications’ encoding ability as a quick review.

News :: 15MR: Silent Copy v1.0.0.0

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Hello all and welcome to another 15-Minute Review! Today’s application is Silent Copy version 1.0.0.0 by EnPlase Research Corporation—An application to copy directory structures without bogging down your system.

News :: 15MR: Phelix v1.0.2

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Hello all and welcome to another 15-Minute Review! Today’s application is Phelix version 1.0.2 by Phonome Labs—An application to hunt out duplicate-sounding music files and help you clean up your collection size.

News :: 15MR: Direct MIDI to MP3 Converter v3.0.9.0

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Hello all and welcome to another 15-Minute Review! Today’s application is Direct MIDI to MP3 Converter version 3.0.9.0 by Piston Software—An application to convert MIDI files to MP3s.

News :: 15MR: Zoner Web Gallery v7.0.5000.15

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Salutations and welcome to another 15-Minute Review! Today’s application is Zoner Web Gallery version 7.0.5000.15 by ZONER Inc.—An application to simplify the creation of web galleries.

News :: 15MR: Clone Terminator v1.0

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Hello all and welcome to another 15-Minute Review! Today’s application is Clone Terminator version 1.0 by Enplase Research Corporation—A duplicate file finder and removal.

News :: 15MR: Hide Window Plus v2.0.0.0

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Hello and welcome 15-Minute Review! Today’s application is Hide Window Plus version 2.0.0.0 by Hide Windows Software—An application to be able to totally hide windows and taskbar items temporarily, with a few extra goodies.

News :: 15MR: Frigate3 File Manager v3.34.2.124

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Greetings and welcome to another 15-Minute Review! Today’s application is Frigare3 File Manager version 3.34.2.124 by CoolUtils.com—An advanced file management application.

News :: 15MR: Hard Drive Inspector v2.2 (Software Update)

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Welcome to another 15-Minute Review! Today’s application is Hard Drive Inspector version 2.2 by AltrixSoft—An application to monitor and interpret the SMART information from your drives. As this is a new version of Hard Drive Inspector that I reviewed here this review will be an extension onto the previous review.

News :: 15MR: AVS Capture Wizard v1.4.2.54 (Quick)

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Hello all and welcome to another 15-Minute Review! Today’s application is AVS Capture Wizard version 1.4.2.54 by Online Media Technologies—An application designed to capture streaming video from TV tuners, DVS sources, webcams or other ‘live feed’-style sources and convert it into another compression format. Today’s review will be a quick summary as due to I do not have the means to properly test this application.

News :: 15MR: MultiStage Recovery v2.7

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Welcome to another 15-Minute Review! Today’s application is MultiStage Recovery version 2.7 by Enplase Research Corporation—A file recovery application for multiple media formats.

News :: 15MR: Easy Macro Recorder v3.61

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Hello all and welcome to another edition of 15-Minute Review! Today’s application is Easy Macro Recorder version 3.61 by GoldSolution Software—A simple system tray macro recorder and playback application.

News :: 15MR: Fantastic Ocean 3D Screensaver v1.1

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Hello all and welcome to another 15-Minute Review! Today’s application is Fantastic Ocean 3D Screensaver version 1.1 by Rixane Interactive—An ocean screensaver with some nice dynamic effects. As mentioned previously, screensavers will be a brief review.

News :: 15MR: WebcamMax v3.2.1.5

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Hello all and welcome to another 15-Minute Review! Today’s application is WebcamMax version 3.2.1.5 by Yewsoft Inc.—A fun application for adding effects to your webcam.

News :: 15MR: CC File Transfer v2.5

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Welcome to another 15-Minute Review! Today’s application is CC File Transfer version 2.5 by YZSoft—An application to share files with others, without requiring a special client besides a web browser.

News :: 15MR: Zoner Panorama Maker v8.0.1.5

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Hello all and welcome to another 15-Minute Review! Today’s application is Zoner Panorama Maker version 8.0.1.5 by Zoner Inc.—A panorama-building application with wizard-style interface.

News :: 15MR: Alcyone CD Ripper v1.2

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Greetings and welcome to another 15-Minute Review! Today’s application is Alcyone CD Ripper version 1.2 by Alcyonesoft—An audio CD ripper to WAV, MP3, WMA and Ogg

News :: 15MR: Alcyone Audio Converter v1.3

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Hello all and welcome to another 15-Minute Review! Today’s application is Alcyone Audio Converter version 1.3 by Alcyonesoft—An audio file converyer which can convert an assortment of audio files to OGG, MP3, WAV & WMA.

News :: 15MR: Feed Editor v4.31

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Hello and welcome to another 15-Minute Review! Today’s application is Feed Editor version 4.31 by ExtraLabs Software—An application to assist you build an RSS feed when you don’t have a dynamic feed generator.

News :: 15MR: 3D Waterfall Screensaver

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Hello all and welcome to another 15-Minute Review! Today’s application is 3D Waterfall Screensaver (No version information available) by Astro Gemini Software
A note: For this review and all future screensaver reviews, the review will be kept short and expansion will be limited for most cases due to the general simplicity of a screensaver.

News :: 15MR: Driver Magician v3.16

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Greeting all and welcome to another 15-Minute Review! Today’s application is Driver Magician version 3.16 by GoldSolution Software—A driver backup, restore and update utility.

News :: 15MR: Zoner Photo Studio Xpress v9.0b4

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Hello all! Today’s 15-Minute Review is Zoner Photo Studio Xpress by ZONER Inc.—A photo organizer and minor image manipulator

News :: 15MR: A-PDF PPT2PDF v1.0.1

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Welcome to another 15-Minute Review! Today’s application is A-PDF PPT2PDF version 1.0.1 by A-PDF—An application to turn PowerPoint presentations to PDF files.

News :: 15MR: FTP Synchronizer Professional v2.3.31.110

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Hello all! Today’s target of the 15-Minute Review is FTP Synchronizer Professional version 2.3.31.110 by FTP Synchronizer—A folder-to-FTP synchronization application which would be useful for on-the-fly backups or managing websites.

News :: 15MR: Direct WAV MP3 Splitter v2.4

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Welcome to another installation of 15-Minute Review. Today’s application is Direct WAV MP3 Splitter version 2.4 by Piston Software—An audio file splitter that does not require recompression.

News :: 15MR: Alcyone Backup v1.1

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Hello all and welcome to another 15-Minute Review. Today’s application is Alcyone Backup version 1.1 by Alcyonesoft—A simple backup tool with some basic filtering.

News :: 15MR: Chronograph v6.0

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Hello all and wlecome to another 15-Minute Review! Today’s application is Chronograph version 6.0 by AltrixSoft—An application which to simplify synchronisation and offers themed system clock replacement.

News :: 15MR: Earth 3D Screensaver (Video Samples)

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Hello all and welcome to another 15-Minute Review! Today appears to be a Screensaver Saturday with Earth 3D Screensaver (No version visible) by 3Planesoft

News :: 15MR: Audio CD Burner v4.0.0.0

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Hello all and welcome to another 15-minute review! Today’s application is Audio CD Burner v4.0.0.0 by Abyss Media Company—An audio-burning software package

News :: 15MR: AVS Audio Recorder

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Hello all and welcome to another 15-Minute Review! Today’s application is AVS Audio Recorder by Online Media Technologies—A direct analog audio recording application with a wizard-style interface. A note; I can not find a version number to add to this application’s listing

News :: 15MR: FlashSpring Pro v2.0.1 (Quick)

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Hello all! Today’s 15-minute review is FlashSpring Pro – version 2.0.1 by CPS Labs—a Powerpoint to PowerPoint to Flash conversion plug-in for PowerPoint. As since I could not make this work with PowerPoint 2007 (Read: No support for PowerPoint 2007, even being a new version,) I will only be writing my comments on this application.

News :: 15MR: ConceptDraw MINDMAP Personal (Quick)

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Today’s application is ConceptDraw MINDMAP Personal by Computer Systems Odessa—a mindmapping/brainstorming/flowcharting application. A note as since I do not use these applications at all, and the size of this application is large, this review will by a quick review

News :: 15MR: AMUST Registry Cleaner

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Welcome again to another 15-Minute Review! Today’s application is AMUST Registry Cleaner by AMUST Software—A registry cleaning application.

News :: 15MR: AMUST 1-Login Premium Pack

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Hello all and welcome to today’s 15-Minute Review! Today’s application is AMUST 1-Login Premium Pack by AMUST Software—A master password organizer.

News :: 15MR: Nature Illusion Studio

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Today’s application is Nature Illusion Studio by Nufsoft—An application for making realistic waterfall effects on your images. A note; As since the name/key from Giveaway of the Day seems to not be working, I will not be posting the overlaid files. The only difference between the full version and trial is it is time-limited and has the overlay. If this is corrected throughout the day, I will add some video and GIFs.

News :: 15MR: SnapTouch

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Hello all! Here is today’s 15-Minute Review! SnapTouch by AccentSoft—A photo controlling application for organizing and downloading from cameras.

News :: 15MR: Aston (1.9.2)

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Hello all and welcome to another 15-Minute Review! Today’s application ia Aston by Gladiator Software—An application built as a desktop shell replacement.

News :: 15MR: AVS Audio CD Grabber

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Welcome again to another 15-Minute Review! Today’s application is AVS Audio CD Grabber by Online Media Technologies—An audio CD-ripper in a wizard-style format

News :: 15MR: Icon Constructor

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Hello all and welcome back to 15-Minute Reviews! Today’s application is Icon Constructor by IconConstructor.com—an application to assist you make .ico file for Windows.

News :: No 15MR Today

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Unfortunately I do not have the available time to perform my review today. My 15MR will resume tomorrow. Sorry for the inconvienience! Thanks! BladedThoth (Andrew)

News :: Monday, February 26th's 15MR Delayed

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Just to let everyone know who comes straight to my site first that tomorrow, Monday February 26th’s 15-Minute Review may be delayed or by some chance not able to be done at all. I will be leaving here shortly and will not be back until later tomorrow. I would like to appologize to all of my regular readers. Thanks to all my readers!

News :: 15MR: Tray Commander

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Hello all! Sorry for the unusual delay; It seems my host had some emergency power issues last night. So without further delay; Here’s today’s review of Tray Commander by Ardamax Software—an application used to increasing productivity by giving easier access to your most commonly-used applications the way you want it.

News :: 15MR: Nautilus 3D Screensaver

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Hello all and welcome to another episode of 15-Minute Review! Today’s application is Nautilus 3D Screensaver by 3Planesoft—a nice underwater screensaver featuring the fictional Nautilus submarine. Get the Flash Player to see this player. var FO = { movie:"https://media.dreamhost.com/mediaplayer.swf",width:"420",height:"262",majorversion:"7",build:"0",bgcolor:"#FFFFFF", flashvars:"file=http://download.bladedthoth.com/15mrs/nautilus-3d-screensaver/nautilus.flv&showdigits=true&autostart=false" }; UFO.create(FO,"nautilus.flv");

News :: Preview Launch: Forums!

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
As since I know a lot of you do watch my RSS feed, I wanted to let you know that even though it is not directly linked from my website yet, my forums are up and running. Rather than implement a comment system, I prefer a more open discussion model such as a forum layout than a comment system. I welcome constructive discussions on my reviews, suggestions, as well as feel free to jabber about whatever on the Riff Raff forum. BladedThoth.com Forum

News :: 15MR: AVS Audio Editor

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Hello all and welcome to today’s 15-Minute Review. Today’s application of review is AVS Audio Editor by Online Media Technology—An audio file editor with a hefty set of filters already in place.

News :: 15MR: Zortam Mp3 Media Studio Pro

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Hello all and welcome to another 15-Minute Review! Today’s application is Zortam Mp3 Media Studio Pro by Zortam Corporation—Today’s application is an all-in-one MP3 application to help you with many MP3-related tasks.

News :: Delayed 15MR: Zortam Mp3 Media Studio Pro

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Just for you who visit my site, today’s review is delayed. The reason is that Giveaway of the Day appears to be down. If the outage runs too long, I may not be able to review this until this evening unfortunately as since I do not have any MP3s at work to test it with, and my work day will be swamped to top it off. If you want to see the features of this application as posted by the author, go to the author’s website or read on here. _EDIT: Giveaway of the Day is back up. Review coming shortly.

News :: 15MR: AltDesk (Version 1.6)

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Hello all and welcome again to another 15-Minute Review! Today’s target today is AltDesk by Gladiators Software . While I am reviewing this application, keep in mind that this version I am reviewing is 1.6 and the current release is 1.7. With Giveaway of the Day’s install, you can not upgrade 1.7 either. ( I know it states in the ToS(Terms of Service) that upgrades aren’t allowed; I had to try since this is already dated software.)

News :: 15MR: Hard Drive Inspector

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Hello and welcome to another episode of 15-Minute Review! Today’s application is Hard Drive Inspector by Altrix Software—This application is a SMART drivw monitor

News :: 15MR: StarPort - Quick Review

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Hello all and welcome to another episode of 15-Minute Review. Today’s application is StarPort Professional by Rocket Division Software—This application has a large assortment of features aimed towards network DVD backup and viewing. I am reviewing this application as an quick review because to set this application up properly and test it, beyond the 15 minutes I would do it. I will be fully reviewing the RAM disk and the virtual DVD setups.

News :: 15MR: Smart Type Assistant

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Hello and welcome to another episode of 15-Minute Reviews! Today’s application is Smart Type Assistant by Blazingtools Software—it is an application for clipboard spellchecking, on-the-fly text insertion and autocorrection and much more.

News :: 15MR: Space Flight 3D Screensaver

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Hello all and welcome to another episode of 15-Minute Reviews! Today’s target is Space Flight 3D Screensaver—a screensaver featuring futuristic flight throughout various scenes. Get the Flash Player to see this player. var FO = { movie:"https://media.dreamhost.com/mediaplayer.swf",width:"420",height:"262",majorversion:"7",build:"0",bgcolor:"#FFFFFF", flashvars:"file=http://download.bladedthoth.com/15mrs/space-flight-3d-screensaver/spaceflight.flv&showdigits=true&autostart=false" }; UFO.create(FO,"spaceflight.flv");

News :: 15MR: xStarter

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Hello all and welcome to another 15MR! Today’s application is xStarter published by xStarter Solutions—an advanced scheduler, macro application and much more.

News :: 15MR: Elecard DVD Player

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Hello all and welcome today’s 15-Minute Review. Today’s application is Elecard DVD Player—a DVD player for playing back DVDs on your hard drive and in your DVD drive. As Giveaway of the Day states: “Elecard DVD Player allows you to play DVDs or media files from a directory of files copied from a DVD. The exclusive feature of the player is the ability to playback DVD folders and backup DVD contents (if Elecard DVD ripper plugin is installed).
Elecard DVD Player provides high resolution and full quality playback of MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 SP/ASP and AVC/H.264 (if Elecard AVC PlugIn for DVD Player is installed) optimized for the most efficient CPU usage. The built-in MS DirectShow® decoders enable Elecard DVD Player to play a number of common multimedia formats, such as AVI, WAV, MP3, MOV etc.
Very stylish and intuitive interface, set of useful features, and competitive price make Elecard DVD Player a decent addition to your ‘must have’ list of applications.
Attention! CSS playback is not supported. CSS stands for ‘Content Scrambling System’. It is the data scrambling method used to garble the content of a DVD disc. If you are watching licensed DVDs, you don’t need deCSS feature.“

News :: 15MR: TweakRAM

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Hello all and welcome to a Valentine’s Day special! Actually, Giveaway of the Day didn’t do anything specific for the holiday, so oh well. Happy Valentine’s day to all of you. Today’s application is TweakRAM—A system memory-optimization application. As Giveaway of the Day states: “TweakRAM is a handy memory optimizer tool that will keep your computer running faster and efficiently. It increases your system performance by making more memory available for your applications and the operating system.
TweakRAM defragments your computer�Ts memory, increasing the efficiency of your CPU and Motherboard caches, recovers memory leaks from poorly behaved applications, flushes unused libraries temporarily out to disk and so on. By all this optimization tricks your favorite applications and games will run faster and efficiently even on old computers.
Using this RAM optimizer utility your computer will achieve superior performance. There is no need to buy additional expensive memory for your computer. TweakRAM will defragment system memory for faster access time. TweakRAM doesn�Tt modify your system in any way and your system will be even more stable with TweakRAM installed.
No matter how much physical memory you have, TweakRAM will help keep your computer running faster and efficiently.”

News :: 15MR: Premium Booster

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Hello all and welcome to another 15-Minute Review! Today’s application is Premium Booster—an application for optimizing your system in a little different way than other packages. As Giveaway of the Day states: “Premium Booster is a powerful optimization toolkit with a set of unique features. It will scan your PC for problems and repair found issues which may be hindering your Windows performance.
Your Windows may not be happy from all the garbage that various programs leave in your system. You may be irritated by error messages which appear as a result of incorrect data in registry and your Windows may operate slower than ever before. You can ignore these errors, but such inactivity may lead to a system failure one day. The task of Premium Booster is to take care of your system and make sure such day never comes. Thats why it will diagnose your system and fix found problems keeping your Windows alive and enhancing its speed. Premium Booster will also protect you from malware programs which can be dangerous for your PC.
Premium Booster will rejuvinate your Windows increasing its performance, so that you’ll quickly notice the results. The program is both easy and safe to use and doesn’t require any specific skills to achieve good results.

News :: 15MR: VisiFly

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Hello all and welcome to today’s 15-Minute Review! Today’s toy will be VisiFly—an application to quickly convert from video format to Flash Video or Flash. As Giveaway of the Day states (First paragraph:) “VisiFly is an easy-to-use program to convert your video files into streaming Adobe(Macromedia) Flash files step by step. VisiFly is great for displaying your videos on websites, CDs, for creating flash tutorials and presentations. It converts almost any video format (avi, wmv, mpeg, mp4, mov and many others) to Flash (swf, flv).”

News :: 15MR: SWF Printer Pro

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Hello and welcome to another edition of 15-Minute Review! Today’s guinea pig is SWF Printer Pro—a printer driver to allow you to create Flash presentations of anything that can be printed, and also an affordable PDF maker as well. As Giveaway of the Day states: “SWF Printer PRO converts documents (DOC, XLS, HTML etc) into both standalone flash movie (.swf) presentation with navigation and/or PDF document format with security options support.”

News :: 15MR: Solar System 3D Screensaver

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Hello all and welcome to another episode of 15MR! Today’s toy is Solar System 3D Screensaver—a screensaver which rotates between the planets in 3D. Today’s review should be a quick one. As Giveaway of the Day states: “Have you ever dreamed of getting a chance to see the rings of Saturn and the Asteroid Belt? This screensaver is an outstanding 3D model of the solar system. Every planet is there along with its satellites and even a small info graph with basic facts. All the proportions and trajectories are right. It is not only its sheer beauty but also the significant educational value that make Solar System 3D Screensaver an absolute must-have.”

News :: 15MR: PPT to Video Scout

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Hello all again! Today’s application is PPT to Video Scout—an application to convert PPT files to video files. As since I do not use PowerPoint at all, I found a target PowerPoint file; Here
As Giveaway of the Day states: “PPT To Video Scout converts PowerPoint presentation into MPEG, VideoCD, AVI video with sound.
Different compression methods (for example: DivX, MP3) can be applied using installed codecs on your computer. You can run conversion wizard from PowerPoint by using ⤽Convert to AVI⤝ command in File menu or run standalone wizard. NTSC, PAL, custom conversion modes are supported.”

News :: 15MR: AVS RingTone Maker

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Hello all and welcome to another edition of 15MR! Today’s target application is AVS Ringtone Maker—an application for creating ringtones for your cell phone. Just to let you know, because of Giveaway of the Day having a short downtime, my review may be a little short today. As Giveaway of the Day states: “Take a part of a song, a soundtrack from a movie and make it a ringtone, record your friends or kids voices for a realtone. Then transfer sounds to your phone via Bluetooth, Infrared or USB.
AVS RingTone Maker is the best way to add individuality to your cell!

News :: Delay on today's 15MR

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Hey all! For those of you who come directly to my site every day, I wanted to let you know that Giveaway of the Day appears to be having issues with their DB connection. I did see what the application was (AVS Ringtone Maker I believe) so I will start stomping around their website for more information. I am a little pinched for time, especially if they stay down for a while, so the review may have to be a brief one today. Thanks everyone for your patience! Edit: It appears that on the AVS website, that there are 10 little mini-applications built into one for the stated $29.95. If AVS is selling JUST the ringtone maker for $29.95 to us when the whole kit is the same price, I am a little leery. As well, I was going to attempt to do my review based on the program there; However, there are limitations built-in the would effect my review and I do not want to do that. Hopefully Giveaway of the Day goes back up soon.

News :: 15MR: Direct MP3 Joiner

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Welcome all to another episode of 15MR! Today’s subject is Direct MP3 Joiner—an application with essentially one quick purpose; combining MP3s into one file. This will come in use for myself if works as advertised; I have all my comedy CDs archived on my drives but when I play them I want to hear them as one block, and not jumbled by shuffle. We’ll see how it turns out. As Giveaway of the Day states: “Direct MP3 Joiner is an easy and fast audio tool to combine, merge or join MP3 files. With Direct MP3 Joiner you can join multiple music MP3 files to one larger MP3 file in a second. You can fast merge, combine and join MP3 audio files without recompressing and without reducing quality.
MP3 Joiner works with audio files directly and the joined MP3 song will appear in a second after start. With MP3 Merger you can join your chapters in the one big audiobook or combine non-stop audio CD from many separate music tracks.
Direct MP3 Joiner has incredible feature that allows you to insert silence between your audio MP3 tracks that will be merged.

News :: 15MR: Post2Blog

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Happy trails to you! Welcome to another edition of 15MR! Today’s subject will be Post2Blog—A blogging tool with coverage of an assortment of blogging engines. As Giveaway of the Day states: “Post2Blog is a powerful desktop editor for WordPress, MovableType, Typepad, Livejournal, Drupal blogs (other blog types are supported as well).
It delivers a nice, well-designed interface and a set of unique functions such as automatic images (Imageshack, Flickr, FTP) uploading and live spell checking.
Program integrates itself with Windows Explorer, Internet Explorer, Firefox, Word, FeedDemon, RSS Bandit and Sharp Reader.
Using ⤽Portable Version⤝ wizard a �~portable�T copy of the program (with all the settings) can be saved to a USB stick or a flash drive that you can take with you whenever you go!”

News :: 15MR: ApHeMo (Brief)

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Hello all! Thanks for dropping by today! Today’s application is ApHeMo—an Apache monitoring application. Since I do not have a monitorable Apache server set up and would take too long to bring an Apache server to production-level to test properle, I do feel this application will not fit within the scope of a 15 Minute Review; However, I will comment upon the concept & design of it and my initial feelings on it. As Giveaway of the Day states: “ApHeMo is a Health Monitoring analyser for the famous Apache HTTP Server. ApHeMo makes administrators able to improve security, reliability and to easily detect attacks from hackers (scans, potential backdoors�|)”

News :: Installing Radiant 0.6.0-RC1 on DreamHost

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
You may or may not know it, but the release of Radiant 0.6.0 is coming close. With the release of RC1 already out there and the system is totally new, and trying to influence a change of how the gem installer is used, I am going to hold off on the tutorial until 0.6.0 is fully released. If you are familiar with Radiant already and would like a quick run-down of stuff to do with installing the RC1, click the Continue Reading… link for a quick rundown. A note, I do not warrant this procedure is 100% fool-proof and it isn’t extremely detailed; I am simply posting it for those who really want to use Radiant 0.6.0 on DreamHost and already have themselves an idea of DreamHost’s munchkins.

News :: 15MR: Easy EMail Photos

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Hello all and welcome today’s 15MR! Today’s subject is Easy EMail Photos—A program for easy resizing & enhancing of photos and email them to a list of recipients. As Giveaway of the Day states: “Email and enhance your digital pictures with a few mouse clicks. Try sending your pictures with Windows and with Easy Email Photos, and discover the difference! Thanks to its built-in advanced photo manipulation controls, Easy Email Photos can automatically adjust the contrast and brightness of the pictures to optimal levels, making them look just as warm and bright as the day they were snapped.”

News :: 15MR: Elprime Clock Pro

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Welcome to another edition of 15-Minute Reviews. Actually, today’s review of Elprime Clock Pro was closer to 45 minute review. Please read the review for more insight. As Giveaway of the Day states: “Elprime Clock Pro will really help you get places on time. Have a lovely transparent clock with as many alarms as you want.
Pick your clock from over 25 different ones included, or customize or even design your own! Set as many alarms as you want, even with sophisticated multiple conditions.
Choose your alarms sounds, and even sync the clock with any atomic clock servers or your Local Area Network for perfect accuracy.”

News :: 15MR: GigaTribe

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Welcome to another edition of 15MR. Today’s subject will be GigaTribe of which we will review for you! It will be a little hard to test as since I don’t have any guinea pigs to try it on. I guess I have to fire up the other system. As Giveaway of the Day states: “GigaTribe is new software that allows you to share specific folders on your computer with friends/family/online collaborators who are online.
Only users you have invited will have access to the folders (and files) you share and all file exchanges are strongly encrypted, so your privacy is guaranteed.”

News :: 15MR: Computer-Expert Supervisor's Pack

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Today’s subject will be Computer-Expert Supervisor’s Pack—today’s review will be a quick review as since I had to spend the morning repairing the website. As Giveaway of the Day states: “Computer-Expert Supervisors Pack 1.1 is a collection of three powerful utilities for system maintenance, privacy protection and improving overall system performance.
With these tools you can control what is loaded on Startup (view, delete, edit, and add startup entries), protect your privacy by cleaning the histories Windows and IE leave behind (saving storage space and improving performance), as well as scan, clean, and repair registry problem”

News :: 15MR: WinSnap

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Hello again and welcome to another edition of 15MR! Today’s application is WinSnap—A screen capture utility. Giveaway of the Day states: “WinSnap is a small enhancement utility for taking and editing screenshots. It can easily capture windows of non-rectangular form with the background of your choice, automatically perform simple canvas transformations and coloring effects, add professional smoothing shadows in Photoshop style and more. Also it supports variety of image formats and provides advanced auto-save features.”
“WinSnap can help you make small thumbnail previews and full-sized screenshots for your web blog or home page, visualize technical and educational materials, send reduced-size images through email.”

News :: 15MR: NLauncher

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Welcome to another installation of 15MR! Today’s subject is NLauncher which shows some potential. We’ll see after my review. As Giveaway of the Day states: “NLauncher is a desktop organizing utility that enables users to free the desktop from icons, folders and files by moving them to the multilevel pop-up menu.
The menu can be placed on one side of the desktop or split into left and right panels and placed on both sides.
The NLauncher menu is a one-click way for launching any user-defined applications, opening folders, files, Control Panel items, URLs, and sending e-mails to any specified address.”

News :: 15MR: PhotoToFilm

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Welcome to our next installment of 15MR! With decent response yesterday and an interesting app today, called PhotoToFilm.
As Giveaway of the Day states: “PhotoToFilm is the perfect companion for everyone who uses a digital camera. Thanks to PhotoToFilm you can easily make small movies out of your pictures and compress them (ie : using DivX) in order to distribute your production to your friends and relative. PhotoToFilm allows you to add professional looking effects in a few clicks and makes video authoring a game.”

News :: 15MR: Image Assistant

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Welcome to my first 15MR! Today’s topic will be on Image Assistant and my feelings on it. As Giveaway of the Day states, “Image Assistant is a powerful and easy-to-use utility for batch resizing images. Image Assistant quickly and easily prepares your image collections to be included in HTML pages. Image Assistant is also a perfect utility for creating thumbnails. This program works with the major image formats, including JPEG, GIF, BMP, and PNG.”
Click below for the full review:

News :: 15MR: Fifteen-Minute Reviews

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Welcome to my new series; The 15-minute review. With the growing popularity of Giveaway of The Day providing shareware/payware for free, available for download for only 24 hours, I decided that we needed an objective view on the programs they offer. My process will involve a few aspects to help you make your decision on the application and its worth. Initial feelings, quick pros and cons, detail major benefits and issues, and classify it based on its worth. I will also attempt to provide alternatives which are freeware or open source; cheaper or equivalent in price which may do the same job or better. You may ask ‘How can you accurately review a program in 15-minutes?’—Well, in all honesty, unless I’ve already used the app previously (which I will tell you if I have) or the app is so simple, I can not provide a full review on the application. The purpose of this review is to give a sense of how the application is, how it runs and if it may be worth downloading today or paying for in the future. The reason I am doing this, is so that visitors of Giveaway of The Day can have a little more insight which is objective (not of GotD’s.) In the future, if it is an application I will use on a regular basis, I will also make a follow-up review as well to mention if the application is indeed worth paying for and what else I have found on the application.

News :: Coming Soon: Tutorial - Radiant on DreamHost

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Well, I just thought to drop a line on the site right now on this before people get bored waiting whom I promised; Real life gets crazy sometimes. Coming soon will be a tutorial on how to set up Radiant – a CMS built for Ruby on Rails EASILY on DreamHost – an extremely popular webhosting company. This tutorial will cover the steps fully from start to finish, thanks in part to the Radiant community and DreamHost’s wiki . Please stay tuned for the tutorial!

News :: Getting rolling

19 Jul 2007 13:07:20 GMT
Welcome all to my site. I dare not call it a blog per say; Sure, it has a feed on it, but I am sort of avoiding the ‘blog’ stigma right now. This site is geared towards a large expanse of what I do and where I am. Some things you will come to see on my site is content such as tutorials/how-tos I have come up; artwork, images and so forth; personal works and so on. I hope you toss me in your bookmarks or feedreaders. Lots is to come in my site; I hope it is a great experience for you and everyone you send here!