I Love Free Software

Show Bing Image as Background for Google.Com
Free Video Converter Software: Ann Video Converter
Download Smiley Pops Game App for Android
Change Windows Display Language with Vistalizator
Free AVI Movie Player Software: Hyplay
Improve Online Privacy with Privacy Agent
Create Animated GIF Free with GiftedMotion
Create Personal Greeting Cards with Personal Cards
Invoice App for Android to Create Invoice: AndInvoice

Show Bing Image as Background for Google.Com

Posted: 19 May 2012 05:00 PM PDT

One of the things I love in Bing is its beautiful homepage. Everyday Bing features one or more images which are absolutely gorgeous. Google also tries to dress up Google.com via Google Doodle, but I personally love the background images that Bing.com shows.

So, when I read about this Chrome extension that can take Bing background images, and set them as background image for Google.com, it seemed quite interesting. And when I tried it, I found it even better than I had anticipated.

Bing Wallpaper for Google Homepage is a free extension for Google Chrome that can take images from Bing, and set them as background of Google.com home page. You can choose to see Current daily image from Bing, or any random image that Bing might have previously displayed. After that, whenever you go to Google.com, you will see Bing image has replaced doodly background of Google.com

Apart from showing image from Bing, this extension can also show random featured image from Picasa. If you want to pull images from Picasa related to your favorite search term (like, "Sunrise"), you can just provide RSS feed of that Picasa search, and this will pull images from that feed and will show as background of Google.com.

Here is the complete list of options that this extension to change Google background provides:

Of course, the changes that this extension makes effect Google.com when opened in Google Chrome browser only. In other browsers, Google behaves as its normal self.

Note: If you have already modified background image of Google.com, then your manual settings will take preference over this extension. I tried that, and saw that Bing image loads momentarily, and then is quickly replaced by the image that I had set manually.

If you want to set Bing images as your desktop background, check out this automatic wallpaper changer.

Show Bing Image as Background for Google.Com was originally published at I Love Free Software

Free Video Converter Software: Ann Video Converter

Posted: 19 May 2012 03:30 PM PDT

Ann Free Video Converter is a free software that converts video between most common video formats. The program is also able to rip audio from various video formats. The program runs on all Windows based operating systems including Windows 98.

Features of this free video converter:

Simple and user friendly interface.
Fast conversion into any video format.
Support for the most popular video formats.
Real time video editing and preview.
Convert video into popular audio formats.
Convert between video AVI, WMV, MP4, DVD, VCD.
Convert all video formats to AVI, WMV, RMVB, DivX, MOV, MPEG, PSP, IPOD.
High quality audio and video.
Video enhancement features and effects like rotation, adding brightness and saturation.
Customizable conversion profiles for easy and fast conversion of both audio and video.
Drag and drop support for easy addition of videos.
Support image and text watermarks on videos.

How to use it

Installation was uneventful. The interface is intuitive and very simple.

Adding files for conversion is very easy, you can drag and drop video or click Add Files. This opens a file chooser where you can select files you want to convert. Files can be added individually or as a batch. Added files are listed on the program interface and can be removed individually by using the Remove button or as a batch by clicking Clear. Listed files can be previewed by clicking the play button. You can take a screen shot of the video using the camera button and choose which format the screenshot should be saved in on the dropdown provided beside the camera button.

Visual effects and other video enhancements can be done by clicking the Edit button. This opens a new window with the appropriate editing tools. To crop a video, change the position of the crop window. You can also choose to keep the videos aspect ratio by checking the Keep Aspect ratio checkbox. Visual effects like brightness, saturation and contrast can be manipulated by moving the respective sliders. You can watermark the video with either text or an image. Add the appropriate text or select the appropriate image, set its position and click OK. The Subtitle tab can be used to add video subtitles in any position and using any type of font or styling. The video can be rotated up to 270 degrees. All changes to the video are viewed in real time and can be applied to one video by clicking the Apply or on all videos by clicking Apply All.

The Trim button allows you to trim your video as you wish. Using the trim feature you can cut sections of your video you do not want to convert. Once your videos are trimmed and edited you need to choose an output directory and output format for the converted files. The Output format dropdown includes a list to literally all available video and audio conversion profiles. Users can use inbuilt profiles or can create their own by clicking the Output Settings button and editing profile parameters like bitrates, frames per second, aspect ratio, sample rates and audio codecs. Select the shutdown after conversion checkbox if you want to shutdown windows when conversion is complete. Click Start to begin conversion.

Pros

Simple and easy to use
Fast conversion
You can create image watermarks on videos
Drag and drop support
Real time video editing

Cons

No user support is available

Verdict

Ann Free Video Converter is definitely one of the best free video converter with superb features you will find around.

Free Video Converter Software: Ann Video Converter was originally published at I Love Free Software

Download Smiley Pops Game App for Android

Posted: 19 May 2012 02:00 PM PDT

Bored with killing pigs? Let’s burst some bubbles on Android.

Smiley Pops is a free Android game to play with smiley like balls on A ndroid. The premise of the game is quite simple: you need to get 3 balls of same color together, in a row, in a column, or diagonally. However, the twist that this game introduces is how to move around the balls to get similar colored balls together.

To move the balls, you will have to select 3 balls together that form a triangle. Then the triangle will move in a clockwise direction, so that each of those 3 balls takes the place of next ball in the triangle.

I know the above description might have sounded a bit complicated. So, before we proceed further, check out the screenshot of the app below, and below the screenshot you will also find a small video that shows how it works.

And here goes the YouTube video:

Click here to view the embedded video.

You need to get as many smileys together as possible. Once they are in a group of 3 or more, they pop, and you score.

There are many different types of smileys in this game, like, laughing smileys, winking smileys, angry smiley (what an irony!), and so on.

The good part of the game is its multiple game music sound. You can anytime change the game music, if you don’t like the one being played.

If you are looking for any Android messaging app that enables smileys, emoticons, pictures, contacts, videos and much more, then refer Handcent messaging app for Android.

Some Key Features Of Smiley Pops for Android:

Play with smiley bubbles on your Android phone.
The game comes up with multiple smiley color bubbles on Android.
Check high scores on Smiley Pops scoreboard.
Comes up with multiple game modes to play on Android.
Provides multiple game music to play in background while playing the game.
Sound on/off.
Shake the phone to burst the smiley bubbles together.

You can also check out Shooting game app for Android that we reviewed earlier.

How To Play:

Launch the game on your Android phone.
Select the game mode which you want to play. You can even tap on settings option to customize settings of the game according to your requirements.
Join any three smiley pops in triangle form in such a way, that any other three bubbles with same color should be placed in a row all together.

Install Smiley Pops Game:

Install Smiley Pops game by searching it in Google Play Store on your Android phone. Also, if you have a Barcode Scanner app, then you can scan the QR Code below and install the game on your Android phone.

Smiley Pops is truly a nice and simple game to play on Android. Let us know in comments if it was able to get you away from killing innocent pigs.

(P.S.: My last sentence about “innocent pigs” sparked off a debate in our office regarding whether those pigs are really innocent. I’ll let you know if we settle on it. Doesn’t seem likely. Look forward to bloody pictures of your favorite writers.)

Download Smiley Pops Game App for Android was originally published at I Love Free Software

Change Windows Display Language with Vistalizator

Posted: 19 May 2012 12:30 PM PDT

Vistalizator is a free windows utility software that lets you change the display language of your computers windows installation. The program works on all editions of windows operating systems other than those officially released by Microsoft. The programs lifts the MUI language limit to enable you to install and use multiple languages.

By default only Ultimate and Enterprise editions are allowed to download and install language packs. With Vistalizator, you can now easily install custom language pack for all editions of Windows including Home Basic and Professional.

Features of Vistalizator:

Compatibility with both 32 and 64 bit Windows Vista and 7 operating systems.
Fast and easy procedure.
Install and switch between 36 available MUI languages.
Install 59 and 55 Windows 7 and Windows Vista LIP languages respectively.
Genuine and Microsoft certified language packs.
Add Chinese, German, French and Spanish support on Windows Speech recognition engine.
Multilingual, supports German, Dutch, Chinese, Portuguese, Italian and Russian.

How to use it

Installation was very easy. The interface is very simple,well arranged and intuitive-some buttons like the exit button were a bit misplaced.

To use Vistalizator, you need to have either Windows Vista or Windows 7 ultimate. In case you don’t have this, you will have to download the appropriate language pack. The program shows current language settings and Windows installation information. To add a new language, click on the Add Languages button. This allows you to locate valid language pack files. You can also simply add a language by using the File menu. Installed language can be added, changed or removed via the respective buttons on the interface. Changes made to official language packs can be updated using the Update languages button.

The program itself supports a number of widely spoken languages. Program language can be changed from the File menu. Help and program information can be viewed via the Help menu or via the Help button. You can use the window control buttons to exit the program or click the Exit button.

Opinion

Great idea behind the software and a commendable implementation. The program is very useful when you purchase computers in one language and are unable to easily change to another. The process may take quite a while to complete; sometimes even 30 minutes.

Verdict

Vistalizator is definitely a need to have for Home, Enterprise edition windows users wishing to change displays languages fast and easy.

Change Windows Display Language with Vistalizator was originally published at I Love Free Software

Free AVI Movie Player Software: Hyplay

Posted: 19 May 2012 11:00 AM PDT

Hyplay is a free AVI movie player software which specialises in playing .avi files. The player is comfortable with a wide variety of other formats too and is certainly a handy option for Windows Media Player, which doesn't support most video formats.

For anyone using a Windows Media Player, playing different video formats has always been difficult. It requires separate codec packs to play the various formats that you may want. The other option is to go for Hyplay. The software is well versed in playing various video formats.

Features of this AVI Movie Player

The software is available for free
It can play a wide variety of video formats such as .avi, .asf, .asx, .wmv, .mov, .rm, .mpg, .mpeg, .mpg, .p2, .divx.
There are no additional forced packages in the form of adware or spyware.
A very simple interface which makes it easy to use.
Two skin support options are available. Trash Skin and Smooth Skin.
An intro plug-in feature is present.

Interface and Working of this AVI Movie Player

The interface is very simple but feels slightly congested if you have used the spacious Windows Media Player or VLC player. All the options are concentrated across a single horizontal tool, which makes up for the congestion. Appearance though congested, the interface is easy to use. There is a help button to help you through the various icons, but on an overall scale, the appearance is quite complex.

You can set the track, audio and other options related to the movie using various buttons. Opening a file option is provided under the view mode. I observed that the movie player cannot play .flv and .dat files, which is a major drawback.

Downloading and Installation

The software is approximately about 6 MB in size and can be downloaded from the official website. There is a separate option for downloading and the download begins from a mirror server, which is pretty fast.

Our Verdict

I liked the software as it offers something different than most other video players. In a world where VLC media player and codec's have occupied the space, Hyplay has a distinguished presence. Its interface is smooth, working is easy and the whole experience is designed to make you feel better. It's certainly worth downloading if you want a different option to your existing Windows Media player and haven't got a VLC player installed on your system yet.

Free AVI Movie Player Software: Hyplay was originally published at I Love Free Software

Improve Online Privacy with Privacy Agent

Posted: 19 May 2012 09:30 AM PDT

Online privacy is something that is sadly becoming a very hard thing to keep. A lot of people are out there scheming and finding ways of how to track users more efficiently. With Privacy Agent you can control your privacy better by managing what kind of tracking information websites place in your browser. Software is relatively simple and doesn’t offer a lot of options, but it’s great for all those who are simply lost by advanced programs for online privacy management.

When you start the program you will notice what was said in the introduction about its simplicity. There’s only one button named Start Scan and there are icons of 4 browsers which can be scanned for privacy holes. Using the program is as easy as clicking on the Start Scan button is, so why don’t we click on it and see what happens.

Scanning for privacy issues with Privacy Agent

A quick warning before we begin, before you click on the Start Scan button, you should save any work that you might have been working on in your browser and close them all. Program will do this automatically because browsers have to be closed for their files to become accessible.

As you can see from the image above, Privacy Agent supports 4 browsers:

Chrome
Firefox
Safari
Internet Explorer

Sadly there is no Opera on the list, maybe we can expect Opera added in future versions of Privacy Agent. Opera is a very popular browser and there’s no need for it to be neglected.

Once you click on Start Scan, when you’ve made sure that you’ve closed all the browsers that you might have been running, the program will start scanning your computer and look for installed browsers. After that it will scan for tracking beacons that websites have left in your browsers of choice.

When the scan is completed you will be presented with the last step, where you can read the scan results and choose to delete tracking information that your browsers have:

It’s necessary to click in order to expand the scan report and actually see what kind of data which can jeopardize your privacy has been found. Great thing about Privacy Agent is that it will search all the browsers that you have installed at once, they don’t have to be checked separately, which can be time-consuming and annoying. Users are also given the choice to choose what kind of data can be deleted. Privacy Agent focuses on the standards when it comes to eradicating privacy traces:

Browser cache
Cookie history
Download lists
Form history
Visit history
Saved session

This is not all, there are still some other options which are browser specific, for example Google Chrome Sync Data, and also saved password feature that Mozilla’s Firefox has and other browsers as well.

To delete these files which can be used to track you, especially cookies simply select that what you want to delete and click on Delete Privacy Traces button. Privacy Agent will then start deleting tracking data from your browsers, simple as that. Program is great for those afraid of complexity, very easy to use, recommended for beginners.

No related posts.

Improve Online Privacy with Privacy Agent was originally published at I Love Free Software

Create Animated GIF Free with GiftedMotion

Posted: 19 May 2012 08:00 AM PDT

GiftedMotion is a free animated GIF creator which can be used to create animated GIF. This lightweight and uncomplicated GIF animator can create animations from various sets of images which can be uploaded later. It is much easier and hassle-free compared to using other full-featured and conventional graphics programs.

One does not need to have any sort of graphics design training in order to use GiftedMotion. The very basic knowledge about graphics is sufficient to make a startling animation from a collection of images when you are using GiftedMotion.

Features of this GIF Animator

It is platform independent and runs on Windows OS, Linux OS and Mac OS.
It is a Java based program.
The controls of this software are totally uncomplicated.
GiftedMotion is absolutely free of cost.
One does not need to install the software. Saving the jar file on your computer is enough.
It supports a number of languages.
It supports numerous formats like GIF, PNG, BMP, JPG and JPEG.
The size of the animation created is easily adjustable.
The position of the images can be easily changed within the frames.
It gives you the option of previewing the animation.
It enables you to edit GIF animations which already exist.
The software gives one total control over the animation which has been created.
When one is using images which is of 256 colours or more it gives the best results after dithering.
The software follows Keep It Simple, Silly approach making it very easy to use.

Interface of GiftedMotion animated GIF creator

The interface of this software is user friendly and absolutely uncomplicated. Creating an animation is very easy and hassle-free. The GiftedMotion window consists of a menu bar which is placed right at the top. The menu bar consists of the file and help options. Below it lies the tool bar consisting of five buttons. The first enables you to open the images, the second shows the export options and allows you to change them. Then comes the preview animation button, stop animation button and the record animation to a file button. The next set of buttons lie in the sequence editor portion.

The first two buttons enable you to move the selected frame up and down while the next two clone and delete the frame respectively. The frame settings allow you to change the time for which a selected frame is shown, the method of disposing a frame and set the position of the frame. You will find the preview frame at the side of the frame settings and the status bar at the bottom of the window.

Final Verdict on GiftedMotion

There are dozens of animated GIF creators out there but if you want a user-friendly, efficient and cost effective software, definitely go for GiftedMotion. The software top priority remains usability and the simplistic design makes it a sure-shot winner.

Create Animated GIF Free with GiftedMotion was originally published at I Love Free Software

Create Personal Greeting Cards with Personal Cards

Posted: 19 May 2012 06:30 AM PDT

Have you ever found yourself wishing that during special occasions like birthdays, anniversaries, holidays and so on, you could create your very own greeting cards? With Personal Cards you can do exactly that, on your computer from the comforts of your chair. Program is free, has a wizard type personal card setup where you can create cards and best of all you can add your own image to the card that you’re creating, making it that much more personal.

Like I said the interface of the program is very easy to understand. On the left side you have the types of greeting cards that you want to create, on the right is the preview window and not only that you can select the style that your card will have. Adding images to the card is a very easy task, and you’ll create personal cards in just a few moments after you start using it.

Also check out free flash card maker reviewed by us.

Creating personal greeting cards in Personal Cards

To start creating cards, you need to select the type of card that you would like to create. There are six main categories of cards that you can create in Personal Cards:

Anniversary
Thank You
Holidays
Vacation
Childbirth
Birthday

Depending on what kind of card type you choose, the style will be different and will follow the theme of the chosen card type. For example if you’ve gone with the childbirth card, then you’ll see a card style with a little baby:

Do you notice those little dots at the bottom of the preview windows and the arrows on both sides? Well that’s where you can change the sub-style of the card, so to say. How many different style a particular card type has varies, holidays cards have the most, 3 different styles. This is one of the things where the program could be improved, but since the program is free, what it offers is more than enough.

You can also check our free websites to make online business cards.

How to create cards with personal images?

This can be done in step two of the card setup process. When you’re finished selecting the type and style of card that you are interested in, you can then click Next, after which you should see something like this:

This is where you can not only add the image, by simply dragging and dropping it into the image preview window on the right, but you can also edit the text of your greeting card. What’s left after that is to just click Next one more time and you will be presented with a window where you can choose the file name for your greeting card.

Format in which the card will be saved is JPEG, it cannot be changed, if you were wondering that. By clicking on Next once more you will be presented with options to share your greeting cards through email, twitter and Facebook. And that’s all, the greeting card is finished. Personal Cards is great for everyone who’s interested in creating cards, but is not interested in dealing with more advanced graphics tools to create them, it’ll save you time, but you’ll still create amazing cards, a win-win situation indeed.

Create Personal Greeting Cards with Personal Cards was originally published at I Love Free Software

Invoice App for Android to Create Invoice: AndInvoice

Posted: 19 May 2012 05:00 AM PDT

AndInvoice is a free Invoice app for Android to create invoice on Android phone. This Android invoice app lets you easily create invoice. This invoice app creates invoices in PDF format, and then it lets you send that out via email, or other sharing options. And once you receive payment against that invoice, you can make an entry for that in this app, so this app will be able to tell you which invoices have been paid up, and which ones are pending.

You can enter invoice title, client name, company name, address, email address, terms of the invoice, and note to client. After all these information, enter the product information which includes its name and price. Now enter payment details and you are done with.

The best thing I like about this invoice app for Android is that it easily converts your invoice into PDF format. You can then share the created invoice via Gmail, Bluetooth, Skype for Android, and the like.

You can access the created PDF invoice using any PDF reader installed on your computer or even use an online PDF Reader.

Some Key Features Of Android AndInvoice App To Create Invoice:

Create invoice on your Android phone.
Provides simple interface to create invoice.
Generate invoice in PDF format.
You can save created invoice as draft or you can save and issue the PDF document.
The invoice created shows the total of the list of product or items automatically as soon as you complete creating the invoice.
Provides multiple view modes which includes continuous, single page, text reflow, and automatic.
Add notes, underline any sentence or word or number. Draw anything on invoice, and even add signature anywhere on invoice.
Share the created invoice via Gmail, Bluetooth, Skype, and the like.
Add the total payment received and the app will automatically tell you the balance amount left.
Smart search available.

How To Create Invoice On Android:

Download and install AndInvoice app on your Android phone.
Launch the app.
Enter customer details.
Enter the product info.
Enter payment info and you are done with. Now you can save the invoice as draft or tap on save & issue button to issue the invoice.
Share the invoice with customer.

Install:

Scan the QR Code below to install AndInvoice app on your Android phone. You can even search for "AndInvoice" app in Google Play Store.

AndInvoice app is truly a simple app to create invoice on Android phone. This app is good enough for those who want to issue quick invoices on the move. However, it lacks some advanced features which are available in many other free invoicing software, like, add product information, and use that in multiple invoices, or add customer information and use in multiple invoices. Also, I did not find any capability to link it with other accounting software, so that they know about invoices that have been generated.

If you are not looking for those type of features, then AndInvoice is definitely one of the easiest to use Invoice apps in Google Play Store to create invoices quickly on your Android phone. If you do need those extra features, you can check out online invoice generator that we reviewed earlier.

Know about any other better invoicing apps? Let me know in comments.

Invoice App for Android to Create Invoice: AndInvoice was originally published at I Love Free Software

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