We're always happy to receive news about new software releases, and every time this happens, we have to share them with you. Today, we just got an email from Flexense Computing Systems Ltd. regarding the new version of their integrated file management toolkit called FlexTk. Released on the 14th of December, this latest version is labeled 1.6.44, adding over 200 new file classification rules, taking the total number of supported file types up to over 800...


The feature list of the program includes the ability to analyze disk utilization, classify and categorize files, copy large amounts of data in a fault-tolerant way, located wasted storage capacity, generate hash signatures for files and directories, wipe senzitive data, and more.

FlexTk is available in 2 versions, a freeware "light" edition, called FlexTk Express, and FlexTk Professional, that's more powerful and flexible, aimed at professionals and power users. This version is available as a 30 days trial, and it's priced at $25. You can download both of them from here, and if you want to know more, you can check this page, or wait just a few days, until we spare some time to review FlexTk Professional for you on SoftDistrict!

If you need to retrieve your CD and DVD discs in an instant, keeping them in order is only a part of the problem. The other part is to find a good program to keep a digital catalog of your media that allows fast and accurate searching, loans management and so on, and WhereIsIt has been my favorite such program in the last years. Version 3.84 has a review here on SoftDistrict already, so you can check it out now, if you missed it when it was published, because all I want to do now is tell you about version 3.90, the latest build available...

The list of changes since version 3.84 is very long, but it includes a lot of fixes. Last release, 3.90 build 1213, comes with serious updates to the search engine (Unicode-support for searching with regular expressions, searching diacritic insensitive by default, and most critical parts of the search engine were rewritten in assembly language, to maximize its efficiency). Looking on the development history page on the official site, all I can conclude is that most changes involve Unicode support, as well as fixing issues related to its introduction, done in version 3.90 Beta 1.

I won't take any minute from your precious time with further details on this program, because I am sure you have something better to do, like reading the review that I just mentioned above...

Despite the fact that Firefox keeps eating Internet Explorer's market share slowly, bu surely, Internet Explorer is still the dominant browser on the Windows platform. Microsoft had a hard time with the European Commission so far, being already forced to ship Windows versions without the Windows Media Player included in some European countries, and now it seems they are going to face some charges again.


This time, Opera filed an antitrust complaint regarding Microsoft's abuse related to the ties between IE and Windows and the fact that they don't comply with W3C standards when it comes to the way IE is rendering pages. According to Opera's CEO, the reason of this complaint is the fact that Microsoft seems to "make choices" for Windows users. "We are filing this complaint on behalf of all consumers who are tired of having a monopolist make choices for them.", he said.

I don't understand one thing - why do they bother with this? I use Opera for almost 50% of my browsing time, but I admit that this browser has sometimes problems with certain websites, and in some of these cases, it's not about IE-optimized ones. I use Opera because it's very secure, and it has a lot of features that I enjoy, that's all.

Well, leaving the reasons behind, what Opera wants doesn't seem to be out of this world - first of all, Microsoft should stop bundling Internet Explorer with Windows, and second, they should offer alternative browsers installed in their operating systems. Both sound nice, although the second solution aims towards having Opera bundled with Windows.

At this time, the complaint has been just filed, so we should wait for some time to hear news regarding this problem. Anyway, in my opinion, best choice would be to have a Windows release full of free software, tested and approved by Microsoft themselves, but I am already dreaming too much...or not?

This is going to be a very short article, but the knowledge inside it is going to help you save a lot of your precious time. I usually keep my Quick Launch items as few as possible, but I know people having at least 10 of them, and quick access using the keyboard is an excellent thing to have...


The only reason that I missed to add this to my 9 Vista keyboard shortcuts list is the fact that I didn't find it anywhere, and despite the simplicity of these shortcuts... I didn't figure them out without any help, I must admit!

Now, let's drop anything else - here's the secret Windows key+1..0! Incredibly simple, isn't it? So, to launch the first item located in the Quick Launch bar, you have to use the Windows key+1, Windows key+2 for the second one (from left to right), and so on.

In the meantime, I'll keep searching for a keyboard path to the item number 11 and above from the Quick Launch bar, but for now, I hope today's info is going to be as interesting for you, as it was for me discovering it!

As I was saying here, SmartFTP is a FTP client that gets regular updates from its producer, SmartSoft Ltd., but I must confess I was surprised to see a new version so soon. Well, it may be a minor one, but there are some changes to be noticed, so I must tell you about them...


Exactly a week ago, I was telling you about SmartFTP 2.5.1008.21, a minor release with some serious new features, but in the meantime, the guys from SmartSoft have been working around the clock, producing a new build almost every day, and now you will find out about the new things added, and the fixes made that brought the current version up to 2.5.1008.26.

Builds .22 and .23 fixed small issues, like COM registration with 64-bit setup, but build .24 made the Transfer Queue Items use raw log now, which should reduce memory usage, according to the official site. Next build enabled support for proftpd's updated SITE UTIME command, while the last one, released yesterday, made it possible to download hidden files when using the RETR command from the command line.

These being said, you have one more proof that SmartFTP is one of those products that is really worth your money, but you don't have to believe me... grab the program from the official download page and give it a try, I am sure it won't disappoint you!