It's funny to see that most expert web designers don't change the programs they use, and when this happens, it takes ages for them to decide what to get. The good part for the software producers is that beginners try a lot of programs, and until they really start to master an application, they jump from one to another like a bee from flower to flower. Today, I have another "easy webdesign tool" that doesn't require any HTML knowledge from its user, and its name is Easy Web Editor.


Setup
Produced by a company called Visual Vision, Easy Web Editor has reached version 2007.23.230.383, according to the Info screen, but that's only for your software information library, because Easy Web Editor 2007 should be enough. After all, there are a lot of more important things to remember, right?

The full program is currently priced at $69.90, but there are plenty of other licensing options that can take your price higher, as well as a bunch of cheaper "Student" licenses. The trial version has no time limits, but has some nags here and there instead.

The setup package is available inside a ZIP archive or as a standalone file, in both cases the size of the downloadable file being about 2MB. On the official downloads page, there are also a concise PDF manual with lots of screenshots, as well as a sample site. Since both downloads are about 2MB in size, together, I advise you to also grab these two items.

At last, you're probably wondering about how easy it is to install this program, but I won't give you an answer. Why? The two screenshots in this part of the article should say it all...

Interface

As you can see in the screenshot to the left, Easy Web Editor 2007 looks pretty rusty, without anything special apart from the fact that it has skins... but be aware that the two skins available for Easy Web Editor look pretty bad, and they don't include toolbar icons or anything else. In fact, the only change is that a texture is applied to the empty areas of the main window, and nothing more - not even the windows belonging to various tools don't use the skin's texture! Other than that, the program is pretty easy to use and well organized, so let's move on and discover more about it, shall we?

Features

When the program started out for the first time, my hopes were almos crushed by the "introduction". A power-point like presentation started playing, and some annoying noises could be heard, and the main window wasn't showing. "Oh, no! This is it???", I said. Fortunately, there's a little more, but not too much, really...

While creating new documents is not something a beginner would appreciate a lot, without the proper guidance, the ability to use templates is a great plus to this program, and you can start everything by opening the site already done and available for download, that I mentioned a bit earlier.












If you want to work with this program, you don't need to know anything about HTML, because all you have to do is insert elements into the page, and I found Easy Web Editor's capabilities to be well-suited to sites with a lot of text. Unfortunately, there are no advanced coding features, so if a beginner learns more and more about HTML and maybe wants to start coding using PHP, he needs to move to a different program for this purpose, and Easy Web Editor is not that cheap to purchase, use for a while, and then forget about it...The built in FTP client makes the task of publishing pages online very easy, but on the other hand, this program doesn't have a built in browser to help you preview your work easily, and that would really be welcome.

Since this program is more about being discovered and used, I can only hope you'll be happier with its capabilities than I am. These being said, let's draw the conclusions, now...

The Good

First of all, a big white ball goes into the pot due to the excellent PDF manual with 76 pages that explains a lot of things about Easy Web Editor. Other than that, we have FTP support, word count tool, and a lot of additional goodies. At last, let's not forget about the unlimited time trial, which rules!

The Bad

My greatest concerns are the outdated interface of this program, and its price, which is simply too high.

Conclusion

If you want to start creating web pages, and also be able to easily edit them and upload your content to the Internet, Easy Web Editor is a decent choice, but you may need something stronger after a while, and considering its price, you can add some money to the pot and jump straight to a product from a superior class. Anyway, since trying it is free, why not give this program a chance first?

Developer: VisualVision
Price: $69.90
Trial Link: Download

 

Managing large collections of photographs has always been a challenge for most computer users. Finding the right software isn’t always easy, and a sleek interface is mandatory these days. PicaJet FX comes as a relatively good solution for handling and arranging by categories big image collections.

The first thought that I had while looking at this application is that the interface bears a striking resemblance to the default skin of Windows Media Player in its 10th version. Loading images is very easy and you get to choose from many sources – camera, files or folders, CD/DVD, web camera or scanner. Once you have loaded the images, you can adjust the viewing size and organize them into an unlimited number of categories and subcategories.

I was curious about the fast indexing capabilities and was pleased to discover the speed and the OpenGL support for optimal rendering of the images. This software doesn’t work only with a small amount of information on each file like resolution and file size – it also works with the metadata imported and it assigns icons for each category of images if needed.

A very interesting option is that you can hide your personal photo by giving them the “hidden tag”. A similar feature to the editing of the metadata like in Windows Gallery is the storage of such information and details into the photo image file directly.

Applicability: The strong point of this software is that it works brilliantly with very high databases and various picture formats. The super-zoom feature enable you to have a closer look at all the smaller details in an image.

Pro(s): The relatively good price and the capabilities of this application make it a good choice for the amateur photographers. The intuitive interface is easy to handle and it has clear buttons.

Con(s): I wouldn’t recommend this software for professionals, but beginners will enjoy it a lot more. The interface, although friendly, does not go well hand-in-hand with Vista’s Aero interface – so it needs to be redesigned.

Official Website

Buy: $47.96

Download Trial

Sound editing has always been one of my hobbies and thus I had worked with a lot of audio tweaking and adjusting tools. Many of them offer a standard set of features, but not all can compete directly with elite software like Adobe Audition. GoldWave is quite a serious competitor with a lot of abilities and advanced settings, all coming into a package with some additional tools as well.

<-234x60 Half Banner - left->This program has been on the market for a long time and has made quite a good reputation even in the professional environments like multimedia editing studios. Due to its excellent tools and handling of the audio files, this program has set some straight standards into the audio editing scene.

The support for audio files includes loading content with the following extensions: wav, mp3, extended audio (eax), Apple (aiff, aifc), Amiga (iff), Sun (au), Sound Blaster (voc), Raw (snd), MIDI Instrument Sample (sds), Sample Vision (smp), Dialogic (vox), Matlab (mat), Numerical Text (txt) , GoldWave Tmp file (tmp), AVI (you can load video files and save the sound from them!), FLAC Loseless Codec (flac), Ogg, QuickTime Audio (mov), Windows Media Audio file (wma).

It becomes very convenient to work with once you learn the keyboard short-cuts combinations which can seriously improve the speed and the productivity in your audio editing activities. You can fix damaged audio files and you can enhance the quality of the recordings from the cassette tape sources by using the noise filter tools. The included tools are among others the batch converting (which helps you convert many audio files one after another from one format to another) and the CD-Reader that is the best tool I have worked with so far for ripping audio CDs. I know that there are dedicated applications for Audio CD ripping, and the CD-Reader from GoldWave is just an add-on tool but trust me, it “swipes the floor” with other famous CD-rippers due to the highly efficient working procedure (even with protected Audio CDs!) and the advanced settings that allow the customization of the output audio files.

The control widow can work as detached or inside the application interface which is compliant with the new Vista GUI shell standard and you can see it as it is in the top image in this review. You can set various graphics renderings of the sound for monitoring purposes. You can set and adjust the proprieties of the soundcard control panel according to your needs. If you have a few audio files that need to be merged, you can simply use the File Merger.

Applicability: If there is a need for a fast and steady performance audio editor that literally change and improve the quality of audio files, GoldWave is the one I always recommend. Not only it has these capabilities, but also it comes at a much smaller price than other famous and expensive software.

Pro(s): GoldWave can convince you of its capabilities just by using its modules for 30 minutes and that’s not something I can say about most of the trial versions of software. It is the kind of software that owns anything that “moves” in the “audio files arena”. Beginners and professionals will be very pleased to work with it.

Con(s): None found…

Official Website

Buy: $45

Download Trial

I know I am not the only one using more than just one Web browsers, and I am also aware of the fact that most people have a huge collection of favorite links, but what happens when you end up searching something inside your bookmarks library and find only broken links? And how in the world can one keep bookmarks synchronized between its browsers as easy as possible? These questions, together with other ones that I won't write here, have a lot of answers, and Link Commander seems to be one of the best ones I have found so far, so let's check it out!


Setup

Link Commander's last version is 4.2, and if you want to know it all, then it's 4.2.2.1047 for you. While the unregistered version will cease to function properly after 30 days, you can enjoy all the features of the full program during that period. After the trial period expires, the save and export features of the program are disabled. Priced at $29.95, Resort Labs' program can be quite a bargain for those that need it, but that's what we shall see a bit later.












Now... the setup package has 5.3MB in size, and the program proved to be very easy to install, with only one thing that worth being mentioned at this point - I was very pleased to notice an Overview screen during the installation. Sometimes, reading this information can make you realize that you don't need a program just before installing it, but since only a few really read the information displayed during the setup process... let's move on!Interface

As you start the program for the first time, a wizard pops up, and its task is to help you grab the bookmarks available on your system and import them into Link Commander, but we'll talk about it in the next section. For now, I want to tell you that the main window of the application looks great, and there are also plenty of skins to try out, but beyond this "extravagance", everything is well organized and set in place, yet really easy to use and customizable. The elements of the interface can be easily hidden and revealed, resized, and moved around, but that's what you need to discover and enjoy by yourselves. I only show you the path, as usual, so now let's get down to business!

Features

Despite the fact that is supports a wide range of browsers by default, and can be configured to work with additional ones manually, Link Commander is browser-independent, so you can simply use it to maintain and organize your favorite sites, as well as for browsing purposes. How's that? Well, it's simple - this program includes a capable built in browser with the tabs feature that works just fine, and I don't need to say more about it!











As you can see in the screenshots above, the New Collection Wizard does its job the right way, helping you to get started in no time. While very effective to create your first collection, this wizard can be used in the future too, when adding new bookmark collections to your portofolio.

Individual bookmark collections can be easily managed, and I really enjoyed the List View mode of the Collection pane, which allows you to view your current collection just like browsing the file structure of a hard drive. Of course that this can easily turn into a nightmare if your bookmarks are not properly organized, and the first step towards "order and discipline" is to drop duplicates and dead links.












To open the Find Duplicates tool, simply press Ctrl+Alt+D, or use the item located in the Tools menu. With my average sized bookmark collection (about 300 links, I guess), the search took a bit more than expected, but the results were very good. Once you have manually re-checked and deleted duplicates, go to the Verify menu and choose Verify All. Whoops! My computer seems to be almost frozen at this time, but I'll wait... after all, I am not cleaning my huge bookmarks collection every day! In the end, it was much faster than I expected, and the search didn't find any broken links. Whatta nice way to end my day!Add some powerful search capabilities to the above, as well as excellent support for manual integration with a virtually unlimited number of external applications and you get the idea... If you're one of those bookmark-freaks, Link Commander should be what Total Commander is to those classic file management fans!

The Good

I consider this program to be pretty fast, decently priced and full of very useful features. Its looks are great, since all the skins included are really nice (with only one or two exceptions), and the Help file is very detailed and easy to understand.

The Bad

While using the program, it crashed once, but I wasn't able to make it crash again, no matter how hard I tried. I wish it would have been to import bookmarks from Maxthon and Avant automatically too.

Conclusion

I know some people may go "Pfff, I don't need this!", but even I wasn't really crazy about bookmark management and synchronization... until now, so everyone can change. I know it's a bit early to think about this, but I think I'll add Link Commander on my Christmas presents list, and that should say it all, so click the download link below and don't forget to get back here and share it all with us!

Developer: Resort Labs
Price: $29.95
Trial Link: Download

Today I have the pleasure of introducing you to another famous and professional piece of software, from the elite collection and with unique features that make it the “king” of CD/DVD/HDD Drive Catalog. Please welcome into the review arena WhereIsIt, the software that helps you find in a few seconds any file you have stored on your CDs/DVDs or indexed hard drives.

  

This is a program for which I bought a license a long time ago for the simple reason that it is the best in its class - so I’m happy I can finally write a review for it. You can create catalogues of the entire contents of indexed media, like any type of removable drive or hard drive. The program has been well built with a relatively simple and yet advanced interface – it combines the good looks with various options in order to put your creativity as a user into motion. A catalogue file that contains other catalogues, each having another sub-set of categories can also be exported into other formats like XML, MS Excel or simple HTML. You can also create individual catalogues, each having its own sub-lists of indexed discs or hard drive partitions.

  

Yes, that is true, you can even index the content of an entire hard drive partition. WhereIsIt can scan the media drives for any type of files, thus creating lists of contents with folders and subfolders if necessary (just as they are on the original storage media) – there are no limitations to my knowledge and I have worked a LOT with this program.

  

Imagine that you can keep track of your downloads folder, the Audio CDs, DVD-ROM Movies and that you have them at arm’s length with this application – it creates “databases of knowledge” in the most accurate way. The big advantage is that you can even select what to be indexed or not – and if you accidentally index the entire contents of a drive, you may delete the unnecessary catalogued parts, folders, files or even drives.
What other name could be more obvious than the question itself that gives the title of the program: it does professionally what it was built for – it finds really fast any file you may wish to work with from the catalogues you created. It can even scan into the depth of archived files in order to index their content too but it takes a bit longer while scanning the media which is understandable. It creates even small icons/thumbnails for CDs/DVDs/HDD Drives and some of the media content for faster recognition and trace back rate. If you happen to have the DVD you just “scanned” still in the drive, you can access the files from the catalogue.

  

Applicability: All large collections of discs and HDDs can be numbered, scanned and added to the catalogues for later to be found by using one of the many (fast) retrieval methods: search the disc number or locate into the catalogue in order to see where the file you are looking for has been stored in a matter of seconds!

  

Pro(s): The application has very much to offer in terms of investment value. Imagine you could also create some catalogues with the contents of your hard drive and you put them on a CD – just in case something terrible happens to your hard drive – you may not retrieve the pictures or movies, but at least you can find out what list of software you had on your hard drive and know what to look for on the Internet. It could probaly index contents from Blu-ray and HD DVD media - I haven't tested that, but it could index DVDs in older versions and it scanned them as "larger CDs", so I wuouldn't be surprised if the program is future-proof in this case as well.

Con(s): Just one, yeah, I found a needle in the haystack in this case – look at the image below – you can see that “tip of the day”, the problem with it is that it is wrapped into a window that bears the mark of an older version of the Windows operating system – it’s not exactly Vista-like, but if that’s the only fault, I’m sure many people will ignore it, after all, there is nothing perfect. It’s the attempt to try to be perfect that is to be admired!

Official Website

Buy: $39.95

Download trial (you can also download a free “Lite” version from the main site that can allow you only to view the catalogues created with the full version of the application)