Many game and movie trailers come today as high definition files in the QuickTime MOV file format. The problem is that not many players support this format, especially if it is encoded using one the latest codecs, the H.264. In such a case you would need a good tool to convert it into other more popular and accessible formats, like DivX AVI or WMV (windows media video).

  

The Ultra QuickTime Converter comes as a handy solution for those who wish to transcode QuickTime MOV, QT, MP4, M4V files to AVI, DivX, Xvid, MPEG1, MPEG2, VCD, SVCD, DVD, WMV format. A very good thing is that the software is well integrated with the Windows Vista Aero Shell, and it has been built to work independently: you don’t even need to have already installed any version of the QuickTime player itself – you can decode files with ease and save them into the format of your choice.

  

However, the converter does not support the M4V type of files that have been downloaded from Apple iTunes Music Store, because such files are protected by the DRM (digital rights management) standard. Also, the encoding in the DivX format is rather limited (even if you have lots of options to choose from in the menu) – it uses embedded libraries from the Divx 5 version, which is already an old standard when compared to the new 6.7.0 version. That is why even the top resolution that you encode your videos into is 720x576, unlike the new type of videos of HD resolutions like 720p and 1080p. But there is a trick – if you convert for example a native 1080p resolution MOV file into an AVI one, you can keep the original resolution and give the settings the max value for the DivX encoding and you will get an HD AVI video of 1080p!

  

Applicability: The converter can be ideal for home use and generally for newbies who wish to simply transcode MOV, MP4 or M4V files (not downloaded from iTunes) into other more accessible types of files.

Pro(s): The price is relatively fair and you get a simple and an easy-to-work-with interface. The application does not need any wizard as any action can be seen and monitored. The converter makes use of the new dual-core CPUs.

Con(s): Each codec can adjust its on settings of compression, but this converter does not give access to such panels. Oh, an it's Resolution not just Solution in the first file information field title!

Official site

Buy: $29

Download trial

The fact that you're a student doesn't give you suddenly the know-how required to write and edit essays as your teachers are asking, and when using a text editor for office workers or programmers, students often end up in frustration. Since every task seems to get its software these days, a text editor for students shouldn't be something out of ordinary, so here it is: Notebook Report Writer!


Setup

Notebook Report Writer is a program written in java, so it works on virtually any popular computer platform available at this time, including Mac OS and a plethora of Linux distributions, alongside with Windows, of course.

Priced at $25, Report Writer is available as a trial version without any obvious limitations. Downloading the 1MB setup package for the Windows platform shouldn't be a problem for anyone, and installing it is just as easy. Anyway, it's interesting to note that the license agreement is one of the shortest I have ever seen, and the installation folder is the third directory in the parent folder, located in Program Files by default, making it harder to reach the location of your program, if you ever need to get there.


Interface

As you can see in the screenshot to the left, Notebook Report Writer's interface is painfully simple, since it has no toolbar, no additional panes except the one to the right, where you can see the pages of the current document, not even a status bar! Now, if you enjoy extremely simple things, you will like this program's interface, but considering its looks... you'd better grab a pen and a piece of paper, it's cheaper!


Features

The features of this program are only a few, in my opinion, but the idea is to keep things as simple as possible. After all, the secret of success is to concentrate on your task, and leave the useless things aside. Unfortunately, too many things were left aside. For example, when you open or save a file, the dialog window doesn't give you any choices for the file type to use. For example, I can write a document and save it as an EXE file. Not really funny...



The so-called document templates are simply a bad joke, and I can't call them more than this, because a document that opens with "Title", "Header" and "body body body body" with different fonts can't be really considered a document template, although it matches the definition of a template.

Features that really work and look nice are the spell checker that has learning abilities, the word count tool, and the Template tool that allows you to define your own templates.

At last, I also consider the Help "system" of this program a bad joke. Just check the Help menu, choose Report Writer Help, and you'll get what I mean. Time for some conclusions, now!


The Good

Notebook Report Writer is easy to use and can prove quite helpful for its targeted class of users, and the word count and spell checker tools, together with the template editor add some value to the package.

The Bad

Being a Java program, this application uses more system resources than it should, and its interface shows some refresh problems, overlapping other window for quite long after minimizing the application. The price is really scary, considering what you get, but especially what you don't get...

Conclusion

It could have been worse... and since this program is not a complete disaster, you can try it, and maybe you'll appreciate it more than I do. If you are going to enjoy this piece of code, please don't forget to get back here and share your thoughts with us!

Developer: Notebook Press
Price: $25
Trial Link: Download

As long as good FTP clients will be around to be grabbed and brought here on the dissection table, it's going to be my pleasure to check them out for you, despite the fact that more and more programs come with built in FTP clients. After all, it's like the mobile phones with camera and MP3 players built in - they won't be able to replace the real things anytime soon, in my opinion, and today we'll check a 100% FTP client software, called AceFTP Pro...


Setup

The last version of this FTP client is 3.80.3, and this is compatible with Windows 2000, 2003, XP and even Vista. While the full program is valued by its producer at $29.95, you can try the trial version for 30 days without the smallest functional limitation, so things look great from this point of view.

To install this program, you need to download the 5.2MB setup package first, and I hope you won't have any problems with this part, because I didn't. As you install the program, you must be careful not to include the VMN Toolbar, unless you really want to have another toolbar inside your Internet Explorer... other than that, everything works smoothly, without the need to think much, just click some "Next" buttons, as usual...


Interface

Despite the fact that I didn't fall off my chair when I saw AceFTP Pro for the first time, after using it for a while I must admit that its interface is well designed, including some small yet interesting things, like the download status bars included in the status bar. Having a Windows XP style, the interface of this program is easy to use, highly customizable and - whatta joy! - allows you to use tabs and have more connections and local browsers open at the same time.


Features

At first sight, AceFTP Pro doesn't seem to be more than a basic-average FTP client, but as you spend more and more time with it, the plethora of features included unfolds, creating a much better view of the whole program. First of all, I must repeat what I said above - it is simply great to know that your FTP client can connect to a couple remote locations at once and download files simultaneously from all of them, because I've seen a lot of other programs from this category that cost more and can't do this.

Regarding the support for connection types, nothing is out of ordinary here, in fact you get only the basic - FTP and HTTP/HTTPS, that's all. Despite this, there's a very interesting thing about the included FTP connections that you only need to click once to get in...

For a long time, as I was using the program, I felt really sorry about the lack of a site manager as I was used to, and a solid collection of FTP servers to connect to, so here's what you should do to avoid this... Simply press Ctrl+W, or use the File menu, and choose the first option, called Connect. Once you do this, the AceFTP Site Profiles window comes up.

The Popular Sites folder inside the AceFTP Site Profiles contains 6 categories - Anti-Virus, Browsers, Games, Hardware, Operating Systems and Software, but as it always happens with this part, there could be at least two times the current number of items here. Of course that this can be easily solved, by adding your own sites, so things don't look that bad at all!

The list of interesting features also includes a backup/restore tool that's very easy to use, and can be used to backup and restore files from a remote server to your local drives, so your site's files will always be safe... only as long as you do regular backups, of course!

The competion actions that can be chosen include disconnectiong from the Internet, logging off the current Windows user and you can even choose to power off your computer automatically when the transfers are complete.

At last, you should check the Options, accesible from two places - the Log menu, and the Tools menu (first it's called Options, then General Preferences, but it's the same thing, after all). AceFTP Pro has good support for external applications and the settings of the program are pretty easy to understand.


The Good

This program looks good, works great and is easy to use, all these coming for a decent price. The built in Viewer and the highly customizable interface add a lot to the value of this software.

The Bad

Some choices taken during the user interface design stage are at least strange, since the Options window can be accessed from two different menus, hidden under two different names, and the main window can get pretty cluttered if you don't pay attention to hide the elements that are not useful to you.

Conclusion

AceFTP Pro sounds good to me, and I didn't have a great day to be generous - it's all the merit of the team at Visicom Media that worked on it, and also I have to give as many thumbs up as possible for the pricing and the fully-featured trial version. Good work, guys, keep it up!

Developer: Visicom Media Inc.
Price: $29.95
Trial Link: Download

 

Online videos have gained a lot of popularity lately and some sites even let you download them and enjoy them from your computer’s hard drive. YouTube doesn’t allow users to download the videos but the new download managers out there are starting to feature such options. I am going to assume that you could download a video that is not copyright protected for personal use and entertainment. The developers from Easiest Utils came up with an encoder capable of encoding such video files from YouTube into video AVI files, YouTube FLV to AVI Converter.

The interface is rather quite simple and very friendly, though a bit small. I have selected the Pro version just to see what it is capable of. From the start I can say that the trial nag screen is very irritating – so basically the same idea I have encountered in other shareware pieces of software – you don’t even get to see exactly what the software can do or how good it does the job and you’re already given the “buy software” interface.

As if that wasn’t enough, you also get to try it out 3 times and that’s all you get – nothing more, unless of course, you buy it, which is another downside. Moving on to see the actual test of accuracy and features: you can have 2 options – once you have loaded the video, you can either let the application decide upon the audio-video bitrates and resolution, or you can customize the settings yourself. You can also download videos from YouTube by using the wizard.

Applicability: Are you kidding me? Doesn’t the name say it all? Obviously the only reason why you would even consider buying such a piece of software is for the sole purpose of bringing “allegedly” some quality into flv format videos from YouTube.

 

Pro(s): The idea of enhancing the quality in typically low-resolution format video from YouTube is a good idea, but it needs some serious improvements.

Con(s): No, I didn’t want to be harsh o this review with this tiny application, but seriously, I would have expected more form a shareware application – because if I’m paying (by the way not a very cheap price!) I wish to have something really good, but such a rule does not apply in this case. There are even free applications that do the job a LOT better and easier.

Official website

Buy: 27.20 Euro (about $39)

Download trial

There are plenty of reasons why there is a need to compress files and documents these days – ranging from disk space efficiency and storage propriety advantages to back-ups of original and important documents on small storage devices like portable hard drives, memory sticks and web space. Sometimes not only the compression/archiving is needed, but also the encryption that can protect the archived files from unauthorized access. Power Archiver is one of the best tools for this job, and it has a lot of functions and a large archive compatibility list.

  

I have been using this program for a long time, ever since the 5.0 version and I was impressed with the capabilities at first sight back then, and I still admire it for how it works today. You know, it’s like one of those programs meant to set a standard and rule over any other from its class. I have never seen a better file archiver to support the conversion between archive formats - so it takes the archives and it decompresses them and then recompresses them in a different format.

  

You might wonder how is this useful – well, sending files over the network archived using 7Zip compression for example might not come in handy for people who do not have any archive handler installed under Windows XP. But windows XP can handle zip files easily because it treats them as folders and so you could use the conversion utility to convert all the other archives into zip files in order to make them more accessible.

   

Multiple folders need to be archived? No problem, Power Archiver can handle and create multiple archives at the same time (although you might need a good CPU and enough RAM memory for working with really big files, larger than let’s say 500 MB). The interface is very friendly and it is quite intuitive and easy to work with. If you wish to encrypt archived files you have more options: you could use the encryption wizard, you can choose from the various formats and also you can create password-protected archives. I would recommend actually the “cab” (with the LSX maximum compression setting) as the safest and best compression method.

  

The SFX Archive creator utility is a wizard designed to help you create even more user-friendly archive files – these ones can self-extract – so obviously will not even need to have any archive handler installed on the computer where you are going to unwrap it. You can customize it by choosing the format and some options for the output file.

Applicability: Obviously, this program will be able to help you manage your archive files in a very professional and efficient way. Any company that deals with archiving files and important documents on a daily basis by creating back-ups should be interested in its capabilities.

Pro(s): This is one of those many-in-one tools, and it is compatible with almost all known archive file formats. Not only you can open any archive file, but also you can create SFX-Archives (password-protected if needed). You can even build software deployment and setup files with the SFX wizard!

Con(s): If it had the capability to create KGB archive, RAR and UHA compressed files it would be the perfect archiving tool! However, I think that the absence of these functions has nothing to do with the creativity of the developers, but rather with legal license for introducing support for these file formats.

Official site (one of the best looking software sites also!)

Buy:   $19.95

Download Trial