However, optimization apps can be dangerous for the everyday computer user. Some require careful decision-making before cleaning up because deleted files can mess up the registry or be something you need. Although you can do many of the cleaning activities yourself, they’re time consuming because you have to locate them in different places on your computer.

TuneUp Utilities 2012 brings everything together in one user-friendly interface. It also includes Economy and Turbo modes. Economy is for optimizing battery life and power consumption on laptops, so you can compute longer. Turbo speeds performance. Standard mode is how your computer performs without any adjustments.

The well-organized and clean TuneUp Utilities interface has five components:

• Status & recommendations: Optimize performance for hardware, software, Internet and visual effects, fix problems and change settings for undoing TuneUp Utilities changes.
• Optimize system: Disable programs not in use, remove unnecessary programs from startup, uninstall apps, managing Economy and Turbo modes and running individual maintenance tasks.
• Gain disk space:  Delete unneeded files, remove old backups, turn off unwanted Windows features, find the largest data files and delete data so it can’t be restored.
• Fix problems: Are icons showing up weird or is the taskbar invisible? Get help with fixing common programs, check hard disk for errors and restore deleted files. TuneUp Utilities has a detailed version of Windows Task Manager, the window that opens when you press Ctrl+Alt+Delete.
• Customize Windows: Microsoft adds fancier features to Windows’ interface with every release. The older window interface was blocky, bland and hard on the eyes. The new looks cooler, but sacrifices performance and system resources. With TuneUp Utilities, you can find a happy medium between Windows performance and good looks.

Some apps like Adobe Reader quick launch, iTunesHelper and QuickBooks default to start up so they load faster or automatically check for updates. The apps may load faster, but they affect performance even if you rarely use them. It’s easy to find where to disable startup programs in TuneUp Utilities and it also provides more information than System Configuration Utility’s Startup options tab does. Besides, we always forget how to open it. (Click Start, Run and enter “msconfig.”)

You can also disable programs that you want to keep, but only enable them when you run the program. For example, QuickBooks Pro runs a process whenever Windows boots. Disabling the app turns off the process until you actually run QuickBooks. After closing QuickBooks, TuneUp Utilities 2012 turns it off.

To see how TuneUp Utilities 2012 affects performance, we use PC Mark, AppTimer and good old-fashioned manual tracking of program load times. The answer to the big question is no. The app doesn’t improve PC performance. The results are minimal despite our best efforts to replicate all tests before and after running TuneUp Utilities 2012. This isn’t a surprise because this is often the case with most optimization apps.

While we notice little performance improvements from running TuneUp Utilities 2012, its simplicity in providing access to all optimization features saves time and cuts clutter. It also makes solid recommendations for cleanup, an area of weakness with some optimization apps. Always take care when using any optimization software in checking recommendations before accepting them.

Have you used TuneUp Utilities or other computer optimization software? How did it work out for your computer? What do you like and don’t like about it?

AutoImager

With over 150 configurable command-line options, it’s easy to create batch files to automate routine image editing/conversion tasks. You can run the software on a schedule and leave the routine image processing tasks to AutoImager. Entire in-house imaging procedures can also be automated with ease, utilizing the command-line support provided.

Download AutoImager Here
 

Joe Tex from Shareware Junkies has written a review for AutoImager that gives newcomers an idea of what to expect.

"The installation of AutoImager is easy and intuitive, you can place the program files where you want them. The first time you run AutoImager you are informed that you have 15 days to try AutoImager before you must purchase it. Fair enough.

First of all I want you to take a look at this:

Pretty neat, huh? As you can see AutoImager is "Batch are Us" IPlus you can also tell from the screenshot that not only can you process a whole bunch of images at once, you can preview the effects. Take a look at the bottom part of the Screenshot, there you see in the "Apply Filters" section all of the filter effects you can apply. Nice stuff.

Batch Image/Photo Editing Operations:

Add Noise, Anti-Alias, Auto-Trim, Average Bending, Border Remove, Brightness, Buttonize, Color ResolutionColored Gray, Contour, Contrast Crop, Cylindrical, Deskew, Despeckle Dilate, Dot Remove, DPI Resolution, Edge Detector Emboss, Erode, Etch, Flip Gamma Correct, Gaussian Blur, Glow, Gradient Grayscale, Half-Tone, HistoContrast, Hole Punch Remove Hue, Impressionist, Intensity Detect, Invert Invert Text, Laplacian, Line Remove, Line Segment Max Filter, Median, Min Filter, Mirror Mosaic, Motion Blur, Multiply, Oilify Old Photo, Pixelate, Polar, Posterize Prewitt, Punch, Radial Wave, Resample Resize, Ripple, Rotate, Saturation Sharpen, Shear, Smooth, Sobel Solarize, Spherize, Stretch Intensity, Swirl Underlay, Unsharp Mask, Waggle, Wave Wave Shear, Wind, Zoom Blur, Zoom Wave and more!

You can work with and do conversions on these file types AFP, ANI, AWD, BMP, CAL, CGM, CLP, CMP, CMX, CUR, CUT, DGN, DIB, DRW, DWF, DWG, DXF, DWG, EMF, EPS, EXIF, FAX, FLI, FLC, FPX, GBR, GEM, GIF, ICA, ICO, IFF, IMG, ITG, J2K, JBIG, JIF, JPEG, JTF, LBM, MAC, MDA, MPG, MSP, PBM, PCD, PCT, PCX, PDF, PGM, PNM, PPM, PSD, PLT, PLT2, PBM, PCL, PDF, PNG, PTK, RAS, SCT, SGI, SHP, SMP, SUN, SVG, TIFF, TGA, XBM, XPM, XWD, WBMP, WFX, WMF, WPG, and more!

Well if you got this far you are probabaly drooling in delight with how much work AutoImager is going to save you. Plus I’m sure that you are thinking of the things that with AutoImager you can do that you didn’t even think possible before.

Run don’t walk to get AutoImager!"

Graphics

IrfanView

IrfanView is a free, small, and fast image viewer that can handle virtually any image file format (some require additional plugins). It offers an arsenal of image manipulation features (crop, resize, color adjustment, etc.), as well as a multitude of special features usually found only in expensive packages. There are too many to list here, but some of the best features include complete effects (sharpen, blur, etc.), paint capabilities (draw on images), desktop/window capturing, thumbnail viewer/creator, multimedia player, batch conversion (optional image processing), support for Adobe Photoshop filters, and many plugins available to add even more features.

• Website: Visit Official Site
• Price: Free
• Developer: Irfan Skiljan

Internet

AI RoboForm Pro

AI RoboForm is a powerful, yet easy to use password manager and web form filler that automates password management and form filling. It can save passwords, log in to sites automatically, fill long registration and purchase forms with a single click, encrypt passwords for security, generate random passwords, and much more.

• Website: Visit Official Site
• Price: USD $29.95 (Free Version Also Available)
• Developer: Siber Systems, Inc.

CuteFTP

CuteFTP is an intuitive application for transferring files between a PC and remote server via the FTP protocol. Features include an easy-to-use interface, connection wizard, automatic-transfer-resume functionality, Turbo Transfer, transfer queue, built-in HTML editor, advanced search capabilities, backup for a local machine to a remote server, directory comparison, custom commands, firewall and proxy support, path bookmarks, and filtered listings.

• Website: Visit Official Site
• Price: USD $39.99
• Developer: GlobalSCAPE

FeedDemon

FeedDemon is a free, easy-to-use RSS feed reader that makes it quick and convenient to stay up-to-date with the latest news and information. The software is highly customizable, including the way feeds are organized and displayed. Custom news watches based on keywords can be setup, and podcasts can be easily transferred to portable audio devices.

• Website: Visit Official Site
• Price: Free
• Developer: NewsGator

Group Mail Business Edition

Group Mail Business Edition is a feature-rich, powerful, and flexible email marketing application that allows users to send bulk email with ease. Options are provided to ensure rapid mailing as well as address validation, group merging and purging, backup, Habeas support, and more.

• Website: Visit Official Site
• Price: USD $349.95
• Developer: Infacta Ltd

Mozilla Firefox

Firefox has now become established as an exceptional web browser. Due primarily to its extension capabilities, we highly recommend use of Firefox. In addition to the comprehensive extension support, Firefox also offers fast browsing, browser tabs, pop-up blocking, advanced privacy and security, smart searching, and more.

• Website: Visit Official Site
• Price: Free
• Developer: Mozilla

Mozilla Thunderbird

Mozilla Thunderbird is a free, open source, cross-platform e-mail, newsgroup, and RSS feed client that offers a simple solution for online communication and information retrieval. The software is also highly customizable and expandable via a massive collection of available extensions.

• Website: Visit Official Site
• Price: Free
• Developer: Mozilla

MozyPro

MozyPro is a software/service combination that provides secure, enterprise-level online backup via a highly customizable, powerful, yet easy to use software application.

• Website: Visit Official Site
• Price:USD $3.95 + $0.50/GB Monthly
• Developer: Mozy, Inc.

NewsBin Pro

NewsBin is a multi-threaded news robot that automatically downloads and decodes binary posts from Usenet newsgroups. The software takes full advantage of high-bandwidth Internet connections with multiple, simultaneous connections to news server(s). NewsBin offers resume functionality to recover from lost connections. It can also reassemble multi-part posts across multiple servers and provides a thumbnail display when downloading images. Additional features available include Internet and local search, built-in RAR file handling, SSL support, NZB message ID file support, and advanced connection management. The settings are a bit daunting, but once configured, it provides the very best solution for binary newsgroup access.

• Website: Visit Official Site
• Price: USD $35.00
• Developer: DJI Interprises, LLC

PocoMail

PocoMail is a powerful email client that offers many useful features, such as strong spam filtering, flexible message editing, and ultra-fast search capabilities. PocoMail’s greatest strengths are PocoScript, the advanced filtering capabilities, events, and Message Templates. PocoScript allows for pre- and post-processing incoming and outgoing mail in virtually any way imaginable. It also store a message in a temporary file for processing by an external application, and notify upon completion. Filtering allows messages to be processing in many different ways based on any defined criteria, such as directed into different folders based on the recipient email address. Message Templates are pre-defined blocks of text that can be quickly and easily inserted into messages via a context menu or hotkey, which is very useful when you have to reply to the same questions a lot of send repetitive bits of information. The text inserted can be customized before sending, of course, to more closely fit any particular case.

• Website: Visit Official Site
• Price: USD $39.95
• Developer: Poco Systems, Inc.

Trillian Pro

Trillian is a full-featured, skinnable IM client that supports AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo Messenger, IRC, and Jabber/GTalk (via a plugin). It offers features that are not possible with original network clients, while supporting standard capabilities, such as file transfers, audio chat, group chat, chat rooms, buddy icons, server-side contact importing, typing notification, direct connection (AIM), proxy support, encrypted messaging (AIM/ICQ), SMS support, tabbed chatting, system-tray notifications and alerts, and privacy settings.

• Website: Visit Official Site
• Price: USD $25.00 (Free Version Also Available)
• Developer: Cerulean Studios

Multimedia

AnyDVD

AnyDVD is a Microsoft Windows driver that provides decryption of DVDs on-the-fly, as well as targeted removal of copy prevention and UOP. AnyDVD runs in the background, making discs unrestricted and region-free. In addition to removing digital restrictions, AnyDVD also handles Macrovision analog copy prevention.

• Website: Visit Official Site
• Price: EUR €49.00
• Developer: SlySoft

Blaze Media Pro

Blaze Media Pro is a powerful all-in-one audio and video converter for CD, MP3, WAV, WMA, OGG, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, AVI, WMV, MOV, Flash (SWF and FLV), iPod, PSP, 3GP, etc.; editor; recorder; CD/DVD ripper; audio, video, data CD/DVD burner for DVD, VCD, and SVCD; and more.

• Website: Visit Official Site
• Price: USD $50.00
• Developer: Mystik Media

ChrisTV PVR Professional

ChrisTV PVR Professional is a highly configurable TV/video capture and PVR application that provides high quality image and sound output. The software supports all TV cards based on the BT8x8, Philips SAA713x, and Conexant CX2388x chipsets as well as TV cards with MPEG hardware encoder functionality. A few of the supported devices include the Hauppauge PVR series, Leadtek PVR2000, and ATI TV Wonder cards, and it also works with Web cams and graphic cards. Features include multi-tuner support, time-shifting, advanced recording settings, advanced scheduler, recording profiles, FM radio support, channel autoscan and fine tuning, support for the DScaler deinterlace DirectShow filter, and zoom functionality. ChrisTV can also broadcast your favorite TV shows, movies, and radio stations to friends through local networks and the Internet. ChrisTV supports MPEG-1/2 and AVI recording (using any audio/video codecs).

• Website: Visit Official Site
• Price: USD $49.95
• Developer: Chris P.C. srl.

Replay Media Catcher

Replay Media Catcher is a streaming video and audio/music downloader that allows users to easily download virtually any type of online video, including YouTube video. It can also capture streaming MP3 files, automatically name and tag songs and video files, edit and change MP3 tags, extract MP3 tracks from FLV video files, and more. Recording can be performed with a single click.

• Website: Visit Official Site
• Price: USD $39.95
• Developer: Applian Technologies, Inc.

Replay Video Capture

Replay Video Capture is an easy-to-use screen capture application that creates high-quality videos from anything you can see on your PC screen, including website content, any streaming video protocol, DVDs, Webcam sites, PowerPoint presentations, Skype video conversations, video chat sessions, and more.

• Website: Visit Official Site
• Price: USD $39.95
• Developer: Applian Technologies, Inc.

TMPGEnc Xpress

TMPGEnc XPress offers video conversion for many formats, including MPEG-1, MPEG-2, DivX, AVI, QuickTime, MPEG 4-ISO, H.264, DVD-Video, DVD-VR, HDV camcorder, and Blu-ray discs. The powerful software provides features for cutting and extracting video selections as well as video filtering and effects. TMPGEnc XPress will also be among the first video encoders to utilize GPU acceleration.

• Website: Visit Official Site
• Price: USD $99.95
• Developer: Pegasys, Inc.

Productivity

OpenOffice.org

OpenOffice.org is an open source productivity suite that serves as a replacement for Microsoft Office. It contains the same basic feature-set, but saves you hundreds of dollars since it is free. With that being said, OpenOffice.org does not include the grammar checking, macros, and a replacement for Microsoft Outlook. However, it does offer PDF output, Writer macros (Writer’s own macro and scripting feature), smaller file size documents than Microsoft Office, and simplicity. The suite includes Writer (replacement for Word), Calc (replacement for Excel), Impress (replacement for PowerPoint), Base (replacement for Access), Draw (replacement for Visio), and Math (replacement for Equation Editor).

• Website: Visit Official Site
• Price: Free
• Developer: Sun Microsystems

Utilities

Autoruns

AutoRuns displays the programs that are configured to run during system bootup or login. These programs include those in the startup folder, Services, Run, RunOnce, and other registry keys. Users can highlight a startup item and click the "jump to" button to launch Regedit at the location the selected entry is specified. In addition to startup programs, Autoruns also displays a list of Services, scheduled tasks, Winsock providers, Internet Explorer BHOs, and more that can all be enabled/disabled with ease. 32-bit and 64-bit versions are both available.

• Website: Visit Official Site
• Price: Free
• Developer: Microsoft Corporation

CCleaner

CCleaner is a freeware system optimization, privacy, and cleaning tool that removes unused files from your system, which allowing Windows to run faster and frees up valuable hard disk space. It also cleans traces of your online activities, such as Internet history. Additionally, it contains a full-featured registry cleaner. The tool is fast and easy to use.

• Website: Visit Official Site
• Price: Free
• Developer: Piriform, Ltd.

CPU-Z

CPU-Z is a handy tool that provides quick, convenient access to a load of information about your system. Information available includes CPU details (name and model, core stepping and process, package, core voltage, internal and external clocks and clock multiplier, supported instruction sets, cache information), motherboard details (vendor, model, and revision, BIOS model and date, northbridge and southbridge chipset and sensor, graphic interface), memory (frequency and timings, module(s) specification using SPD (Serial Presence Detect): vendor, serial number, timings table), system (Windows and DirectX versions), and more.

• Website: Visit Official Site
• Price: Free
• Developer: CPUID

Dependency Walker

Dependency Walker is a free utility that scans any 32-bit or 64-bit Windows module (exe, dll, ocx, scr, sys, etc.) and displays all of its dependent modules. For each dependency located, the application lists all the functions that are exported by that module, and which of those functions are actually being called by other modules. Another view displays the minimum set of required files, along with detailed information about each file including a full path to the file, base address, version numbers, machine type, debug information, and more. Dependency Walker is very useful for troubleshooting applications that will not start or system errors related to loading and executing modules. Dependency Walker detects many common application problems such as missing DLLs, invalid modules, import/export mismatches, etc.

• Website: Visit Official Site
• Price: Free
• Developer: Steve P. Miller

Directory Opus

Directory Opus (DOpus) is an extremely powerful and highly customizable file manager application that features single or dual-panel display, folder tree (either shared or two separate for dual-display), tabbed explorer panels, built-in ZIP and RAR processing (browse files as if they were folders), built-in FTP support (can be browsed in the same fashion as local folders), built-in image viewer, comprehensive file selection and renaming tools (with advanced regex support), configurable toolbars, menus, file types, and file type groups, preview panel and thumbnail previews (including video), and file collections (virtual folders that contain links to the original files, but allow direct access to the source files. Directory Opus can replace Windows Explorer, including Windows shell connections.

• Website: Visit Official Site
• Price: AUD $85.00
• Developer: GPSoftware

EVEREST Ultimate Edition

EVEREST Ultimate Edition is an advanced benchmarking and diagnostics tool that helps users maximize security, performance, and trouble-shooting capabilities for home and home office PC environments, PC Professionals, and consulting firms. It offers comprehensive system information as well as system stability testing and more.

• Website: Visit Official Site
• Price: USD $34.95
• Developer: Lavalys Consulting Group, Inc.

Foxit Reader

Foxit Reader is a free, light-weight PDF reader that is quick to load and easy to use, without sacrificing features. Foxit Reader offers annotations, text conversion, privacy and security options, bookmarking, multi-tab support, callouts and text boxes, commenting, rulers and guides, magnifier, automatic scrolling, and more.

• Website: Visit Official Site
• Price: Free
• Developer: Foxit Software Company, LLC.

HWMonitor

HWMonitor is a handy tool that provides comprehensive information and monitoring for the CPU, motherboard, video card, memory modules, hard drives, and more. 32-bit and 64-bit versions are both available.

• Website: Visit Official Site
• Price: Free
• Developer: CPUID

Process Explorer

Process Explorer is a free Windows Task Manager replacement that offers features above and beyond the standard Windows utility. It can be set to show much more information about running processes, such as start time, file version, window title, the .dll’s they have loaded, highlighting (such as for distinguishing services), and much more.

• Website: Visit Official Site
• Price: Free
• Developer: Microsoft Corporation

Remind-Me

Remind-Me is a simple, easy-to-use tool that is designed to store and present reminders of important events before they pass. Remind-Me handles holidays, birthdays, anniversaries, and any custom event (one-time or reoccurring). The software’s interface is shown in the form of a list or traditional calendar. Reminders can be shown when the computer starts or any pre-defined time. Remind-Me can play a custom sound or send email when a scheduled time is reached. The program is customizable to function the way the user wants. The program minimizes to the system tray so that it functions constantly, out of the way.

• Website: Visit Official Site
• Price: USD $24.95
• Developer: Beiley Software, Inc.

TweakUI

Tweak UI is a free user interface customization application released by Microsoft to help with customizing the Windows operating system. Although it is not supported by Microsoft, Tweak UI offers a more convenient way to adjust settings that would otherwise require manual registry editing. Most significantly, the software enables users with older, slower systems to turn off components of the operating system, such as menu fading, drop shadows, and cursor shadows to improve performance. Tweak UI also includes many features for customizing the way various aspects of the Windows interface function, such as the taskbar, desktop, and start menu. The program also allows users to move the location of special folders in Windows, such as My Documents, Music, and Pictures, as well as other system folders. It also offers tools that help users repair components of the Windows operating system, such as icons, hotkeys, the font folder, and file extension associations. Tweak UI can be used to disable AutoPlay on one or more drives as well. Tweak UI provides the capability to set up Xmouse for those familiar with the X Window System.  Note:  This tool is for use with Windows XP.  It is not designed for Windows Vista.

• Website: Visit Official Site
• Price: Free
• Developer: Microsoft Corporation

Type Pilot

Type Pilot is a simple tool that helps users input frequently used text quickly and easily via a pre-defined trigger word. Once the trigger word is typed, Type Pilot automatically replaces it with the corresponding phrase or paragraph. Type Pilot is useful for writing standard phrases, such as signatures, email addresses, URLs, phone numbers, addresses, frequently used sentences, letter templates, etc. The program will work with any text editor. The software’s tree-like interface structure makes it easy to keep information organized.

• Website: Visit Official Site
• Price: USD $29.95
• Developer: Two Pilots

VMWare Workstation

VMware Workstation is a virtual machine software suite for x86 and x86-64 based computers that allows users to setup multiple x86 and x86-64 virtual computers for application usage, software testing, or any other operation where it is practical to have a fresh system to use or a system at a certain state. Each virtual machine can be configured with its own guest operating system, hardware components, disk space, RAM capacity, etc. In short, VMware Workstation allows one physical machine to run multiple operating systems simultaneously with any desired hardware configurations and software installed. It is also easy to revert a virtual machine back to a previously saved state.

• Website: Visit Official Site
• Price: USD $189.00
• Developer: VMware, Inc.

Web Development

Adobe Dreamweaver

Adobe Dreamweaver is an industry-leading web development tool that provides users with an intuitive interface for web page design and maintenance, but also allows access to advanced features and the latest technologies for those that want to utilize them.

• Website: Visit Official Site
• Price: USD $399.00
• Developer: Adobe Systems, Inc.

HTML Search and Replace

HTML Search and Replace is a handy, powerful tool for webmasters (or anyone that needs search and replace functionality within text files of any format) that offers advanced search capabilities and the option to replace any amount of text in multiple documents with ease. Folders can be processed, with or without subfolders included. The software includes a built-in offline browser for previewing files before and after adjustments and an internal editor with HTML syntax highlighting.

• Website: Visit Official Site
• Price: USD $19.00
• Developer: Alentum Software, Inc.

Web Site Promotion

Advanced Web Ranking

Advanced Web Ranking is a search engine keyword ranking, analyzing, and research tool that helps web site owners determine current rankings for any number of web sites. The software also functions as a link popularity analyzer, assists with manual submission to over 400 search engines, and helps users find relevant link partners.

• Website: Visit Official Site
• Price: USD $199.00
• Developer: Caphyon, Ltd.

OpenOffice.org 3.0 can import Office 2007 OOXML files that have extensions such as .docx, .xlsx, and .pptx.  OpenOffice.org does not yet feature the ability to save into these, though.  Therefore, users will need to save into another supported format.

The writer component of the suite can now display multiple pages side-by-side, and the Calc spreadsheets component supports as many as 1024 columns (up from the previously supported 256). The Impress presentation component has also been updated with the ability to insert tables with ease. Performance is not among the improvements the suite can claim, however, as the new 3.0 release is the same in that area, if not a little slower.

"The installation of Blaze Media Pro is easy and intuitive, you can place the program files where you want them.

It has been awhile since we have done a review of Blaze Media Pro and WOW what a change! Now Blaze Media Pro does everything but wash the dishes.

…

Can you believe it? Simply amazing is what I have to say. With Blaze Media Pro I’ve been able to save lots of money because it does so many things. For instance I was just going to go out and look for a good program for burning CD/DVDs and as I’m sure you are aware most of the top names in that business are bloatware and cost lots more than Blaze Media Pro.

Don’t get the idea though that Blaze Media Pro because it does all of these things isn’t sophisticated, for instance I have on my computer some high end studio recording hardware. Windows recording software won’t find it, and it took me half an hour to get Adobe Audition to find it and it then took a reboot to use it. Blaze Media Pro found it right away and it was ready to go. It even has a built in Audio Tag editor!

If there something in the Audio/Video field that Blaze Media Pro doesn’t do and do well I sure don’t know what it is.

In conclusion run don’t walk to the Blaze Media Pro website and download it.  I guarantee you will like it."