TV with DVR & Internet: $84.90/mo
Power Downloader often uses his friends' Wi-Fi hot spots all over the world, but he doesn't visit each friend as regularly as he'd like. Months or even years go by before he sees them again. Whether they use a WEP key or a WPA, he never has to worry about keeping a password database with WirelessKeyView.
WirelessKeyView consolidates your Wi-Fi settings into one window.
(Credit: Nirsoft)WirelessKeyView is a simple utility. The main feature lets Power D view the passwords his Wi-Fi manager has stored, but it offers more than just that. The spreadsheet-style main window shows the properties on any stored network name. Users can view not only the ASCII password, but also the Hex key, the adapter type, and the adapter GUID. If you want to copy any of the information, hit ALT-Enter to open a properties window that displays it all in editable text fields.
Besides offering copy and search functions, WirelessKeyView also crams in an HTML report feature for either selected networks or the entire database. All in all, it's a great little application for revealing some of the hidden mysteries of the Wi-Fi signal you're using.
As you might have noticed, Power Downloader hasn't been around for the past few weeks. Even on vacation and out of range of a Wi-Fi signal, Power D's been able to look up any question he has on Wikipedia. He managed that little superheroic feat with a sharp program called WikiTaxi.
WikiTaxi compresses Wikipedia down to offline size.
(Credit: WikiTaxi)WikiTaxi compresses all of Wikipedia into a database that's searchable, fully usable, and small enough to fit on an 8 GB USB drive. Power D knew not to be skeptical about the entries getting old because WikiTaxi grabs the Wikipedia database dump every few weeks. There's also an option in the program to update it yourself, if you do happen to find yourself near a fleeting connection to the Internet.
As a single-file app, WikiTaxi is easy to manage--hence the portability. To install it, you extract the file to any folder. When you open it, it opens to a randomly selected page, and you can browse from there. Power D cautions users who want the images from Wikipedia, though, that WikiTaxi abandons those to keep the file size down. Also, internal links are supported, but external ones are not for obvious reasons.
For those who want to learn more, the WikiTaxi site explains in further detail how the database, compression, and installation works.
Kitty Kilobyte is off to Europe for her annual vacation abroad. Like many of us, she loves travel but hates flying. When she asked Power Downloader if he had any advice--such as a program that was so boring it would put her to sleep for 10 hours--he came back with an alternative plan.
MahJong Suite 2008 has clear and simple navigation so that players can focus on the fun.
(Credit: TreeCardGames)Instead of boring herself to sleep, Power Downloader suggested Kitty try a brain challenge--an engaging game that would take her mind off the pre-flight horrors of the TSA and the in-flight trauma of getting stuck with the middle seat. Power D's recommendation this week is MahJong Suite 2008. With more than 50 mahjong and Concentration-style layouts, this attractive and addictive suite is a bonanza for tile-game lovers. The convenient browser organizes layouts by difficulty, number of levels, and several other factors. If you like, the game will choose a random layout for you.
Give the demo a spin to see how you like the gameplay and feel of the various options, but don't forget that the demo doesn't allow reshuffling. Even with that limitation, Power D reminded Kitty, the 30-day trial should be more than enough time to determine if this suite is right for you. Assuming you happen to finish the layouts, there's a built-in game editor so you can quickly design more. There's even included statistics, so numbers fanatics can keep track of their progress, no matter who's fighting them for the armrest.
When Power Downloader needs to set a schedule for his computer to do basic tasks when he's not around, he needs to rely on a robust scheduler that can handle not only shutting down the computer, but also launching programs, leave him reminder notes, and cleaning directories. For all that and--cliched as it sounds--more, Power D relies on the freeware Z-Cron.
Z-Cron's list of available tasks should make any power user take note.
(Credit: CNET Networks)Similar to the Unix Cron scheduler, and far more powerful than the native Windows task scheduler, Z-Cron is an aggressive sergeant-at-arms, able to tell your computer what to do and when to do it, leaving you to get on with your life when you're away from your machine. Besides the aforementioned tasks, Z-Cron also has the capability to schedule tasks to run daily, weekly, monthly, once, and at the system start-up.
The most interesting tool that Z-Cron possesses, and what makes it such an excellent utility, is that it comes with a database of Embedded Tools. These tools are the basis for everything it can do, and they include a range of tasks such as an alarm clock, the capability to shutdown a remote computer on your network, activating a USB peripheral, and connecting or disconnecting from the Internet.
Power Downloader notes that the installation is in German, although the program is in English. Still, that's not a cause for concern: getting the program going is about as simple as can be. The value of being able to have the computer do necessary tasks while you sleep or while you're away isn't lost on the globe-trotting Power Downloader, and leaving his computer in control of such capable code means never missing an important chore.
The name Pandora originates in Greek mythology, and it means "all-giving." It's an appropriate name for the program that Power Downloader recommends for you this week, too. Pandora Recovery is a well-designed freeware program that can restore files you've deleted or thought lost because of a hard-disk failure.
Pandora's file recovery wizard makes resurrecting dead files much easier.
(Credit: Pandora Recovery)Accidentally permanently deleting a file is a fact of computing life, but as long as the hard drive is NTFS-formated, Power D happily recommends Pandora to all of his friends. Whether Kitty Kilobyte needs to recover an old spreadsheet long since gone, or Francois Foto didn't realize he was hitting Shift+Delete, Pandora can help.
Pandora works by scanning the hard drive and building an index of existing files and deleted file markers. This, in turn, allows the dead files to be brought back to life--as long as the file format is currently supported by the computer. Users can browse for deleted files, search for specific ones, preview certain file types like images, and get an estimate on the chance of recovery and the amount of time the procedure will take.
Power Downloader reminds users that if they found that last paragraph confusing, not to worry. The program offers a guidance wizard to make sure that you're able to find deleted files. Pandora cautions you to recover deleted files to a separate drive from the one which they're being recovered from--sound advice, and the program makes it easy to recover to an external hard disk or portable drive. There's also a portable version of the program, but it's not free. Currently available for 50 percent off, it usually retails for $40.
As you might imagine, Power Downloader is a big fan of open-source software, and of OpenOffice in particular. The free productivity suite gives users all the tools of Microsoft Office for free, with only minor features lacking support. Notably, OOo, as it's affectionately known, supports the OpenDocument movement's attempt to standardize file formats.
Go-OO features a cleaner layout and better import filters than its parent code, the standard OpenOffice.org.
(Credit: Go-OO)However, Power D knows that OpenOffice can be a slothful bear of a program. Running the Quickstarter can make firing up the app you need faster, but for busy software superheroes like Power D, that means having it load on start-up, which extends his computer's boot time. Speed, however, is only one of the reasons that Power Downloader is recommending Go-OO. It's a fork of the OpenOffice code, much the same way that Flock is derived from Firefox.
The interface has been enhanced and is much easier to use, with larger icons and less clutter. It still sports drop-down menus for fast customization, but there's no doubt that Go-OO comes with a cleaner layout. It also comes with an importer to handle DOCX, XLSX, and PPTX formats, and natively supports SVG files. Graphics rendering is greatly improved, too, including VBA support, Mono integration, better display of Chinese characters, support for WordPerfect graphics, and EMF rendering.
OpenOffice must be uninstalled before Go-OO is loaded, but that's a minor annoyance. Whereas Flock is a Firefox fork geared for a particular kind of user, Power Downloader happily recommends Go-OO to anybody who's looking for a faster, lighter, and slightly better version of OpenOffice.
The following tips will help you overcome common download problems, find the files you want, and install them with confidence.
- Is your download blocked?
- Alternate download sites
- Saving your download
- Corrupted and incomplete downloads
- Download managers, accelerators, and download speed
- Malware and viruses
- How to uninstall programs
- Pricing and costs
- Technical assistance
Is your download blocked?
As a security precaution, some browsers disable automatic downloads. In most of these cases, a "security bar" may appear at the top of the browser window informing you a download has been blocked. To continue the download, click the security bar and select the option to allow the download.
If you do not see the security bar and the download is still being blocked, adding "download.com" (with no www) to your trusted site list often fixes the problem.
For Internet Explorer:
- Go to > Tools > Internet options > Security tab > and select the "Trusted sites" section.
- Now click the "Sites" button.
- Type in "download.com" with no "quotes" and no "www".
- Uncheck the checkbox at the bottom that says, "require server verification..."
- Click Close > click OK.
- Click your browser's back button and click on the Download Now link again.
For Firefox:
- Go to > Tools > Options > Security tab
- Now click the "Exceptions" button.
- Type in "download.com" with no "quotes" and no "www".
- Click Allow > click Close > click OK.
- Click your browser's back button and click on the Download Now link again.
Alternate download sites
If you are having trouble downloading a file from CNET Downloads due to heavy site traffic or a bad Internet connection, we recommend trying to get the file from the download section of the publisher's home page. The process is usually very simple, and they may provide multiple download locations for you to download from. To find a publisher's download page try the following steps.
- Do a search on CNET Downloads
- Once on the product page, click on the publisher's name to go to the Publisher Profile page.
- On the Publisher Profile page, look at the Contact Info section.
- Generally you can click the Web site link to go to their home page.
- Once on their home page you should look for a download section or the designated page for your product and then look for the downloadable demo.
Saving your download
Always save your files!
Whenever you download a file, a dialog box should pop-up asking if you would like to RUN or SAVE the file. We recommend always selecting the SAVE option and then choosing your download location. At a later time, you can choose to delete any files you no longer have a need for. Saving your files will also ensure that you have a copy of the file for future reference and may help avoid a lot of unnecessary headaches and frustration.
If you decide to select the RUN option instead, your computer will automatically choose a hard-to-find location within it's temporary folders. When finished it will immediately begin to install the software or begin playing in the case of music and videos. If there are any problems when downloading, you will usually have to re-download the entire file again. This is also why we recommend always selecting the SAVE option.
Choosing a download location
The default save location for most computers is the "My Documents" folder. Unless it was intentionally or accidentally changed by the owner of the computer your files should still download there. If you cannot find the "My Documents" folder on your desktop, try going through the START menu and then clicking My Documents.
Changing download locations
If you do not know your default download location you can try this simple trick to determine where your computer is downloading your files to.
- Start a new file download. It can be the same program you just downloaded or another one all together.
- A dialog box should pop up asking if you would like to Run or Save the file > Choose Save.
- The "Save Window" should now open. The folder name at the top middle of the "Save Window" is your current download location.
Corrupted and incomplete downloads
If your file downloads take too long to complete, do not finish downloading, or if they are becoming corrupted during the download process, these behaviors are often caused by popular files being downloaded during the busiest online hours of the day. To reduce the chance that you files will become corrupt or damaged, please follow these suggestions:
- Download the file during off-peak hours. This is usually in the early mornings or after 9PM nightly.
- When the file download begins always choose the SAVE option. Then save the file to your Desktop or designated download folder so that it is easy to find later.
- If you continue to experience file corruption, try downloading the file from the publisher's home page during off-peak hours.
If you're not sure how to find a publisher's home page so that you can try to get a file directly from their download section, please visit the following resource:
Download managers, accelerators, and download speed
Download speeds:
The speed at which a file may download depends on a number of factors including the size of the file, its popularity, Internet congestion at a certain time of day, and your connection type. While we are unable to provide technical support surrounding individual user problems, we can suggest a few tips that may help you get the files that you are interested in.
- If you are having trouble downloading a very large or popular new release file, we recommend waiting a few days for the traffic to die down before trying to download the file again.
- If you are having problems downloading a file over 50MB, we recommend that you retry downloading it during off-peak hours or when web traffic is at a minimum in your area. Off-peak hours are generally during weekdays up until 6PM and after 9PM.
Managers and acceleraters:
At this time CNET Downloads does not support download accelerators and download managers. Part of the effort to make our site trusted, safe, and secure was moving our files onto our HTTP Hosting servers. These files are automatically scanned for viruses during the upload process, allowing us to distribute products to our users securely and safely. In addition, our HTTP servers block all additional, unauthorized traffic from accessing our HTTP network including warez sites, and also may block certain download accelerators and download managers.
Malware and viruses
CNET has always been a leader in the Anti-Spam and Anti-Spyware initiatives and we take issues of this nature very seriously. During processing, we scan every file uploaded to our servers using the latest security software definition files. Due to the devious nature of malware, it is often difficult to determine where a virus, spyware, or trojan may have originated.
False positives
It is also very common for security software to generate "false-positive" results by misidentifying parts of a program. You can usually quickly determine whether or not your security software is giving you a "false-positive" result by doing a Google or Yahoo search for the name of the software and the exact name of the problem found. Every day thousands of people report "false-positive" malware results via message boards all over the world.
Recommendations
If you are interested in some free recommendations on how to keep your computer clean and free of viruses and other forms of malware, check out our list of recommended security and protection downloads.
Getting help
If your computer is infected and you need help dealing with a virus, trojan, spyware, or any other form of malware, we strongly recommend asking our technical experts for help. They combat viruses and malware every day and are excellent at researching and diagnosing these types of problems.
Reporting malware
If you believe that you have found malware in a product on CNET Downloads, please double-check the *installation file* of the program with your security software by right clicking it and choosing the scan option. After you have verified the problem, contact us with the following information:
- The name of the software containing the malware
- The name of the malware as identified by your security software.
- The name of the security software you used to scan your computer.
- A link to the CNET Downloads product page where you began your download
Our goal is to provide users with a friendly, safe, and easy-to-navigate Web site. If malware is ever found during our tests, we temporarily remove the product from our library and notify the publisher who created the software.
How to uninstall programs
Due to the sheer volume of files found on our site, we are unable to provide personal assistance for uninstalling software created by other companies. We can however recommend several different uninstallation options for our users as listed in the following resource.
Pricing and costs
There are generally two areas where costs may be associated with downloadable software, music, and videos. However, is no charge to be a member of CNET, CNET News, or CNET Downloads. All of our editorial content, including our newsletters, is 100% completely free. We also do not charge you anything to download the free music, videos, and "Try before you buy" product demos listed on CNET Downloads.
Downloading costs
Many download services will charge money to access a database of downloadable files that should otherwise be free. The majority of these services are known as "Rogue Peer to Peer" sites and considered to be online scams. Rogue P2P sites take money from ususpecting customers for software and music files that can be downloaded using free P2P software
Software license costs
Software license costs are decided upon by the software publishers and they determines whether or not an installed software product is actually 100% free to use or if it has a limited trial period before you will be asked to pay. For example, a software license may say, Free to try; $39.95 to buy. CNET Downloads categorizes all of these types of software as either "Free" or "Free-to-try" and you can find this information on the CNET Downloads product page.
Important note
As a rule of thumb, you should never give your credit card information to any company before you are able to download and try their software products or their service for free. If you are seeing an unauthorized charge on your credit card, we recommend calling your credit card provider for help locating the company's contact information as well as any additional support.
Technical assistance
If all else fails, you may need advanced technical help. In these cases, CNET Customer Help recommends submitting your question to our experts in this field who can get you the help you need 24-hours a day, 7-days a week. Here's how:
One of the most effective computer crime-fighting tools in Power Downloader's arsenal is the screen capture. When Power D grabs a cap and uploads it to the Web for the world to see, he knows he's presenting advice to computer users in a very unimpeachable way. Effective screen-capping used to be a tedious multistep process, but the Jing Project streamlines it all for both Windows and Mac users.
Jing streamlines screen capture creation and uploading.
(Credit: Jing Project)From the team behind the screen-recording utility Camtasia, Jing is able to capture still images as well as videos. Once you've downloaded and installed the program, click the Capture button to begin recording. The program asks you to choose whether you want to capture a video or an image, and then after you're done it lets you preview recording. If you need to edit it, this would be the time.
The coolest part of this experiment--in theory--is Jing's integration with Screencast.com, a hosting service for videos recorded off your computer. The Share button lets you upload the video directly, and offers an embed code, too, but the Web site is jittery and poorly laid out. The site charges $6.95 after the free 60-day trial, but you can still use Jing to record screencaps.
Power Downloader thinks it's more than a bit inelegant to not be able to use its video-hosting upload button, but even that doesn't stop the Jing Project from being a flexible and fun utility worth considering.
Nightly Tester Tools gives you the power to resurrect extensions for the latest version of Firefox.
Whenever Firefox gets a major update, Power Downloader gets asked the inevitable question: what do I do if my favorite extension hasn't been updated yet? This time, Power D was asked by Kitty Kilobyte's cousin's sister's best friend forever, Tessa Terabyte. In her office, Tessa said, she has to copy text from Web sites and paste them into e-mails, and she used the extension called AutoCopy to help her do that.
AutoCopy is a highly useful extension. By simply highlighting a string of text, it would copy to the clipboard, and open a small menu asking if she wanted to paste it directly into the search box, the location bar, or open in a new tab, and it would show her previous strings of copied text. Unfortunately, the extension's author hasn't updated it yet for Firefox 3.
Power Downloader recommends the Nightly Tester Tools add-on to bring those dead plug-ins back to life. Its most useful feature is that it lets you control on a case-by-case basis which extensions override their version compatibility setting. It works on Thunderbird and Sunbird, too. Of course, not all extensions can be brought back to life, but when the problem is only a small tweak such as compatibility setting, saving the day is as easy as installing a new plug-in.
Summer is fast approaching, and Power Downloader is fielding lots of vacation-related questions. Kitty Kilobyte wants to know what's the best way to send her friends and family photos and video of her upcoming trip to South America. Pando for Windows and Mac is the way to go, says Power D.
Pando lets users send large file attachments through a unique "packaging" system. Great for summer videos!
Power then explains that with Pando installed, Kitty can drag and drop her large folder of images and WMVs into the Pando interface, which lets her send Power D, Francois Foto, and virtually anybody else in her address book a message with a link. When Power clicks that link, he'll be able to download the folder of images very quickly through Pando--especially since he knows they both have fast Internet connections. Best of all, if either of their computers crash during any part of the process, Pando picks up where it left off upon restart.
Pando does have some limitations, though. The free version can only handle file attachment "packages" up to 1 GB and 5 GB on Pando's servers at any one time, while premium users get 3 GB per package and 10 GB on the server. Encryption is also only available to those who pay. But since Kitty Kilobyte can embed a package in an e-mail, in an IM chat, or on a Web site, Power Downloader is expecting to see and hear about her trip long before it's over.
