Best audio editor

After picking the best audio CD ripper I'm going to choose the freeware which will allow me to edit the audio files. Which is the best free audio editor? Well, there isn't much competition, I'll tell you that.
It's Audacity, of course. It's an open source program, powerful enough to suit my audio editing needs.




It'a available for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X platforms, and it's one of the best freeware programs overall. While using it I kept asking myself: is it free, is it really free? Well, believe it or not, it is. The feature list is overwhelming, you can record stuff from microphones or other sources, edit WAV, AIFF, AU and Ogg Vorbis files, export your audio file as MP3, intuitive editing interface. If that's not enough you can add some plug-ins to make it even better.

You can download Audacity from here, it's free!

My Evaluation	10
Operating System	Windows, Linux, Mac OS X
Size	3.04 MB
Author	audacity.sorceforge.net
Version Tested	1.3 Beta

Best free audio ripper

'm going to choose the best free audio CD ripper, because I need my music to be "portable", take it from my CDs to my MP3 player. Another reason is that mostly I listen to music on my PC rather than my CD player, so it's more comfortable to have the songs on my hard disk. And the best free audio CD ripping program is...
Well, the choice was a little bit difficult. There were two freeware programs that grabbed my attention: CDex and Exact Audio Copy. I like CDex a lot because it's open source and it's a pretty good program. But I have to say that the features in Exact Audio Copy are a little bit better. The most important feature for me is that it supports FLAC, and apart from that it implements some interesting technologies that allow you to have as little errors as possible when copying the tracks from an audio CD. And it also includes a small but handy audio editor!




Another important feature is that Exact Audio Copy supports all kinds of CD and DVD drives: USB, Firewire, SATA and SCSI drives. Although it still didn't have it's final release (it's still in beta state) I'm sure that it will be an outstanding freeware program. My concern is that the latest beta was released in January this year, and nothing was released since. I guess they are working hard for the final release :)

You can download Exact Audio Copy from here, it's free!

My Evaluation	9
Operating System	Windows All
Size	2.44 MB
Author	Andre Wiethoff
Version Tested	0.99 prebeta 4

How To Hide Hidden Files and Folders in Windows XP

Hidden files are not shown in file listings or searches by default in Windows XP.

If hidden files and folders are displaying next to your normal ones, you or another program must have configured Windows XP to display hidden files for some reason.

If you're careful not to delete or modify hidden files, there's no real harm in having them display along with your normal files, but it can be a little annoying since these files don't normally need to be viewed.

Follow these easy steps to hide hidden files and folders from view in Windows XP.

Difficulty: Easy

Time Required: Configuring Windows XP to hide hidden files and folders usually takes less than 5 minutes

Here's How:

1. Open My Computer or Windows Explorer.

2. From the Tools menu, choose Folder Options....

3. Click on the View tab in the Folder Options window.

4. In the Advanced settings: text area, locate the Hidden files and folders category.

   Note: The Hidden files and folders category should be viewable near the bottom of the Advanced settings: text area. You should see two options under this category.

5. Choose the Do not show hidden files and folders radio button under the Hidden files and folders category.

6. Click OK at the bottom of the Folder Options window.

7. No files or folders with the hidden attribute turned on should display any longer.

8. Test to see if viewing hidden files is disabled by searching for or navigating to the locations where you noticed the files or folders and make sure you can no longer see them.

   Note: Files and folders that are marked as hidden are now "invisible" to you but they do still exist.

Best free antivirus

I'm going to tell you which free antivirus program I chose. Until now I was using Bit Defender, a commercial solution. Will I find a freeware alternative?

I've tested three free antivirus solutions: AVG, Antivir and Avast!. After some quick considerations I chose... Avast! Although it doesn't provide e-mail scan, everything else is quite ok, including the reasonable memory usage during the real-time protection. It provides anti-spyware protection and anti-rootkit protection too, and it's quite simple to use.

Right before my system crash I scanned everything with Bit Defender and it didn't find any threats. Now I'm going to use Avast!, I'm curious to see if it finds something.



Well, surprise: it found about 9 threats and deleted all of them. I was quite satisfied with Avast!, it's easy to use and goes lightly on the system resources. Bit Defender? Goodbye!

You can download Avast! from here, it's free!

My Evaluation	8.5
Operating System	Windows All
Size	23.1 MB
Author	ALWIL Software
Version Tested	4.8HomeEdition