The following is a list of 50 great software applications that you can download and install for free. The list is originally compiled by TechVivo and edited by Elias Kifle.
1. Audacity – Audacity is a free, easy-to-use audio editor and recorder for Windows
2. VirtualDub – VirtualDub is a video capture and video processing application for Windows
3. Avidemux – Avidemux is a free video editor designed for simple cutting, filtering, and encoding tasks.
4. K-Lite Mega Codec Pack – K-Lite Codec Pack is a collection of codes, needed for encoding and decoding (playing) audio and video formats. With the K-Lite Codec Pack you should be able to play most of the popular audio and video formats, even the rare ones.
5. SUPER – If you need a simple, efficient, and ugly tool to convert any of your multimedia files into any other format, then SUPER is all you need
6. FormatFactory – If you need a simple, efficient, easy-to-use, and a not-so-hideously-ugly tool to convert any of your multimedia files into any other format, then FormatFactory is all you need
7. Mozilla Sunbird – Sunbird is an open-source, cross-platform calendar application.
8. VLC Media Player – VLC Media Player is a multimedia player that can play most of the audio and video formats out there, including DVDs and CDs, without the need of a codec.
9. WinAmp – WinAmp is a fast and flexible music and video player for Windows
10. Media Player Classic – Media Player Classic looks like Windows Media Player 6, but with additional features, such as AVI subtitle support, QuickTime and RealVideo support, and a few built-in codec. And it doesn’t have the bloat the Windows Media Player 11 has.
11. KeePas – KeePas is an opensource password manager which helps you manage your passwords in a secure way
12. MemoKeys – MemoKeys allows you to create shortcut key combinations (hotkeys) and associate them with any text information of your choice.
13. AutoIt – AutoIt is a freeware BASIC-like scripting language designed for automating the Windows GUI
14. AutoHotKey – AutoHotKey is a free keyboard macro program. It supports hotkeys for the keyboard, mouse, and joystick.
15. PeaZip – PeaZip is an open-source file and archive manager
16. 7Zip – 7zip is an open-source file archiver predominantly for Microsoft Windows OS
17. GMail Drive – GMail Drive is a Shell Namespace Extension that creates a virtual filesystem around your Google Mail account, allowing you to use GMail as a storage medium
18. Mozy – Mozy is the industry-leading solution for online backup. Its offers 2GB storage for free.
19. Recuva – Recuva is a freeware Windows utility to restore files that have been accidentaly deleted from your computer
20. Windows Live Writer – Windows Live Writer is a desktop blog-publishing application that has many features.
21. BitTorrent – BitTorrent is a BitTorrent client and a good alternative to uTorrent.
22. ZoneAlarm Free – ZoneAlarm Free is one of the best and well know free firewall software in the market.
23. Ashampoo Burning Studio Free – If you’re looking for a fast, responsive, and high-quality burning software that does not cost a dime, then Ashampoo Burning Studio Free is for you.
24. DeepBurner – DeepBurner is a free CD and DVD burning tool
25. Defraggler – Defraggler lets you defrag individual files, without having to process the whole drive, and it allows you to schedule runs
26. CCleaner – CCleaner is a system optimization and privacy tool. It removes unused temporary files from your system, allowing it to run faster, more efficiently, and giving you more hard disk space.
27. Startup Delayer – Startup Delayer allows you to setup how many seconds after Windows has started, to load each program.
28. RevoUninstaller – RevoUninstaller can be used to uninstall programs, and scan for leftover registry keys, files, and folders.
29. Eraser – Eraser is a secure data removal tool for Windows
30. SUMo – With SUMo, you’ll be able to keep your PC up-to-date by detecting required updates for your software.
31. RadarSync – Stop searching for drivers and app updates, update your PC for free with RadarSync
32. FileHippo Update Checker – The Update Checker will scan your computer for installed software, check the versions, and then send this info to FileHippo.com to see if there are any newer releases. These are then neatly displayed in your browser for you to download.
33. Launchy – Launchy allows you to launch programs with just a few keystrokes
34. FileZilla – FileZilla is a powerful FTP client that is easy-to-use, has many features, and is fast and relaible.
35. Kompozer – WYSIWYG HTML and CSS editor derived from Nvu
36. HTML-Kit – HTML-Kit is a full-featured and customizable HTML text editor that can be used to create and edit web pages.
37. Ades Clr Picker – AdesClrPicker is a very easy-to-use, yet powerful color picker application for web designers.
38. Notepad++ – Notepad++ is a free source code editor and Notepad replacement that supports several languages.
39. Internet Download Manager – Internet Download Manager is a tool that can increase download speeds, resume, schedule, and manage downloads.
40. FlashGet – FlashGet is a free download manager that allows you to spit the files you’re downloading into different sections.
41. GIMP – The GIMP is a multiplatform photo manipulation tool. It’s suitable for a variety of image manipulation tasks, including photo retouching, image composition, and image construction.
42. Paint.NET – Paint.NET is an image and photo manipulation software. It’s meant to be a free replacement for the MS Paint software that comes with all Windows operating systems.
43. CamStudio – CamStudio records screen into standard AVI files. It’s an ideal tool for creating software demonstations.
44. Mozilla Thunderbird – Thunderbird is a great email client from the same people who brought you the Firefox browser
45. PDFCreator – PDFCreator can create PDF files from almost any Windows app
46. Gadwin PrintScreen – Gadwin PrintScreen is an easy-to-use utility that allows you to capture any portion of the screen, and save it to a file, copy to Windows clipboard, print it, or email it to a friend.
47. Skype – Using Skype, you can make telephone calls over the Internet, and calls to other people using Skype.
48. SAM – SAM is a simple voice answering machine for Skype users
49. OpenOffice – OpenOffice is an open-source, multi-platform, and multi-lingual suite comparable with MS Office.
50. AbiWord – AbiWord is a free word processing program similar to Microsoft Word and is rapidly becoming a state-of-the-art word processor.
By BRETT ZONGKER and MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN | Associated Press
WASHINGTON – One Metro transit train smashed into the rear of another at the height of the capital city’s Monday evening rush hour, killing at least six people and injuring scores of others as the front end of the trailing train jackknifed violently into the air and fell atop the first.
Cars of both trains were ripped open and smashed together in the worst accident in the Metrorail system’s 33-year history. District of Columbia fire spokesman Alan Etter said crews had to cut some people out of what he described as a “mass casualty event.” Rescue workers propped steel ladders up to the upper train cars to help survivors scramble to safety. Seats from the smashed cars spilled out onto the track.
D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty said six were confirmed dead. Fire Chief Dennis Rubin said rescue workers treated 76 people at the scene and sent some of them to local hospitals, six with critical injuries. A search for further victims continued into the night.
A Metro official said the dead included the operator of the trailing train. Her name was not immediately released.
President Barack Obama sent his condolences to the victims of the crash.
“Michelle and I were saddened by the terrible accident in Northeast Washington, D.C., today,” Obama said in a statement issued Monday night. “Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families and friends affected by this tragedy.”
The president also thanked rescue personnel who helped to save lives.
The crash around 5 p.m. EDT took place on the system’s red line, Metro’s busiest, which runs below ground for much of its length but is at ground level at the accident site near the Maryland border in northeast Washington.
Metro chief John Catoe said the first train was stopped on the tracks, waiting for another to clear the station ahead, when the trailing train, one of the oldest in the Metro fleet, plowed into it from behind.
Officials had no explanation for the accident. The National Transportation Safety Board took charge of the investigation and sent a team to the site. DC police and the FBI also had investigators at the scene to help search the wreckage for any overlooked injured or dead passengers and evidence.
Officials would not say how fast the train was traveling at the time of the accident. The crash occurred in an area with a sizable distance between rail stations in which trains are allowed to travel at higher speeds, Metro spokeswoman Candace Smith said.
Investigators are searching the wreckage for the trains’ devices that record operating speeds and commands, NTSB member Debbie Hersman said.
Each train had six cars and was capable of holding as many as 1,200 people. Hersman said the trains were bound for downtown. That would mean they were less likely to be filled during the afternoon rush hour.
The trains had pulled out of the Takoma Park station and were headed in the direction of the Fort Totten station.
More than 200 firefighters from D.C., Maryland and Virginia eventually converged on the scene. Sabrina Webber, a 45-year-old real estate agent who lives in the neighborhood, said the first rescuers to arrive had to use the “jaws of life” to pry open a wire fence along rail line to get to the train.
Webber raced to the scene after hearing a loud boom like a “thunder crash” and then sirens. She said there was no panic among the survivors.
Passenger Jodie Wickett, a nurse, told CNN she was seated on one train, sending text messages on her phone, when she felt the impact. She said she sent a message to someone that it felt like the train had hit a bump.
“From that point on, it happened so fast, I flew out of the seat and hit my head.” Wickett said she stayed at the scene and tried to help. She said “people are just in very bad shape.”
“The people that were hurt, the ones that could speak, were calling back as we called out to them,” she said. “Lots of people were upset and crying, but there were no screams.”
One man said he was riding a bicycle across a bridge over the Metro tracks when the sound of the crash got his attention.
“I didn’t see any panic,” Barry Student said. “The whole situation was so surreal.”
At Howard University Hospital, Dr. Johnnie Ford, an emergency room doctor, said a 14-year-old girl suffered two broken legs in the accident. A 20-year-old male patient “looked like he had been tumbled around quite a bit, bumps and bruises from head to toe,” Ford said.
Homeland Security Department spokeswoman Amy Kudwa said less than two hours after the crash that federal authorities had no indication of any terrorism connection.
“I don’t know the reason for this accident,” Metro’s Catoe said. “I would still say the system is safe, but we’ve had an incident.”
Monday’s crash was the third major subway or commuter rail crash in a big city in the past nine months. In the earlier accidents:
• In September 2008, a commuter rail train and a freight train crashed in Los Angeles, killing 25 people. The crash was blamed on an engineer on the commuter rail sending text messages on a cell phone.
• Last month about 50 people were injured in Boston when one trolley rear-ended another. The conductor admitted to sending a text message when the crash occurred.
No reason was given for the Washington crash, but some safety experts are concerned about the recent increase.
“I’m not sure if everyone in the safety system is paying the proper attention that needs to be paid,” said Barry Sweedler, a San Francisco-based safety consultant and former investigator and manager at the NTSB. “These things shouldn’t be happening.”
However, Robert Lauby, a former NTSB rail investigator, said the increase in accidents could well be mere coincidence.
“Just because you had them doesn’t mean there’s a specific issue that caused them,” Lauby said.
The only other time in Metrorail’s 33-year history that there were passenger fatalities was on Jan. 13, 1982, when three people died as a result of a derailment underneath downtown. That was a day of disaster in the capital — shortly before the subway crash, an Air Florida plane slammed into the 14th Street Bridge immediately after takeoff in a severe snowstorm from Washington National Airport across the Potomac River. The plane crash killed 78 people.
(Associated Press writers Brett J. Blackledge, Eileen Sullivan, Richard Lardner, Jim Kuhnhenn and Seth Borenstein in Washington and AP researcher Judith Ausuebel in New York contributed to this report.)
[Ethiopia’s dictator] Meles Zenawi said on Friday that there is “zero” chance that opposition leader Birtukan Mideksa will be released from prison in time to compete in the elections scheduled for next May. He also said Birtukan’s jailing is not a pretext to eliminate political opposition.
Birtukan, a leader of the now-defunct Coalition for Unity and Democracy alliance, was first jailed along with more than 120 other opposition leaders, activists, and journalists after unrest following Ethiopia’s disputed 2005 elections.
Birtukan was freed under a government pardon in 2007, before being put back in jail under a life sentence in December after she denied requesting the earlier amnesty. Her supporters say she was jailed because of the growing popularity of her new party, Unity for Democracy and Justice.
The prime minister also defended local elections last year, in which opposition candidates won just three of 3.6 million seats, saying that “democracy is about process, it’s not about outcome.”
Ethiopia’s largest remaining opposition parties withdrew in advance of the poll, citing government intimidation.
“If the process is clean and you get zero, tough luck,” he said.
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia — Ethiopian Prime Minister warlord Meles Zenawi said the World Bank and international donors share the blame for nationwide power cuts that led the government to trim its economic growth forecast.
The Horn of Africa country’s economy may grow 10.1 percent in the fiscal year ending in July, compared with an earlier prediction of 11.2 percent, Meles said in an interview on June 19 in the capital, Addis Ababa. The World Bank underestimated electricity demand in previous years and failed to provide funding for new power-generation projects the government had wanted, leading to under-investment in the industry, he said.
“We could have avoided that mistake if we had the money or had we had the support of our donors,” Meles said.
A shortage of electricity in Africa’s second most-populous country led the state-run Ethiopian Electric Power Corp. to institute nationwide blackouts every second day this month. The outages, which began in March, are partly due to “unpredictable” factors such as rainfall shortages that left dams without enough water, and delays in building new hydropower plants, Meles said.
“The notion that because we didn’t finance power they have a problem, that’s bogus,” Kenichi Ohashi, the World Bank’s director for Ethiopia, said by phone today. “If we financed power that would come at the expense of something else”
Generator Dispute
Power cuts might also have been alleviated if the Washington-based multilateral lender had provided funding for a 60-megawatt diesel generator the government requested this year, Meles said.
The World Bank didn’t finance the generator because the government’s contracting process didn’t meet World Bank standards and wasn’t “open and transparent and competitive,” Ohashi said.
This is the second consecutive year Ethiopia has experienced nationwide blackouts in the months before July, when reservoirs begin to refill during the country’s rainy season.
Economic growth in “the last part of the year has not been as good as we thought it would,” Meles said. A reduction in coffee exports from Africa’s biggest producer of the beans also trimmed growth expectations, he said. The International Monetary Fund estimates Ethiopia’s economy will grow 6.5 percent or less this year.
Coffee Sabotage
Ethiopian coffee export revenue has declined by more than 30 percent this year. In March, Ethiopian authorities shut six of the country’s largest exporters’ warehouses after accusing them of hoarding beans bound for export.
“The transition from the traditional marketing network to the commodity exchange was not universally popular amongst the exporters and traders in the coffee market,” Meles said. “We felt that some were trying to sabotage the transition.”
Ethiopia’s coffee earnings have declined this year due to a smaller crop, lower world prices and exporters stockpiling beans in anticipation of a devaluation of Ethiopia’s currency, Eleni Gabre-Madhin, chief executive officer of the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange, said in March.
Shipments declined to 97,846 metric tons in the first 10 months of Ethiopia’s fiscal year that ends next month, compared with 133,423 tons a year earlier, according to data from the Trade Ministry.
Stepping Down
Meles, who is 54 and has been in power since 1991, reiterated an April 2008 pledge that he would like to step down after next year’s elections. He indicated he would stay for part of an additional five-year term if his ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front requests it.
He said he would resign from the ruling party only as a matter of “fundamental principle” and not over a small difference in how long he should remain in office.
“My guess is this is going to boil-down to plus or minus a year or two,” he said. “I’m simply thinking aloud. Now if it were to boil-down to plus or minus a year or two, I would probably say this is not a matter on which I ought to leave the party.”
It’s also possible, “some would say very likely” that he will be succeeded as prime minister by a person from outside the Tigrayan ethnic group, Meles said.
Veterans of Meles’ Tigray People’s Liberation Front, a rebel group from northern Ethiopia that helped defeat Ethiopia’s Communist Derg government in 1991, form the core of the current ruling party. Though Tigrayans make up just six percent of the country’s population, they dominate the upper levels of Ethiopia’s civilian and military leadership.
Ethiopia’s regime has rejected Kenya’s proposal to monitor the construction of a hydro-power dam on River Omo that could lead to the death of Lake Turkana.
A row between the two countries now looms over the waters of the river, the main tributary of Lake Turkana. Ethiopia is midway through construction of its largest dam upstream on the river. It is feared that the giant project may pose a great threat to more than 300,000 people in Turkana Central and North, if the lake recedes.
River Omo supplies 20 billion cubic metres of water to the lake, but three-quarters of this volume will go to the dam to turn turbines for power generation. The dam is designed to generate 1,870 mega watts of electricity, some of it to be sold to Kenya (500 MW) and Sudan (200-300 MW).
After realising the danger posed by the project, Kenya this month sent a 15-man delegation to Ethiopia to discuss its impact on water levels in Lake Turkana. After a five-day mission in Ethiopia, the team, led by Mr John Nyaoro, the director of Water Resources, discovered that the water will only run the turbines and flow downstream.
However, the team proposed the formation of an independent joint commission to regulate the use of the basin. “We want a commission that will help moderate the effects of the recession,” said Mr Nyaoro at a press conference on the matter.
Not necessary
He added: “The commission would also make sure that the waters of River Omo would not be used for other purposes other than generation of electricity.” But the Ethiopian authorities have declined to accept the proposals, saying “they were not necessary”.
According to Mr Nyaoro, failure to have a joint commission could leave room for Ethiopia to utilise the waters for other purposes such as agriculture.
He feared the river course could be diverted permanently. “There is need to have a joint commission monitoring the activities taking place around the river,” he said.
Somalia declared a state of emergency amid increasing violence in the war-torn country as the leader of neighboring Ethiopia’s [tribal junta] threatened to invade if its security is threatened by Islamists seeking to take power.
Somali President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed’s declaration came after three government officials, including Security Minister Omar Hashi Aden, died in separate incidents last week.
“I take this decision after we encountered many attacks from insurgents to remove the government,” Sharif told reporters at the presidential palace today in the capital, Mogadishu. “We decided to impose martial law in order to overcome the risky conditions that exist in the country.”
The United Nations said last month that al-Qaeda has sent as many as 300 fighters to Somalia to support Islamists and warlords seeking to topple Sharif. The foreigners are training members of the al-Shabaab rebel group and helping them mobilize funds and weapons, Nicolas Bwakira, the head of the African Union peacekeeping mission in Somalia, said on May 22.
Somalia’s government called for foreign troops to enter the country to help fight the insurgents on June 20. A day earlier, Ethiopia’s Prime Minister warlord Meles Zenawi said he would reinvade Somalia if Hisbul Islam, led by Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, and its allies in the al-Shabaab militia pose a “serious threat” to his country.
U.S.-backed Ethiopian Woyanne troops invaded Somalia in December 2006, ousting the Islamic Courts Union government that had briefly captured southern Somalia. The army occupied the Mogadishu and the southern town of Baidoa in an effort to bolster the government, though the forces became bogged down in a guerrilla war with Islamist militias that now control most of the country’s south. They withdrew in January.
‘Existential Threat’
If Aweys is “a real threat, an existential threat to us and if he wants to be attacked then of course we will try to do what we did before,” Meles said in an interview in Addis Ababa. “If he poses a clear and present danger, then we will deal with a clear and present danger in any way we can.”
Aweys was previously based in Asmara, capital of Eritrea. Ethiopia fought a border war with the neighboring country from 1998 to 2000. Eritrea has denied it supports Aweys.
“We don’t like him, there is no pretension on our side that we like him or are comfortable with him,” said Meles. “We would like to see his back.”
Aweys said in a statement to reporters yesterday in Mogadishu that the rebels would oppose foreign troops deployed in Somalia “by any means.”
Al-Shabaab has been accused by the U.S. of providing safe-haven and logistical support to al-Qaeda, which aims to establish a caliphate, or Islamic government, in Somalia. The militia vowed to defeat any foreign troops that come to the aid of the government.
“Our cats and dogs are eager to eat the dead bodies of your boys if they will deploy to our territory,” Sheikh Ali Mohamoud Rage, a spokesman for al-Shabaab, told reporters in Mogadishu.
Somalia has requested assistance from the United Nations, the AU, the Arab League and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development in East Africa to help deal with an emerging humanitarian crisis as thousands of people flee fighting in Mogadishu.
The AU Commission said in a statement late yesterday that Somalia’s government “has the right to seek support from AU member states and the larger international community, in order to protect the Somali people.”
Somalia is in its 18th year of civil war and hasn’t had a functioning central administration since the ouster of Mohamed Siad Barre, the former dictator, in 1991.
WASHINGTON – One Metro transit train smashed into the rear of another at the height of the capital city’s Monday evening rush hour, killing at least six people and injuring scores of others as the front end of the trailing train jackknifed violently into the air and fell atop the first.