Download Squad

H&R Block is taking a cue from AOL. In major computer magazines this month, H&R Block is providing free CD-ROMs of its TaxCut tax software to readers. The CDs were spotted in PC Magazine and PC World. The same program costs $10 on TaxCut's Web site, so it's a pretty good deal. It's the federal version only, so H&R Block still can make money from you when you buy a state version (if your state has an income tax, that is). You just peel the plastic coating off and insert the CD into your Windows computers to begin installing it.

What's almost as good as freeware? How about 99-cent software that's available for Windows and Macs and that constantly backs up your files in the background? NTI Shadow 2 does just that for under a buck. It works with any attached drives, including pen drives, MP3 players and, of course, hard drives.

You can set it to immediately back up changed files or make the back ups every certain number of minutes. Everything happens in the background unless you want it to open a window to display a progress bar. I had a good experience with the Windows version saving to a second hard drive, but couldn't get the Mac version to work across a LAN because of networking problems on my end.

The 99-cent deal ends on Dec. 31, when the price returns to $29.95. The 90-day special is an effort by NTI to attract customers to the site to possibly purchase other products, including its traditional backup application called NTI Backup Now! 4.0. But you might find that the 99-cent version is enough back-up power for you.

Is crap piling up on your hard drive? CCleaner, which stands for Crap Cleaner, is a freeware cleaning tool for Windows that's worth every penny -- and probably about $24.99 more.

CCleaner's developer is constantly updating the program (just look at the extensive version history, the most recent change occuring earlier this week). A new interface makes the program even easier to use.

The program first analyzes your registry and other applications and then makes suggestions on items that are safe to remove. A recent analysis of my PC took 101 seconds and suggested items that could save 557 MB of space on my hard drive.

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Haul me out back and hang me by my kneecaps, but I've never cared for the freeware photo viewer IrfanView. It's free ... and it's free. Those are the good words I have for a program that has what I consider an unintuitive interface (but, I understand, plenty of features). When I first saw it, I wondered what the heck to do with it.

Instead, I use ACDSee 6 (never got around to upgrading to version 7, as there weren't enough new features for me). It shows my photos and I can manage them, bulk rename them and do other similar things. But it does cost $50. So if there's a freeware version of ACDSee, let's hear about it!

Well, now you have. It's called XnView, and it looks a lot like ACDSee, but, of course, being freeware, it's free. It also can view and convert 400 graphics formats. You can use it to crop, resize, adjust brightness and contrast, and modify the number of a file's colors. XnView also can do batch conversions, create thumbnails, capture screens and create contact sheets. If you absolutely must spend some money, a Deluxe version that includes more editing functions, EXIF and IPTC searching and a host of output features is €39.

The program is not just for Windows, either. It also runs on MacOS X (with X11), Linux x86, Linux ppc, FreeBSD x86, OpenBSD x86, NetBSD x86, Solaris sparc, Solaris x86, Irix mips, HP-UX and AIX. Hey, where's BeOS? (Just kidding.)

After plopping down $40-50 for ACDSee, I'm not sure I'll switch to XnView for my primary photo viewing and management chores. But it's nice to have a backup to any favorite program just in case.