Nice to see that the WordWeb dictionary and thesaurus is still around, and in a nice shiny new version too. 150,000 root words, 120,000 synonym sets, direct links to Wikipedia and other online sources all available in a standalone package or as a plug-in for Microsoft Word. It’s still free too, which is great, although the developers now have some rather stringent licensing rules (see below). A required download for writers.  WordWeb is a free English thesaurus and dictionary for Windows,…

Active ISO Burner. I really don’t like having to load up huge great CD recording programs like Nero to do basic simple tasks, like burning an ISO to disk. So this bit of freeware is a pretty cool tool all round really. Just fire it up, point it towards your ISO image file and bingo, one CD/DVD created as required.  Active ISO Burner is a freeware application that will allow you to burn an ISO image file to CD-R, DVD-R,…

Sandboxie is a nifty piece of freeware which shields your hard disk from any and all malevolent intent. It’s kind of like running a cache buffer zone which stops malware installing itself on your disk. Run a program or your browser in a Sandboxie zone and when you’re finished you can just delete the zone and start again fresh. Anything that was downloaded or installed during the session is wiped out. The idea is great, especially if you spend a…

HD Tune is a freeware hard disk diagnosis and benchmarking utility for Windows which is pretty cool. You can use it to check on the health of your disk, keep an eye on its temperature and even show the performance of your disk in graphical form. It’s one of those little utilities that could be very useful if you suspect that your disk is on its way out. The company also makes a similar utility for flash drives but it’s not free….

TripStalker. Download the free program, register and you can then set up continuous running searches for flights, hotels and car hire. You can also specify your target price, and delivery mechanism, including email, SMS or desktop pop-up. I’m generally a little wary of these ‘agent’ applications since in my experience they rarely do as well as a simple, blunt human powered search, but hey, I’m willing to be convinced otherwise. Worth a look (although it’s a shame they’ve gone the .NET route).  TripStalker is an automated software application that takes your…

Better Gmail. The folks at Lifehacker have collected a bunch of Gmail add-ons Greasemonkey scripts and collated them all in a single Firefox Extension. The result is pretty cool if you’re a Gmail user. Go get (although do remember that Greasemonkey cam be a bit of a dangerous tool in the wrong hands).  Gmail’s good, but it could be better. We’ve featured several Greasemonkey scripts that enhance Gmail in lots of different ways – like adding saved searches, attachment icons, label colors, keyboard…