ICUG Tech Links - Computer, Software & Freeware Reviews

	ICUG Tech Links
	ICUG Reviews, Uses and Recommends Software Applications to make Your Life Easier and More Fun, too!
Graphics & Web Design \| Digital Video Editors		Artificial Intelligence \| Speech Recognition \| 3-D Animation

Freeware, Shareware, Trial Versions and Demos - that put them in your hands and on your computer Today! Check 'em out and I can almost say without a doubt that You'll find them useful.

FREE Anti-Virus Protection for Your PC - To Stop Viruses, Trojans, Worms and Malicious software Two of the Best Professional Anti-Virus Programs on the Market at AVAST and AVG Both of these will Update Automatically but AVAST has the added feature of Talking to You to Alert You each time it has Successfully Downloaded and Installed the latest Anti-Virus Update! You can Download them Free - For Free Downloads follow the Links ~ AVG - www.avg.com AVAST - www.avast.com * Note: I have used both McAfee and Norton Products for years, in my Office Network Protecting over 250 Computers, and on my Home Computers. It is my humble opionion that in recent years, both McAfee and Norton have become More Expensive, Too Large and in many documented cases, Cause Your PC to become Sluggish, Run Slower and cause undesirable problems. However, If You would rather Pay $$$ for either of them, when there are Two FREE Top of the Line Programs available, then by all means do.
FREE Firewall Protection for Your PC - ZoneAlarm to Keep Your PC Safe Online Try ZoneAlarm Firewall to Protect Your PC from Hackers, Crackers and Online Intruders Although Your PC comes with a free Firewall installed as part of the Windows operating system software, there is a Much Better Professional Firewall that is Available FREE. ZoneAlarm is available FREE to Home Users and Studets. The Company that offers it is ZoneLabs, and they Sell a Professional version of their Firewall, Commerically to Businesses, which allows them to Give A Free Version away to Home Users. For Free Downloads follow the Links ~ ZoneAlarm - www.ZoneLabs.com
A FAST and Super Cool Browser - Opera Most PC Users now know about Mozilla's FireFox Internet Browser, to Surf the Web! It is Fast and performs Better, without the problems that many report using Internet Explorer. Another FAST Browser is called "OPERA". It's takes up less space and is Very Fast and Reliable! Give It a Try and I think that You will Agree that it Out-performs the others. FREE download of OPERA Browser for Your PC - www.Opera.com


	HTML editors - Review on Cnet.com						http://www.cnet.com/
	Macromedia Dreamweaver MX - $345.00 - * A Free Trial 30 day Demo Download is available Hobbyists, look out. Macromedia Dreamweaver MX now caters specifically to professional Web designers and developers. And that's great if you know what you're doing. Dreamweaver's new integration with UltraDev lets you create dynamic, database-driven Web applications. In addition, Dreamweaver's thorough ColdFusion, ASP, and JSP support gives it a slight edge over our former favorite, Adobe GoLive. Cnet recommends Dreamweaver for building a heavy-duty commercial Web site, but casual Web builders should try Microsoft FrontPage instead

Infran View	A Free PhotoShop-like Application ~							http://www.irfanview.com/
	InfranView InfranView 32 Bit Application for WinNT, Win98, Win2000, WinXP, Vista InfranView is provided as FREEWARE, but only for private, non-commercial use! (that means at Home) Thanks to Frank Vautier for sharing his discovery of this amazing little but powerful software application. Myself, being a longtime Adobe PhotoShop user, I was quite surprised by all of the features of InfranView, it's user friendliness, ease of use and most of all, it's flexibility. In some important ways, I found it Superior to using PhotoShop for some jobs!

	TMPG Eng Net					http://www.tmpgenc.net/
	TMPGEnc is a High Quality MPEG Encorder It's a Free Download TMPGEnc converts .AVI file to MPEG1, the format which is used in VideoCD. Using variety of option in TMPGEnc, you can compress your video file in high quality. TMPGEnc enables us adjust bitrate, quantize matrix, GOP structure, Interlace and many other parameter so that you can create most appropriate movie file depends on your purpose. Where did the name "TMPGEnc" came from?* Originally, it was "TSUNAMI-MPEG Encoder", then I have shortened to same name as exe file, TMPGEnc.

	VCDhelp.com			http://www.vcdhelp.com/
	This site will help you to make your own VideoCDs, SVCDs or DVDs that can be played on your standalone DVD Player from video sources like DVD, Video, TV, Cam or downloaded movie clips like DivX, MOV, RM, WMV and ASF. We also have an extensive list of standalone DVD Players with compatibility information such as CD-R(W), DVD-R(W), VCD, SVCD, MP3 and more. Use the menu to the left to navigate our site. Enjoy. (Start with the Newbie section if you have no clue where to start.) No Need to pay $40.00 for the "Copy DVDs to CD-Rs" Software, when You can find Everything here, software application-wise, that You need to do the very same thing! It's Free!

	Welcome to Zabaware	http://www.zabaware.com/home.html
	"Giving Your Computer the Power of Thought ..." Welcome to Zabaware, Inc. A company that aims at bringing out the person in your PC. Our chatterbot software will give your computer a personality using artificial intelligence technology, speech recognition technology, and real-time animation. Our software can speak and understand the English language.
The Ultra Hal Text-to-Speech Reader	Ultra Hal Text-to-Speech Reader - The Ultra Hal Text-to-Speech Reader application will read your documents out loud in one of its many high quality voices. This can be a great tool for proof reading because hearing your text out loud helps you spot all mistakes. This program can also be used for reading e-books. Why strain your eyes trying to read a book from your monitor when your computer can simply read it out loud for you? This program will also read all standard Windows dialog box messages out loud to you. This can be a great aid for the visually impaired or for anyone who just wants messages to be read out loud. The Ultra Hal Text-to-Speech reader is also able to read the clipboard contents. With this function you can easily have it read your email and web sites that you visit. This program is also able to speak incoming instant messages out loud. Now when you chat with your buddies online you will hear what they say instead of just reading it. The Ultra Hal Text-to-Speech reader is compatible with the AOL, AIM, ICQ, and MSN Messenger clients. In addition to speaking text out loud, this program is able to write audio data directly to Windows WAV files. You can convert all your documents and e-books into WAV files and then burn them to audio CDs or convert them into MP3 files. You can listen to your e-books on the road with a standard CD or MP3 player! This program has several high quality voices to choose from and gives you control over speed, pitch, and volume. Download the free 14 day trial of the Ultra Hal Text-to-Speech Reader. If after 14 days you decide to keep the program, you can purchase it for only $9.99. http://www.zabaware.com/reader/


	Ultra Hal Assistant 4.5 Ultra Hal Assistant is your digital secretary and companion. He can help you be more organized, he can help you use your computer, and he can entertain you. Ultra Hal has many animated characters to choose from and he speaks to you through your sound card with his own voice! You can also speak to Hal with Hal's speech recognition engine, or you can type to him if you wish. All you need to know in order to use Ultra Hal is to speak English! Ultra Hal can understand natural English language, after all he is an artificial intelligence program. Read on to find out how Ultra Hal Assistant can help you. Or you can download a FREE version of Ultra Hal Assistant now. Ultra Hal has a powerful memory - Ultra Hal Assistant can do more than just chat. He can be your assistant. Ultra Hal can remember anything you tell him. Use Hal's memory to remember phone numbers, email addresses, street addresses, appointments, birthdays, or anything else that you can think of. Hal can automatically dial phone numbers for you. Hal can automatically start emails for you. Hal can automatically remind you of important dates. Here is a sample conversation with Hal that demonstrates all these features Get Ultra Hal Assistant Now - Ultra Hal Assistant 4.5 has 2 versions, a free version that you can download now for free over the Internet, or an advanced version which you can purchase on CD-ROM. A table showing the similarities and differences of both versions is shown below. We encourage you to try the free version first. The free version has no time limit. You may use it for as long as you want. It also does not nag you about purchasing the advanced version, as many other programs do. If you think you would like the additional features of the advanced version such as the additional animated characters and speech recognition, then please purchase the advanced version. If you think the free version is enough for you, then please take it as our gift.

Also at Zabaware	Ultra Hal Assistant - An AI digital secretary, an assistant, a companion. Web Ultra Hal - Talk to a computer over the Internet now for Free! Ultra Hal Text-to-Speech Reader - Have your computer read out loud documents, email, web pages, dialogs, Ims - (Instant Messaging), and more. Ultra Hal Representative - Get an AI bot for your business or web page for Free! Community Forums - Contact Zabaware If you have questions, comments, or suggestions about our products, post them here. Talk with others who use and Develop these Programs - pick up Help, Troubleshooting Tips, 3^rd Party Add-ons, etc.

	HapTek, Inc		http://www.haptek.com/
	People Putty - Create Interactive Automated Personalities full of auto-charm, auto-emotions, and auto-fun using simple photographs and your own voice. Make interactive 3D Web sites, Give yourself a beauty & personality makeover, try new hairstyles and so much more!! If you want to try out Haptek's new PeoplePutty before purchase, download our free demo! This demo contains all the functionality and data included in the commercial copy of PeoplePutty, but lacks the ability to save and load. To enable these features, you can order a copy of PeoplePutty from our online If you don't want to download the full demo of PeoplePutty, you can get a good idea of what it looks like and what you can do with it by taking this online tour. Just take a few minutes to look around and see what makes PeoplePutty so great without a large download! We know the screenshots didn't do justice to PeoplePutty, so we made a free demo version! It includes everything the real PeoplePutty does, except it doesn't save or load, the character occasionally resets and it's only good for 30 days. Like the full version, it's big (about 40 Megabytes). If you're on a modem, you may have trouble downloading files of this size. To be sure your download doesn't get interrupted, you might want to use one of the programs mentioned here.



	Haptek Announces Generation-4 Character Automation Software Reaffirming its position as the leading character automation technology, Haptek today announced the availability of its Generation-4 Character Automation software and development tools available for commercial applications. Haptek’s Generation-4 software creates bona fide artificial actors - characters that can instantly, realistically perform a written script - what we’re seeing in the movies today with plots like that in "Simone" is actually possible using Haptek’s Generation-4 software technology. Haptek characters can turn a simple voice recording into an engaging full-body animation - this means, in essence, that these characters can automatically turn your radio into a television, or, as a much more economically relevant example - they can turn a wireless phone's voice signal into an engaging character performance with zero added bandwidth. This is particularly useful due to the bandwidth restrictions on today's wireless systems and the increased capacities of the newest cell phones, some of which also include cameras. Once a photo is taken with one of these new phones and transmitted to another phone, it is possible for Haptek's technology to bring that photo to life.

	Haptek Player ~ Gen4 - Use the player to view Haptek content over the Web. Compatible with PeoplePutty, it has been newly enhanced and updated. Includes plugins for all popular browsers, as well as a stand-alone player. Still runs most content from VirtualFriend 3 K.A.T.E. IM Character System - KATE brings together the Instant-Messaging fun of Sonork and the emotive characters of Haptek! Choose your avatar from the ones included with KATE, or use PeoplePutty to build a custom avatar featuring your own beautiful likeness! Haptek Player SDK ~ Want to put Haptek Characters in your application or web page? Know a thing or two about HTML and want to go beyond the pages you can create in PeoplePutty? This small development kit includes documentation, data and code samples, plus a FREE license for non-commercial use of the technology Virtual Friend 2 - Our previous Whole Enchilada! Tons of 3D Characters, Scenes, Tutorials, etc! Make your own 3D Movies! Virtual Friend 1 - (for Macs) Yes, we have something for Macs, but (blush) it's really out of date. But you still see characters emote, react, and make them speak and morph. We promise we'll be porting a full version soon


D A P	SpeedBit's Download Accelerator				http://www.speedbit.com/
	Download Accelerator Plus (DAP) is the leading download manager/accelerator that increases download speed by up to 300 percent*. DAP is fully integrated into the browser, providing the best possible performance from ANY Internet connection (dial-up, cable, DSL / ADSL, T1 etc.). DAP allows you to recover from lost connections, computer shutdowns, and other errors and to resume interrupted downloads. DAP also features automatic hang-up after download completion, download scheduling and dial-up configuration. Use our 14-day no-risk trial, during which you may cancel your order at any time.

	~ Check back Soon for More Links and Recommended Software Programs ~