While much of the IT world has been focused on news about the iPhone 4S and iOS 5, there has been a huge number of other newsworthy releases in the past week.
Related to portable devices such as a the iPhone is Freemake Video Converter 2.4.0, which makes it easy to convert videos between formats and, in particular, convert them optimized for viewing on a specific device. The app can also be used to rip non-copy-protected DVDs and to share your videos using YouTube. From the same company is Freemake Video Downloader 2.2.0 which can be used to download videos from the likes of YouTube and Dailymotion, and Freemake Audio Converter 1.1.0 which, much like its video related sibling, can be used to convert audio tracks from one format to another.
Pale Moon 7.0.1 has been released and this Firefox-based web browser is even faster than its predecessor, and this is a browser that already offered impressive performance. When you are online, it is important to keep safe, and a trio of tools from Webroot aim to do just this. Webroot SecureAnywhere Essentials 2012 v8.0.0.40 is a cloud-based anti-virus tool that is incredibly light on resources while including handy features such as sandboxing of apps. Also released were Webroot SecureAnywhere Complete 2012 v8.0.0.40 and Webroot SecureAnywhere AntiVirus 2012 v8.0.0.40.
Other security software released this week includes Emsisoft Anti-Malware 6 FINAL which offers vastly improved performance of the scanning engine when compare to previous versions.
If you’re looking to secure your data, look no further than the updated Wuala “Hirslanden” build 370,which now includes 2GB of free online storage space.
Spend any amount of time online and it won’t be long until you encounter a site that uses Flash. This week Adobe released updated versions of its Flash Player browser plugin -- Flash 11. There is a 32-bit version available for Internet Explorer, the 64-bit version of Internet Explorer, as well plugins for other 32-bit browsers and 64-bit browsers. The company also released Adobe AIR 3.0.
While OS X Lion has already seen the light of day and iOS 5 is not far off, Windows 8 is still some ways away. If you can’t wait to get the look of the upcoming operating system take a look at the updated Windows 8 Transformation Pack 2.0 and UX Pack 3, which enable you to mimic the look of the very latest preview version.
If you’re feeling a little more adventurous and fancy installing the Developer Preview, VMware Player 4.0 offers better hardware support for virtual machines, while VirtualBox 4.1.4 makes better use of system resources for improved performance.
There has also been a series of releases from disc burning and multimedia specialists Nero. Nero Burning ROM 11 is a the company’s flagship burning tool that allows for the creation of all manner of discs, while Nero Video 11 allows for advanced yet easy editing of videos that can then be used in a range of projects. Both of these two and many more can be found in the Nero 11 suite. The final release from Nero this week is Nero Kwik Media 11.0, a media management suite capable of handling all your images, music and video files.
Rounding off this week’s releases is a collect of free office tools from Kingsoft. Kingsoft Writer Free 2012 is a fully-featured Microsoft Word-compatible word processor that can be used completely free of charge, while Kingsoft Spreadsheets Free 2012 caters for the needs of spreadsheet users.
Rounding off the free tools is Kingsoft Presentation Free 2012 and all of the tools can be downloaded as part of the Kingsoft Office Suite Free 2012 if you would like to use all of them.