The next release of CPU-Z, developed by CPUID, has raised some eyebrows. One of the most noticeable change is the revised dialog size to fit the new Intel logos.

In addition, a new validation button is added to the application, as well as a new tab named “Graphics”, which is intended to provide reports on some basic information about the graphic devices. Furthermore, CPU-Z will also be available in a native x64 version.

New Changes

• * New design with “Graphics” tab.
• * New 64-bit version.
• * NVIDIA nForce 980a chipset support.
• * Intel Core i5 and Core i3 processors.
• * Intel Atom Z530, Pentium DC E6300 (2.8GHz) and Core 2 Solo processors.
• * Intel P55 and US15W chipsets preliminary support.
• * AMD Phenom TWKR support.
• * AMD Phenom X2 “Callisto” and Athlon X2 “Regor” processors.
• * AMD Opteron 6-core “Istanbul” processor.
• * Improved support for Windows 7.
• * New Intel logos.

Download File
CPU-Z 1.52 with installer (setup)
CPU-Z 1.52 32-bit (.zip, no install)
CPU-Z 1.52 64-bit (.zip, no install)

Introducing another sophisticated paint and photo-editing program – GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) – the next version 2.6.4 has just been released. There are several bug fixes over the previous version.

Gimp shares several similarities with Adobe Photoshop, but the most apparent differences between the two is that the latter is a paid version, whilst the former is made available publicly as an open-source program.

In saying so, it simply means that what you can do in Photoshop are likely to be the things that you can do with GIMP, including complicated image filtering, lighting effects, etc.

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Where graphical editing tools are concerned, in my opinion, there is nothing that beats these 2 top products in the market – Adobe Photoshop and GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program). Whereas the former requires users to pay for its use, the latter is released under the GNU GPL license, such that users can download the application for free and use it as according to the regulation stated by its license. Anyway, the news here is that, GIMP Portable 2.6.2 is released for your update.

GIMP Portable 2.6.2 is slightly different from GIMP 2.6.2, in the sense that this application is “portable“; that is, the installation can be done on a USB thumb drive or a removable drive and data is not written onto the hard disk drive. Thus it allows users to carry the application on a thumb drive and move it from one PC to another. That is an amazing feature, if you are working in an environment where installation of programs is strictly prohibited on the host PC.

Download Application
GIMP Portable 2.6.2

Apart from Adobe Photoshop, IrfanView 4.10 is another alternative which users can opt for image conversion. Some of the basic features are as follow:

1. - View images
2. - Image format conversion
3. - Image optimisation
4. - Scan and print images
5. - Slideshow creation
6. - Batch processing
7. - Play movies and sounds
8. - and others…

The features that I like best about IrfanView is that it is lightweight, yet capable of performing batch processing as well as slideshow creation. Undoubtedly, this is one good software to go, if you are short of cash to purchase expensive photo editing softwares.

Download Software
IrfanView 4.10

Picasa 2 was initially developed by Google three years ago and released as a free software. In spite of this, Picasa is still one of the most popular and useful photo album around to manage photos and pictures located in the PC’s hard disk drive.

Picasa is not just a image library, it also include editing tools for enhancing photo images. For example, Fill Light is a tuning tool that brightens or darkens picture that contains dark backgrounds (e.g. someone with his back to the sun).

Picasa is definitely recommended software of the week. You should have it as long as you have digital photos and purchasing professional softwares, such as Adobe Photoshop, become expensive.

Picasa can be downloaded here.

As the name suggests, IconEdit is an easy-to-use icon editor. Furthermore, it is also small and lightweight, specially designed to be used as a standalone program, althought the initial idea was designed to be used as an add-in for IconMania.

The current version is 0.9, developed in 1999 by Hagai Pipko using Visual Basic 6. Though it may not be the latest release, but a lot of people seems to have found this useful, particularly its file size is less than 300kB.

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ImagePlay 0.2 is a non-destructive image editor. With this, there is no more meddling with pixels and brushes. The embedded feature includes applying the effect directly onto the image to see the result instantly.

The application is developed based on the chaining effects together. Below are some features of ImagePlay:

• - Better Layer Up: creates as many layers as possible.
• - Information Awareness: allows tagging of keywords.
• - Browse to Perfection: Easy browsing of images.
• - Sharing a Masterpiece: Exporting images to share with other people.

The software is hosted by Sourceforge, but there are limitation in the trial period, albeit the source codes are made available. A license costs $20, and it is supported by Windows and Mac OS X.

Download Application
ImagePlay 0.2

VCool Software Workroom’s CoolAlbum is simply a photo album with four specific functions.

Functions

1. Managing Albums ( Interface Snape ) – user can specify album name, creator, memo, password, select cove picture, page picture, photo arrangement way and change font and color for album’s cover page.
2. Editing Album or Browsing Photos ( Interface Snape ) – user can change picture arrangement way, insert or delete album page, change photo position and get photos from files.
3. Editing Photo ( Interface Snape ) – user can adjust a photo’s lightness, contrast gradient, place text on a photo and select frame for a photo.
4. Searching or Browsing Photos ( Interface Snape ) – user can browse photos in traditional mode.

There are some changes in this latest version. User can now save all of the photos in one album to one folder. Also, the album folder can be changed. Undo operation is now supported for multi step procedures. In addition, there is album privacy protection function, and furthermore an automatic flip album page function.

The application is downloadable for free trial, and a license costs merely $12.99. Download CoolAlbum 1.2 today!

In contrast to the previous post made about video resizing, this is an image resizer for Mac OS X, known as iResizer 1.2.1. This application is a simple program which allows users to resize image files and photos according to specific preferences.

Some of the configurations which can be adjusted are:

• set output size, which can be set by width or height and by long or short side,
• save resized images in different formats, e.g. JPEG, PNG, GIF, BMP and TIFF,
• giving resized file a new sequential name.

The software is a small utility, but it is definitely very useful in resizing image files in a quick fashion. It is written in Cocoa/Objective-C language, and is programmed for Mac OS X 10.3 or later.

Download File
iResizer 1.2.1

It was not long ago since I last introduced Fast Image Resizer in April this year. Now, the next version of Fast Image Resizer 0.88 is now available!

Developed by adionSoft, this application has made batch resizing easier. It is designed specifically to perform the task of image resizing on very large number of images is now easier and definitely faster.

Although there are several other programs that can perform similar tasks, but it’s not easy if you want to process thousands of images as quickly as possible. This software is simply dedicated to the task of resizing, and therefore makes the operations very quickly.

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