Maximum PC's Sixth Annual Softy Awards

Posted 04/28/2008 at 12:40pm | by The Maximum PC Staff

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DoubleTwist

An iTunes DRM stripper—and more!

Facebook fiends will love the way DoubleTwist enables simple file sharing, but its DRM-stripping and sync features are pretty cool, too.

So you got suckered into buying a bunch of DRM-shackled songs from iTunes—just so you could easily manage them on your iPod. But now you’re ready to cut that leash so you can move to a more flexible player. Download DoubleTwist, give it access to your iTunes folder, and you won’t lose that costly investment. The process occurs in real time, but it works.

But this ingenious—and free—program does a lot more than that. It can also automatically grab photos from your friends’ Facebook profiles and synchronize them to your PC and your smartphone or MP3 player. What’s more, you can also share those tunes (and pictures and videos, too) with all your Facebook friends. Cool!
Free, www.doubletwist.com

VMware Workstation 6

Host every OS you can think of on a single machine!

Store profiles for any number of virtual machines, then switch among your collection of operating systems.

VMware workstation rocks due to its ability to let you run multiple operating systems on one PC. Install Linux, Solaris, and other desktop environments right alongside any Windows version—including those as far back as Windows 3.1 (provided you have the licenses, of course).

VMware’s features trump those of a typical virtual machine environment. You can use the program to take snapshots and roll back your computer to a previous state, and you can take screenshots and videos of your system’s activities, which comes in handy if you’re trying to help someone with a troubleshooting issue.

While this app comes with a hefty price tag, we’d rather have a program that does everything than a lesser, cheaper alternative.
$190, www.vmware.com

Radiotracker

Build a massive MP3 library on the cheap

Someone, somewhere on the Internet is playing your favorite song right now. Radiotracker can not only find it but also automatically rip it to your hard drive.

If you don’t mind compromising a smidgen on audio quality, Radiotracker offers an incredibly easy way to build a huge library of free—and legally acquired—digital music. The program works by monitoring Internet radio streams for the types of music you like. You can configure it to target specific genres (Americana, world, jazz, acid rock, etc.), particular artists, or even specific songs, and it will scan thousands of stations looking for just that.

When Radiotracker encounters songs that fit the profile you’ve created, it automatically records them to your hard drive in MP3 format—it even grabs ID3 tags and album artwork. The audio quality is limited to whatever bitrate the station is streaming at, but the tunes are free and legal!
$40, www.radiotracker.com

ThreatFire

Why waste time scanning for bad apps when you can simply block suspicious behavior instead?

Threatfire watches over your system to make sure malicious apps don’t infect your PC.

Old-school antivirus and anti-spyware applications work in a very simple and predictable way. They scan every file you download and every app you install on your PC for malicious behavior. This worked really well back in the days when there were just four or five new threats every week. Today, hundreds of new threats surface regularly, and the old “scan for known baddies” approach simply doesn’t cut it. That’s where ThreatFire comes in.

Instead of scanning against a known database of viruses and malware, ThreatFire monitors applications for naughty behavior. When an app does something suspicious, ThreatFire locks it down and prompts the user to take action. Yes, we’ve been promised this type of protection before, but ThreatFire actually works, and it’s less of a system hog than more traditional scanners. That’s what we like to see!
Free, www.threatfire.com