The idea behind Tag Clinic is simple; a program that will make editing or reformatting your MP3 tags a quick and painless experience. In truth though, what you get is an excellent solution that has been so packed with features that at times it is unnecessarily complex to use.

Although it’s far from bloated in terms of the strain it puts on your processor Tag Clinic loses points for the sheer quantity of options that are presented to the user on the main interface. The design of the interface does you no favors either and the glut of buttons littering the three-windowed menu only serves to confuse you.

Once you finally manage to find the directory containing your music you can begin to experience the powerful features of Tag Clinic. There is a huge number of options for interacting with tags, the most advanced of which must be the auto-extract feature, which will look at the file name and use any details from it to fill in the ID3 tag information for titles, artists, albums and tracks. Formatting the text is also a breeze with options to capitalize the first letters or eliminate any spaces from between words.

Although this is a program for editing tags, it seems to be incomplete because of the lack of an internal player and if you want to preview files you must open your default player. We would also like very much to see some kind of CDDB integration that would pull relevant information about albums from the internet repository.

With its direct editing of tag entries, Tag Clinic does offer a very efficient way to edit your music library’s details; However it could do with a major interface re-design and a few more MP3-relevant features to make the experience that bit more user- friendly.

Comixware is a software app that all drawing fans are going to love, especially those who like comics.

With Comixware you can create awesome comic stories by making the most of a complete multimedia library that includes images, animations, music, sound effects and typical comic graphics like text balloons and colorful exclamation marks.

The program's working area is all designed in Flash and makes working on your comics a real pleasure. You can drag-and-drop any elements you want to use right on the timeline, and then focus on a selected frame to add more graphic detail. You also have the possibility to preview your work of art before actually saving it. I also recommend taking a look at the "Gallery" section so that you can get a glimpse of what other people are creating with this program.

On the downside, using your own materials in Comixware is surprisingly difficult. They can't be added from the program's interface itself, but must be copied to a certain folder in your system in order to be selected from Comixware.

Comixware lets you create attractive animated comic movies with a manga touch. It's not the easiest comic tool in the world but it makes up for it with an original interface and a wide selection of preloaded material.

Orb is all about sharing and taking advantage of P2P technology. In short, Orb provides the ability to "MyCast". MyCasting gives the user instant access to photos, music, videos, live television, and other digital content on their home PC at anytime and from any internet-connected device, such as a mobile phone, PDA or laptop. What strikes you first is the general presentation and interface which is very "Mac" like and elegant. It's also incredibly easy to use and you'll be sharing in minutes whatever your level of expertise.

The developers claim that it is completely secure while having no restrictions in its use. Using any web browser, Orb provides a simple, intuitive interface for the user to connect to their home computer and the ability to stream digital content located there without the interruption of download delays. The software aims to make the process simple - which by and large it does with a clear interface - but also insists that users obey digital rights and copyright laws. If you need to share things quickly with a selected number of unique users, this is a good option.

When Softonic programmers are tired of working and need a break, they usually play a quick game at the table-football the company has installed in the coffee room. But now that I've found this game, they won't have to leave their desks to play their favorite pastime!

Master Kick is a fun arcade football game that's already been available for a while on different portable devices (Palm, Pocket PC). It's not exactly like other football sims you may have seen before: actually, it's a table-football (or foosball) game, meaning you play with football players attached to bar that you can move up and down to play the ball around the game field.

I don't know if it was because I'm hopeless at table-football, or because the game's AI is too high, but I found scoring goals quite difficult even in the easiest playing mode. On the upside, the game in itself is quite elaborate, with a varied selection of fields and even some crowd cheering sound effects in the background. You can play either a quick match or a complete league, and also try different team layouts. The only thing I missed was the possibility to play against another human opponent.

Master Kick is a fun table-football game, more like an arcade than a simulator. Pity it doesn't have a multiplayer option!

If you'd like to publish your pics online using one of those trendy Flash galleries but you have no idea about Flash, Gallerymanager is the tool you need.

This program automatically generates a Flash website that you can use to display your images on the Internet. There's no need to code anything in Flash or any other complicated programming language; you only have to select the pictures you want to show, choose the layout, add some optional background music and upload the whole project to your web space via FTP.

The downside to it, besides the obvious fact that you need an FTP space, is that the program, at least in my opinion, is not as easy to use as it seems at first sight. There are too many fields to be filled in and too many parameters to be tweaked. Being a program intended to users without any technical knowledge, I think the program should try to make the whole process a bit more graphical and more intuitive. Also, there are only two templates available.

Gallerymanager is the easiest way to create Flash photo galleries to publish online; it's a bit limited, but you don't need any Flash knowledge.

Watch over 853 television channels all over the world with TeleStreamer. The application streams all online video content that TV channels make available on the web. For each country then, you'll probably get satellite channels rather than the national ones, but you still have a really large choice, with many news channels in nearly all the languages in the world. It’s also a good way to have a general idea about how TV formats are elsewhere; bear in mind though that maybe you will not have access to the most popular programs.

The GUI is very simple and clear. There is a list of nationalities with TV channels associated and you just have to double click on the one you want to watch. Not all the programs will work, but this may also depend on the availability of the content provider’s server. When you manage to connect to a channel though, the sound and the video quality are fairly good and you can either watch the program in windowed mode or, by double-clicking on it, enjoy the full screen mode.

Unfortunately, it’s not possible to pause the stream, as the program doesn’t store data on your hard disk. It is a big limitation considering that it’s a very easy function to have on PCs and it’s the real plus in rapport to traditional broadcasted TV.

Although you can’t have any control when watching a program, TeleStreamer allows you to watch 853 channels all over the world, both to practice your language skills and to see what’s going on in Africa, Iraq or Suriname, if you know where that is.

RGB MusicLab is probably the most strange – or should I say original – music software tool you've ever seen.

Instead of letting you compose music by using your computer keyboard as a music keyboard or writing notes right on the tablature, like you may have seen in other music composition apps, RGB MusicLab creates music automatically from any image you load on the program.

Yes, that's what you read: music out of images. RGB MusicLabs reads any photo you load on it, turns it into a mosaic and creates the music all by itself based on the color, brightness, saturation and other elements from the picture. Being an automatic composition there's not much you can do to change it (and sometimes you do feel like changing it because it sounds really bad). Luckily there are some settings you can tweak, such as the number of tiles in the mosaic, the length of notes and the kind of instrument, which can help you improve your musical piece of art.

RGB MusicLab provides you with a whole new way to create music, where you don't have that much control over the creating process but which proves to be really original.

CloneSpy is a very efficient program that finds duplicate files on your PC, allowing you to free space on your hard disk. This ensures your operating system to run better and even faster, depending on the type of duplicate files you had.

You almost surely have doubled music files which occupy useless space on your HDD. This happens when, for example, you borrow a music CD from a friend and you copy it all without realizing you might already have some of the songs included in your friend’s CD.

Before you can start scanning your system though, add a folder in the ‘pool1’ section. When you browse the directory you want to analyze, bear in mind you need to press the ‘add selected folder’ or the ‘add all sibling folders’ button, otherwise the process will not work, and you will be left with a feeling of not knowing what happened. If you don’t change settings, the program will ask you every time before deleting a file, always showing you the two supposedly duplicate files.

Although ConeSpy’s GUI is surely not so user friendly, the program is so useful that we can close an eye on that. It helps you find all duplicate files on your computer to free space on your hard disk and make your PC work better.

If you suffer from wrist problems or simply don't like using your mouse, then you should think about getting more out of your keyboard.

ZenKEY allows you to do just that by giving you full control over your keyboard to assign keystrokes for just about every conceivable function. It also allows you to extend the use of your mouse beyond simple clicking to cut and paste or select links. Amongst the many functions you can program it to carry out it can, launch a program or bring it back into focus, open a document, folder or Internet resource, search the Internet and even minimize or maximize a window. In addition, it allows you to resize, move or alter a window, issue media commands (eg play, pause or volume up/down), start your screensaver and even shutdown your computer without even touching your mouse or the Start menu. The program also promises to allow you to "access hidden Windows utilities" although it doesn't specify what these are or where they are but to be honest, it offers enough functionality without seeking hidden bonuses. The multimedia functions are not particularly useful if you have a multimedia keyboard - being able to stop start and fast forward your music via the keyboard is hardly a revelation but this is still an impressive tool.

Reduce your mouse usage or simply get more out of your keyboard, ZenKEY helps you do it all.

As the world of P2P TV continues its expansion, new kid on the block is TV Ants. The increasing unreliability of its Chinese cousin PPLive means that increasing numbers of users are changing to this simple but highly effective alternative.

The installation is fortunately pretty simple as everything is in Japanese – it’s simply a case of clicking on “Ok” a few times and away you go. The channel list appears in a simple window and you can reveal more by clicking “Renew”. The channel list is a bizarre mix of Japanese, public and private channels. If you want to find out how American troops keep up their morale in Iraq, check out “TV Pentagon” (the US army’s official channel) or if you’re looking for something a bit more scenic, there’s “TV Canada Tourism”.

Streaming is steady once it gets going and image quality is as good as anything you’ll get on PPLive. There are literally hundreds of channels to choose from although most are obviously of little interest to English viewers. The program is actually a project of Zhejiang University hence the plethora of mainly Asian channels. Its popularity lies in the fact that like most P2P TV apps, the channels broadcast live European football much to the chagrin of the The Premiership, La Liga, Sky Sports,etc.

Other channels include music, movies, news and fashion, mostly from Asian sources. Most of this can be found on Shanghai TV, Gungdong TV and Goal TV. Schedules can be found on various P2P forums around the net such as Free Football and you’ll certainly need them to get the most out of TV Ants.

Kantaris is a polished multimedia player that enables you to play files in a wide variety of formats. It features a simple but nicely designed interface with not many configuration options which makes it very easy to use.

Videos can be played in full screen mode with control panel only appearing when you move the mouse. As for music, Kantaris offers four visualization modes that add a touch of color to your songs. However we noticed that if you show the playlist, the visualization is not properly centered. Another problem we had with the playlist is the fact that you can only add tracks one by one.

ChrisTV Online! is software for Windows which brings to your desktop a large number of TV channels, radio channels and other kinds of video/audio content broadcasted on the Internet (like music video clips, movie trailers, public webcams, etc) using only your Internet connection and no other dedicated hardware. Having a channels' database with 800+ TV channels and 600+ radio stations from more than 100 countries, ChrisTV Online! provides you access to those channels and more than that a professional user friendly interface to watch and listen high quality video/audio content from the Internet.

The channels database is updated on a daily basis, so you'll benefit of an increased number of updated channels' streams every time without any effort. An outstanding feature of ChrisTV Online!, which you will not find in a similar software product, is the frame display mode which lets you watch video played content in a custom or predefined size frame window. This frame video window can be dragged in any place of your desktop and in combination with 'Always on Top' feature gives you the option to work on your computer and watch your favorite show in one corner of the screen.

The ChrisTV Online! interface offers you fast and easy access to all channels available in our database through the Channels List panel, where you can Group channels by Country, Type, Category, Language, Station Name. To gain fast access to your favorite TV channel or Radio station, you can add them to ChrisTV Online! Favorites List, which provides the same grouping feature as with the Channels List.

I must admit I'm not very fond of audio editing tools. Mixing music has never been my cup of tea, so when it comes to testing an audio editor, chances are I end up more confused than satisfied. However, this isn't the case with Audacity. To begin with, this editor is free source and supports MP3, two features which usually don't meet in this kind of application. Secondly, it's easy to master, even for newcomers. And finally, there's a wide range of filters and special effects you can apply to your music so that you easily achieve the desired effect.

Audacity doesn't stand out for its interface. At first sight one wonders if this program is really going to be that easy to use. In fact, the interface sometimes makes it really hard to work with your tracks, especially when you zoom in on them for a more comfortable editing session. Besides this, I found myself constantly right-clicking on the working area and the tracks too, waiting for some handy context menu to appear but nothing came out.

After these few first minutes struggling with the interface, it's time to begin having fun. You can open as many tracks as you want by just dragging and dropping audio files onto the program's interface. Use your mouse to select the fragment you're interested in and begin working with it. You can perform the basic editing actions (cut, copy, paste) or apply effects to it. The zoom tool helps a lot when selecting small areas, as well as the chronometers found at the bottom of the program's window. Obviously, you can use the integrated player to check how your work sounds before saving the project.

Audacity features quite a large selection of filters and effects. Each one has its own setting options to adjust it to your liking. But what I loved is the possibility to preview how the filter will look on the audio track. This preview function allows novice users to test each filter before actually using it and also configure it with great accuracy.

On the downside, Audacity doesn't have much more to offer. After a few days playing with the program, you soon grow tired of selecting audio fragments and adding effects, and you feel like you need something else. In other words, the simplicity of the program makes it easy to learn, but at the same it makes it too basic and requires a lot of creativity on the user's side to obtain ear-catching results. Anyhow, Audacity is still a perfect choice to take your first steps in the music mixing world and then perhaps move on to another more professional tool.

Morpheus is one of those age old P2P applications and, with support for Gnutella, eDonkey, Bittorrent and many others, probably the most versatile you can find on the market. The new version aims to turn the P2P client into the ultimate multimedia application. Does it succeed?

Morpheus has gone through a complete facelift and the new version brings a newer interface. The window is divided into 4 tabs: search results, my files, podcasts and Morpheus online, giving you an idea of what it considers important. A pane on the left side allows you to create playlists or keep track of searches and videos – although strangely not music. Morpheus lets you also sync all your downloaded files to import them automatically to iTunes. Oddly enough, the chat tool is now hidden at the top of the interface, next to help and preferences.

Morpheus wants to appear as a multifaceted app, not just a simple P2P program. It includes an embedded browser, Morpheus Online, from which you can check-out the internet or find new files to share while you’re downloading. This is particularly useful when you’re looking for new podcasts. By clicking on the podcast page button in the podcasts tab, you will be taken to Morpheus’ own podcast library. While it’s not as star studded as the iTunes library, it’s full of varied and original content. The podcast tab is wisely divided into podcast and episodes, so you can browse through what you’ve downloaded. However we were quite confused by the whole podcast downloading procedure. The progress bar is hidden in the file window of the My Files tab. Why didn’t Morpheus leave this in the podcast section?

Morpheus has also beefed-up its security. You can now select your antivirus application to automatically scan downloaded files. The program also includes solid parental control so you can enter hazardous terms into the block list to avoid your kids searching for violent or pornographic material. You can also add a password to make sure you control who has access to Morpheus. The application also introduces UDP technology to improve the performance of downloads and allow secure file sharing between 2 firewall protected PCs.

This new version comes with many interesting enhancements, but not enough to get us overexcited. Add to that the many drawbacks we found in the application. The interface for example is way too clunky, and it’s safe to say that lies in the two large ads at the top and the bottom of the program (which disappear if you buy the Pro version). The “My Files” tab has an additional file window at the bottom, which adds to the confusion in the interface. The one click burning function is something we were eager to try out but was nowhere to be seen.

However hard Morpheus tries at integrating cool features like web browsing or podcasting, we figure the application should only be used for what it’s good at i.e.P2P downloading. The program gives access to all the P2P networks, even Bittorrent, and the new version introduces safer and quicker transfer thanks to UDP technology. The other extra features in the application like the library structure or web browser felt a bit awkward, and therefore failed at turning the program into a true multimedia application. Let’s hope Morpheus gets it right in the future.

Soulseek(tm) is a unique ad-free, spyware free, and just plain free file sharing application. One of the things that makes Soulseek(tm) unique is its community and community-related features. Based on peer-to-peer technology, virtual rooms allow you to meet people with the same interests, share information, and chat freely using real-time messages in public or private.

Soulseek(tm), with its built-in people matching system, is a great way to make new friends and expand your mind. Soulseek(tm) does not endorse nor condone the sharing of copyrighted materials. You should only share and download files which you are legally allowed to or have otherwise received permission to share. By using this network you agree to this and the other rules which are linked to from this page.

The intention of Soulseek(tm) is to help unsigned and/or independent artists find a place in the ever-growing music industry, in a place where discussion and the creation of music can take place. Use of this network for what may be deemed illegal in nature may see users prosecuted by law, and the owners and/or operators of the Soulseek(tm) network do not offer protection from said incidents.

Manolito is a new Spanish based P2P app based on UDP rather than TCP/IP meaning you can share your favourite music and films quicker.

The application is easy to use. To begin, simply enter your search terms in the search field and from the symbols appearing next to the files you can tell what file type the available files are saved as.

Along the right you can also see the size of the files. File sizes can vary dramatically depending on their quality. Obviously larger files will take longer to download so, depending on your connection to the Internet, choose your downloads wisely.

You should also try, if possible, to download your chosen file from a user with a fast connection.

Enhance your P2P sharig today with Manolito.

Ever tried to send media or files to your friends? How much time did you waste compressing, resizing or even, burning a CD? Imagine a program designed to take care of all that for you, designed for people who hate to waste time as much as you do. That's Swapper, free software for fast media swapping with friends.

You can use Swapper for privately sending music, photos and videos to your friends. Swapper is a tiny application that takes seconds to install. To make things even easier, no registration necessary since you can use your existing AOL, Google, MSN or Yahoo ID to authenticate.

It's as easy as sending an email. To get started, click New Swap, drag-n-drop the files you want to send and enter your friends' emails. Your friends will automatically receive an email with instructions to pick up the files, and upload their own for you.

Swaps work like emails: when you are starting a new Swap, enter all of your friends' contact or email and attach your files. Each of them will be included in the swap and will be able to download the files and add their own, securely. It's also possible to Invite friends to an ongoing discussion -- or forward a file you liked to start a new swap with some other people, all in one click.

Fast

Swapper automatically compresses your media when sending and securely caches the files. As a result, your transfers are up to 100 times faster - or just instantaneous when resending something that's already been swapped.

Secure

All communications in Swapper are encrypted and password protected. What happens in Swapper stays in Swapper.

Works with email

To start swapping, simply enter your friend's email. Your friend will instantly receive an email with a link to access your files.

Online and Offline

Unlike Instant Messaging programs, with Swapper you can send files to friends that are offline.

Mp3 Rocket promises users free downloads including music, movies, games, TV shows & more.
It claims to offer over 12 million songs from its network with unlimited downloads allowed, no monthly fees or bandwidth limits.

Mp3 Rocket is based on the Limewire network and comes bundled with a CD burner tailored to the program so that you can easily make copies of your favourite multimedia files.

If you're tired of bloated burning suites, maybe BurnAware is what you're looking for. This simple burning application includes all the tools you need to record your own CD, DVD and even Blu-Ray discs.

The program starts up with a wizard-style interface that lets you select the appropriate recording task. You can choose between data and music discs, as well as DVD videos and ISO files. In all cases you may choose files and folders from the program itself or simply drag and drop files onto its interface. Also, notice the drop-down menu on the bottom bar, from which you can select the target size: CD, DVD, double-layered DVD and Blu-Ray.

BurnAware includes all the classical settings in a burning tool: support for multisession, a rewritable disc erasing tool and writing simulation among others, but lacks a more advanced configuration menu that enabled, for example, tweaking recorder settings to take full advantage of each disc's space. Another good idea would be to have some sort of very basic embedded tool to create a simple cover for your newly recorded discs. I guess this is just a matter of time - and future versions.

BurnAware is a basic, yet effective burning tool for data, video and music discs that supports Blu-Ray.

SpeedyiTunes is an accelerator for iTunes. The program simply installs an icon in your task bar and claims to download iTunes music and videos up to 10 times quicker. In reality, you might find it's less than half of this although it depends on your broadband setup.

It includes speeded-up connections to shared bookstores, Podcast subscriptions and probably the most useful feature - radio streams. In fact, this was the best feature by far in that radio streams seem to be much more reliable and quicker with SppedyiTunes. The problem is however is that you never know whether it is genuinely speeding up the connections or its your own connection that fluctuating (known as bandwidth flapping.

However, if you are not satisfied with the speed of iTunes, SpeedyiTunes could be the solution you've been looking for - or at least - make your connections to the radio more stable.