Sometimes there's more to technology than meets the eye. The Web opens the world to you, and the right programs present new horizons for you and your PC. This month we explore a modest-looking utility suite that holds a baker's dozen tools, and a freebie that identifies hundreds of languages.
Scrub Out and Spiff Up Your PC
Over time, even the most gently used PC can slip into disrepair. But assembling a collection of tune-up utilities can be a complicated and daunting task--and that's before you even start figuring out how to use each one. TuneUp Utilities 2004 integrates 13 different modules into a simple, attractive interface. Software developers, reviewers, and officials at companies that market shareware liked this suite enough to award it a Shareware Industry Award for Best Overall Utility.
Each of these little programs starts with a dialog box that explains in clear language exactly what the tool does. Some tools, such as Process Manager, Registry Editor, and System Information, are essentially nicer-looking and easier-to-understand versions of Windows components. Others go much further, running scans and giving system optimization advice. For example, System Optimizer makes suggestions about settings, software, and hardware to improve system performance and security.
When I ran the DiskCleaner and RegistryCleaner tools, they performed their scans quickly and gave categorized lists of items they'd flagged for removal. Clicking an item showed more information about it. Selecting files to keep or toss was a simple matter of checking and unchecking boxes. As with any program that alters the Windows Registry, it's best to deselect all items in RegistryCleaner and get rid of only what you're sure you don't need (fragments of uninstalled programs, for instance).
You can roll back almost any change made in TuneUp Utilities in the RescueCenter, a screen you can reach from most other screens through an icon that looks like a life preserver. With RescueCenter you can undo what you have wrought, rolling back to a system restore point or restoring what you've done in a particular module.
If there's a potential problem with TuneUp Utilities, it's that the suite is almost too easy to use. When presented with a list of 300 potential Registry errors, it's tempting to order TuneUp to fix them all--but you might fix something that isn't broken. Although the suite gives some information about proposed changes, it may not be enough for the average user to make a decision.
So my advice is to be judicious when removing items and err on the side of caution. If you use the 1-Click Maintenance feature, make sure you have a backup in case you don't like the changes. And unless you're very comfortable with changes you've made with other parts of the suite, I'd suggest leaving the RegistryDefrag tool alone. Changes made in this tool aren't as easily reversed as changes made in the RegistryCleaner, and the consequences of messing with the Registry can be serious.
TuneUp Software offers a 30-day free trial of TuneUp Utilities. To continue using the product after the trial expires, you can register the product for a $40 fee.
If you have an elephant's memory, you may recall Quarterdeck's TuneUp; this isn't the same software.
Don't Get Lost on the Way to Translation
Thanks to the wonders of the Web, we can now view an unprecedented amount of text in languages we don't understand. Translation software and sites exist, but you can't translate text when you have no idea what language you're looking at. Polyglot 3000 examines passages and identifies over 400 living and dead languages.
Pasting a snippet of text into Polyglot 3000's one-window interface sets the program to work. Polyglot 3000 determines the most likely language and also lists its next-best guesses. Given full sentences, Polyglot 3000 quickly and correctly identified every modern language I threw at it. Even partial sentences often worked; Polyglot 3000 correctly identified a mere six words of Swedish while modestly claiming 0 percent confidence of its recognition accuracy. It didn't confuse Swedish with Norwegian until the word count dropped to four words.
Polyglot 3000 further impressed me by identifying languages with character sets that weren't installed on my test system. Although the characters showed as question marks on the Web sites and as little boxes within Polyglot 3000, it identified Japanese correctly and even distinguished the traditional Chinese characters used in Taiwan from the simplified Chinese characters used in China. Using Polyglot 3000 while surfing foreign Web sites can help you decide which of Microsoft's language packs to install in order to view the site correctly.
Only obscure or oddly worded phrases--and of those, only very short ones--stymied Polyglot 3000. The program choked on proper names of ancient Aztec locations, and the phrase "Yo quiero Taco Bell" ("I want Taco Bell," in the dialect spoken by marketing Chihuahuas) had it stumped. In both cases, adding just a few more words led Polyglot 3000 to the answer.
Polyglot 3000 is free. If you'd like technical support, you can register the program for $5. The vendor also accepts donations toward further development.
More From the Shareware Frontier
Congratulations to the TechSmith folks, whose SnagIt won a 2005 Shareware Industry Award for Best Graphics Program or Utility.
Browse the list of winners for your current favorites and--if you're feeling especially intrepid--new finds. I haven't checked out all of these yet, so if you'd like to weigh in, I'd be interested to see your comments.
PC World Senior Downloads Producer Max Green and Senior Associate Editor Andrew Brandt contributed to this story.
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