Many computer users believe that memory optimizers are software programs that offer barely any positive effect. Some computer memory optimizers reduce the memory by raising the virtual memory instead, others degrade performance by optimizing the memory while others do nothing at all. Roman send in a link of the computer memory optimizer Minimem that might change the public perception of memory optimizers once and for all.

Minimem is available as a portable and installer for the Windows operating system. It can optimize all running processes of a Windows operating system. Unlike other programs of its kind it offers the user the choice to select the processes that should be memory optimized.

Minimem will only display processes that use more than 15 Megabytes of computer memory. It is possible to change the value to predefined values between 5 and 100 Megabytes. The memory limit can be turned off as well to display all processes in the interface.

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Rainmeter not only includes the latest version of the very popular Enigma desktop, it has a theme manager and configuration tool—so you can set up a killer desktop without a line of code.

The latest release is packed with great features designed to take Rainmeter to the masses—instead of mucking around in text file configurations, the desktop customization beginner can start customizing their desktop immediately. The Enigma 2.5 desktop customization, complete with a quick-start configuration wizard, is included as the default theme to make the experience as user-friendly as possible.

The full list of new features includes:

• Theme manager that saves and loads Rainmeter themes.
• Configuration tool for the Enigma skin, to save all your personal settings.
• The Enigma theme automatically adjusts to your desktop resolution.
• Enigma reader skins now support RSS, Atom, Gmail inbox, and Twitter.
• Enigma music skin gets iTunes song information automatically; CD Art Display no longer required.
• Completely compatible with Windows 7 or Vista, and no more UAC issues.
• Text shadows, transformation matrices, and improved anti-aliasing.
• Plug-in support for iTunes, WiFi, and the recycle bin.
• An official forum for support, tips, and add-ons.

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Window/Linux: Fixing a tag here and there is one thing, but what if your MP3 collection is in need of a deep and serious massaging to get things in order? MP3 Diags lets you dig into the guts of MP3s.

The creator of MP3 Diags was frustrated with how limited many of the MP3 repair tools he used were and how many of them used tags incorrectly or inserted their own tags into the MP3s. MP3 Diags is a powerful MP3 editor that not only allows you to diagnose and fix surface problems with your MP3 collection such as incorrect track numbers or song names, but it digs even deeper and enables you to repair things like problems with the VBR header and other hidden but important aspects of your music collection.

If you’re a bit hesitant to mess around with MP3 Diags but you’d really like to get at least the albums, song names, and tracks cleaned up in your collection you definitely want to check out previously reviewed iTune’s add-in Tune Up.

MP3 Diag is freeware and available for Windows and Linux.

Many Internet users like to download videos from Google’s Youtube video portal. Download Youtube Videos was a popular article about a week ago and YouDown would have made it if it would have been released back then. YouDown is a software program for the Windows operating system that can be used to download videos that are hosted at Youtube.

The program is a little bit less comfortable than Youtube downloaders that come with their own search or browser. Users can either copy and paste single urls into the interface of the program or import text files that contain multiple Youtube links. The import only works if the text document contains one Youtube link per line.

A click on the Go button will initiate the download right away. The videos will be downloaded one after the other until the end of the queue is reached. By default high quality defintion versions of the video are downloaded from Youtube. It is however possible to change the quality setting to high quality or low quality instead. This will speed up the downloads a lot but reduce the quality of the downloaded Youtube videos.

YouDown requires the Microsoft .net Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1 and a Windows operating system.

[ Download youDown ]

The latest video card generation that is manufactured by ATI and Nvidia can be used to speed up password recovery attempts tremendously. Toolkits like Nvidia’s CUDA offer drivers and development examples to aid developer’s in the integration of gpu accelerated password recovery programs. One of the programs that is making use of the gpu to recover passwords is Rar GPU Password Recovery. The supported video cards at this point in time are ATI HD RV7×0s cards that include ATI Radeon 4870, 4890 and 4770 or Nvidia cards supported CUDA including GTX 260, 8600 GTS or 8600 GT. It is also recommended to have the latest Catalyst or Geforce drivers installed.

The developer provides some plain numbers to show the effectiveness of using the GPU to recover a rar password with four characters:

~168 passwords per second on single core of Q6600 @ 2.4Ghz (crark’s result)
~325 passwords per second on 8600 GT
~3120 passwords per second on ATI HD4850
~2075 passwords per second on GTX260/192SP
The performance of the listed ATI card is almost 20 times that of a password recovery where only the cpu is used. The password recovery software is a command line utility and the developer is offering extensive information on the possible parameters that can be used to recover the password. The suggested length of the password should not exceed six characters although it is theoretically possible to start a password recovery for a password with up to 17 chars.

The basic command for the password recovery is:

igrargpu.exe [switch:param] filename.rar

The command

igrargpu.exe /a:b /c:s /min:1 /max:4 archive.rar

will for example check all four letter combinations of lower case Latin characters. Known characters of the password can be added to the command to speed up the recovery attempt.It is advised to check the readme for a detailed overview of all possible parameters. The password recovery program can also use a dictionary based attack with rules. RAR GPU Password recovery should work on most versions of the Microsoft Windows operating system. The portable software is available for download at the developer’s website.