As far as I remember this project has already been mentioned somewhere in TC forums. Today I would like you to learn more about it.

Giveaway of the Day project is the new initiative in the software distribution world. Every day they offer for FREE licensed software you’d have to buy otherwise!

Many sites and publishers offer trial downloads but only Giveaway of the Day project offers giveaway downloads. What does that mean?

Basically, every day they nominate one software title that will be a Giveaway title of that day. The software will be available for download for 24 hours (or more, if agreed by software publisher) and that software will be absolutely free. That means - not a trial, not a limited version - but a registered and legal version of the software will be free for downloading and use.

The software product will be presented in its full functionality, without any limitations save for those mentioned in Terms and Conditions.

The download link will remain on the web-site for the agreed period of time, together with the review of the software product and the information about other products from the software publisher presenting the giveaway title.

Both reviews and the information on the product line will remain active even when the Giveaway period is over.

So you get not a trial, not a limited version - but a registered, legal and fully functional version of the software but you should remember the following:

1) You can download a Giveaway proggy and have to install it before the Giveaway offer for the software is over (you won't be able to download it later and if you try to install it later it won't work).
2) No free technical support
2) No free upgrades to future versions
3) Strictly non-commercial usage

Further in this thread I will make posts about various Giveaways. They change at that site practically daily and I'm not going to make posts about all of them - only about the most interesting and useful from my point of view. Nevertheless you can always learn what is on offer today from the informer below (just bookmark this post in your browser):

You can also see this informer in The Box full of eGOODIES. Enjoy and don't forget to share your opinion on the programs mentioned here.

NK

Originally written by Arthur Borges on May 7, 2007 2:57 PM ...Nikita, this website just seems to be offering a new form of bait to lock in customers.

Hi Arthur,

Certainly it's another way of software promotion but in the process those who are quick enough have a chance to snag good commercial software for free. I don't see anything bad about that. On the contrary all parties should be quite satisfied...

NK

Hi Teresa,

I'm happy you find this thread to be of some use.

I myself do like good software (always try to find the best of its kind in every category) and think helping each other we can discover real gems.

Please share your experience with the programs described here.

NK

► TITLE & VERSION: ConceptDraw VI Standard 6.2

► HOMEPAGE: http://www.conceptdraw.com/en/products/cd5/main.php

► SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS: OS: Microsoft Windows ME/XP/2000, CPU: Pentium 166 MHz or higher processor, RAM: 256 Mb for 2000/XP, HDD: 250 Mb, Display: res: 800x600 or higher, 65535 or more colours

► FILE SIZE: 59.4 MB

► PRICE: normally $149 but it is free today (11.05.2007)

► Software Publisher's DESCRIPTION: In many cases a single picture speaks better than a thousand words. To document and explain complicated data, system or process, clear flowcharts or diagrams is one of the best ways to present them. Requiring little skills and efforts to create high-quality professional graphics ConceptDraw VI will become your efficient assistant.

ConceptDraw VI is designed for professional flowcharting, diagramming and illustrating. Its flexible, handy drawing tools help business and technical users quickly document complex structures, systems and processes.

ConceptDraw VI charts can be shared as a variety of graphics files, MS Visio XML files and MS PowerPoint presentations. Owing to the advanced libraries of pre-drawn shapes, ConceptDraw VI is perfect for most of the charting tasks. Requiring little skills and efforts to create high-quality graphics the software will become your efficient assistant.

• Detailed Overview
• ConceptDraw Wizard Tour
• Samples and Tutorials

Even if you are not a real artist, this business visualisation tool is for you. ConceptDraw VI contains hundreds of built-in collections of task-specific Symbols, Templates and Wizards that allow managers to quickly create professional-looking charts and diagrams.

Flowcharts Use a variety of drawing tools, smart connectors and shape libraries to create flowcharts of complex processes, procedures and information exchange. Define and document basic work and data flows, financial, production and quality management processes to increase efficiency of you business. ConceptDraw contains libraries and templates for audit flowcharts, data flow diagrams, cause & effect diagrams, cross-functional flowcharts and more.

Organisation charts Represent the company's structure and detailed staff information as a single or multi-page org chart. Support for multi-page documents allows to create very complex and detailed charts, connected with hyperlinks, which can be then exported to HTML for use on the corporate Web site.

Timelines and calendars Draw and print out simple project timelines with ConceptDraw. Templates and pre-drawn shapes help you do most of tasks requiring no high-cost specialised software.

Sales and marketing visuals Illustrate market survey results, create comparison charts of competitive products, use Venn charts to analyse existing opportunities. Compose a full set of charts and diagrams to overview different marketing aspects.

Basic office layouts Use pre-drawn shapes of office equipment and furniture to create office and home plans quickly and easily.

Building, site and floor plans Create office and home plans, security plans, plant layouts, HVAC schemes, floor and building plans with ConceptDraw VI, and many others. Use layers, customisable grid and guidelines, hundreds of pre-drawn shapes.

Directional and geo maps Use ConceptDraw for sketching parking plans, driving directions, create schemes of road accidents. A large collection of geographic libraries contains shapes that accurately represent all countries and continents.

► REVIEW (BladedThoth): There is a lot great with this application; I find it easier to use in many ways that Visio and more productive as well. While scaled back from the Professional version (Lacking wizards, some templates, database connectivity and the scripting language,) this application provides more than enough for most people’s diagramming needs. If you feel you will have the need for this application, I would recommend picking it up now while it is free. While $149.99 is a good price as well for what you get compared to Visio, keep in mind that Computer Systems Odessa no longer offers Standard on their site for sale, only Professional which is $299.99 (Which is still a better deal than Visio.)

► NK's NOTES: Great software for those who need various charts, illustrations and diagrams. Here are some examples of what ConceptDraw can do:

You can see much more samples HERE.

As a rule software programs of this kind are quite expensive. So hurry up and snag ConceptDraw for free while you can.

Update of 12.05.07 at 11.15 GMT - Please note: ConceptDraw was available as a giveaway on May 11, 2007. This giveaway is not available any more! Sorry, you are late. But you can visit this Software Publisher's web site and download a trial version.

NK

Hi folks,

Before acquaint yourself with today's giveaway you may want to read two short but imformative and inspiring articles: Task List Management and Organize with To-Do List Software.

► TITLE & VERSION: Smart To-Do 1.8

► HOMEPAGE: http://www.smarttodo.com

► SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS: OS: Windows 98, ME, 2000, 2003 or XP; HDD: 3 MB of free hard drive space

► FILE SIZE: 1.92 MB

► PRICE: normally $19.95 but it is free today (13.05.2007)

► Software Publisher's DESCRIPTION: Smart To-Do is easy to use but powerful tool that will help you manage your daily tasks more effectively.

Improve the way you manage your everyday tasks. This application will make it easy and fun for you to keep track of your tasks and goals by going much further than the usual to-do lists go. Smart To-Do sports a convenient tabs-based interface allowing you to organize your to-do lists better. For every task you can add a long description and an attachment, which can be a file or a folder. Every task can have a reminder, which will alert you when the task is due.

Click a picture below to see a larger view.

Cute and easy to use

Residing in the Windows tray Smart To-Do is always right at your fingertip ready to obey you. It sports a convenient tab-based interface which helps you to organize your tasks better. Sort your tasks by priority or by due date and finish the most important ones first.

Wild but organized

Add and edit tasks with ease. For every task you can specify details like a long description and an attachment which can be a file or a folder related to this particular task. Further you can categorize every task and filter it accordingly.

Never miss an important task again

Every task can have a reminder which will alert you when the task is due. How useful is a task if you forget about it? You will never miss meetings or appointments again!

Yellow Notes

Do you need a nice way to have notes on your desktop? You can turn every task to a sticky yellow note and place it wherever you want!

Have your tasks always with you 

Print the tasks to paper and have them with you. Or export them to Excel for a thorough analysis.

Watch an on-line video or see the screen shots

Update of 14.05.07 at 14.15 GMT - Please note: ConceptDraw was available as a giveaway on May 13, 2007. This giveaway is not available any more! Sorry, you are late. But you can visit this Software Publisher's web site and download a trial version.

NK

► TITLE & VERSION: Folder Marker Home 2.0

► HOMEPAGE: http://www.foldermarker.com/folder-marker-home.php

► SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS: OS: 98/Me/2000/XP/2003 Server

► FILE SIZE: 1.54 MB

► PRICE: normally $19.95 but it is free today (19.05.2007)

► Software Publisher's DESCRIPTION: Folder Marker Home lets you mark your folders with color-coded and image-coded icons with one mouse click, which makes them easy to find and retrieve. Simply select the folder you want to mark out, right-click on its icon, select a color-coded icon from the drop-down menu and it will be assigned to the folder at once.

"Mark Folder" popup menu

Users can take advantage of great customization flexibility. You can, for example, modify a right-click menu of a folder by adding new menu items and categories and assigning icons to them. There is also an ability to add new items to Folder Marker's icon set. Simply drop an ICL file to the appropriate folder and a new tab with folders from this file will appear. The user can select to make folders, customized with Folder Marker Home, distributable. This means a color-coded icon remains unchanged even if the folder is copied onto a new computer or the system has been re-installed. Also, you can apply a selected icon for all subfolders in a given folder.

Main window

This is the perfect download for any home user who needs a little extra boost getting your files in order!

► REVIEW (BladedThoth): I love having an organized computer and I am usually trying to find ways to organize more effectively while increasing productivity. I have always pondered the idea of custom-changing my icons, but the time to do so would be significant because of Windows interface. While free, if you want to be able to manage your folder colors for productivity, or even just wanted to change from the bland yellow color, this is a good pick-up. Even for $19.95, productivity freaks may definitely find this worth the price. There is even Pro and Free versions available too with different features; Free version is lacking a good portion of functionality (No contextual menu and is missing everything except colored folders.)

► NK's RATING & NOTES:   I like to idea of folders icons customising: after that it's much easier to find those folders you use more often. Folder Marker is a great help with this task. Generally it's possible to change folders using Windows tools but they are not so convenient and with Folder Marker you can change much more folders than with Windows tools. A nice feature is Restore Default with which you can quickly and easily restore the default folder look.

One of the greatest features of Folder Marker which I've never seen in any other programs of this type is 'Make customized folder distributable' (portable) - it means that customised folder will look the same on any other computer or device (e.g. flash memory stick) where you put it.

You may also want to download two nice free sets of icons which you can use both on your computer and web site:

Sky Light (Basic)

Free collection of ready stock icons for professional use, provide you with a wide array of glyphs that let you create an engaging front-end for your software without the need to spend weeks on designing your own icons. Icons available in all sizes.

Autumn Icons

Basic icon set in Autumn style. A collection of ready stock icons most often required for program design. Icons are free and available in sizes from 16×16 to 128×128.

Update of 20.05.07 at 08.25 GMT - Please note: Folder Marker Home was available as a giveaway on May 19, 2007. This giveaway is not available any more! Sorry, you are late. But you can visit this Software Publisher's web site and download a trial version or a free version.

NK

► TITLE & VERSION: SmartSleep 3.60

► HOMEPAGE: http://www.dextronet.com/smartsleep.php

► SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS: OS: x/ME/NT/2000/XP/2003 Server/Vista

► FILE SIZE: 1.95 MB

► PRICE: normally $19.95 but it is free today (20.05.2007)

► Software Publisher's DESCRIPTION: SmartSleep is a powerful shutdown utility and shutdown scheduler. It's simply designed for shutting down computer at a specified time. You can also schedule these tasks, so it can turn off your PC every Sunday at 18:00 and so on. However, SmartSleep can do way more than that!
SmartSleep supports these operations: Shutdown, log off, reboot, black screen, hibernation, suspend, file execution and display message. But that's not all, SmartSleep offers many additional functions, like atomic clock synchronization - you may synchronise your clock online with atomic clock, so your time is always accurate.

What you can use SmartSleep for? Some examples!

More screenshots here.

► REVIEW (BladedThoth): Sometimes you need to bring down your system automatically for some reason (memory leak you can’t track, etc.) or you need some automation and you don’t like the system’s scheduler, this is a pretty handy application. While there is room to grow, it is pretty well functional now as it is. With time, I feel this can grow into much more powerful software. For free, if you have a use for it, you might as well grab it – Some people may just have no use for this functionality. For $19.95, the price may be worth it for a desktop user if it will improve productivity – Myself I would likely not spend this for my desktop. However, for server use, $19.95 makes a lot of sense for the ability to manage various tasks (And dealing with runaway processes easier, especially if you are remotely administering the system.)

► NK's RATING & NOTES: For me personally this app is useless:  I never forget to to turn off my PCs and never use them for lullaby singing - my computers live in one room and I sleep in another... but perhaps somebody need it? At least while it's possible to get it for free...