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You've almost certainly seen mind maps, which depict ideas, words, tasks, projects, and other elements as graphical symbols arrayed around a central idea. They're nothing new; the Ancient Greeks knew of them, and today mind maps are used in business, industry, government, academia, the military, and other planning-dependent fields. Freeplane is a free, Java-based tool for creating mind maps. As with many open-source projects, Freeplane is available in a wide range of interface languages.

The first thing we noticed about Freeplane's efficiently configured layout was a toolbar containing a row of quick-access Function keys, beginning with F1, … Read more

We should all know the dangers of browsing the Web without any protection. That's why it's best to take the proper precautions. One way to do that is to hide your IP address from prying eyes. Surf Anonymous Free offers a way to disguise your IP address while you browse. It worked as promised, though our browsing performance suffered, often with connections that timed out.

The program's user interface is basic and to the point. Your real IP address appears in the small window, and from there, you have two options: Hide IP and Select Fake Location. … Read more

LightShot for Internet Explorer is a fast, flexible screen capture tool that makes it easy to upload and share your captured images. It's free and works in the latest versions of IE, including IE 9.

We downloaded LightShot, which opened inside Internet Explorer. A start-up page quickly explained how to use this simple tool: click the program's feather icon to activate the selection area, drag your cursor to select an area to copy, and choose a command from a widget-style menu that appears. We clicked the feather icon on the toolbar, and our window changed appearance to indicate … Read more

If you use more than one computer or more than one browser, you have probably experienced the frustration of not having access to a particular bookmark that you need. Fortunately, bookmarks are something that you can easily sync across machines or browsers thanks to Xmarks for Internet Explorer. This simple extension keeps your bookmarks consistent across locations, ensuring that you always have access to the sites you need.

Xmarks for Internet Explorer installs easily and then guides you through a setup wizard to create an Xmarks account if you don't already have one. Xmarks then backs up your bookmarks … Read more

If you're big on reading you no doubt have your book collection displayed on a bookcase, maybe even with some semblance of organization. If you enjoy electronic books in addition to--or instead of--their paper counterparts, why not organize them as well? eLib is a basic program you can use to create collections of e-books for easy organization and viewing.

The program's interface is plain, with a tree view on the left that displays user-defined collections. Clicking on a collection allows you to view the contents either as a list or as a group of thumbnails. To view an … Read more

Animated Water Drop Desktop Wallpaper is a free app from Artdocks that creates a realistic effect of water droplets slowly moving down your screen. While it does vary your screen's pixels somewhat, it's not a screensaver; it's a wallpaper enhancement that you can use with your usual background images. The effect is attractive and subtly soothing.

We activated Animated Water Drop by clicking its desktop icon, though there's also a Start Menu entry as well as icons in the Artdocks folder, which also contained an uninstaller for the wallpaper. You can't access the program from … Read more

Chrome TV lets you stream international TV stations to your desktop via a browser pop-up inside Google Chrome. It draws its listings from an online database, which means you can't add your own channels or make other changes. Chrome TV's selections are nothing if not diverse--linguistically and geographically, at least. The programming leans toward news, weather, and sports broadcasts as well as what might be called cultural affairs programming, though we did find some movies, classic cartoons, and other pleasant surprises.

Chrome TV is free and installs easily, but it might require the Windows Media Player browser plug-in, … Read more

Google SSL Web Search is a free extension that lets you change Chrome's default search engine to Google SSL, or encrypted.google.com. Google SSL is a beta release that promises end-to-end Secure Socket Layer encryption between your PC and Google. Encrypted searching keeps your searches private and keeps third parties from observing your searches or corrupting the results. It doesn't guarantee private or anonymous browsing; it merely secures your data transactions with Google, much like your bank's Web site. Google SSL currently supports only Google Web Search, so other tools like Google Images and Google Maps … Read more

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is a popular first-person shooter game, and competition among players can be intense. If you're a fan of the game and like to frequently check stats--either your own or other players'--try Battlefield Bad Company 2 Stats. This extension for Google Chrome lets you quickly view the game statistics for any Battlefield: Bad Company 2 player.

Like most Chrome extensions, Battlefield Bad Company 2 Stats installs easily, requiring not even so much as a browser restart. The extension appears as an icon to the right of Chrome's address bar, and clicking on it brings … Read more