Identifying a file type is often very easy. A glance at the icon gives you a general idea – VLC Media Player tells you it’s a media file, for instance – and the extension tells you everything else.

Life isn’t always that simple, though. File extensions might be lost, changed, or maybe you’ve just found a mystery file in a folder somewhere and would like to know what it is.

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Non-Plex Pass holders rejoice – Plex has made its desktop-friendly media player app for Windows and Mac completely free with the release of Plex Media Player 1.2.

Version 1.2 also introduces a major new feature – when the app is run in windowed mode, it defaults to the web interface, allowing users to manage their server(s) remotely.

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If you’re working on a document or design template then you’ll often need images of a specific resolution or aspect ratio, but finding matching pictures on your own system might take a little work.

One option is to add a few extra columns to Explorer. Go to the Pictures folder, right-click a column header, select More and add items like “Dimensions” (1920×1080) or Horizontal/ Vertical Resolution (xxx dpi).

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Stretchly is an open-source tool which displays regular “take a break” reminders when you’re working on your PC, Linux system or Mac.

There are plenty of similar tools around, but stretchly has some unusual touches which help it stand out from the crowd.

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Set up your own home network and you can have Explorer automatically map any remote drives you like, whenever you log on.

Connect to another network, though, and Explorer will still try to connect to the drives that aren’t there, along with drives for work, school, or whatever else you might have set up.

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TeamViewer has just released TeamViewer 12, the latest edition of its popular remote control package.

Major performance improvements include up to 20x faster file transfers, and frame rates of up to 60 fps.

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Earlier this year, Dropbox open-sourced Lepton, a lossless image compression algorithm which can reduce the size of JPEG images by an average of 22%.

The technology converts your target JPEGs into the compacted LEP format, and restores the original version on demand.

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VideoLAN has released a technical preview of VLC Media Player 3.0 with 360-degree video support.

The new build handles videos following the Spatial Video format, and photos and panoramas following the Spherical spec (the official test page has sample files).

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VirusTotal has announced the addition of WhiteArmor’s engine to its antivirus lineup.

The Chinese developer explains:

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It’s easy for me to poke holes in other people’s software, at least some of the time: oddball interfaces, missing functions, horrible performance, whatever it might be. But does that mean I have enough understanding of software to do any better myself?

That was an interesting question, I realised, and there was only one way to find out: I had to develop something of my own.

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Bitsum Technologies has released a beta of CPUBalance, its intelligent tool for optimising PC responsiveness.

The program uses the same ProBalance technology as Process Lasso to monitor running processes, detect CPU hogs, and instantly adjust priorities to keep your system running smoothly.

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