I have mentioned in the past having trouble with using my old Logitech Precision gamepad with some games, or have said I would love the ability to use it with some flash games that are out there.  Xpadder, a free program for Windows, has saved the day for me.  Xpadder is a kind of keyboard to gamepad translation too.

The main purpose of this freeware is to simulate keyboard key presses or mouse movements using a gamepad.  Xpadder comes in handy when you want to use a controller to play PC games with no joystick support, like old DOS games, flash games, and more.

Here are some of the features of Xpadder:

• Full keyboard and mouse emulation
• Rumble support for capable controllers
• Constantly updated controller database
• Multiple profile management
• Advanced fine-tuning options
• Low CPU and memory usage

So with Xpadder, I can play games like Super Mario Bros X and Super Mario Crossover with no issues at all, using my cheap USB controller, rather than the keyboard.

Want to give it a try?  You can download Xpadder for free, at Xpadder.com.

Looking for a way to download YouTube videos, without cluttering your browser of choice with yet another extension or add-on?  YouTube Downloader is a free program you can download and use to get this simple job done.

All you have to do  is enter the web site address of the video into the program, and hit the, OK button.  The rest of the process is taken care of internally via the program.

This might be one of the best stand alone simple YouTube video downloaders out there on the Web today.

Some of the features included are:

• Download videos from YouTube, Google Video, MySpaceTV and many others
• Allows you to access YouTube videos for which you need to be 18+ years of age
• Provides the ability to cut and select the output quality of converted videos
• Uses the FFmpeg engine to convert the videos
• Plays videos downloaded in Flash
• Extremely easy to use

You also have the choice to download and convert the files to the formats for the iPod, iPhone, PSP, Cell Phone, Windows Media, Xvid, or turn the video file into an MP3.

To download YouTube Downloader, go visit youtubedownloader.altervista.org, and hit the, “download now!” banner there.  You’ll be glad you did.

Convert Files promises to give you the ability to convert just about any file format to any other similar file format, for free.  All you have to do is upload the file (or give them your file URL), select your input format, your output format and your e-mail address and they will e-mail you a link to the converted file. 

Some of the file formats they will convert over include:

Archives – RAR to TAR, ZIP, TGZ, TAR.GZ

Documents – DOCX to DOC, ODT, RTF, SWX, TXT, HTML, XHTML, PDF, PDB, ZIP

Presentations – PPT to ODP, PDF, SWF

Images – JPG to GIF, BMP, PNG, TIF, PDF

Audio – MP3 to WAV, OGG, AAC, M4A, FLAC, AU, WMA, AMR

Video – FLV to 3GP, AVI, MP4, MPEG, VOB, WMV, MOV, MKV, ASF, M4V

That is just barely scratching the surface on what this great online tool can do.  After converting, the file will stay on their servers for up to a week before it is deleted.  Also, as far as size goes, you can convert a file that is 100 MB in size or less. 

For anybody looking for an easy way to convert a file from one format to the next, but don’t want to download any special scripts or software to do so, Convert Files is a perfect converting companion.

All you need to do is browse for the file you want to convert, and then hit the “start conversion” button.  Some of the files it currently supports include:

• image/photo files (jpeg, gif, png, svg…)
• audio formats (mp3, ogg…)
• documents (doc, pdf, odt, txt, rtf…)
• programming source code (java, php, cpp…)
• web documents (html, htm…)
• archive (zip, rar…)
• video, fonts, chemical file formats and more

Once uploaded, every converted file has a unique web address created for it, so you can point others to it and share the document in question.  So if you are searching for a free way to convert any file into a web page, give them a shot at File2.ws.

I love looking at bookmarklets.  These handy bookmarks that allow just about any browser to do even more amazing things are really handy to have.  Want to convert any web page to a PDF to read later?  I have found a bookmarklet that does that too.

The people behind PDF Download have produced their  own bookmarklet to convert web pages into high-quality PDF files free from any browser.  Just drag and drop this link to your bookmarks toolbar, and click it when you want to export to PDF:

Save Page as PDF

Here are the setup instructions for all the various browsers out there:

• Google Chrome
• Safari
• Firefox (also see full add-on)
• Internet Explorer (also see full add-on)
• Opera

Only negative I could find is I got the “server is too busy” message more than a couple of times.

Know of anymore bookmarklets that will allow you to export a page into an entirely different format?  Me neither,  but if you do – please share.  PDF Download’s solution will work for the time being though.  Save on paper and export to PDF.  That tree outside your window will thank you.

Better PDF Editing Abilities

Need an easy way to edit PDF files without the expensive PDF editor?  In the past, I have told you about creating PDFs via Open Office.   However, what if you could convert those PDFs to Word doc files to edit instead?  Pickup the Free PDF to Word Converter for Windows to get the job done.

Better PDF Browser Support

How about better PDF support for the browser?  PDF files are notorious for crashing your modern web browser.  So with that said, what tool can you use to make the experience better?  A browser add-on named PDF Download.  It’s features include:

• Convert Web pages to PDF. (NEW) Convert any Web pages to great looking PDF files, and then save, share, print or archive them.
• View PDF as HTML. View the contents of PDF files faster and eliminate browser problems by instantly converting any Web-based PDF to a browser-friendly HTML Web page.
• Control PDF files in Firefox. Stop crashes and get the upper hand on Web-based PDF files by automating and controlling how your Firefox or Flock browsers deal with them.

PDF Download works with Firefox 2 & 3, Flock 1, and Internet Explorer 7 & 8 (beta) web browsers.

Better Printing Abilities to the PDF Format

Now this one isn’t really PDF’s problem, however I do have a solution.  If you are wanting to cut down on the paper you use, printing to the PDF format can save you some cash in the long run as well as conserve that printing paper.  All you need to do is grab PrimoPDF for Windows.  It will add the ability for you choose “Print as PDF” from any print screen.  All you have to do is select it as the printer of your choice.

So what other things bug you about PDF files, or have you found any other solutions to your PDF powered problems?  It might not be the best standard in the world, however it can come in handy from time to time.

The FLV to MP3 Online Converter is the tool you want to keep handy.  So far it is still fairly quick with it’s conversion and when it is done doing that voodoo that it does so well it will spit out a .mp3 file for you to save, edit and rename as your own.

As a bonus, also be sure to check out my post on Firefox Facts that covers ripping mp3 files from music shared on MuxTape.com.