Go from savage to spiritual with CNET.co.uk Downloads

Hey, you. See that green tab towards the top of this page that says 'Downloads'? If you click it you'll fall headlong into a veritable smorgasbord of free software. We're not talking about a few piddly shareware apps designed by some kid in his bedroom, either. We're talking full applications, drivers, design and imaging software, developer tools, not to mention a tonne of games.

This week we've mostly been checking out Adobe Lightroom beta 3. It's a professional photography tool that lets you import, develop and showcase your digital image collection. It allows you to spend less time sorting and organising images, so you have more time to shoot and perfect them.

There's a version of Lightroom for the Mac platform too, but Mac users should also check out the Shop'NCook Shopping List and Recipe Manager. It's a grocery list manager with a recipe organiser -- you gather your recipes in virtual cookbooks, which you can share with others over the Internet. It certainly beats rummaging through dusty Delia Smith books, and its database of 2,000 grocery items and their nutritional data makes it invaluable.

For our more spiritual readers, we've lined up a copy of Pocket Islam. It's the first Arabic Holy Quran you can read or listen to on your Pocket PC. It contains a prayer schedule, sayings and practices by Mohammed, and even lets you know the direction you should pray, depending on your location and the position of the sun.

If mindless fun is what you're after, check out our games section. Our friends at GameSpot UK (CNET.co.uk's sister site) told us to give Penumbra a go. It's a free, first-person horror game that puts you in the shoes of a man searching for his lost father in an underground base. It's great fun, but you may want to play it with the lights on -- it's frightening stuff. -RR