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The Nuclear Option
 Fascinated as I am by all things nuclear I couldn’t resist
this interestingly named freeware utility. It’s called Atomic Cleaner and it
clears your computer of the detritus and remnants left behind by your web
surfing activities. Sadly it doesn’t touch the notorious hidden and protected
index.dat files, and CCleaner
remains our program of choice for that job, but it does delve into areas other
cleanup utilities ignore, such as files left behind by on-line games and P2P
services. There’s also a handy System status window and a small selection of
tools that includes shortcuts to the Windows disc cleaner, defragger, msconfig,
Regedit, System Performance and DirectX control panel.
13/11/08
Top Tweaker
 I normally avoid so-called performance-boosting programs like the
plague; they rarely work and occasionally they can actually make things worse.
I’m not saying that MZ
Ultimate Tweaker is going to turn a sluggish PC into an F1 machine – it’s
not that simple – but it does have a number of tools that can help to make a
well used PC run a bit smoother. None of the tweaks are particularly
contentious – hunt through PCTopTips and around the web and you’ll find that
most of them are well documented. They’re relatively harmless too, and the
program provides a safety net; the first time you use it, it makes a backup of
your Registry, which could come in useful if anything goes wrong. It’s not going
to fix serious problems and don’t expect miracles but if you think your PC has
the potential to run a bit faster or it needs perking up then it’s definitely
worth trying.
22/09/08
More Information Than You Need…
 We’ve mentioned hardware information utilities a couple of
times in the past, these are programs that tell you about your computer and its
setup, but this freeware tool, called HWiNFO32,
leaves absolutely nothing to the imagination. If it were technically possible
to tell you how many nuts and bolts are holding your PC together, it would do
so. As it is you’ll just have to be content with every possible scrap of
information regarding the hardware connected to your computer that it is
possible to extract, from the manufacturer’s code name for your CPU chip, to
whether or not your monitor supports an obscure feature called Blank to Black
Setup. You can also set a benchmark, so you can track performance and monitor
changes, there’s a Sensor page, that tells you all about the temperatures and
voltages running around inside your machine, and you can save Reports, which
might come in handy one day, if you need to track down a tricky fault.
04/08/08
Build Your Own Android
 If you’ve been following the goings-on in the mobile phone
industry you will know that the Next Big Thing is likely to be Google and its
Android operating system. Android is Open Source software and Google is
gunning hard for the big boys, namely Microsoft, Nokia and Apple,
and actively encouraging users to contribute to its development, hence
the Android
Software Developer’s Kit (SDK), which you can now download and try for
yourself.
Of course, it’s mostly aimed at programmers and developers,
but there’s something for everyone and it contains a full Android
Emulator, which basically means you can simulate the workings of an Android
phone on your Windows Mac or Linux PC. All of the controls features and menu functions
really work in fact the emulator does everything a real phone will be able to do,
except make and take phone calls. To try it for yourself download and unzip the
SDK and when it has installed you’ll find the emulator program in the Tools
folder.
30/06/08
Ebay Sniping Tool
 Speaking as a regular ebay user, I am constantly being
outbid in the last seconds of an auction, almost certainly by automated bidding
programs, and it’s ticking me off! On the very shaky premise that if you can’t
beat ’em, join ’em, I am now seriously considering going over to the dark side
and using what’s known as a ‘sniping tool’ to do my bidding for me and based on
my researches, it seems that one of the best is a freeware utility called JbidWatcher. It’s very easy to set up,
you feed it your ebay details, tell it what you want to bid on, how much you
are prepared to pay, and how late you want to make a bid and it gets on with
it. Moments before the auction ends JBid makes it move, and if you are
successful, the item is yours, assuming of course that rival bidders are not
using sniping tools as well, set to place higher bids even later than you…
26/06/08
Registry Wash and
Brush Up
 Registry cleaners
are sometimes touted as a magical panaceas for sick computers but I’m afraid
they don’t work like that, and I certainly wouldn’t recommend anyone spend
money on one. Nevertheless, a cluttered Registry can affect performance, and
may cause errors, so an occasional clean up can sometimes be beneficial,
especially on well–used machines that haven’t received much attention in the
past.
I’m happy to
recommend RegSeeker as a good general-purpose cleaner, and here’s another one,
that seems to do a pretty good job. It’s called Baku and it’s also
free. Like RegSeeker it makes a backup of the Registry before it makes any
changes, so you can always undo a cleaning operation if problems arise, but it
goes further and lets you view and modify Registry keys, and so it’s not really
suitable for novices. Other useful features include MRU (Most Recently Used)
list scanning and deletion and scan and delete empty folders and temporary
folders.
02/06/08
Tour Space With Microsoft
 It’s okay, Bill Gates hasn’t bought NASA, at least not just
yet, but Microsoft is giving away a free virtual tour of space with a new
web-based application called Worldwide
Telescope. Be warned, you’ll need a reasonably quick PC, preferably with a
dual-core CPU, and ideally running Vista, though it will still plod along under
XP. The images are stunning and based on actual ground and spaced based
telescopes, you can zoom in on astronomical features, explore the solar system
and warp across the Milky Way. Okay, so it’s a bit like Google Sky, but there’s
a bit more depth to it, better controls and it looks like it could become a
very useful educational tool.
19/05/08
CD Lifesaver
 If you have a CD or DVD writer drive then sooner or later (probably
sooner) you will end up with a disc that contains files that you just can’t
read on your PC. CD Recovery Toolbox
Free could get you out of that hole. Once installed simply pop in the
errant disc and it will see what it can find, and if the file you are looking
for is there, and recoverable, just tick the box and it will be saved
to a folder on your hard drive. No fuss, no mess, and no cost.
05/05/08
3D Home Arranger
 I work in a complete mess, which is okay because I really do
know where everything is, but I understand there are those amongst you who take
things like house layout and design very seriously, in which case a free Open
Source program called Sweet Home
3D might be just what the house doctor ordered.
It’s a simplified CAD/CAM program, configured for home
interior design, that lets you plan your rooms, shifting your furniture around
on a scale plan with your mouse and you can see how it all looks in a 3D
preview window. And because it’s Open Source users are encouraged to
contribute, which means there’s a growing library of 3D modelled furniture and
fittings, everything from spiral staircases to an upright piano.
03/03/08
Can Loonies Speed Up Your PC?
 I tend to be wary of programs that purport to make computers go faster, fix problems and so on. The vast majority of them are
worthless snake oil. I’m also a bit suspicious of Russian software –
they’ve still got a reputation for dodgy programs and scams – and
anything that comes from a company called Loonies is bound to set the alarm
bells ringing so Actual
Booster doesn’t get off to a very promising start.
Nevertheless, after giving it a fairly thorough road test I
can tell you that Actual Booster really does liven things up a bit. It’s also free,
and as far as I can see there’s no iffy content and it doesn’t try to phone
home. So how does it work? In fact
there’s no real magic, all it does is allocate more resources to the program
that’s running on top of the desktop, everything else gets put on a low
priority. That means if you are using Word or Excel, it gets the lion’s share
of your PC’s CPU and memory, and it runs a bit quicker. If you then switch to
another program then it gets a boost. Nothing else is affected; background programs
and services retain their original priorities. The program is tiny – just 64k
and it installs in a couple of seconds, and if there’s no improvement just
remove it; what have you got to lose?
28/02/08
Explore Your Fonts
 Windows seems to have an insatiable appetite for fonts. A
new installation starts out with the standard ‘core’ fonts, and there are
around 20 of them, but within a very short time you could find your fonts
folder has somehow acquired scores and sometimes hundreds of new ones. The
Windows Font viewer in Control Panel doesn’t really tell you much, unless you
open each file, so here’s a better way to see what you’ve got. It’s called Windows
Fonts Explorer and there’s really no need to elaborate. Just type some
words into the Viewer window, select the font from the list and choose the size
or attribute (bold, italic etc) and you can see straight away what it looks
like. Don’t like the look of it? No problem, just make another selection. The
program even helps you install new ones, should you feel you don’t have enough
of them…
07/02/08
Burning Ambition
 We’ve mentioned a few freeware CD/DVD burning applications in
the past but they’ve tended to a bit specialist, or a bit too teccy for
absolute beginners but that’s not something you could ever accuse BurnAware of.
It’s very easy to use and copes with just about any optical disc format, up to
and including BluRay. To use it just click on the icon for the task you want
(create data disc, burn ISO image, create audio CD or DVD video and follow the
prompts. That’s all there is to it, it’s as near as dammit foolproof, it’s free
and it just works. So what more do you need to know?
31/01/08
Patrol Your PC
 I have been meaning to tell you about this useful little
utility for some time but for one reason or another it kept slipping back down
the pile. Now it’s reached the top and it’s called WinPatrol, and as the name suggests it
keeps a watch on what you PC is getting up to. The main window has 11 tabs that
cover such diverse areas Startup programs, Cookies, File Types, IE Helpers,
Hidden Files, Scheduled Tasks, Active Tasks and Services. Each one leads you to
window that shows you exactly what is going on behind the scenes, with options
and helpful advice to control or remove these background functions, some of
which may be slowing your PC down, or worse… Even if your PC is running
smoothly it doesn’t hurt to have a poke around and see what’s going on, and if
it starts playing up, WinPatrol could help you track down the problem.
10/01/08
Delayed Startups Speeds Up Windows
 If you have set up your PC to load one or more programs
after Windows boots up then it can take several minutes before the machine is
useable. It’s far better to load programs when Windows isn’t so busy, and when
things have quietened down you’ll find they load a lot quicker too. That’s
exactly what Startup
Delayer can do for you, just enter a list of the programs you want to load,
set a short post-boot delay time, to allow Windows to do its stuff, and your
chosen programs will leap into action and be ready to use in no time flat. It’s
free/donationware, the download is small (less than 400kb), and it’ll work with
all versions of Windows, from 98 onwards.
06/12/07
Quick Qlipboard Presenter
 Here’s a really neat little freeware program called Qlipboard, for producing
quick and simple audiovisual presentations. It could be anything, a slideshow of your favourite photos,
for example, with an audio commentary and on-screen annotation, highlighting the points of
interest. You could use it for something more serious, like a sales pitch, or
maybe put together a demonstration showing auntie Maud how to send emails. It’s
really easy to use, just line up the images you want to use, click the record
button and start talking (or singing maybe), brining up the images you want to
use. When you’ve finished you can save it to disc, send it by email it or
upload it to the web.
15/11/07
Explore those Processes
 Windows Task Manager (Ctrl + Alt + Del) gives you a fair
idea of what your computer is up to but it’s only a cursory snapshot, it tells
you what programs are running, but not much about what they are doing, and this
could be worth knowing if your PC is running slowly or crashing. What you need
is a freeware utility, called Process
Explorer, developed by Sysinternals and now available for download from
Microsoft TechNet. It runs on just about any version of Windows, from 95
onwards, and it is highly configurable, and shows scores of different things
going on behind the scenes. If your PC is playing up give it a try, you’ll be
surprised what it is getting up to…
12/11/07
Driver Backup
 Re-installing Windows can be a traumatic business, it’s bad
enough having to backup all of your data and re-install your programs but the
worst bit is tracking down all of the drivers for your hardware and
peripherals. Here’s a simple way to avoid the hassle, a freeware program called
DriverMax. It
finds and exports all of the drivers on your PC to a nominated folder or
compressed Zip file, so there’s no need to waste time hunting down discs and
downloads. When you have reinstalled Windows simply run DriverMax, import your
saved drivers and you’ll be up and running again in no time flat. The program
comes as a 30-day trial but you can apply for a free registration code and it’s
your to keep.
29/10/07
Well, I’ll Be Bug.gd...
 Sooner or later your PC is going to throw a wobbly and
you’ll be faced with an indecipherable error message. Now you could Google it,
and you’ll probably get a few thousand hits; maybe after half an hour’s
trawling the web you might strike lucky and come up with an answer, but here’s
something else to try.
It’s a website, called Bug.gd,
and the idea is you type or copy and paste the error message into the box and
click Search. There’s a very fair chance that someone else has suffered the
same mishap and you’ll immediately see a selection of possible solutions,
otherwise helpful visitors to the site will come up with suggestions. 48 hours
after you posted the problem the website will email you back, to see how you
got on, and whether or not you fixed it. It’s all free and the Bug.gd community
seems like a very lively and knowledgeable bunch, so what have you got to lose?
It might even put me out of a job…
2510
What’s In A Name?
 You know how it is, you’ve just invented a brilliant new
gizmo, or had an idea for what is bound to be a hugely successful website, but
you are stuck for a catchy name. Your future business empire could stand or
fall on the title, but you’re stuck, so what do you do? Well, you could do
worse than pop along to the Name.Noemata
website, where you will find a Random Name Generator, and very good it is too.
The trouble is now I have some great names, but no products… No worries , now
how many Auroberths do you want, and could I interest you in a couple of Extimacs?
08/10/07
What Have You Been Up To Today?
 Those of us in jobs that need to keep a close track of the
tasks we do throughout the day – for preparing invoices or keeping the boss off
our backs – have a bit of a problem. You can keep notes, or fill out a
timesheet, but they all waste time, or you can use time tracking software,
which does it automatically. The only trouble with that is many of the
commercial programs cost rather a lot of money, or are way too sophisticated,
and the free ones are usually much too basic. Well, here’s an alternative, it’s
QuickLogger, it’s free, and highly
customisable. There’s an option to make it appear anywhere on the screen, logs
can be saved in Excel, Text, HTML or CSV format, you decide where the logs are
kept and you can easily change the number of tasks it keeps track of.
03/10/07
Decrapifier – where have you been all my life…
 I cannot begin to count how many hours I have wasted
uninstalling demo, trial and just plain unwanted programs from new PCs, and it
seems the cheaper they are the more of this rubbish you have to get rid of.
Yes, I know it’s one of the reasons why PCs and laptops are so affordable these
days but I still don’t want it and I only wish I’d had something like the PC Decrapifier
to save me from this onerous chore. The name says it all, just download and
install this on your shiny new PC and it will identify the junk and then offer
to get rid of it for you. It’s easy to use and nothing disappears without your
permission. Best of all it’s free, but as always the authors are not averse to a
small donation, to show your appreciation!
21/09/07
A Big Free Turn-Off
 How many times have you accidentally left your computer
switched on? Or maybe you want to leave it on while you are away from home or
the office for the day, but want to be able to switch it off at night? If this sounds like you then a freeware
program called WinOFF
could be just what you are looking for.
Basically it does what it says, and it will shut down your
PC at a preset time or date, after a preset period, or when CPU activity falls
below a preset level. You can also select the shut down mode, form complete
power down to sleep, hibernate, log-off or lock. It’s incredibly easy to use
and highly configurable, with good security features, so stop wasting
electricity and help save the planet – every little helps!
03/09/07
Speed Up and Clean
Out Windows
 I am naturally wary
of any program that claims to be able to speed up Windows and solve performance
problems. They rarely do any good and in some cases can make things even worse.
I’m not about to change my mind since no single program can hope to cover the
near infinite range of problems on a well-used PC and until now I have used a
variety of tools and utilities to address specific issues, but now many of them
– plus some new ones – have been gathered together in one place, in an
excellent free application called Glary Utilities.
It covers five
different aspects of your PC’s operation: Clean Up and Repair, Optimise and
Improve, Privacy and Security, Files and Folders and System Tools, and each one
leads to a collection of individual tools.
I have tried it on a
range of Windows 98, XP and Vista PCs and I have been very impressed, the
Startup Manager tool is very effective for example. It clearly shows the
programs and components that are slowing down your PC’s boot up, with the
option to selectively delete them one at a time. It’s not for absolute
beginners and I suggest setting a System Restore Point before using it, but the
results so far are very encouraging indeed.
29/08/07
Heaven’s Above, It’s
Google Sky…
 There’s a new
version of Google Earth (v4.2) for you
to download, and this time there’s a really great new feature, called Google
Sky. Click the button and you are transported into space, using high resolution
imagery from the Hubble Space Telescope and various observatories around the
world, covering around 100 million stars and 200 hundred million galaxies - -so
that should keep you amused for a while… It’s a real-time ‘planetarium view of
the sky and you can track the planets and zoom into deep space, past stars and
galaxies to the very edges of the known universe – watch out for alien craft – or if you
know what you want to look at, just tap in the coordinates. Give it a try, it’s
really addictive!
24/08/07
Let Libra Liberate your
Collection
 Do you collect
stuff? Of course you do, whether it’s books, CDs, DVDs, games or even Beanie
Babies, but how do you keep track of your collection? Well try this, it’s
called Libra, a freeware application for organising things, it looks great and it is really
easy to use, especially on items, like books, audio CDs and DVDs etc. that have
product barcodes. Just hook up a webcam and Libra turns it into a barcode
scanner, able to read the code and automatically retrieve information from the
web. Libra is based on a SQL database, which means you can search and retrieve information
in the blink of an eye, and import information from other databases. It has a
catalogue printing utility and there’s even a facility to let you track items
that you have lent out.
22/08/07
Preaching for the
Converter, Universal Transcoder
 How often have your
multimedia ambitions been thwarted by a file incompatibility? By that I mean
being unable to play or watch a downloaded tune or movie clip, because your player
or viewer software of device cannot handle the particular file format. It
happens all the time and those who don’t give up normally waste hours trawling
the web for a file converter program.
Well, maybe you won’t
have to anymore; MediaCoder is
a free Open Source universal transcoder that can convert files to and from a
very wide range of multimedia formats. It’s really easy to use, just open the
file you want to convert then select the format you want to convert it to, you’ll
get a set of options for changing compression ratio etc, or just leave it on
the default and let it get on with the job.
The list of files
formats it can handle is a long one but here’s the highlights: MP3,
Vorbis, AAC, AAC+, AAC+v2, MusePack, Speex, AMR, WMA, RealAudio, mp3PRO, FLAC,
WavPack, Monkey's Audio, OptimFrog, AAC Lossless, WMA Lossless, WAV/PCM, H.264,
Xvid, MPEG 1/2/4, Theora, Flash Video, Dirac, 3ivx, RealVideo, Windows Media
Video, AVI, MPEG/VOB, Matroska, MP4, RealMedia, ASF, Quicktime, OGM, CD, VCD,
DVD, CUE Sheet.
20/08/07
Some Wise Advice
 As you know at the
heart of Windows there is a collection of System files, called the Registry.
Over time it becomes cluttered with bits of old programs, left behind when they
are uninstalled, corrupt entries and all sorts of detritus that could be
slowing your PC down, or making it unstable.
There are plenty of Registry
‘cleaners’ available, most of them I wouldn’t touch with a bargepole as they
can sometimes create more problems than they solve, but every so often one
comes along that seems to do a very good job. Until recently my favourite
freebie registry cleaner was RegSeeker but now there’s a new kid on the block,
called Wise Cleaner.
It’s really easy to use and there’s a brief description of every doubtful entry
it finds, and they are clearly identified as ‘Safe’ to fix, or something that’s
best left alone, unless you know what you are doing. Even if you do make a mistake
there’s a built-in safety net in the shape of an automatic backup facility, so
it should be okay, even for novices., but as with anything that makes changes
to the Registry, you use it entirely at your own risk.
15/08/07
Free Top Name Disc
Cloning Tools
 My thanks to the Inquirer for a
pointer to one of the year’s best freebies, and I advise you to get in quick
before they whip it away. Hard drive maker Seagate has put an OEM version of
Acronis True Image, just about the best disc cloning, formatting, erasing and
partitioning tool there is, on its website. It’s called DiscWizard
(and there’s another version under the Maxtor brand called ‘Max
Blast) and both are available in 14 languages
There’s one small
catch, you will need a Seagate or Maxtor drive on your PC (or in an external
housing) in order to use it, and be warned it’s a bit of a whopper, with the
download topping out at 102Mb I wouldn’t advise downloading it on a dial-up
connection...
20/07/07
Free Online Video Editor
 If you’re into uploading videos onto websites like YouTube,
Google Video, blogs and so on, or you just want to share your holiday clips
with friends and relatives then you might like to know about a new free online
video timeline
based editor, with true video rendering and real-time previewing, called
JayCut. It’s a one-stop-shop from where
you can upload and edit your videos and photos; and being all online there’s no
software to download JayCut is about to launch in Sweden the UK version is still
beta testing so you can get in on the ground floor, ahead of the public launch
next month, so why not give it a try, and let us know what you think?
15/06/07
USB Troubleshooter
 Looking back through
the various agony uncle columns I’ve written over the years it’s clear that the
USB devices and connectivity ranks close to the top of the list of (un)popular
PC maladies. To be fair it’s not that surprising since there are more types of
USB device than any other, but that’s no comfort when your latest widgety gizmo
fails to be recognised by Windows or stubbornly refuses to work on one PC, but
happily chunters away on another. A little freeware program called USBDeview could
be what you need.
The program is tiny
and doesn’t need to be installed, just fire it up it and you will see a
detailed list of all the USB devices connected to your PC, not just now, but
going way back when and old redundant drivers could well be the cause of your
present problems. USBDeview tells you everything you could possibly want to
know about your PC’s USB inventory and allows to safely disconnect devices and point
you in the direction of the programs you need to uninstall to permanently get
rid of the detritus
30/05/07
Natural Text to Speech
 As you may know Windows XP has a simple speech synthesiser
utility built in, called Narrator (Start > Programs > Accessories >
Accessibility) but it is fairly limited and not really designed to read text. NaturalReader, on the other hand, can
read anything you like in Word documents, emails, web pages and pdf files,
simply by highlighting the text and pressing the Play button. And there’s more.
You can save the speech file to MP3 format with a single click. You can also
vary the speed and tell it to ignore punctuation marks The only downside of the
free version is that it uses Windows default ‘Sam’ voice but there’s an option
to upgrade to a paid-for version with more natural-sounding voices.
25/05/07
Safer Surfing and Testing
 Whenever you install a new piece of software, or visit a web
site you are not sure about there’s often a nagging doubt at the back of your
mind; what if something goes wrong? Of course most of the time nothing untoward
happens but if you really want to protect your PC form nasties or dodgy
software take a look at Sandibox. It’s
a clever freeware utility that creates software ‘sandbox’, basically a safe
place for you to install and test new software, run existing programs, or surf
the web and if something bad occurs it cannot affect your system, or damage
files on your PC.
Sandibox is really simple to use, once installed open the
Control window and use it to run any program installed or loaded on your PC,
your browser for example. As far as you are concerned it operates normally but
the sandbox prevents it from making any changes or downloading files onto your
hard drive, so if you accidentally stray onto a site spiked with malware, you
are protected. The same thing happens if you want to try out a new program,
Sandibox allows it to install and run, but will not let it mess around with anything
on your hard drive. The only point to watch out for is that if any programs
running inside Sandibox create any data files – lets say you were using it to
try out a word processor, or download files from the net – when you close it any documents you’ve
written or downloaded will be lost, but it’s a small price to pay to protect
your computer.
09/05/07
Adobe Reader Alternative
 As you know in order to read portable document files (pdfs)
– mostly downloaded from the web -- you need Adobe’s Reader program. It used to
be okay, early versions, up to V4 were quick and stable but over the past few
years it’s got out of control and the latest incarnations are bloated, resource
sapping and somewhat intrusive. Alternatives to Adobe Reader have often been a
bit flaky, but here’s one that’s worth trying. It’s called Foxit Reader
for Windows. It’s free and the download is small, only around 1.7Mb (Adobe
Reader 8 is 20 Mb…). Once installed it does pretty well everything Adobe Reader
does, including launching automatically from your browser, it opens really
quickly, there’s no annoying splash screen, you can type and annotate pdfs and
convert PDFs to a text display. There’s no need to remove Adobe either, simply
set Foxit to the default reader and it’ll appear when you open a PDF, and if
you want to go back to Adobe Reader, just set it to the default, or uninstall
Foxit. What have you got to lose?
04/05/07
Don’t Click it, StrokeIt
 Here’s a nifty little freeware program that could save you
several seconds every day. It’s called StrokeIt,
and it interprets mouse ‘gestures’. In case you are still
wondering, a gesture is simply a movement, so, for example, with StrokeIt you
can close a program just by holding down the left mouse key and drawing the shape of a ‘C’ on the screen –
the gesture appears in blue. It’s really easy to use and can be set to start
with Windows. It comes with scores of pre-programmed gestures covering the main
functions in Windows and most popular applications or you can create your own.
The program is free, (though the authors wouldn’t say no to a small donation,
if you find it useful); the installation file is tiny small and takes only a
second or two to download.
25/04/07
Organise your Tree
 Normally I don’t have much use for databases, at least, not
of my own making, but I’m beginning to come around after playing around with a
little freeware utility called Treepad
Lite. It’s an excellent way of organising chunks of information scatter red
around your PC, that for one reason or another, you want to pull together. For
example, you could be compiling a family history using folders containing
pictures, scanned documents, web page bookmarks, written text and so on.
Treepad Lite lets you group the files together, in a familiar Windows Explorer
type desktop, making it easier to find things using a powerful search facility,
and keep track of where everything is. Treepad doesn’t care what the data is,
it can be emails, text, web links, notes pictures, in fact anything that’s on
your PC, and it is very intuitive and easy to use.
18/04/07
Free CD/DVD Burner
 As Windows XP users know there is a built-in CD burning
utility, but it is very basic and not especially easy to use. My usual advice
is to forget it at install something that does the job properly, like Nero
Burning or Roxio Media Creator, but here’s a freeware burner that can handle
both CDs and DVDs. It’s called Infrarecorder
and whilst it not as well-featured as its commercial counterparts it’s not far
behind, and it’s a whole lot better than the XP utility. For the record it can
create custom and mixed mode discs and disc images. It support dual-layer DVD,
it has four erasure modes for recordable discs, it has ISO and BIN burning
options, it can create copies on the fly, displays disc info and can hand all
popular audio formats, including wav, wma, ogg and mp3 (an mp3 plugin has to be
downloaded due to patent issues)
02/04/07
How Much Longer?
 It has to be one of the most frequently asked questions and
now, armed with a little freeware utility called Time Left, you’ll always know
the answer. Time Left is a countdown timer, but quite unlike any you’ve ever
seen before. It’s a long list so here
are the highlights. There’s an on-screen reminder, alarm clock, System Tray
clock, auction watch timer, stopwatch and time synchronisation utility. You can
schedule any event, from an appointment in a couple of hour’s time, to your mum’s
birthday next year. With the Countdown timer you can track how long it is to,
or since any event, and if you’re into ebay, the Auction Timer will warn you in
good time to place a bid. It’s highly customisable and easy very to use, so if
you’re a habitual clock-watcher, it’s time you tried it out.
09/03/07
Putting the Boot In with Super Grub
 Here’s a handy tool for more advanced PC users, faced
with a troublesome PC that just won’t boot. It’s called Super Grub, and if you’ve had
any dealings with Linux you may recognize the name as that of a popular bootloader
(GRUB stands for Grand Unified Bootloader). In case you are wondering a
bootloader is a program that configures a PC prior to loading an operating
system whether it be Linux or Windows (in Windows booting is controlled by a
file called the Master Boot Record or MBR). Super Grub can fix booting problems
with both OS’s, and is a dab hand at sorting out MBR problems. All you have to
do is download the files and use them to create a bootable floppy (or CD or USB
drive). It’s not the sort of thing you’ll need to use very often, hopefully not
at all, but you’ll be glad you downloaded come the day your PC stubbornly refuses
to boot!
26/02/07
USB Device Viewer
 How many USB widgets have you got plugged into your PC? Are
they working properly, who makes then, what;s the serial number, when did you
last use it? All these questions and more can be answered by a little freeware
utility called USBDview.
It’s also handy for getting rid of devices that you no longer use and
troubleshooting faulty connections. Please
note that it only works with Windows 2000 and XP
05/02/07
Family Tree For Free
 How many times have you thought it would be a good idea to create your
family tree? The trouble is most of us never get around to it. Now there’s no
excuse, just pop along to the Geni website,
click the Start Here button and enter some details, beginning with your own
first and last name and email address and you are on your way. It’s all free
and compiling your tree online is fast and easy – the Internet is a rich source
of genealogical data; you can add family members, include pictures and as much
or as little information as you like, and go back to it as often as you want to
add or update details. Your tree remains private and only you or members of
your family you have allowed or invited to participate will be able to see it.
22/01/07
Leet Speak Translator
 If j00
c4n r34d 7hiz 7h3n j00 w0n'7 n33d 70 kn0w 4b0u7 the 1337 7r4n51470r, 4
phr33w4r3 pr0gr4m 7h47 7r4n51473z 0rdin4ry 73x7 in70 1337
If the above looks like gobbledegook don’t worry, it actually says: ‘If
you can read this then you won’t need to know about the Leet Translator, a
freeware program that translates ordinary text into Leet’.
If you are still wondering what on earth this is all about then you
should know that Leet is a shorthand language, a bit like mobile phone texting,
and very popular in web chatrooms and so on, where it is sometimes known as
Elite Speak. The idea is numbers replace letters, and if you stare at it long
enough you might even get the gist of it. Anyway, Leet Translator is really easy
to use, just copy and paste a chunk of text into the top box and the
translation appears below, and you can copy and paste this into a web window or
document.
19/02/07
Slick Trick Launcher
 You may have come across ‘Hotkey’ programs that launch an application
or web page just by pressing a combination of keys on your keyboard, and very
good most of them are too. The only trouble is you have to remember the
keyboard combinations. It’s not too difficult when there’s only one or two of
them, but how would you get on with half a dozen, or a dozen keyboard
shortcuts? If your memory is anything like mine then pretty badly, so here’s an
even easier quick launcher. It’s called SlickRun, and all you have to do is
type in a ‘Magic Word’ into a little box that sits discreetly at the bottom of
the screen.
You can nominate web pages – PCTopTips, for example could just be
‘pctt’ and typing that in will launch your browser and navigate to the PCTopTips home
page. It can do a zillion other things as well, and it is preconfigured with 20
Magic words; ‘mail’ opens an email message box, ‘paint' opens Windows Paint,
‘sleep’, ‘shutdown’, ‘hibernate’ and so on all do exactly what they say, but
you can create Magic words to do just about anything, so why not give it a
whirl?
15/01/07
CDBurnerXP Pro Free CD/DVD Burner
 If you haven’t yet got around to buying a commercial CD and DVD burning
package then before you whip out the plastic have a look at this freeware
offering, It’s called CDBurnerXP Pro
and it does most of the routine disc-burning things its paid-for cousins can
do. These include writing to virtually all types of optical disc, except
dual-layer DVDs. It burns audio CDs, supports most types of drives, burns ISO
files and bootable discs and it checks data after the burn. If all you need is
basic disc burning functions then give this one a try first, what have you got
to lose?
12/01/07
Give Your RAM a Boost
 Here’s an interesting
little freeware utility that can help to pep up you PC. RamBooster scurries
around in the background managing your PC’s memory resources. As you may know
some programs grab huge chunks of your computer’s RAM, slowing down other
programs and even when they are closed the memory they were using may not be
released. RamBooster constantly monitors RAM activity, making sure each
application has enough for its needs, and freeing up unused memory for other
programs that might want it in a hurry. It’s simple to use but read the Help
files if you want to get the most out of it.
03/01/07
Hundreds
of Fresh Tweaks
 I don’t
know where to begin with this little freeware utility… OK, let’s start with the
name, it’s called Fresh
UI, the UI standing for User Interface, and the only way to describe it is a
collection of hundreds of tweaks to the way Windows and many MS applications
look and work. There simply isn’t enough room to list them all but here are a
few random examples. There’s a switchable ‘cheat’ for the Hearts games that
lets you see hidden cards, disable customizations in Internet Explorer, change
the font defaults in Notepad, restrict access to specific drives, move the
mouse pointer to a default button, hide folders in Control Panel, change
desktop icon size, repair a damaged Taskbar, clear IE history etc., etc., but
don’t take my word for it, it’s small and free and definitely something you
will want to try for yourself.
18/12/06
Google
Patent Search
 Have you
got a brilliant idea, an invention or the long-awaited better mousetrap? Fine,
but before you blow your life-savings on putting it into production you should check
that someone hasn’t got there before you. You need to do a Patent Search, or
pay someone to do it for you, and this is where it gets complicated, and
expensive, but here’s a quick way to check that someone in the US isn’t about to
sue you for infringement and that’s the all new shiny Google Patent Search.
It’s
another one of Google’s Beta tools and at the moment it only covers the US and
contains a mere 7 million entries -- this one (above) is for a Flying Saucer, filed in
2004 -- but there are more to come and, it is to be hoped, eventually a
database of UK patents. Even so it makes fascinating reading and you find
everything from the Wright Brother’s flying machine to the Segway human transporter,
and a lot more weird and wacky stuff besides.
14/12/12
Hard Drive Monitor
 No doubt you know the winking light
of the front of your PC represents hard disc activity, but have you ever
wondered exactly what is going on? Wonder no more, a small and free utility
from Microsoft, called DiskMon
shows you precisely that’s going on under the bonnet, itemizing each read/write
action, and when, where and how much data was being fed in or out of your
drive. Admittedly for most users its only of academic interest and you’ll
quickly tire of watching the numbers scroll by, but it could prove useful in
the event of a freeze or lockup, and when you get bored with it you can
minimize it to the System Tray where you’ll see a blinking icon, just like the
one on the front of your computer
15/11/06
Scanner Pie Chart Reveals Drive
Secrets
 The regulars amongst you will
probably be familiar with Spacemonger
and Windirstat,
These are graphical hard disc management tools which show you, with a clear and
easy to understand image what’s on your hard drive and how much space it is
taking up. Well, here’s another one, called simply Scanner,
and this one displays the contents of your drive using a concentric pie-chart.
Scanner is freeware and it’s really easy to use, you don’t even have to install it, it will run
from a floppy or pen drive. Just select the drive you want to scan and a short
while later the chart appears, hover the mouse over any part of it to see
what’s on your drive, or right-click to zoom, open or delete.
08/11/06
Barcode Your Contact Details
 Here’s a neat idea from Microsoft, Windows Live Barcodes. The
snazzy pattern on the right is a 2D barcode that can contain up to 450 characters.
Typically it will be your contact details, name, address, phone, email and so
on, which you can print on your business cards and stationery or attach to
emails. The idea is instead of messing around keying in details into your
Windows Mobile phone or organizer; you just take a picture of the barcode with your camera phone and
it’s translated back into text and filed away for future use. In future
barcodes may be printed in magazines and published on billboards; it’s still in
beta form but you can try it out for yourself and get ahead of the game by
creating your own 3D barcode.
06/11/06
 Startup Monitor
How many programs do you have running on your PC? Probably a
lot more than you think and many of them will be installed without your
knowledge or permission and run automatically after Windows has finished
loading. This little utility called Startup
Monitor keeps a watch on new programs and if any of them try to add
themselves to the Startup group you will be notified and asked to allow or
disable it. The program is tiny, just a few kilobytes and it runs in the
background using minimal resources.
01/11/06
Disc Drive Fitness Tester
 Has your hard disc drive ever let
you down? Could it be about to do so? There’s no easy way to tell, it could pop
its clogs tomorrow or next week, most likely never but it would be helpful to
know in advance if there are going to be problems. That’s something you might
be able to find out with a freeware application that comes to you from Hitachi
Global Storage, called the Drive Fitness Test.
It works with SCSI, IDE and SATA types drives and all you need to use it is a
floppy drive or CD Writer. Once you have downloaded the file open it and it
will create a bootable floppy disc or CD. Restart the PC and allow it to boot
from the disc it runs through a barrage of tests, from a quick and simple
‘Exerciser’ to a ‘High Confidence’ test. It will identify problems with the
drive’s tracks and sectors, cables and cooling and where necessary repair any
serious problems. It probably won’t find anything wrong, but there’s always the
chance...
30/10/06
What’s In a EULA?
 The EULA or the End User License Agreement is that fearsome
wodge of text that appears whenever you install a new piece of software but
what does it all mean? You could be signing your life away when you click the
‘I Agree’ button to signify that you have read it. In fact sometimes EULAs do
contain things that you wouldn’t agree to if you have read and understood the
document, like allowing the program to install spyware or pop-ups. So what can
you do, short of taking a legal degree?
Well, you could get a program called EULAlyzer to give it
the once over. The next time one appears on your screen just click on the
reader icon in EULAlyzer, or copy and paste the text into the window and it
will sift through the words, seeking out all the dodgy bits and flagging up the
parts you should look at. Try it, it’s free and it might just save your bacon
one day!
25/10/06
A Better Uninstaller
 We’ve looked at uninstallers before, they’re programs that, in theory at
least, do a better job of uninstalling programs than the Windows Add/Remove
Utility. In fact all Add/Remove Programs and many uninstallers really do is provide
one-stop access to the programs on your PC’s own uninstaller utilities.
Z-Soft
Uninstaller, on the other hand goes several steps further. When new
programs are loaded it monitors where all of the files go, so it can do a more
thorough job when the program is removed, and it can also analyse existing
programs on your PC, automatically finding detritus from programs that may have
already been removed. There’s one more trick, and it will hide programs from
the list that you are never likely to remove, such as Windows Updates. All in
all a very useful little program, and best of all, it’s free!
23/10/06
Memory Optimiser
 Windows and every application running on your PC shares your
PC’s RAM memory but it’s not always used very efficiently. For example, some
programs use too much memory others that you have finished with leave clutter
behind so over the course of a day your PC will slow down. FreeRAM XP Pro is a freeware
memory optimiser, it clears out the junk and forces programs that do not need
to use RAM memory to into the swapfile. For some users there can be a
noticeable improvement in performance and stability, either way you have
nothing to loose it’s free, so give it a try.
09/10/06
Stress Out Your PC
 Here’s a weird little freeware program. It’s called HeavyLoad and the
idea is it deliberately puts a big strain on your PC’s resources (operating
system, CPU, RAM, hard drives, network etc.) in an effort to expose any
weaknesses and check to see if it will perform reliably when stressed. Driving
a PC hard, by writing large files to temporary folders, drawing patterns on the
screen and gobbling up large chunks of memory will soon show if your PC’s
cooling system is up to the job, and just how much punishment it can take. It
should prove interesting to speed freaks and it’s a useful tool for engineers
setting up ‘mission critical’ servers that are simply not allowed to go wrong
when the going gets tough.
21/09/06
Hidden XP - The
Private Character Editor
 Here’s another one
of those hidden programs inside Windows XP, this one goes under the rather
grand name of the Private Character Editor. In fact it’s a very useful graphics
tool for designing your own fonts special characters and, logos and icons. To
start the program go to Run on the Start menu and type ‘eudcedit’ (without the
quotes) and click OK. Once it opens
start by selecting a hexadecimal code for your first character from the grid,
click OK and you are ready to begin designing, using the set of drawing tools
on the left. When you have finished you can save your character, either in a
particular font, or all fonts, and from there you can insert it into documents
and emails.
20/09/06
PC Oscilloscope And Spectrum Analyser
 Many years ago, when I used to get my hands dirty making
bits of televisions for Ferguson, two of the most useful analytical and
diagnostic tools at my disposal were an oscilloscope and spectrum analyser. (I
also had a wobbulator, but that’s another story for another day…)
Anyway, ‘scopes and speccy analysers are marvellous bits of
kit, used to display all kinds of waveforms and signals and back then they cost
a small fortune. They still do, but here’s a way of turning your PC into a
surprisingly accurate oscilloscope, spectrum analyser, frequency meter and
waveform generator, and it won’t cost you a bean.
15/08/06
Visual Analyser
is a freeware program that monitors the audio coming into and going out of your
PC and displays the results on your monitor screen in a very fair
representation of proper stand-alone test instruments. The features and
controls should all be familiar to audio engineers and if you know about this
sort of thing check the specs on the website, you’ll be impressed! Even if
you’re not interested in the technical capabilities of this program it is great
fun to use and you might even learn a thing or two about your PC’s audio
capabilities.
USB Flash Drive Manager
Freebie From Microsoft
 If like a lot of PC users you
are now starting to build up a small collection of flash memory devices, be
they USB memory sticks, MP3 players and so on then Uncle Bill has come up with
a way for you to keep tabs on them all and use them for backing up important
files. It’s called the USB
Flash Drive Manager and it’s all free. From the simple to use tabbed
interface you can copy files, backup or restore files, check and modify your
drive’s properties, manage file libraries and configure your PC’s USB drive
settings. Sadly it’s XP only but if you have one or more USB drives it’s well
worth a test run.
11/08/06
Faster
and More Powerful Uninstaller
 Add/Remove
Programs in Control Panel is okay for uninstalling programs that play by the
rules but if you download a lot of software from the Internet you might find
that a few of them just won’t go away. Some programs also leave behind
references in Add/Remove Programs; in short it could be a lot better. There is
an alternative, and it’s called Easy
Uninstaller, and not only is it between 5 and 10 times faster than the
Windows utility, it’s also more efficient and tells you a lot more about the
programs you have on your computer, including useful things like the
publisher’s website, the version number and where it is located on your hard
drive. Easy Uninstaller can also handle multiple deletions and it keeps a log
of the programs you’ve removed, it’s very easy to use and best of all, it’s
free!
01/08/06
Diagnose Media Player Problems
 Who amongst us hasn’t had problems playing back media
files, whether they be MP3s, DVDs, AVIs and audio CDs? Yes, we’ve all been
there and resolving faults in media players can be a nightmare. A lot of the
time it’s down to missing or faulty Codecs. They’re
the little add-ons and plug-ins that media players rely on to untangle the
coded or compressed code in a media file. The thing is you probably have
shed-loads of them on your PC, but there’s usually no easy way to see what
you’ve got, or if they’re working properly, which is where Sherlock - The Codec Detective comes in. This tiny freeware utility
(the download is only 80kb) displays all of the codecs on an Windows XP PC,
checks to see if any of them are ‘broken’ then warns you about it and generates
a log file, for an experts to peruse if you can’t figure it out.
19/07/06
Force Windows to Logoff After Inactivity
If you leave your XP PC unattended for any length of
time and you are worried about security then this little tip will force it to
automatically Logoff and save any open files or documents you’ve been working
on. But first you will need a little freeware utility called winexit.scr from
the Windows
Server 2003 Resource Kit, which you can download from Microsoft.
Follow the instructions to install the Resource Kit
then after a reboot go to C:\Program
Files\Windows Resource Kits\Tools, right-click on winexit.scr and select
Install. On the Display Properties Screensaver dialogue box that appears click
the Settings button, check Force Application Termination (important otherwise
it won’t work if you have open programs with unsaved data). You can leave the
Time to Logoff Countdown at 30 seconds and if you like compose your own Logoff
Message that will appear on the screen before Windows Logs Off. When you are
finished click OK, set the screensaver ‘Wait’ time and click OK to exit Display
Properties.
18/07/06
Dasher, A Flasher Way To Write
 Over the years there have been countless attempts to do
away with the clunky and antiquated QWERTY keyboard, everything from voice text
entry to the single-handed Dvorak keyboard. QWERTY made sense in the days of
the typewriter. The layout is designed to slow the typist down and prevent the
mechanical type bar hammers from crashing into each other -- but it looks like
we’re stuck with it, or are we… The
keyboard’s days could be numbered, at least that’s the idea behind Dasher, a program
designed by David MacKay and David Ward at Cambridge University Department of
Physics.
Dasher is a keyboardless
text entry system that requires only a small movement of the mouse to select
letters and characters as they appear on the screen. It works like a video
game, just select the letters as they pass by, but here’s the really clever
bit, it’s predictive. As soon as Dasher figures out the word you are trying to
spell it starts displaying the missing letters as well. With practice Dasher
users can achieve a healthy 25 words per m |
