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Task Master
 Anvir Task Manager Free is another one of those handy little tools that make you wonder how you ever got along without it. It’s
a beefed up version of the Windows Task Manager and Msconfig rolled into one, monitoring
all of the startup items, services and processing running on your PC. It will
even pick up some viruses and malware components that your normal scanner may
have missed. Armed with this information you can switch off all the stuff you
don’t need and hopefully speed up your PC’s boot up and give a useful
performance boost by freeing up resources. It’s all free but watch out for
those checkboxes when you install the program and deselect the extras and
trials that come with it, unless of course you want them…
10/12/09
Freeware Partition Tool
 Normally my advice to novices and newcomers is to stay
well away from advanced tools like disc partition managers. In the hands of an
inexperienced user the potential for disaster is relatively high, and that
applies to the better commercial programs; the freeware stuff is definitely off
limits and best left to experts and the very brave... However, I’m prepared to
make an exception for Easeus
Partition Master Home Edition. It is freeware, but it looks and behaves
more like a well-rounded paid-for application. So what can it do? Well, you can
use it to create a new partition on a single partition; you can resize existing
partitions, delete, copy and format partition. You can hide a partition, change
drive letters and explore a partition. In short it does pretty well everything
the better known applications can do, but it won’t cost you a bean. Don’t
forget, though, messing around with partitions is not for the faint hearted and
never attempt to do it without first backing up your irreplaceable data.
16/11/09
Process of Fault Elimination
 One of the best diagnostic tools in the Windows armoury is
Task Manager, a built-in utility that tells you what Windows is up to, and how
much of your PC’s precious resources are being used. From that it’s often
possible to tell what program background operation is causing a slowdown,
lockup or crash. Task Manager is good, but there’s something even better,
called Process
Explorer, and it provides you with the same sort of information as Task
Manager but in a much more digestible way. See at a glance your PC’s memory and
CPU usage, which processes are running and all of the files and DLLs your
programs have opened. For more advanced users there’s a powerful search
facility and options to identify handles and memory-mapped files. A very useful
addition to your toolbox.
26/10/09
Growl at Windows
 Actually that should be Growl for Windows, and if you
haven’t heard of it, ask your nearest Mac fan, who have had this handy little program at their disposal for some time. Growl is a what’s known in the
trade as a notification manager and it’s one of those useful little utilities
that you didn’t know you needed until you have it. The idea is whenever your PC
wants to tell you about something, and it could be anything, from an incoming
email to a problem with a program, it tells Growl, and Growl tells you. Basically
it replaces all of the odd little boxes, popups noises and ding-dongs that you
see and hear combining them into one clear and easy to use
interface that you can customise to your way of liking. At the moment it only
works with a limited number of applications (Gmail, Facebook, Outlook, Firefox,
iTunes, to name just a few), but the list is growing -- or should that be
Growling -- all the time. It doesn’t sound very
inspiring, I agree, but give a try, and see for yourself and I think that you might be
pleasantly surprised. By the way it's a beta release, so the usual precautions and warnings apply.
16/09/09
Licensed To Reveal
 This will be a familiar annoyance to many of you. How many
times have you tried to install a program, only to fall at the first hurdle
because you’ve lost the licence key? If
it hasn’t happed to you yet, it will, so now is the time to do something about
it and install this little freeware application called Licence Crawler. It’s
sole purpose in life is to search through the Windows Registry for the software
licence keys stored on your computer. It covers a lot of ground, from Microsoft
products to most major applications. When it has done its business you can take
a copy of the info, for the inevitable day…
03/09/09
A Fresh Approach to Diagnosis
 Normally I am wary of PC programs that purport to be able to
diagnose faults, let alone fix them and to date I haven't seen one that actually
works. In fact several I have tried will actually make things worse, but I have
been impressed by this freeware utility, called Fresh Diagnose. To begin with there are
no repair tools or anything else that could get you into trouble, it simply
tells you what’s what, and anything it doesn’t like the look of, it flags up
with a red cross, so you can investigate further. There’s also the option to benchmark
your system, so you can see, over time, if there’s any significant change in performance,
and it keeps a watchful eye on your hardware components, telling you all sorts
of potentially useful things that you never knew about your PC. The publishers
are also keen to point out that there are no ads, spyware or anything other
nasty surprises, so why not have a look?
30/07/09
Hide and Ye Shall Find
 You may have heard of Hulu.com,
but in case you haven’t it’s a US site where you can legally watch tens of thousands of TV shows, movies and
videos, all free. The only trouble is it only works inside the US, if you try
logging on from the UK you’ll be politely told to buzz off. Well, now there’s a
way around it, for a while at least, a freeware program called IP Hider. The
idea is it tricks Hulu into thinking you are in the US by relaying your
connection through an anonymous proxy, located in the US. It certainly worked
for me, though I had to change proxies a couple of times but after a bit of
fiddling I was able to watch a recent episode of Family Guy with no problems.
Now, the downside to all this is that Hulu doesn’t like this sort of thing and
the last time someone found a loophole it was plugged fairly smartish. Second,
this is a beta trial of a paid-for program so it could be pulled at any time,
and third, there have been reports of some security programs flagging it up as
a carrying malware. As far as I can see it isn’t. I suspect the alert is due to the
unconventional way it works, but it doesn’t hurt to be cautious so if you have
any concerns, consider yourself warned and leave it alone!
23/07/09
Wake Up and Do Something Useful
 We all know that we can set our PCs to shut down
automatically at a preset time, or after a period of inactivity. But would you
like your PC to switch on from Standby or Hibernation mode, all by itself, then
do something useful, like download your emails or play your favourite tunes? If
you like the sound of that then say hello to a little freeware utility called
WOSB or Wake
On Standby. When it’s done what you’ve asked, it can be set to switch the
PC off again. The download is tiny, it’s really easy to use, and you can’t get
cheaper than free (though the author isn’t averse to donations if you find it
useful…
02/07/09
USB in View
 It’s hard to remember what it was like in the old days
before USB. Anyone who has struggled with devices that used serial, parallel and
SCSI interfaces will tell you, it was nothing short of a revolution and we now
take it pretty much for granted. We tend to get quite blasé, which makes it
even more of a shock when a USB port or device goes wrong. They can be swines
to fix as well, especially on a well-used PC that has had more than its fair
share of USB devices over the years, and that’s one very good reason why you
should take a close look at USBDview. This
simple little freeware application tells you exactly what USB devices are
currently connected to your PC, along with an incredible amount of information
about the device and its driver, More importantly, it also tells you what
devices have been connected in the past. The program can uninstall old devices
that may be causing problems, and disconnect existing devices, making it a very
useful addition to your toolbox.
29/06/09
Process Please
 It’s called Process
Hacker and its job is to provide you with a window on all of the things
running on your computer, most of which trundle away in the background, without
you knowing a thing about it, until one of them goes wrong. This is a powerful
investigative and diagnostic tool that lets you take control of what’s happening
behind the scenes, providing you with a detailed list of processes and services,
including the ones that like to stay hidden from view. There’s also a
comprehensive list of what you network is up to and this could be very useful
for fault finding communications problems, or tracking down any nasties that
may have found their way onto your machine. It’s not for novices and nor is it
something you are going to use very often but one day, I bet, you will be
greatful that you have it!
25/05/09
Benchmark Your Disks
 When was the last time you gave any thought to how well your
hard drive is performing? Probably never, it’s a part of your computer that you
tend to forget, until it’s full up, or stops working. So how about a free tool
that gives you a snapshot of its performance, that you can use to keep track of
it’s speed, and maybe alert you to a problem, before it gets serious.
It’s called CrystalDiskMark
and once installed it runs through a series of read/write operations, producing
a set of simple to interpret benchmarks that you can copy and keep for later
use. As well as actual data throughput, in Mb/sec it also displays a simple
bargraph that shows how well it’s doing at a glance. The whole test should only
take a couple of minutes, but it’s time well spent, and might just save you a
lot of grief later on!
14/05/09
Windows 7 Yea or Nay?
 You’ve probably heard all about Windows 7 and how wonderful
and whizzy it is (actually it is rather good), so the big question now is, can
your system take it? There’s a very good chance it can if it’s already running
Vista, but what about older slower XP machines? Well, you’re still in with a
shout, but to make sure download and run this little freeware utility, called SecurAble. It tells you straight
away if your PC is up to the job, with a simple Yes and No answer, and if you
want to know why your PC can’t cut it, it will tell you the reason why.
11/05/09
Your BIOS Bears All
 You’ve probably heard of the BIOS or Basic Input Output
System. This is the program that checks your PC’s hardware before the operating
system is loaded. You may even have seen it, but what do you really know about
it? Well, one way to find out is to launch it at startup, but to do that you will
need to know the keyboard code, but if you do, you shouldn’t really touch
anything, unless you know what you are doing. There is another, much safer way
to get to know your BIOS and that’s to run a small freeware program called BIOS Wizard. Not
only does it tell you the make and version number, it also runs through a
series of checks, shows you which features are present and enabled and if there
are any problems. If there are, hopefully the program will lead you to a
solution through the developer’s website.
06/05/09
Time for Action
 I have a terrible memory so I’m a big fan of timers and
alarms but most of them are fairly basic and just do one or two simple jobs, so
prepare yourself for a real treat. It’s called
Marxio
Timer and has been dubbed as the Swiss Army Knife of timers. Here’s a quick
tour of the highlights, the program can be installed or run from a pen drive,
there’s a choice of 13 ‘Actions, including Turn Off, Logout, Restart, Suspend,
Hibernate, Lock, Display Text, Play Sound, Run Program, End Program, Disable
Screensaver, Simulate Keypress, Stopwatch. There are numerous options for when
Actions happen, including at a specific time, after elapsed time, CPU Usage (%)
and there are facilities to configure the display and hide or minimise the
program. If you constantly need reminding to do things then don’t forget this handy little
utility...
29/04/09
Nippy Unzipper
 Have you any idea how many archiving formats there are?
You’ve probably heard of zip, tar and rar, but how about ace, gzip, base64, deb
and the list goes on. In short there are dozens of them and you may well come
across one of the more obscure ones the next time you download a file from the
web. When that happens you have two choices, you can search the web for a
suitable extraction program, or save yourself the bother and install Simplyzip. It can
handle over 20 archive formats, including ZIP, CZIP, ACE, CAB, RAR, TAR, GZIP,
LZH, BZ2, SQX, RS, UUE, XXE, BASE64, UCL, ARJ, ZLIB, ALIB, RPM, DEB, 7-ZIP, and
it can create archive files in 7z, ZIP, CZIP, Cab, LHA, TAR, TAR GZ TAR BZ2,
ACE, Deepfreezer, SQX, UCL, RS, ZIP-SFX/LHA-SFX, RAR-SFX, UUE/XXE, ZLIB and
Base64. It also has four encryption options and it should be all you need for
extraction and backup.
16/04/09
Crystal Clear Disk Info
 How hot is your hard drive? It’s probably not something you
think of very often, but drive temperature is a good overall indicator of its
health, and the environment inside your PC. Here’s another one, how long has
your drive been running? Again, it’s unlikely to be very high on your list of
priorities but it’s worth knowing and a useful reflection how hard you’ve been
working your computer. These, and many other interesting facts and figures,
graphs and statistics about your hard drives are available using a freeware
utility called CrystalDiskInfo.
What it can’t find about your hard drive isn’t worth knowing, from the serial
number to how many times it has been powered up and automatic acoustic
management, it’s all there for you to see and marvel at, and if you use it
regularly it could even give you a timely warning of something about to go
wrong.
05/03/09
Time Your Boots
 How long does it take for your XP or Vista PC to boot up and
be useable? If it’s less than a minute you are either a bit of a computer
whizz, or it’s only a couple of weeks old. Most of us have to wait between 2
and 3 minutes, which is just about acceptable, if it’s any longer you need
help, so take a look at Boot Camp for some
tuning tips.
If you’re not sure how long you have to wait, and you can’t
be arsed to time it, (and you need to do it 2 or 3 times to get an average)
then try this little free utility. It’s called BootRacer and not
only does it precisely time how long your PC takes to boot up, it logs the
results and will remind you of your best ever boot time, so you can keep track
and dive in and fix it if there’s a sudden or even a gradual slowdown.
02/02/09
On the Money
 If you have to keep an eye on your finances – and who isn’t
these days – then you may be in the market for a personal money manager
program. There’s plenty to choose from and the big-guns like Microsoft Money
and Quicken (sadly no longer supported in the UK) are many people’s first port
of call, but there are alternatives, like this one, called Money Manager Ex. It’s Open Source
freeware, but don’t let that put you off. It’s ideal for managing personal
finances and it works in multiple currencies (including £££s and Euros of
course). It keeps track of multiple savings and cheque accounts, credit cards,
loans and investments, tracks bills and deposits and you can use it to update your
share prices, manage payments set up budgets and print out all manner of
reports. You can even import data files from some versions of Quicken and
Money. It’s not going to make you rich but it can help you to plan your
finances, and at least you’ll know where it all went…
08/01/09
Fast Free DVD Burner
 What supports over 45 file formats, 60 video codecs and 40
audio codecs and can turn a video file into a playable DVD with just a few
mouse-clicks? All together now, it’s DVD Flick, just
about the simplest way to get a movie file from your camcorder, phone or Internet
download onto a shiny disc that you can pop in any player. If you want to get
creative you can also add a menu, a title and subtitles and your own audio
track and as an added bonus it will also burn the disc after it has been
compiled and encoded using a freeware utility like ISO Recorder . It’s Open Source software, so it’s free for personal use but
as usual if you like what you find a donation will be gratefully received.
08/12/08
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 minute, almost twice as fast as the
best on-screen keyboards. The applications are endless, from helping those with
impaired movement in their hands to anyone who hates keyboards; it can even be
controlled by eye movements. The really good news is you can try it for free;
there are versions for Windows (2k & XP only). Mac, Linux and Pocket PCs.
It’s really easy to use and you can copy and paste directly into Word, so give
it a try and see if you think it’s time to kick out the keyboard.
12/07/07
Windows
Explorer is generally very reliable but every so often you will see an ominous
‘Windows Explorer has encountered a
problem and needs to close’ message, with little or nothing in the way of an
explanation of why it happened. One of the most common causes of Windows
Explorer maladies is shell extensions. These increase functionality or add an
automated action to Windows Explorer, when you double-click or right-click on a
file or context menu. Most of them are installed by Windows and are perfectly
okay but a few come from third-party programs, and these are the ones that
mostly cause problems. Shell Extensions can be difficult to get as they are
buried deep in the Windows Registry but a handy little freeware tool called ShellExView lets you see them, and disable any suspicious ones,
which might help you pinpoint the cause of your problem. Once you’ve downloaded
the file -- and it doesn’t take long as the Zip file is only 45kb -- run
ShellExView then click on the Company column header. This will group all of the
non-MS extensions together and you can work your way through the list.. Right-click
on the likely candidates (check if the date installed coincides with the start
of your problem) and select Disable. Reboot and see if that makes a difference.
13/06/06
WINDOWS
VISTA BETA 2 GOES PUBLIC
The first public Beta test
of Windows Vista is now underway and you can be one of the first to try out the
new operating system that goes on sale early next year. Vista Beta 2 is
essentially the final version, though it almost certainly carries a few
last-minute bugs and glitches, which is why Microsoft want your help and are giving you the
chance to sign up to be an unpaid guinea pig. In fact Beta 2 is very stable and
most users are unlikely to experience any serious problems, nevertheless it
would be very unwise to run it on your main PC, and don’t go running to
Microsoft if it goes horribly wrong, Beta testing is strictly on an ‘at your
own risk’ basis. Don’t get too attached to it either, the Beta will effectively
switch itself off on June 1st 2007. If you have a suitable PC -- and it needs
to be a reasonable spec to get the most from Vista -- then give it a shot, and let me know what you think; look out for a Boot Camp on Windows Vista in the next few
weeks.
09/06/06
YOUR
PC ON A PEN DRIVE
You
can’t normally take your desktop PC with you when you are away from home or the
office, which is why God invented laptops, but there are plenty of occasions
when even a portable PC is too much to lug around. Of course you could splash
out on one of those dinky pocket portables but why bother, if there’s a handy
PC where you are going then you can take everything you are likely to need on a
cheap and simple USB memory device. Just plug it in, do what you need to do and
when you remove the drive you take all of your programs and data with you.
Apart from the drive all you
need is the Portable
Apps Suite, it’s a complete set of freeware and open source programs, designed to fit onto a pen
drive. It includes AbiWord -- a very decent little word processor, Portable Firefox and Thunderbird, Portable
OpenOffice.org office suite, Portable NVU web editor, Portable Sunbird calendar and task list, Portable FileZilla FTP client and Portable Gaim instant messenger. They all
fit easily on a 256Mb drive (512Mb is better and leaves more space for your
data) , but if you are short of space just leave out the OpenOffice.org and you
can squeeze it into less than 128Mb.
08/06/06
FREEWARE
SCREEN CAPTURE UTILITY
 As you can imagine I’ve
become a bit of an expert on the subtle art of screen capture and I mostly use
the standard Windows Print Screen utility (PrtScn to capture full screen or Alt
+ PrtScn to capture active window). I’ve also used a number commercial and
shareware offerings but rarely stuck with them as their various flaws have come
to light. However, now I’m quite smitten with a freeware utility, or rather the
free ‘lite’ version of a program called Screenhunter.
It can be fired up with a simple keyboard shortcut, or the PrtScn key, at which
point the mouse pointer turns into a crosshair, and you can define precisely
the part of the screen you want to capture. The resultant Bitmap, JPEG or GIF
image is then sent to a file location of your choice. There are lots of options
and it is very easy to use, and if you like it for a small fee you can upgrade
to the even more sophisticated Plus and Pro versions.
07/06/06
ZOOMIT
PRESENTATION TOOL
 Here’s a brilliant little
utility for anyone that uses a Windows PC for presentations or display. Zoomit
sits quietly in the system tray but when you press the keyboard shortcut (Alt +
1) by default, Zoomit leaps into action, zooming in and out of any part of the
screen using the mouse to move the image and the wheel to enlarge or reduce the
display. If there’s something on the
screen you want to draw your audience’s attention to just click the mouse and
it turns into a drawing tool -- in a range of colours. The program is tiny, the
Zip file is only 36kb, and it’s completely free.
VIEW PICTURE COMPRESSION EFFECTS
 If you regularly need to change
the compression levels on JPEG picture files, so you can send them in emails or
use them web pages and so on, it can be difficult to quickly see what effects
higher or lower settings have on picture quality. A side-by-side compression
preview display that shows before and after file sizes is just one of the many useful features in a little freeware
program called CSDN Pic Viewer. It works with all common image file
formats, there’s a fast batch conversion facility, picture browser and
slideshow, ‘smart’ picture resizer and it only takes up a few megabytes of hard
disc space. The only thing to watch out for is that it needs the .NET Framework plug-in to work, you may already have it, otherwise it can be downloaded
free from the Microsoft
web site.
BSOD SCREENSAVER
 BSOD, in case you were
wondering is the Blue Screen of Death, which pops up on Windows PC following a
crash or serious problem with the operating system. You don’t seem them so much
with Windows XP but believe me, they still happen, and when they do it’s
usually when you are right in the middle of something important, or you haven’t
saved your work recently. The BSOD screensaver is
a fiendish rendition of the dreaded blue screen that’s guaranteed to provide
you with a few heart-stopping moments, until you remember that it’s only a
screensaver and if you move the mouse or press a key it goes away. I won’t suggest
placing it on a colleagues PC as a prank because that would just be plain mean,
and you shouldn’t be messing with other people’s computers, but the reaction it
gets from those who aren’t expecting it, is very funny.
3D
FREEBIE FROM GOOGLE
 If you are into 3D modelling
or just enjoy making watching wacky shaped objects dance around your monitor
screen then you really must have a play with SketchUp. It’s a simple yet
powerful tool for creating 3D designs, and it’s free from Google. Use the
drawing tools to create simple or complex shapes, or choose from the library of
ready made components then push or pull them give the shape form, add colour
and texture, twist and turn and watch as shadow and lighting effects bring it to
life. It’s brilliant, but here’s the clever part, it’s fully integrated with
Google Earth so you can add your shapes to the images, see what a restaurant or
skyscraper would look like in your back garden or design a new bridge for the
English Channel.
CONVERSION
THERAPY
 Ever needed to convert acres
into hectares, tablespoons into Litres or feet per second into kilometres per
hour? Of course you have, but rather than reach for the slide rule or the
nearest calculator just click on English2Metric. It’s a super-simple units
converter for Windows (all versions) and Linux and although the range of units
is fairly limited, (and watch out for those dodgy US gallons...), it covers all of the commonly used ones, it is very easy to
use, and what’s more it’s completely free!
[Top]
FREEWARE
BACKUP WITH NETWORK OPTION
Windows XP has it’s own
built-in backup facility, and considering it’s a freebie it’s not too bad at
all. There are also plenty of paid-for backup programs on the market, and most
of them are also very good, but here’s a freeware program that’s’ well worth
investigating, especially if you want to do something tricky, like saving your
backups to a drive on another networked PC. Karen’s Replicator also happens to
be very easy to setup and use, it’s flexible too with plenty of configuration
options and it can handle just about any backup task, from single folders to
entire drives, with all data or incremental backups carried out at scheduled
intervals, from minutes to months.
FREE
MICROSOFT MEMORY TESTER
Although
normally very reliable PC memory modules can do some very odd things when they
go wrong. Windows Memory Diagnostic is one of the best memory checkers around
and what’s more it’s available free from Microsoft. It’s not especially fast or
fancy to look at but it is reliable, and very thorough. Once the program has
been downloaded it has to be copied to a floppy disc (remember them?) or a
recordable CD, which is used to boot the PC, in order to carry out the tests.
You’ll find the download and a full set of instructions on the Windows Memory
Diagnostic home page.
SIMPLE
SYSTEM INFO DISPLAY
To reveal system information, such as your BIOS version, processor,
memory and page file info, simply go to Start > Run and type in ‘dxdiag’
(without the quotes) and
DirectX Diagnostic Tool will open. Then
click on the System tab and all will be revealed. You can also test Direct X
components using this.
GIVE BILL THE
BRUSH - WELL ALMOST...
Strange as it
may seem there are some people who just don’t like Microsoft, and I hasten to
add I’m not one of them. MS products and their funny little ways have kept me
in gainful employment for many years…
Anyway, for
those few dissidents out there who are happy to put up with Windows but draw
the line at stuffing their PC with any more MS products, have a look at the
TheOpenCD.
It’s a
collection of high quality free Open Source programs that run under Windows,
including a good few BootLog favourites. There’s MS compatible office suites
and word processors (OpenOffice, AbiWord), design and layout (Gimp, Tux Paint),
multimedia (Audacity, Celestia), web, email and network (Firefox, Thunderbird,
TightVNC) plus a good selection of games and utilities. They’re all free and
ready to download and burn onto CD, but if don’t fancy that you can also buy a ready-made
copy.
[Top]
HARD DISC,
HARD LIFE?
What would you say is
the most important component in your PC? Full marks if you said the hard disc
drive. Your processor chip and power supply can pop their clogs and your memory
and motherboard can develop mange and it doesn’t matter too much, they can be
replaced but if your disk drive shuffles off its coils -- mortal and electrical
-- you are stuffed! Another question, just how much do you know about your HDD?
How healthy is it, how hot is it and how long has it been in use? All these
questions and more can be answered by a super little freeware utility called HD
Tune. Everything you want to know about your drive(s) will be revealed, and a
regular check-up, keeping tabs on its well-being could well save you a whole
lot of trouble one day!
CLOCK THIS - A BETTER XP
TIMEPIECE
There’s nothing wrong with the Windows XP clock display, it’s functional
and easy to read but it isn’t very interesting. You used to be able to
customise the clock in older versions of Windows but with XP what you see is what
you get. If you fancy ringing in the changes, with a variety of different clock
styles, including some natty analogue designs -- remember when clocks had hands
-- then a little freeware utility called Analog Clock 2 is just what you’ve
been waiting for. There’s a selection of ‘skins’, so you can change its
appearance and when you ‘hover’ your mouse pointer over the clock a calendar
display pops up, great stuff!
MEDIA PLAYER CLASSIC -- AN OLD FRIEND RETURNS
I
am becoming increasingly dismayed by the complexity and unnecessary bells and
whistles that seem to be built into every new media player that somehow manages
to find its way on to my PC, so I was very pleasantly surprised with Media
Player Classic 6.4, which I have been trialling for the past few months. It’s
basically an Open Source rewrite of the old Windows Media Player, but with lots
of genuinely useful features, like the ability to play DVDs (providing you
already have the codecs installed), as well as RealMedia files (using the
RealAudio or RealAlternative codecs), DivX videos, QuickTime, AVI, MP3, CD
audio and so on. Best of all it is small, uses hardly any system resources, unbelievably easy to use and it is free! Give it a try, you will be impressed!
[Top]
BETTER DISK VIEWER & MANAGER?
If you want to know what's on your hard disc drive, have a look at WinDirStat,
STITCH THOSE PIX
If you have a digital camera you’ve got to try AutoStitch. This ingenious
little program is a brilliant way to create spectacular panoramic images, and
it’s almost foolproof. Simply stand in one spot and snap away trying to capture
as much of what you can see as possible. You don’t have to worry about
overlapping, or taking shots in sequence, the program takes care of all that
for you, seamlessly matching images and blending them together into one picture.
It’s fully automatic, simply launch the program, tell it which images to use
and away it goes. This is a fully functional freeware demo and it will open the
finished image in your default image editing program, which you can then save
and print as normal.
SUPERCHARGED
CALCULATOR AND CONVERTER
The calculator built into
Windows (Start > Programs > Accessories) is handy for quick sums but did
you know it also has an alternative Scientific mode for more advanced
calculations? Just click the View menu
and select Scientific. Better still, if you want some real mathematical muscle
on your PC download and install the Microsoft Power Calculator. It’s part of
the PowerToys suite of freeware add-ons for Windows XP and in addition to a
range of advanced graphical, trig and log functions it has a nifty Conversion mode that
lets you convert common units of measurement for Length, Mass, Time, Velocity,
and Temperature.
GOOGLE
PACKS THEM IN
You know what it’s like
setting up a new PC; you spend ages installing your core applications, then
hours hunting down all of your favourite utilities and tools. I have
created a CD-ROM with all my must-have programs, but if you haven’t
got around to doing that yet you might like to have a look at Google Pack. It's an
eclectic collection of software, obviously with a strong Googlish flavour
(Google Earth, Desktop, Toolbar and so on) but with some of our favourites as
well, including Mozilla Firefox, Picasa, AdAware and Adobe Reader. You can pick
and choose what you want and it’s all conveniently packaged together in one
download.
[Top]
PASSWORD GENERATOR
The trouble with most PC
user’s passwords is they are often simple words or names and usually easy to
guess, if you know the person, or they can be quickly exposed using readily
available ‘brute force’ cracking programs. For a password to be truly effective
it should be a random collection of alphanumeric characters and here’s a super
fast way to create one. Just pop along to the Goodpassword web site, tell it
how many characters you need, make a few simple choices and click the Create Password
button.
BOXING CLEVER
One of the most useful PC accessories you can own is
a shoebox. They’re the right size and shape for storing all of the discs and
manuals you’ll need to revive a dead PC or configure a new one to your way of
working. The shoebox should be where you keep your operating system installation
or recovery discs, an emergency start-up disc, your motherboard drivers and
utilities plus driver discs for all of your hardware peripherals, such as the
printer, scanner, memory card reader, web cam and any networking components. If
there’s any room left you can keep your program installation discs in there as
well.
STARTUP CONTROL
Here's a start-up manager program called Startup
Delayer. I use this because when I boot my PC, my broadband modem isn't quite
ready before the Internet connection is started. It also helps to stagger some
of my other programs, which start automatically, starting such as Outlook. It
is easy to use, lists all the programs that start with Windows and you can
select which ones to adjust just by dragging a timeline at the bottom of the
window. In advanced mode you can even delete programs from starting with
Windows.
TIMELY REMINDER
It’s worth checking the
Event Viewer every so often, to keep an eye on your PC’s general health and a
good way to remind you to do just that it is to use WinAlarm. This handy little
freeware program can be set to remind you to do things with a colour-coded
on-screen display and sound at a predetermined time or date, or repeatedly at
daily, weekly, monthly or yearly intervals. It also has a ‘snooze’ button if
you don’t need reminding… The program is suitable for all recent versions of
Windows (98, SE, ME, 2K, XP), its
multi-lingual, the download is 913kb and it can be found at: www.snapfiles.com/get/winalarm.html
HARD DISC HELP
When you buy a hard disc
drive that’s usually all you get and you’re left to your own devices to figure
out what to do with it. Fortunately most hard disc manufacturers have decent
web support sites with a wealth of tutorials, FAQs and downloadable utilities,
designed to help both expert and novice users install and use their products.
Here’s a selection of addresses for the main players.
http://uk.fujitsu.com/support/
www.ibm.com/support/uk/
www.maxtor.com/en/support/products/index.htm
www.seagate.com/support/index.html
http://support.wdc.com/ (Western Digital)
MEMORY MONITOR
If you are not comfortable
about installing a RAM upgrade just yet but would like to keep an eye your PC’s
memory resources download and install this handy little utility. RAMpage
constantly monitors your system memory showing how much is free from a display
in the System Tray. If you need to free up more memory, to run an application
simply click on the display, or right click to configure. The program works
with all versions of Windows, the Zip file is only 170k and it is freeware.
You’ll find the download file at: www.jfitz.com/software/RAMpage/
[Top]
TEMPORARY CLEAN UP
Temporary (*.tmp) files is
only one of a group of files that waste space on your PC but rather than
removing them all manually try this freeware utility called HDCleaner. It is
programmed to look for the commonest type of junk files and space wasters and
you can add your own. As an added bonus it also identifies duplicate files and
cleans up your Run, Find, Recent and typed URL History logs, leaving your hard
disc squeaky clean. HDCleaner works with all versions of Windows, the download
file is just over 800kb and it can be found at: http://home.tiscali.de/kurtzimmermann/hdcleaner_e.htm
DISC ERASER
When disposing of an old PC
you should at the very least reformat the hard drive. For a basic format simply
boot the PC from a Windows 95/98/SE or ME Emergency Startup disc and at the
flashing prompt type ‘format C:’ (without the quotes) then press Enter.
However, even after formatting data can still be retrieved using specialised
recovery applications. To thoroughly cleanse a disc you will need a utility
like Active Killdisk (free from: www.killdisk.com/).
This erases information on the disc and then overwrites it with random data so
that recovery becomes almost impossible.
WI-FI SNIFFER
If you have a Wi-Fi enabled
laptop and you want to make use of public Hotspots then a little gadget called
a Wi-Fi ‘Sniffer’, ‘Seeker’ or ‘Finder’ could come in very handy. Most Sniffers
have a LED bargraph display that shows when you are within range of a wireless
network; the more lights that are lit the stronger the signal. More sophisticated
models also have an LCD display that shows the Hotspot’s ID and whether or not
it is encrypted. Basic key ring sized sniffers cost from around £25 and are
readily available from on-line retailers and PC suppliers.
HEARING TEST
Most of us take our ability
to hear for granted and as we get older changes occur quite naturally and
generally they go unnoticed. Needless to say if you become aware of any
significant changes in your hearing you should consult your doctor immediately
but you can carry out a rough and ready check on your ability to perceive
sounds of different pitches by going to www.hearing.siemens.de/
00_en/50_besserhoeren/54_Hoertest/54_heortest1.jsp
This site features a simple
hearing test that you can carry out on your PC, using a pair of headphones.
There is also a questionnaire, compiled by German medical experts (in English,
of course) that will analyse the results and indicate whether or not you may
have an impairment.
CLOCK CHECKER
There are a number of
utilities for Windows 9x (95/98/ME/SE), to check and correct your PC clock and
date settings every time you log on to the Internet or at scheduled intervals.
The freeware offerings are often just as good and in some cases even better
than the commercial programs so have a look at: Time Synchronizer (www.itoolpad.com/products/timesync/),
DS Clock (www.dualitysoft.com/dsclock/)
and SymmTime (www.ntp-systems.com/).
PHOTO CALCULATOR
The beauty of modern film
and digital cameras is that they are so easy to use, just point and shoot.
Nevertheless, a lot of photographers still like to get their hands dirty, but
you can quickly get bogged down in the mathematics of lenses, exposure times,
shutter speeds and depth of field calculations. The excellent Calculators
On-Line web site contains a whole section devoted to specialist photographic
calculators at:
www-sci.lib.uci.edu/HSG/RefCalculators1.html#CAM-PHOTO,
but do have a look at the top of the page, where you’ll find links to
more than 16,900 web calculators, covering everything from Aquaculture to X-Ray
Interactions.
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PIXEL CHECKER
The image sensor in your
digital camera is a fantastically complicated device and if just a couple of
the picture elements (pixels) are faulty it can ruin your photographs. This
simple little freeware utility checks for dead or ‘hot’ (over sensitive) pixels
by analysing images taken on your camera. Simply leave the lens cap on, take a
few photographs, download the files to your PC and run Deadpixeltest. In just a
second or two it displays a detailed report on your camera’s image sensor
performance. The zip file is only 191kb and it can be downloaded from: www.starzen.com/imaging/deadpixeltest.htm
MEMORY PROTECT
It’s all very well
transferring your pictures and files to a portable memory device, but what
happens if you loose it? There’s only one way to secure your data and that’s to
encrypt it. CryptMage is a simple little freeware utility that will scramble
your files, making them unreadable to anyone without the utility and the unlock
code. The program only occupies 238kb of space so you can put a copy of it on
your memory device. The download ‘zip’ file is just 130kb and it can be found
at: http://home.earthlink.net/~debaker1/.
It’s a powerful tool, so make sure you read the instructions first!
RECOVER IMAGES
PHOTORESCUE, shareware,
$29, 820kb, Windows 2K, XP
www.datarescue.com/photorescue
The memory cards used in
digital cameras are generally quite reliable however occasionally the data they
contain can become corrupted, resulting in the loss of one or more images.
Photorescue is a simple to use tool that recovers images from a wide range of
memory cards. It is non-destructive so it doesn’t affect the contents of the
card. To see if it can help you download the trial version, which will show you
what, if anything, can be recovered. The licensed version will allow you to
recover and save lost images.
MOUSE MILEAGE
A!K Mouse Off-Road is a
fascinating little freeware utility that monitors mouse movement, measuring the
distance it travels (metric or imperial) and its speed across your mouse mat.
The program sits unobtrusively in the System Tray and you can get an instant
readout by hovering the pointer over the icon and you can change the colour and
opacity of the optional desktop display window. The program works in all versions of Windows and the download is
only 380kb. For your copy go to: www.sixfiles.com/dbase/mof
LIST WINDOWS STARTUPS
Autoruns is a tiny freeware
utility that lists all of the programs that run automatically from the Registry
whilst Windows is loading. Each item
has a check box, which you can untick to stop suspect programs launching when
Windows boots up. Autoruns works on all versions of Windows, the download file
is just 140kb and the program is small enough to fit onto a floppy disc. To
obtain your copy go to: www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/autoruns.shtml
DATA THROUGHPUT
System Monitor allows you
to visually check the data throughput of an external modem, in real time. It
can be found by clicking the Start button, then Accessories and System Tools.
Open System Monitor and click on the Edit menu then Add Item. Select Dial Up
Adapter from the list in the Category Window and Bytes Received/Second and
Bytes Transmitted/Second in the Item Window, then OK. (Note, System Monitor is
not installed by default so you may have to load it from your Windows CD-ROM
using Add/Remove Programs in Control Panel).
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HIDDEN HISTORY
How well do you know your
Windows 98 PC? Tucked away inside your machine is a complete history of its
inner workings, charting system settings and changes to the hardware and
software configuration. It's useful to
have a permanent record of this information, made when your PC is working
normally. There are some interesting facts and figures in amongst the mass of
gobbledegook and if at some stage something goes wrong, it could help you or a
PC savvy friend to track down the problem more easily. To produce such a file
go to Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools > System
Information. On the File menu select Export, give the file a name – something
along the lines 'mypc.txt' -- choose a location and click Save. You could print
it out but be warned that it can run to more than 100 pages!
THUMBNAIL IMAGES
If you keep a lot of
images on your Windows 95/98 PC it can very useful to see what is stored in
folders, without opening a paint program and sifting through the files
manually. Windows Explorer has a well-hidden utility for generating thumbnail
views of picture files. It is disabled by default, probably because it slows
Explorer down, but you can enable it selectively, so it only works on folders
containing image files. Here’s what you do; open Windows Explorer and
right-click on the folder you wish to view, from the drop-down menu that
appears select Properties and the General tab. Check the item ‘Enable thumbnail
view’ and click Apply, then OK. Go to the View menu and click Refresh, and a
new item ‘Thumbnails’ should appear above Large Icons on both the View menu and
the drop down menu next to the Views icon on the Toolbar. Select it and the
display will change to a screen full of mini preview pictures.
HARDWARE PROBLEMS
Hardware
Info carries out a comprehensive check on driver files and the hardware
attached to the machine, flagging up potential problems with colour-coded
highlights. Error information is displayed in red, and warnings in blue. To
start Hardware Info go to Run on the Start menu and type ‘hwinfo /ui’ (omitting
the inverted commas of course, and then click OK. It only takes a few seconds
after which the report appears. Check through the report looking for any red or
blue highlights, which may indicate trouble, or potential trouble, and require
further investigation. If you know a thing or two about PCs you may want to
have a look at the alternative reports on the View menu. If your PC and
hardware is behaving normally it’s probably a good idea to leave well alone,
but take note of any warnings and save your Hwinfo file for future reference or
to show to an engineer.
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VERSION CONFLICT
The
Version Conflict Manager Utility or VCMUI should be of interest to anyone who
routinely updates their software applications. This can cause problems when
files from older or newer versions of a program conflict with one another. If
you've had difficulty with a recent update VCMUI should track down the
offending files, and might even provide a solution, it can also highlight
potential conflicts, before they've had a chance to cause problems. To give
your PC's software a quick health check go to Run on the Start menu and type
'VCMUI', without the quotes of course. All being well you'll see an empty
dialogue box, indicating that your applications are conflict-free, if not just
follow the instructions.
SYSTEM FILE CHECKER
System File Checker can
help engineers and knowledgeable users to track down and automatically correct
common problems. It's worth running the SFC every now and again, especially on
well-used machines, and you never know, it may help to resolve a long-running
problem; however, unless you know what you are doing it is a good idea to leave
the settings on their defaults. To start the program go to Run on the Start
menu and type 'sfc.exe' and click Start to begin the checking routine.
CHECK LINKS
CheckLinks can be found on
the Windows 98 CD-ROM and its job is to weed out shortcuts and Start menu items
that no longer do anything. It's going to save you much disc space but 'broken
links' can sometimes cause problems and point to programs that you no longer
need or use. The Link Check Wizard can be found by going to the Tools folder
then Reskit and Desktop, click on the chklnks.exe icon and follow the
instructions. If you like you can copy and paste chklnk.exe to your hard drive,
and include it with your regular hard disc maintenance routines.
SPEEDY SHUTDOWN
Sometimes you just want to
switch off and go, but Windows won't let you and insists that you go through
the tiresome shut down ritual, but there is an easier way. This simple little
tip creates a shutdown shortcut; one click is all it takes to exit Windows 9x
cleanly and safely. Start by right-clicking on the desktop and select New then
Shortcut. In the command line type the following (minus the quotes)
'C:\WINDOWS\RUNDLL32.EXE User,ExitWindows', then click Next, give the shortcut
a name, something like 'Wingo', then click Finish and its done.
How many applications are
running on your PC right now? It's easy to lose track and if your system's
resources fall to dangerously low levels Windows will crash, often without
warning. Windows 9x and ME has a built in monitoring utility but it's not
enabled by default. There are two ways to get to it, via Start >
Programs> Accessories > System Tools, or simply type 'RSRCMTR' into Run
on the Start menu. This will put a little bargraph into the System Tray (next
to the clock), if it shows two or more green bars you should be okay, double
click the icon for more detailed information. It's well worth having this on
display all of the time, to do that open the Start Up folder (Start >
Programs) then go to Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools,
hold down the Ctrl key and drag the Resource meter icon into the Start Up
folder and it will open automatically every time your PC boots up. If by any chance you can't see Resource
Meter in System tools go to Ass/Remove Programs in Control Panel and select the
Windows Setup tab, double –click System Tools, check the item System Resource
Meter, click OK and follow the on-screen prompts.
AVOID THE HEAT
Adding an extra cooling
fan is one way to stop your PC overheating in the hot weather, but how can you tell
if your computer is suffering? It just so happens that many recent PC
motherboards have built in temperature sensors that keep a running check on
vital components. Motherboard Monitor is a neat freeware utility that puts that
information on the screen, so you can see for yourself what's going on. Not all
motherboards are supported, but the program will check your PC for
compatibility before it runs. The file is 1.5Mb and it can be downloaded from: http://mbm.livewiredev.com/
QUICK SECURE
Whether you're going out
for lunch or just popping out for a few minutes your PC is vulnerable to
intrusion. Of course you could switch it off and there are plenty of programs
that will password protect your PC and prevent Windows from loading, of you
could invoke password protection on a screensaver but all that takes time or
they can be easily hacked. Quick Hide is a useful little freeware program that
locks the PC when it is running with a simple keyboard shortcut. It can also be
set to hide the current application, the Taskbar and desktop icons, which can
only be unlocked with a password. The download zip file is under 500kb in size
and it's available from: http://www.cronosoft.com/
FILE RECOVERY
Drive Rescue is a powerful
file recovery utility that could save your bacon one day! If you’ve ever
deleted a file by accident Drive Rescue is your best chance of getting some or
all of it back, it even works on removable media and memory cards. The zip file
is 1.2Mb, it runs on all versions of Windows and it can be downloaded from: http://home.arcor.de/christian_grau/rescue/
SCREEN MAGNIFIER
Whilst the Windows Screen
Magnifier is a very useful tool for those who need an enlarged display all of
the time it’s sometimes handy to be able to view just small portion of the
screen. A simple freeware utility called Dragnifier changes your mouse cursor
into a virtual magnifying glass. It’s highly customisable with variable sized
‘glass’ and magnification level and a measuring reticule. The download file is
only around 130k and it’s free (though the author says all contributions
gratefully received…). For more details and a link to the self-extracting zip
file go to: http://www.halley.cc/stuff/
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