Entries tagged with tools - Channel 10

Extensions for Windows: Free Utilities for XP and Vista PCs

sarahintampa — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 09:14:00 GMT

“Extensions for Windows” is a collection of tools for Windows users that bills itself as an “unofficial upgrade.” Previously, this package of tools and utilities was only available as a download which you had to pay for ($19.95). However, they’ve recently changed that. Although the full suite is still available, they’re now offering some of their products for free.

From the company’s homepage, you can download the following utilities:

1. An Extended Windows Explorer

2. A Screen Capture and Desktop Recorder

3. A Keyboard Shortcut Manager

4. An Image Converter, Resizer, and Denoiser

5. A Disk Analyzer

6. An FTP and SFTP Client

7. An Extended Task Manager

8. A File Compression Extension

Over the years, you’ve probably downloaded a few programs similar to those on this list – in fact, you may have even paid good money for them. As noted on the Extensoft site, similar programs like SnagIt, Camtasia, WinZip, Cute FTP, and others charge quite a bit once you get beyond their free trial. Buying each one of those apps piecemeal, and you could end up spending a lot of money.

If you’re someone who needed the advanced features that the professional editions of those apps offered, then your money did not go to waste. But if you only need, say, 80% functionality and none of the complex features, then Extensions for Windows says they have you covered…for free.

At first, I thought Extensions for Windows was a suite of Windows XP tools, so I didn’t try them out. However, it looks like Extensions runs on Vista, too, so now I’m definitely going to give them a shot.

Have you tried Extensions for Windows? If so, let me know about your experiences in the comments.

Have Outlook Remind You of Forgotten Attachments

sarahintampa — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 18:35:00 GMT

The latest thing in email add-ons seems to be programs that help you to not look stupid when sending email. What do I mean by that? I mean sending out messages saying “see attachment” when clearly, there is no attachment present. Not only does this make you feel a little silly, it also wastes your time and that of your recipients as you have to resend the email with your attachment included.

Since Microsoft Outlook is still heavily used by corporate emailers, it’s in this program where forgotten attachments are probably the most common and burdensome for others. How nice it is that there’s now an option to check for forgotten attachments in Outlook. And setting it up is as easy as copying and pasting a little script.

This Outlook VB script was originally created by LifeHacker commenter Jack Stowage then was later modified by another reader, Troy (no last name provided). Thanks to both of you guys for making our lives easier.

Want to install this script yourself? Here’s how.

1. Copy and Paste the following text (don’t worry, you don’t need to understand it):

Private Sub Application_ItemSend(ByVal Item As Object, Cancel As Boolean)
Dim m As Variant
Dim strBody As String
Dim intIn As Long
Dim intAttachCount As Integer, intStandardAttachCount As Integer

On Error GoTo handleError

'Edit the following line if you have a signature on your email that includes images or other files. Make intStandardAttachCount equal the number of files in your signature.
intStandardAttachCount = 0

strBody = LCase(Item.Body)

intIn = InStr(1, strBody, "original message")

If intIn = 0 Then intIn = Len(strBody)

intIn = InStr(1, Left(strBody, intIn), "attach")

intAttachCount = Item.Attachments.Count

If intIn > 0 And intAttachCount <= intStandardAttachCount Then
    m = MsgBox("It appears that you mean to send an attachment," & vbCrLf & "but there is no attachment to this message." & vbCrLf & vbCrLf & "Do you still want to send?", vbQuestion + vbYesNo + vbMsgBoxSetForeground)

    If m = vbNo Then Cancel = True
End If

handleError:

If Err.Number <> 0 Then
    MsgBox "Outlook Attachment Reminder Error: " & Err.Description, vbExclamation, "Outlook Attachment Reminder Error"
End If

End Sub

2. In Outlook, go to Tools –> Macro –> Visual Basic Editor in the menu options. (You may need to expand the project by clicking the plus (+) sign under Project1 until you see ThisOutlookSession.)

3. Expand ThisOutlookSession by double-clicking it.

4. Paste the code into the big white empty space like so:

5. Click “Save”

Add-In Cleanup For Windows Home Server

sarahintampa — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 13:17:00 GMT

If you have a Windows Home Server then you’ve probably been having fun trying out the numerous add-ins that have been made available for WHS users. These add-ins let you do all kinds of things from running Outlook to syncing your TV shows from Media Center to listening to the radio and so much more. But what if you’ve been having a little too much fun and have overloaded your server with add-ins? Or, even worse, what if you installed an add-in that wasn’t quite ready for prime time and now it won’t uninstall? Well now there’s an add-in for that!

The Add-In Cleanup Tool helps you clean and uninstall up whichever add-ins you need to get rid of. It will even remove them from the registry, too, after first doing a backup. The tool is installed via Remote Desktop by connecting to your WHS and putting the file ‘addincleanup.exe’ into the C:\Program Files\Windows Home Server folder. You can then choose to add the shortcut to your desktop, if desired. The tool is a free download available from here (zip file). (via We Got Served)

WPF Disk Space Finder

sarahintampa — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 15:51:00 GMT

Want to know what’s eating up your disk space on your PC? In the past, we’ve shared some tools that help you analyze your disks, but now there’s a new one to try: Disk Space Finder. This new tool is sleek, running on WPF, and simple to use. While some tools present their findings in ways that only true computer geeks could love, Disk Space Finder is aimed more squarely at the average user. Instead of offering a myriad of complex options for analyzing the results of its scan, Disk Space Finder will display a pie chart on the right showing used space, and a file explorer on the left. This makes interpreting the findings very easy. However, if you want to empty a folder, you need to click the “open folder” icon and do the job yourself – no automated assistance here. There are sometimes when you just need a basic tool for the job. If that’s the case, Disk Space Finder is worth a look. [Works on 64-bit]

Encrypt Your Thumb Drive

sarahintampa — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 09:57:00 GMT

I was reading a great post on LifeHacker about TrueCryprt, a free, open-source disk encryption software for Windows Vista/XP/2000 and Linux. The software, which creates a virtual encrypted disk within a file and mounts it as a real hard disk, sounds pretty awesome on its own. However, a commenter, pmhesse, pointed out what is, in my opinion, the software's greatest feature - it doesn't need to be installed to work! As it turns out, you can just put the following files on your thumb drive: truecrypt.exe, truecrypt.sys, and the encrypted volume itself. The encryption is done automatically, in real-time, and transparently. TrueCrypt volumes are hidden and impossible to identify; until decrypted, a TrueCrypt volume appears to consist of nothing more than random data. This is great for anyone who needs to take sensitive files out of the office on a USB key (or just for privacy nuts in genera!)

Skip the Taskbar!

sarahintampa — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 18:04:00 GMT

Not a fan of using the taskbar? Skip it with an application called miniMIZE, you can minimize windows to thumbnails that stick to your desktop instead. miniMIZE, a clone of a discontinued app called MINt, has a lot of features, making it a more flexible choice than similar programs, like ThumbWin (it's in English, too - a big plus for me!) With miniMIZE, you can use its auto-placing feature to select where on your screen your thumbnails will appear; this setting is retained so the next time you minimize a window, the app will remember where you want your thumbnails placed. Of course, you can drag the thumbnails around the screen, too. There are hot keys for cycling through thumbnails, minimizing windows, and showing/hiding thumbnails. The thumbnails are all the same size and can be pinned to three different levels - Desktop, Normal, and Top. Another handy feature is the icon that displays on each thumbnail to show you the program the thumbnail is from. You can see this in this screenshot here. miniMIZE is a free download, but you can make donations to the developers here if you find it useful. (via appaholic)

Photojojo - A Site for Photo Enthusiasts

sarahintampa — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 17:16:00 GMT

OK, I'm not a huge fan of the goofy name, but this website/newsletter has a lot of cool stuff that makes it worth checking it. Photojojo is primarily a newsletter (and they house their newsletter archives on their website) where you can find tutorials, do-it-yourself projects, camera/camera accessory reviews, contests, and much more. Some recent posts on Photojojo include a customizable version of the Monopoly board game, where you can add your own photos; a how-to post on making a doggie cam; tips on de-pixelizing your photos using VectorMagic; and a handy how-to on removing extra people from your photos. Whether you're just getting into photography or already an enthusiast, you can learn a lot the Photojob site. There's even a store where they have cool photo-related tools and gifts and a forum where you can chat with other shutterbugs like yourself.

SEAMonster Does Seam Carving

sarahintampa — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 17:54:00 GMT

SEAMonster, a personal project of Mike Swanson's, has nothing to do with the cool SeaDragon technology, despite the similar name. Instead, SEAMonster is an app that lets you perform seam carving on your photos. What is seam carving? It's a photo-resizing algorithim developed by Shai Avidan and Ariel Shamir that reduces or enlarges pictures by intelligently removing pixels. If that's a little confusing, this video demos the technique quite well. According to the seamcarving.com website, seam carving removes the pixels that carry little importance - something that is determined by measuring a pixel's contrast when compared to its neighbor pixels, as well as by more advanced techniques. By performing seam carving, you can scale photos by a wide range, while retaining the details. (Normal scaling techniques normally can't go beyond a factor of 2 or less than 0.5.). The SEAMonster application uses Microsoft .NET Framework Version 2.0, so you'll need that first. When you're ready to get started, check out the 8-minute video intro Mike recorded in lieu of documentation. Amazing stuff! (Thanks to Blake Handler for posting about this).

When in need the Snipping Tool captures your pixels

Jesse — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 01:50:00 GMT

The Snipping Tool has got to be one of the most indispensible additions to Windows, and yet many people aren’t even aware of its existence. Sitting quietly in the Accessories folder, you’d hardly know it has become one of the most prized tools in this blogger’s kit. There are only sparse options for how Mr. Snip does his work, but the important part is that he’s always there, ready to capture anything, from your entire display down to whatever free-form shape you need to trace. By far, our favorite option must be having our selected chunk of screen instantly copied to the clipboard for quick insertion into say, a text post on 10!