Kevins Crate.com/Blog » Program Crate

How to Setup Gmail for Offline Viewing

Kevin — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 01:21:54 +0000

Google Labs has now released the long awaited Offline viewing option for its famous Email client Gmail. So now you can sync your mail and read it offline if you wish. It does require you to install Google Gears found here. and it will only sync you newest 10,000 messages but that should be enough for most people. Then its pretty easy to enable the offline settings. It works in Internet Explorer and Firefox, but if you set it up on Firefox the decide to switch to IE you will need to perforn the install again and vise versa.

The first thing to do is see if you were offered it yet. Google say’s its rolling it out over the next few days so if you don’t have it yet you will be shortly.

So here goes, Head over to your inbox and click the little green beaker to get to the Labs section.

Look for Offline and click Enable.

Scroll doen to the bottom of the page and click Save Changes.

You will now be taken back to your inbox. At the top of the page next to Settings you will now notice a new option called Offline. Go ahead and give it a click.

You can now click next to install offline access.

Place a check mark in the I trust this site to use Google Gears. If you click Deny and want to change you mind later you will need to sign out of Gmail then sign back in and start the process over. This will give Google permission to use your hard drive to store your mail.

Create a shortcut next so you an access Gmail offline.

Now the installation will complete.

And the Synchronizing begins, depending on the amount of mail you have and the speed of your internet connection this could take a few minutes or in my case about an hour. The good news is you can still use Gmail while your waiting.

Now you’re all set of offline use.

And now back to your setting screen.

That all there is to it.

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LifeHackers Best of the Best: Software

Kevin — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 19:18:59 +0000

Lifehacker’s Hive Five series Best of the Best is out, staring”What’s the best tool for the job?” The list is from the top user submitted programs in different categories. On to the list. I also included my Fav’s

Best Digital Photo Organizer: Picasa
I agree

Best Instant Messenger: Pidgin (Windows/Linux)
My Fav: Trillian

Best GTD Application: Pen and Paper

Best DVD Ripping Tool: DVD Shrink (Windows)
My Fav: DVDFab

Best Contact Management Application: Address Book (Mac OS X)
My Fav: Google Gmail

Best Text Editor: Notepad++ (Windows)
I agree

Best Online File Sharing Service: MediaFire
I Agree

Best RSS Newsreader: Google Reader
I Agree

Best Application Launcher: Launchy (Windows)
My Fav: RocketDock

Best Start Page: iGoogle
I Agree

Best Antivirus Application: AVG Anti-Virus
My Fav: Windows Live One Care

Best Photo Sharing Site: Flickr
Ialso use SmugMug

Best Personal Finance Tool: Mint
My Fav: Microsoft Money

Best Desktop Media Player: VLC (All Platforms
I also use: Miro

Best Windows Maintenance Tool: CCleaner
I Agree

Best Windows Backup Tool: Carbonite
My Fav: Mozy

Best File Syncing Tool: Dropbox (All Platforms)
I agree

Best Alternative File Manager: Total Commander
My Fav: Xplorer2

Best Note-Taking Tool: Pen and Paper
My Fav: Evernote or Google notebook

Best To-Do List Manager: Pen and Paper
My Fav: Remember the Milk

Best Desktop Search Application: Windows Search 4
I agree

Best FTP Client: Filezilla
I agree

Best Password Manager: KeePass
My Fav: RoboForm

Best Download Manager: DownThemAll
I don’t use one

Best Calendar Application: Google Calendar
I agree

Best BitTorrent Application: uTorrent
I agree

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Google Launches Chrome a New Web Browser

Kevin — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 11:59:30 +0000

Google launched a new web browser called Chrome yesterday, so far it seems to load web pages fasted than Firefox 3 and IE 7 and is displaying pages with no problems on every site I visited. It imported all my bookmarks without a problem. It’s a free download from Google.

One of the nice features of Chrome is the way it handles its tabs, each one is run as it’s own instance in Windows, what that means is when you look in the task manager each tab has its own entry so when you close a tab all that memory is released, also if a page crashes it won’t crash the whole program.

On the down side I miss my Firefox extensions and don’t think I can use it in place of Firefox until those features are added, But judge for yourself and check out the comic below.

Look under the hood of Google Chrome in this comics interpretation of key engineering decisions, by Scott McCloud.

Chrome also has a privacy mode, so that nothing that occurs in that window is ever logged on your computer. aka the “porn mode”

The default homepage also presents you with a kind of speed dial feature, like the one Opera has. On that page you will see your most visited webpages as 9 screenshot thumbnails. You will also see a few of your recent searches and your recently bookmarked pages, as well as recently closed tabs.

From Googles site:

Google Chrome is a browser that combines a minimal design with sophisticated technology to make the web faster, safer, and easier.

One box for everything
Type in the address bar and get suggestions for both search and web pages.

Thumbnails of your top sites
Access your favorite pages instantly with lightning speed from any new tab.

Shortcuts for your apps
Get desktop shortcuts to launch your favorite web applications.

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Lower your Carbon Footprint with Edison

Kevin — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 13:41:27 +0000

Get in the green zone and lower your carbon footprint and save some oil. Here’s a program I found that will help you save a few bucks on your power bill by letting you turn off your monitor spin down your hard drives then put your computer in suspend mode. From the folks at Verdiem

It’s kinda hokey and you can manually set all these controls, but it gives you options of working and non- working hours and tells you how much money you can save by using the settings. It works in XP and Vista

It does require you to register with a valid email address, so use a throw-away address and it runs in your system tray consuming a few resources.

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Use the PC Decrapifier to Clean out your new Computer

Kevin — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 11:57:11 +0000

How many times have you bought a new computer and turned it on only to find the screen full of trial software. I run into this problem every time I setup a new computer for someone, and I?m sure you have too. Here?s a great program I use to clean out the crap. The PC Decrapifier. They offer a free and a paid version.

The PC Decrapifier will uninstall many of the common trialware and annoyances found on many of the PCs from big name OEMs. Here is the current list of software and items that the PC Decrapifier can detect and remove. You get to see the list of items it detects and then choose what will be removed automatically.

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Get a Vista Style Start Menu in XP

Kevin — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 16:53:39 +0000

Do you like the new Vista start menu and its ability to do instant search but aren’t ready to switch to Vista. Well I found a cool program called ViStart from Lee-Soft that gives you a Vista like start Menu with instant search.

ViStart is a perfect start menu replacement for Windows XP. ViStart will now index all personal files and program files and give *ACTUAL instant results* that’s 4 times faster then the real Vista start menu.

They also offer ViOrb, a start button replacement for Windows XP. In the same way ViStart is a start menu replacement. It will give the start button a Vista look and feel.

From this.

To this.

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Use Mojo to Share and Sync Music with your Friends

Kevin — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 12:27:43 +0000

Wouldn’t it be cool if you could connect to your friends music library across the internet and browse their music collection, listen to their music and dare I say download the songs you like to your computer. Then Mojo is your answer. I’ve been using it for a awhile now and really like it. They have a Free and a paid version, give it a shot. I can’t vouch for the legality of this program, you’ll need to check the laws where you live.

From their web site:

Mojo is music sharing done right. With just two clicks, you are ready to browse, select, and download music from any Mojo user. Plus, subscribe to the playlists of other users, and Mojo will update those playlists anytime they are online. Finally, all downloaded songs will automatically be added to your iTunes library.

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10 Dropbox Invites Available for KevinsCrate Readers

Kevin — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 22:15:21 +0000

Dropbox is an online file syncing and sharing solution to help you keep files in sync across multiple computers. Dropbox gives you 2 gigs of free storage space that you can use to backup or share files with. The service is in private beta right now but I have 10 invites available to the first people who leave a comment, Be sure to leave a valid Email address so I can send the invite.

To get more info checkout their FAQ.

https://www.getdropbox.com/faq

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Get Firefox 3 Today

Kevin — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 12:03:13 +0000

Download Firefox 3 today and help Mozilla set a Guinness World Record for the most software downloaded in 24 hours.

With more than 15,000 improvements, Firefox 3 is faster, safer and smarter than before.

New Features:

Firefox 3 sets the innovation bar very high with exciting new features, including one-click bookmarking, the smart location bar and lightning fast performance.

Security:

Keeping you and your personal information safe is our top priority. Firefox 3 includes phishing and malware protection, plus our new instant site ID info.

Productivity:

With features like built-in spell checking, session restore and full zoom, Firefox 3 makes it possible to work faster and more efficiently on the Web.

Customization:

Your taste and needs set you apart from the rest. With Firefox 3 you can choose from over 5,000 add-ons that help you customize your browsing experience.

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Easily Recover Deleted Picture from your Media Cards with the PC Inspector

Kevin — Sat, 03 May 2008 12:46:11 +0000

Have you ever deleted pictures off your cameras media card then realized that was your only copy. Or maybe you or your camera reformatted the card by accident, they you need the free PC INSPECTOR™ smart recovery program. I had to use this program a few time in the past and it worked like a champ, except for the SD card that went thru the wash, but that another story.

PC INSPECTOR™ smart recovery is the new data recovery program from CONVAR for Flash Card™, Smart Media™, SONY Memory Stick™, IBM™ Micro Drive, Multimedia Card, Secure Digital Card or any other data carrier for digital cameras.

If you have unintentionally deleted or formatted pictures, videos or sound files on your data carrier or have pulled it out during a write operation, no matter – PC INSPECTOR™ smart recovery can easily, quickly and absolutely reliably reconstruct the lost data.

Using the software is child’s play. PC INSPECTOR™ smart recovery runs on all Win 9x, ME, NT 4.0, XP and Windows™ 2000 systems.

PC INSPECTOR™ smart recovery the software with which you can recover your holiday pictures in seconds after unintentional deletion or a system error.

PC INSPECTOR™ smart recovery is also available bundled with many high-quality digital cameras – ask your salesperson.

* PC INSPECTOR™ smart recovery supports the following picture formats: .jpg, .amr, .tif, .bmp, .gif, Canon .crw , Fuji .raf , RICOH .raw, Olympus .orf (E-XX), Olympus .orf (C5050), Nokia 3gp, Kodak .dcr, Minolta .mrw, Nikon .nef (D1H/D1X), Nikon .nef (D2H/D2X), Nikon .nef (E5000/E5700), Sigma – Foveon .x3f, mp4, QuickTime .mov (Konica Minolta). Video files in .avi, QuickTime .mov format and audio files in .wav, .dss format can also be recovered.

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How to Make your iTunes Easer to See

Kevin — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 09:25:40 +0000

Here’s a quick tip to take the strain off your aging eyes when viewing your iTunes collection. I never really paid much attention to that option before, But when I was setting up my new media center computer connected to a 61″ TV I could barely see the text from the couch so I gave it a try and it works like a charm.

1. In iTunes, click Edit > Preferences.

2. Under the General tab you can select Large for the option for Source Text to enlarge the text on the navigation bar. Then you can also do the same thing for Song Text to enlarge the text on the song side.

Before:

After:

So there you go, no more squinting.

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Close All Open Programs with Enditall 2

Kevin — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 12:10:39 +0000

Whenever you install new software one of the first thing they tell you to do is to shut down all open programs, Likewise when you run your disk defragmenter or scandisk you need to close all open programs. Most computers today have a dozen or more open programs and process running all the time. Shutting them down manually is a tedious and time-consuming endeavor. That’s where Enditall 2 comes in to save the day.

EndItAll 2 lists all the programs running on your system, and lets you decide which ones to close down. The processes necessary for basic system operation are protected from termination. From the remaining processes, you can choose which to close, which to kill (close down forcibly), and which to protect. Once you know which files you want to shut down, you can configure EndItAll for automatic action via script or batch file. This is useful for backups and defrags during off-hours. Options let you block power management and the screen saver during operation.

The yellow lock icon means that Enditall can close or kill the process
A red lock icon indicates a protected process that cannot be killed or closed.
A lock icon with the X and the green border indicates processes that can be closed but not killed.
A skull with a red border allows to kill the process but not to close it.

Here’s another scenario:
You want to play a demanding video game or run a processor intensive program like Photoshop or do some video editing or transcoding, the more programs you have open the slower the process will be. Use Enditall to shut-um down first.

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Crack Windows XP Passwords with Offline NT Password Editor

Kevin — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 23:01:39 +0000

After trying numerous Password cracking programs I came across the Offline NT Password & Registry Editor. And I gotta tell you this is the easiest program to use to crack your password and it works on all versions of Windows. Check it out here.

Scroll down to the Download section to get the CD or floppy version. Burn a CD or Floppy, Set your computer to boot from the CD and follow his directions Here and within 5 minutes you will have cleared your password.

This post is a copy from my Vista site, A few readers have asked about it so I’ll repost it here also.

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Get A Free Virus Scan From PC Pitstop

Kevin — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 12:16:26 +0000

Here’s a free online anti-virus scanner that you can use to scan your computer for viruses. They use Panda Software’s award-winning technology and virus list. Check it out Here.

They also offer many other free services, Like a Driver scan, Spyware scan and a Performance scan. Check out PC Pitstop Dashboard. You do need to sign up for an account but that’s also Free

This scan only works with Internet Explorer, and requires an ActiveX install, so if you use Firefox switch over for the duration of the scan.

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Electronic Piano 2.5 Software For The Budding Musician

Kevin — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 00:48:26 +0000

Here’s a free Download that will let you play the Piano + 128 other instruments from your Keyboard. Get it here.

Electronic Piano 2.5 is a Freeware program that allows the user to play Musical Notes, Chords and Drums using the computer keyboard.

Although this is not a software for professional purposes, Electronic Piano 2.5 doesn’t require knowledge of the MIDI technology, it takes up little disk space and it is very simple to install and use.

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Use Testdisk To Make Your Non-Booting Disks Bootable Again

Kevin — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 12:29:36 +0000

TestDisk is a powerful free data recovery software! It was primarily designed to help recover lost partitions and/or make non-booting disks bootable again when these symptoms are caused by faulty software, certain types of viruses or human error (such as accidentally deleting a Partition Table). Partition table recovery using TestDisk is really easy. Get it for free right here be sure to choose the correct version for your operating system.

TestDisk can

* Fix partition table, recover deleted partition
* Recover FAT32 boot sector from its backup
* Rebuild FAT12/FAT16/FAT32 boot sector
* Fix FAT tables
* Rebuild NTFS boot sector
* Recover NTFS boot sector from its backup
* Fix MFT using MFT mirror
* Locate ext2/ext3 Backup SuperBlock

TestDisk has features for both novices and experts. For those who know little or nothing about data recovery techniques, TestDisk can be used to collect detailed information about a non-booting drive which can then be sent to a tech for further analysis. Those more familiar with such procedures should find TestDisk a handy tool in performing onsite recovery.

TestDisk is OpenSource software and is licensed under the terms of the GNU Public License (GPL).

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Sync Toy From Microsoft Updated To v2.0

Kevin — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 02:54:42 +0000

The easy to use, customizable application that helps you copy, move, rename, and delete files between folders and computers, has been updated to version 2.0.

Pick it up for free here

There are files from all kinds of sources that we want to store and manage. Files are created by our digital cameras, e-mail, cell phones, portable media players, camcorders, PDAs, and laptops. Increasingly, computer users are using different folders, drives, and even different computers (such as a laptop and a desktop) to store, manage, retrieve and view files. Yet managing hundreds or thousands of files is still largely a manual operation. In some cases it is necessary to regularly get copies of files from another location to add to primary location; in other cases there is a need to keep two storage locations exactly in sync. Some users manage files manually, dragging and dropping from one place to another and keeping track of whether the locations are synchronized in their heads. Other users may use two or more applications to provide this functionality.

Now there is an easier way. SyncToy, a free PowerToy for Microsoft Windows, is an easy to use, highly customizable program that helps users to do the heavy lifting involved with the copying, moving, and synchronization of different directories. Most common operations can be performed with just a few clicks of the mouse, and additional customization is available without additional complexity. SyncToy can manage multiple sets of folders at the same time; it can combine files from two folders in one case, and mimic renames and deletes in another case. Unlike other applications, SyncToy actually keeps track of renames to files and will make sure those changes get carried over to the synchronized folder.(from Microsoft)

The following features were added to this release of SyncToy:

Dynamic Drive Letter Assignment: Drive letter reassignment will now be detected and updated in the folder pair definition.

True Folder Sync: Folder creates, renames and deletes are now synchronized for all SyncToy actions.

Exclusion Filtering Based on Name: File exclusion based on name with exact or fuzzy matching.

Filtering Based on File Attributes: The ability to exclude files based on one or more file attributes (Read-Only, System, Hidden).

Unattended Folder Pair Execution: Addressed issues related to running scheduled folder pairs while logged off.

Folder Pairs With Shared Endpoints: Ability for folder pairs associated with the same or different instances of SyncToy to share end-points.

Command line enhancements: Added the ability to manage folder pairs via the command line interface.

The SyncToy engine has been rearchitected to provide scalability and the ability to add significant enhancements in future releases.

Sync engine is also more robust insomuch that many single, file level errors are skipped without affecting the entire sync operation.

Sync Encrypted Files: Sync of Encrypted files works when local folder and files are encrypted, which addresses the common scenario involving sync between local, encrypted laptop PC folder and remote, unencrypted desktop PC folder.

64-Bit compatibility

Folder pair rename

Sub-folder Exclusion Enhancements: Descendents creates under excluded sub-folders are automatically excluded.

Folder Pair Metadata Moved: Folder pair metadata removed from MyDocuments to resolve any issues with server-based folder pair re-direction setup.

Removed combine and subscribe actions.

System Requirements

Supported Operating Systems: Windows Vista; Windows XP

Microsoft .NET Framework v2.0
1GHz Intel P3 processor or equivalent
256MB RAM, 512MB RAM recommended
20MB free disk space

(from Microsoft)

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Get A Vista Drive Icon for Your XP System

Kevin — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 16:55:48 +0000

Windows Vista new Hard Drive icons show a little bar under the icon showing how much disk space is left. Now Vista Drive Icon, changes the drive icons shown in Windows XP “My Computer”, to a nearly Vista drive icon, showing the drive’s free space with a smooth colored horizontal bar.

The progress bars are blue until the drive gets nearly full, and when your hard drive starts getting full, the bar turns red.

Vista Drive Icons is a free program and works under Windows 95, 98, NT, 2000, and XP.

Before.

After.

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Donate Your Spare CPU Cycles To Folding@Home

Kevin — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 03:09:26 +0000

Folding@Home (also known as FAH or F@H) is a distributed computing project designed to perform computationally intensive simulations of protein folding and other molecular dynamics. It was launched on October 1, 2000, and is currently managed by the Pande Group, within Stanford University’s chemistry department, under the supervision of Professor Vijay Pande. Folding@home is the most powerful distributed computing cluster in the world, according to Guinness, and one of the world’s largest distributed computing projects.The goal of the project is “to understand protein folding, misfolding, and related diseases.” Check it out. Start donating today

How it works.

Folding@Home does not rely on powerful supercomputers for its data processing; instead, the primary contributors to the Folding@home project are many hundreds of thousands of personal computer users who have installed a small client program. The client will, at the user’s choice, run in the background, utilizing otherwise unused CPU power, or run as a screensaver only while the user is away. In most modern personal computers, the CPU is rarely used to its full capacity at all times; the Folding@Home client takes advantage of this unused processing power.

The Folding@Home client periodically connects to a server to retrieve “work units,” which are packets of data upon which to perform calculations. Each completed work unit is then sent back to the server. As data integrity is a major concern for all distributed computing projects, all work units are validated through the use of a 2048 bit digital signature.

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Find Missing Album Artwork for iTunes With iTunes Art Importer

Kevin — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 13:36:32 +0000

Very rarely does a great program comes around that makes a difficult task manageable. If you use iTunes you most likely have many Albums with missing art work. iTunes Art Importer works and works good, Here’s a download link Give it a try and get your Coverflow working like it should. It is without a doubt the easiest way to to find and import your missing Art work.

Update 1-14-08 I updated the links to this site and included a link to the direct download.

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PrintFolder A Easy Way To Print A List Of Files Or Folders

Kevin — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 08:39:37 +0000

Here’s a handy utility I found that lets you print or save a list of files located in any folder. Just right-click any folder in Windows Explorer and select “PrintFolder” in the popup menu and PrintFolder prepares a printable list of all your files or folders. Fantastic, I wish I had found this program years ago. This is a free program from No Nonsense Software They also offer a paid version with more functionality.

____________________________________________________________

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Microsoft Photo Info, Makes It Easy To Add Metadata To Your Photos

Kevin — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 11:36:53 +0000

Microsoft Photo Info allows photographers to add, change and delete common “metadata” properties for digital photographs from inside Windows Explorer. Get it Here for Free.

When installed, a new “Photo Info” item appears on the context menu for files selected in Windows Explorer. To use, simply select one or more image files, right-click and choose “Photo Info” to open the Photo Info properties editor. You can edit metadata for files individually, or all together as a batch. Photo Info reads and writes metadata in IPTC and XMP formats (depending on file type). It also provides enhanced “hover tips” and additional sort properties for digital photographs in Windows Explorer.

Right click 1 picture or a group of pictures and choose Photo Info.

Now you can add your Metadata.

Microsoft Photo Info provides the following features:

View or edit photo metadata from inside Windows Explorer. View or modify advanced image properties from within Windows.

Edit images individually, or as a collection. Photo Info has two edit modes: individual and collection, making it easy to update many images at the same time.

Quick recall of recent entries. For some properties, Photo Info remembers the most recent entries you have typed. To recall a recent entry, click on the drop down arrow and select it from the list.

Generate copyright notice automatically. Photo Info can generate a standard copyright notice automatically from the Author and date Created information, if present.

Quick recall of location details. To help save time when entering location information, Photo Info can save location details under a name you provide. Recall these details by selecting the location name from the drop-down menu.

Correct EXIF capture date / time information. Photo Info can optionally update the EXIF date/time information as recorded in the image file by your camera. You can use this feature to correct the file capture date if your camera’s clock was set incorrectly (for example, to the wrong time zone).

View EXIF properties. Click on the Details tab to view common EXIF properties. Click on More properties for additional details.

Preview the image. To see a larger preview of the image, double-click on the thumbnail.

Enhanced hover tips. Hover tips have been enhanced for JPEG, TIFF and other supported file types in Windows Explorer.

Custom column properties. In Windows Explorer when viewing a folder in Details view, additional sort properties are available for supported image types.

Using Microsoft Photo Info

After running Setup, a new “Photo Info” item appears in the file context menu in Windows Explorer. (Microsoft Photo Info can only be accessed from within Windows Explorer; it does not appear separately in the Windows Start Menu.)

To use the tool, select one or more supported image files in Windows Explorer, right-click and choose Photo Info. The Photo Info properties dialog appears. This dialog permits you to view and edit properties for selected images individually or as a batch, and you can switch between these two editing modes at any time. Navigate between selected images by clicking on the Next or Previous buttons or by pressing the Page Up or Page Down keys on your keyboard.

Properties are arranged in several tabs: Description, Keywords, Origin, Advanced, and Details. Click on the tab containing the information you wish to view or edit. To see tips or get help with a particular property or control, hover over it with your mouse, or, click the “question mark” icon in the title bar, then click the control for which you wish to see additional information.

When you are finished, click OK or Apply to save your changes, or Cancel to exit the tool without saving changes. You can also undo changes by clicking on Revert. Only changes that have not yet been saved can be reverted.

Microsoft Photo Info does not modify the image pixel data in any way when saving changes; only valid “metadata” properties are updated or added to the image file.

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Calculator Plus From Microsoft

Kevin — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 12:42:46 +0000

When the Windows operating system is installed on your computer, a simple calculator program that you can use to perform standard mathematical functions also gets installed. However, your legal copy of Windows also entitles you to download a fancier calculator program. It is called Microsoft Calculator Plus. Get it here for free

The standard calculator.

Calculator Plus.

Calculator Plus does everything the standard Microsoft Calculator does but also enables you to convert one type of units to another, a useful feature for businesses with international relationships. You can calculate conversions for:

Area
Currency
Fuel consumption (engines)
Energy
Lengths
Power
Pressure
Temperature
Volume
Velocity
Weight

For currency calculations, you can add currencies to the default list that is installed. The calculator also includes a tool that will automatically update the exchange rate for the Euro by downloading it from the European Central Bank (ECB).

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Launchy: The Fastest Way To Open Programs And Files

Kevin — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 01:08:55 +0000

Launchy is free open-source windows utility designed to help you forget about your start menu, the icons on your desktop, and even your file manager.

Launchy indexes the programs in your start menu and can launch your documents, project files, folders, and bookmarks with just a few keystrokes! It’s like Vista’s new search box for XP. Give it a try and you’ll be hooked too. Get Launchy Here.

Once Launchy has been started, it hides in the background. You bring it forward by holding the alt key and tapping the space key. You then type in a few keys of the program you are searching for and hit enter once it has been found. You can also make Launchy dissappear again by hitting escape or alt+space. The more you use it the smarter it gets.

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Miro, Turn Your Computer Into An Internet TV Video Player

Kevin — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 01:44:39 +0000

Miro, The Free open-source Video player formerly the Democracy player has been updated to version 0.9.9.1 and is a worthy download and is available for Windows, Mac and Linux.

Miro is a free application that turns your computer into an internet TV video player. This release is still a beta version, which means that there are some bugs, but they are moving quickly to fix them and will be releasing bug fixes on a regular basis.

Miro lets you search for download and play Internet videos and video podcasts. you just search for the video you want and add it as a channel then whenever its updated it will download the newest episode.

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Get Started On Your Journal With iDailyDiary

Kevin — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 22:06:12 +0000

iDailyDiary provides a simple interface that immediately gets you started taking daily notes, creating a journal, putting your thoughts into writing and much more. Get it FREE Here

iDailyDiary has been designed around a simple page-for-a-day diary. Your diary can contain a mixture of pictures and formatted text. Image files of various types are supported, including bitmaps, JPEGs, icons, and even animated GIFs. Add new page tabs and rename them whatever you wish to help get your life organized. In addition to the calendar on the top toolbar, you have a month-view calendar bar at the bottom of your diary.

This calendar bar not only allows you to view and select any day of the current month but also highlights which days of the month you have made entries in your diary. Features include the ability to create and open as many diaries as you wish; diary files that are fully encrypted and password-protected; the ability to search the entire diary for matching entries; the ability to insert clickable hotlinks, URLs, and links to other diary pages; and the ability to save diary pages to HTML to publish to Web. Version 3.41 include unspecified updates.

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Improve The Readability Of Text On LCD’s With Clear Type Tuner

Kevin — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 12:17:56 +0000

This PowerToy lets you use ClearType technology to make it easier to read text on your screen, and installs in the Control Panel for easy access. Get it here This program is only for Win XP

What is ClearType technology you ask?

ClearType is a software technology developed by Microsoft that improves the readability of text on existing LCDs (Liquid Crystal Displays), such as laptop screens, Pocket PC screens and flat panel monitors. With ClearType font technology, the words on your computer screen look almost as sharp and clear as those printed on a piece of paper.

ClearType works by accessing the individual vertical color stripe elements in every pixel of an LCD screen. Before ClearType, the smallest level of detail that a computer could display was a single pixel, but with ClearType running on an LCD monitor, we can now display features of text as small as a fraction of a pixel in width. The extra resolution increases the sharpness of the tiny details in text display, making it much easier to read over long durations. (from Microsoft)

After you install it you can access it from the Control Panel > Appearance & Themes > Clear Type Tuning. Put a check mark in Turn on Clear Type. Then click start Wizard

Click on the text that looks best to you, then click next.

Again choose the one that looks best, then click next.

If you like how the text looks click finish, or click back to make any changes.

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Google Earth’s Flight Simulator

Kevin — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 03:31:41 +0000

Last week Google updated Google Earth to include the Sky above you and it looks like they also included a unpublished Flight Simulator, you can take off and fly around the world. You need version # 4.2.0180 you can get it here http://earth.google.com/sky/index.html

It work on Windows Mac and Linux. To get the Flight Sim working for the first time Open Google Earth the press Ctrl+Alt+A for windows for Mac Command+Option+A

They only include 2 aircraft now a F-16 and a SR-22 and only a few airports to take off from but its a cool start. Here’s a look at the takeoff screen.

After you run the Flight Simulator for the first time you can restart it by starting Google Earth then go to Tools > Enter Flight Simulator

Here are the keyboard shortcuts

Google keyboard shortcuts

And another screen shot.

Update 9-3-07 Here’s a video from the Google Earth Blog

Update 9-1-07 Here’s a video of it in action by Eric S. over at http://www.insidedesign.info/blog/

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Virtual Desktop Manager For Win XP

Kevin — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 14:43:17 +0000

This is another program in the free Microsoft PowerToys library. It allows you to run up to 4 individual desktops at once, each with different programs running, different wallpapers and easily switch between them. You can download it from Microsoft here.

After you download and install it here’s how to get it setup. Right click an empty space on your toolbar and choose > Toolbar > Desktop Manager.

Now you will see the MSVDM tab (Microsoft Virtual Desktop Manager)

Right click anywhere inside the MSVDM tab to access the configuration screens.

Choose > Configure Desktop Images, and you can setup different Wallpapers for each Desktop.

Click the Shortcut tab if you want to assign a keyboard shortcut to launch each Desktop. When your finished click Ok.

To see all the Desktops at once click the Green checkerboard icon, or if you know which one you want click the number and your Desktops will switch.

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Google Earth Now Gives You The Universe

Kevin — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 10:31:11 +0000

A recent update to Google Earth now lets you search the sky above you. Download it here.

With about a hundred million stars and two hundred million galaxies, Sky in Google Earth lets you explore the heavens like never before.

With Earth’s new Sky feature, you can:

Zoom in to distant galaxies and nebulae

View constellations and the movements of the planets

Learn about the lifecycle of a star and different kinds of galaxies

Create and share your own imagery, placemarks and more

When you use Sky, the view is above your current location on Earth. For example, if you go to Paris and open Sky, you will see what is in the sky above Paris at the current time. When you exit Sky, you return to this same location.

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Alt-Tab Replacement

Kevin — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 13:51:30 +0000

This is another great addition to the PowerToys that Microsoft provides for Free. In case you don’t know what happens when you press Alt-Tab, It gives you a list of all your open applications that you can quickly tab thru. Give it a try. Hold down the Alt key then repeatedly press the Tab key. (See the images after the jump)

When you install the Alt-Tab Replacement in addition to seeing the icon of the application window you are switching to, you will also see a preview of the page. This helps particularly when multiple sessions of an application are open.

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Microsoft Photo Info 1.0

Kevin — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 13:33:22 +0000

This free program is part of Microsoft’s PowerToys and provides digital photography Information at your fingertips Get it here

Microsoft Photo Info allows photographers to add, change and delete common “metadata” properties for digital photographs from inside Windows Explorer via the right click menu.

Microsoft Photo Info runs on 32-bit versions of Windows XP (with Service Pack 2 or later) and the Windows Vista operating systems.

The Programs Features Include:
View or edit photo metadata from inside Windows Explorer. Now, advanced image properties are at your fingertips from within Windows.

Edit images individually, or as a collection. Photo Info has two edit modes: individual and collection, making it easy to update many images at the same time.

Quick recall of recent entries. For some properties, Photo Info remembers the most recent entries you have typed. To recall a recent entry, click on the drop down arrow and select it from the list.

Generate copyright notice automatically. Photo Info can generate a standard copyright notice automatically from the Author and date Created information, if present.

Quick recall of location details. To help save time when entering location information, Photo Info can save location details under a name you provide. Recall these details by selecting the location name from the drop-down menu.

Correct EXIF capture date / time information. Photo Info can optionally update the EXIF date/time information as recorded in the image file by your camera. You can use this feature to correct the file capture date if your camera’s clock was set incorrectly (for example, to the wrong time zone).

View EXIF properties. Click on the Details tab to view common EXIF properties. Click on More properties for additional details.

Preview the image. To see a larger preview of the image, double-click on the thumbnail.

Enhanced hover tips. Hover tips have been enhanced for JPEG, TIFF and other supported file types in Windows Explorer.

Custom column properties. In Windows Explorer when viewing a folder in Details view, additional sort properties are available for supported image types.

For pictures of the program running click read the rest of the entry.

Right click on any photo or group of photos.

Here you can add descriptions

Add keywords for easier searching.

Here you can add where you took the picture.

This screen allows you to add more details.

And the last tab will give you details of the camera that took the picture.

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Tweak UI A Powerful Way to Customize Your System

Kevin — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 11:04:23 +0000

Microsoft Tweak UI is a must-have tool for anyone customizing Microsoft Windows XP. It prevents users from opening the registry and customizing settings that aren’t available in the operating system’s user interface. Tweak UI started as a grassroots utility built by a handful of rebellious programmers and ended up one of the most popular downloads on the Internet. Microsoft has released versions of this tool for every version of Windows since Microsoft Windows 95. The company even included it on the Microsoft Windows 98 CD. And now, it’s available for Windows XP, and it includes even more customizations.

You can download Tweak UI from Microsoft (Microsoft split the original Microsoft Power Toys programs apart) The file you download is called TweakUiPowertoySetup.exe. Run this program to install Tweak UI on your computer. To run Tweak UI, click Start, All Programs, Powertoys for Windows XP, and Tweak UI for Windows XP. In the left pane, click a category, and then in the right pane, edit the settings you want to change. The program is mostly self-explanatory; you see a description of each setting at the bottom of the window. Pay attention to the bottom part of the windows. It tells you whether the settings in that category are per-user or per-machine. Per-user settings sometimes require you to log off and back on to Windows XP in order for them to take affect. Per-machine settings affect every user who logs on to the computer. Source: Microsoft

This PowerToy gives you access to system settings that are not exposed in the Windows XP default user interface, including mouse settings, Explorer settings, taskbar settings, and more. Plus you won’t have to mess around in the Registry to make these changes.

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AVG A Darn Good Free Anti-Virus

Kevin — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 01:32:17 +0000

If your in the market for new anti-virus software and don’t want to pay a lot of money or are cheap like me try AVG Anti-virus from Grisoft. I”ve been using it for years and never had got a virus. Just remember to uninstall your old Anit-virus first, only one can live on your computer at a time. Get it here

From their site.
AVG Free Edition has spearheaded the company’s growth. According to Grisoft, over 40 million users have AVG Anti-Virus protection, including users of the Free Edition.

The AVG Free Edition is similar to the Anti-Virus Professional product, but does not have all the features. It lacks the fine-grained control over how scans are conducted, and it receives lower priority (than the paid-for products) when downloading updates from Grisoft’s servers. The language interface cannot be customised, and English is the only available language.

AVG features most of the common functions available in modern antivirus programs, including periodic scans, scans of sent and received emails (including adding footers to the emails indicating this), the ability to “heal” some virus-infected files, and a “virus vault” in which infected files are held

Technical Support is not available for the Free Edition, whereas support is available to users of the Professional, paid for products.

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AM-DeadLink Cleans Out Dead Bookmarks

Kevin — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 22:41:46 +0000

I must have every bookmark I ever saved cause I was going thru them the other night and a lot of the old ones weren’t working so I went on a search to find a program to check them all at once so I could get rid of the one that no longer worked. Well I found that program in AM-DeadLink plus its free.Get it here

AM-DeadLink detects dead links and duplicates in browser bookmarks and text files. If a bookmark has become unavailable you can verify and delete it permanently. Additionally you can download FavIcons for all your Favorites and Bookmarks. AM-DeadLink can check the following resources: Internet Explorer Favorites, Firefox bookmarks, Opera bookmarks, Mozilla and Netscape bookmarks
Windows

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SequoiaView a Better Way to Visualize your Files

Kevin — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 18:34:24 +0000

Is your hard drive space rapidly shrinking and you don’t know where it’s all going. Then you need to try SequoiaView.

SequoiaView will show you what is taking up the most space on your drives in a most unusual way. instead of seeing your files in hierarchical folders this program gives you a graphical representation and lets you visualizing all your files at once as squares of different size, according to the size of the file. This way it is easy to spot files that take up the most disk space, even if they’re hidden deep in the directory tree. It also tells you the file and directory size.

Get it here. SequoiaView

Files and directories can be selected, inspected and opened, but can not be modified directly. Users can define different color schemes to facilitate identification of certain file types or load a ready-made color scheme from disk. Files can be filtered on name, size as well as creation, modification or last access date or any combination of these.

It is a small download of only 515kb and supports Windows 95 / 98 / ME / NT4 / 2000 / XP

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ImgBurn a free CD / DVD / HD DVD / Blu-ray burning application

Kevin — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 23:43:41 +0000

ImgBurn is a free lightweight CD / DVD / HD DVD / Blu-ray burning application that everyone should have in their toolkit! I have been using it for quite some time and it never produced a coaster on me.

ImgBurn supports a wide range of image file formats – including BIN, DI, DVD, GI, IMG, ISO, MDS, NRG and PDI.

Find it here http://www.imgburn.com/

Like I said the program is free, but if you like it consider Donating to help keeping it updated.

ImgBurn has several different Modes, each one for performing a different task:
Read – Read a disc to an image file
Build - Create an image file from files on your computer or network – or you can write the files directly to a disc
Write - Write an image file to a disc
Verify - Check a disc is 100% readable. Optionally, you can also have ImgBurn compare it against a given image file to ensure the actual data is correct
Discovery - Put your drive / media to the test! Used in combination with DVDInfoPro, you can check the quality of the burns your drive is producing

It supports Unicode folder/file names, so you shouldn’t run in to any problems if you’re using an international character set.

ImgBurn supports all the Windows OS’s – Windows 95, 98, Me, NT, 2000, XP, 2003 and Vista (including all the 64-bit versions). If you use Wine, it should also run on Linux and other x86-based Unixes.

How to burn:

1. Load ImgBurn.

2. Switch to ‘Write’ mode.

3. Insert Disc in Burner.

4. Select Image to burn.

5. Click ‘Write’ button.

Your finished, Its that simple

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CCleaner Removes Your Unneeded Digital Gunk

Kevin — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 13:10:32 +0000

CCleaner is a freeware system optimization and privacy tool. It removes unused files from your system – allowing Windows to run faster and freeing up valuable hard disk space. It also cleans traces of your online activities such as your Internet history. But the best part is that it’s fast (normally taking less than a second to run) and contains NO Spyware or Adware!

Yoy can pick it up here. http://www.ccleaner.com/

Cleans the following Windows components:

* Internet Explorer
- Temporary File Cache.
- URL History.
- Cookies.
- Hidden Index.dat files.
- Last download file location.
* Firefox
- Temporary File Cache.
- URL History.
- Cookies.
- Download manager.
* Recycle Bin
* Clipboard
* Windows Temporary files
* Windows Log files.
* Recent Documents (on the Start Menu).
* Run history (on the Start Menu).
* Windows XP Search Assistant history.
* Windows XP old Prefetch data.
* Windows memory dumps after crashes.
* Chkdsk file fragments.

Advanced Options allow cleaning of:

* Menu Order cache
* Tray Notifications Cache
* Window Size and Location Cache
* User Assist history
* IIS Log Files
* Custom Folders

Application Cleaning:
As well as cleaning up old files and settings left by standard Windows components, CCleaner also cleans temporary files and recent file lists for many applications. Including:

* Firefox, Opera, Media Player, eMule, Kazaa, Google Toolbar, Netscape, Office XP, Nero, Adobe Acrobat, WinRAR, WinAce, WinZip and more…

Registry Issue Cleaning:
CCleaner uses an advanced Registry to check for problems and inconsistencies in your registry. It can check the following:

* File Extensions
* ActiveX Controls
* ClassIDs
* ProgIDs
* Uninstallers
* Shared DLLs
* Fonts
* Help File references
* Application Paths
* Icons
* Invalid Shortcuts and more…

Safety:
CCleaner was designed from the ground to be safe and secure to use. It has multiple levels of checks in place to ensure that it cannot delete any useful information or documents you may still need. We also certify that it contains no Spyware or Adware.
High Security:
For the super cautious users we also offer secure file erasing. By overwriting the files before deleting them, making it impossible to recover the data.
Multiple Languages:
Thanks to the translators, CCleaner is available in 31 different languages:

English, Albanian, Arabic, Catalan, Chinese (Simp), Chinese (Trad), Czech/Slovak, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, Galician, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Portuguese (Brazilian), Romanian, Russian, Serbian Cyrillic, Serbian Latin, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish.

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Google Gears (Beta) Now Available

Kevin — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 10:01:55 +0000

Google Gears. Now you can enable offline mode for Google Reader by installing Google Gears. Synch your RSS feeds and read them offline. It looks like the start of something cool.
Get it here. http://gears.google.com/

(From Google)

Google Gears is an open source browser extension that lets developers create web applications that can run offline. Gears provides three key features:

* A local server, to cache and serve application resources (HTML, JavaScript, images, etc.) without needing to contact a server
* A database, to store and access data from within the browser
* A worker thread pool, to make web applications more responsive by performing expensive operations in the background

System requirements:
• Windows XP/Vista
• Firefox 1.5+ and Internet Explorer 6.0+

Google Gears (BETA) is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux
This is an early release of Google Gears (BETA). After installation, please pay attention to the warning dialogs and grant access only to websites that you trust.

Google Gears is currently an early-access developers’ release. It is not yet intended for use by real users in production applications at this time.

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Remote Computer Access Made Easy

Kevin — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 20:22:47 +0000

LogMeIn is a great program for accessing remote computers over the internet or your local network.
I’ve been using it for a few weeks now and love it. like their webpage says you’ll wonder how you ever lived without it. And its 100% Free and works in XP and Vista

All you have to do is install LogMeIn on the computers you want to access, and then you can beam into that PC from anywhere using just a web browser. Internet Explorer users need to install an Active X control on the local machine.

Whatever you can do when you’re physically at the PC, you can now do remotely over the web.

» Open remote files » Access from any browser
» Check your email » Access from wireless Pocket PC
» Run programs » Easy-to-use interface
» Support remote users » 100% FREE to use!
Its a easy 3 step process to get running

1 Sign up
Enter your email address and choose a password. The automated set up wizard guides you quickly through the process.

2. Connect
Log into www.logmein.com, click the computer you want to access, and you’re in!

3. Work
Control your PC as if you were sitting in front of it. Send email, run programs, open files.

I’ve been using it to trouble shoot problems with distant families and friends computers, and to access my home computer when I’m on the road or at work. I like it so much I’m going to upgrade to the pro version.

Advantages of LogMeIn Pro

Remote access Powerful remote control – from anywhere
File Transfer Move files quickly between PCs
Remote Printing Automatically print remote files locally
File Share Easily share large files, without uploads
Guest Invite Share your desktop for remote collaboration
File Sync Synchronize files & folders in seconds
Security 256-bit SSL encryption anchors powerful security

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IrfanView A Freeware Image Viewer

Kevin — Wed, 30 May 2007 21:39:03 +0000

IrfanView is a freeware image viewer for Microsoft Windows that can view, edit, and convert image files and play video/audio formats. It does not have extensive image creation and painting capabilities like Adobe Photoshop or GNU’s GIMP. Rather, IrfanView is designed to be a lightweight viewer/player which is noted for its speed, ease of use, and ability to handle a wide variety of graphic file formats.

The program is named for its creator, Irfan Skiljan of Bosnia and Herzegovina.IrfanView works under all modern versions of Microsoft Windows (i.e. Windows 95 to Vista; Microsoft tested version 3.98, which was on the official Vista software list). It supports numerous file formats including: image formats such as BMP, GIF, JPEG, PNG, TIFF, non-image media files such as Flash, Ogg Vorbis, MPEG, MP3, and text files.

http://www.irfanview.com/The program is internationalized for at least french and english languages.

The program is compact – the latest version is less than 1400 kB in size, although several megabytes of plugins are available to support numerous other file formats and features. In addition to extensive viewing capabilities and file conversion options, IrfanView can also create screensavers and slide shows from collections of images. These screensavers and slide shows can be created as “stand-alone” executables that will run on computers which do not have IrfanView installed.

IrfanView can also be used to create icons by converting common graphic files into .ico format. It also supports Adobe-compatible 8bf image processing filters, including many freely downloadable ones, though its ability to apply them to portions of an image is limited compared to full-scale image editors.

The program has built-in TWAIN support for retrieving images from scanners; it also has extended support for taking screenshots.
It can crop, resize, and rotate images. Images can be adjusted by modifying the brightness, contrast, tint, Gamma level, and so forth, and by converting them between formats. Many of these changes can be applied to multiple images in one operation, using batch processing.
Source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IrfanView

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Quickly Back up Your Firefox Settings and More

Kevin — Tue, 22 May 2007 10:30:56 +0000

FEBE (pronounced [fee-bee]) Firefox Extension Backup Extension allows you to backup and restore all of your installed Firefox extensions and themes.

It actually creates individual installable .xpi (or .jar for themes) files that you can put on CD, Flash Drive or floppy (do they still make those?) and install on another computer. You could also backup your extensions before installing an extension upgrade.

This way you could always go back if the upgrade doesn’t work for you. You may have a really good (but old) extension installed that is no longer supported and you don’t want to loose it. Now you can snatch it out of the bowels of Firefox and keep it archived. The latest version will (optionally) backup/restore your bookmarks, preferences, cookies and just about everything else that Firefox generates. You can even backup/restore an entire profile in one step.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2109

Backups can be performed on demand or scheduled for daily, weekly, or monthly unattended runs.
A comprehensive debug mode allows for troubleshooting complex platforms.
Version 4.0 supports Windows XP and Linux/Unix.

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DriveImage XML

Kevin — Thu, 17 May 2007 01:13:17 +0000

DriveImage XML is an easy to use and reliable program for imaging and backing up partitions and logical drives.

http://www.runtime.org/dixml.htm

You can backup logical drives and partitions to image files, Browse these images, view and extract files restore these images to the same or a different drive, Copy directly from drive to drive and schedule automatic backups with your Task Scheduler

Image creation uses Microsoft’s Volume Shadow Services (VSS), allowing you to create safe “hot images” even from drives currently in use.

Images are stored in XML files, allowing you to process them with 3rd party tools. Never again be stuck with a useless backup!

Restore images to drives without having to reboot.

DriveImage XML runs under Windows XP Home, XP Professional and Windows Server 2003 only. The program will backup, image and restore drives formatted with FAT 12, 16, 32 and NTFS.

And best of all its free.

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Google Notebook: Another Great App

Kevin — Wed, 09 May 2007 00:51:35 +0000

Get Google Notebook [here]

1. Why would I want to use Google Notebook?

With Google Notebook, you can browse, clip, and organize information from across the web in a single online location that’s accessible from any computer. Planning a trip? Researching a product? Just add clippings to your notebook. You won’t ever have to leave your browser window.

2. How do I get started?

Simple. Just sign in to the Google Notebook homepage with your Google Accounts username and password, then download the Google Notebook browser extension (if you haven’t already). As soon as you restart your browser, you’ll see a Google Notebook icon in the bottom-right corner of your browser window. Click on this icon to open your mini Google Notebook, where you can save all the clips of content you want.

Organize your notes.
Keep all your notes organized by creating multiple notebooks for different subjects or by dividing a single notebook into several sections. You can also easily rearrange your notes by dragging-and-dropping them from one section or notebook to another.

Add your own thoughts.
Click the “New note” button and start typing to add text notes to your notebook, or click the “Add comment” link within a note to add comments to clippings you’ve collected.

Search the full text of your notebooks.
Easily find any information in your notebooks using the search box at the top of the page.

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Foxit Reader 2.0

Kevin — Fri, 04 May 2007 02:24:27 +0000

Foxit Reader 2.0

http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php

It’s time to ditch Adobe Reader and its incredibly long load times for a free light weight alternative.

Foxit Reader 2.0 is a free PDF document viewer and printer, with incredible small size (only 1.5 M download size), breezing-fast launch speed and amazingly rich feature set. Foxit Reader 2.0 supports Windows 98/Me/2000/XP/2003. Its core function is compatible with PDF Standard 1.6.

Version 2.0 introduces many exciting new features, including interactive form filler, multi-language UI support, on-demand download of add-on, self upgrade, Javascript support, improved printing speed, streamlined UI and much more.

In the past, you have to download a huge PDF Reader from other software company, go through a lengthy installation process and wait for an annoying splash window to disappear just to open a PDF document. Moreover, if you want to annotate a PDF document, you have to pay US$299 to buy certain PDF software.

Now with Foxit Reader 2.0, you don’t have to endure such pain any more. The following is a list of compelling advantages of Foxit Reader 2.0:

Incredibly small: The download size of Foxit Reader is only 1.5 M which is a fraction of Acrobat Reader 20 M size

Breezing-fast: When you run Foxit Reader, it launches instantly without any delay. You are not forced to view an annoying splash window displaying company logo, author names, etc

Annotation tool: Have you ever wished to annotate (or comment on) a PDF document when you are reading it? Foxit Reader 2.0 allows you to draw graphics, highlight text, type text and make notes on a PDF document and then print out or save the annotated document.

Text converter: You may convert the whole PDF document into a simple text file.

High security and privacy: Foxit Reader highly respects the security and privacy of users and will never connect to Internet without users’ permission. While other PDF Reader often silently connects to the Internet in the background. Foxit PDF Reader does not contain any spyware or adware.

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Amazon’s Simple Storage Service: Data Backup

Kevin — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 14:04:30 +0000

Amazon’s Simple Storage Service or S3

http://www.amazon.com/S3-AWS-home-page-Money/b/ref=sc_fe_l_2/102-2952948-3835300?ie=UTF8&node=16427261&no=3435361&me=A36L942TSJ2AJA

Amazon S3 makes your data backup easy, secure and cheap. If you ever lost data whether to hard drive failure or just the accidental delete S3 can save your bacon. Amazon S3 lets you move, copy or delete file sizes up to 5 GB each, and you can store an unlimited number of files. If you have an Amazon account sign up is easy. If not what are you waiting for sign up today and start backing up you data.

You can store virtually any kind of data in any format. Amazon S3 uses proven cryptographic methods to authenticate users. It is your choice to keep your data private, or to make it publicly accessible by third parties. If you would like extra security, there is no restriction on encrypting your data before storing it in Amazon S3.

The only issue I found using S3 is they have no web interface to upload or download your files. You must use a 3^rd party service that is partnered with them. I choose Jungle Disk.http://www.jungledisk.com/ (See description below)

And depending on your upload speed, your first backup my take some time. I setup my test backup of 10 gigs before I went to bed and it was finished in the morning.

You pay for Amazon only for what you use, when you use it. It costs 15 cents per gigabytes for storage, and 20 cents per gigabyte of data transferred.

Amazon’s S3 won a “Codie” award this month for “Best Storage Software Solution.”

Amazon S3 provides a simple web services interface that can be used to store and retrieve any amount of data, at any time, from anywhere on the web. It gives any developer access to the same highly scalable, reliable, fast, inexpensive data storage infrastructure that Amazon uses to run its own global network of web sites. The service aims to maximize benefits of scale and to pass those benefits on to developers.

Amazon S3 is intentionally built with a minimal feature set.

Write, read, and delete objects containing from 1 byte to 5 gigabytes of data each. The number of objects you can store is unlimited.
Each object is stored and retrieved via a unique, developer-assigned key.
Authentication mechanisms are provided to ensure that data is kept secure from unauthorized access. Objects can be made private or public, and rights can be granted to specific users.
Uses standards-based REST and SOAP interfaces designed to work with any Internet-development toolkit.
Built to be flexible so that protocol or functional layers can easily be added. Default download protocol is HTTP. A BitTorrent(TM) protocol interface is provided to lower costs for high-scale distribution. Additional interfaces will be added in the future.

Pricing

Pay only for what you use. There is no minimum fee, and no start-up cost.
$0.15 per GB-Month of storage used.
$0.20 per GB of data transferred.

Jungle Disk

http://www.jungledisk.com/

Jungle Disk works as an interface to Amazon.com’s super-secure and reliable Amazon Simple Storage Service (otherwise known as Amazon S3). Its available for Windows, Mac or Linux

Jungle Disk puts a virtual drive on your computer that looks like any another hard drive. And unlike some backups systems, you can browse, open, check and confirm the authenticity of every file in your backup by simply opening the folder, and using the files as if they were on your local hard drive. They’re not locked away in a cryptic, proprietary system.

The Jungle Disk application lets you set up automated backups, which looks for any file changes in the files or folders you specify, then backs up any modified files at the frequency you set. You set it and forget it.

Here’s a review from Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/b/ref=sc_fe_c_2_182241011_9/002-1719418-2617654?ie=UTF8&node=219184011&no=182241011&me=A36L942TSJ2AJA

Here’s how it works.

Download and install Jungle Disk.
It’s available for Windows, Mac, and Linux and only takes a few seconds to install.

Sign up for Amazon S3™ storage
You can use your existing Amazon.com account! It’s free to sign up and you’ll only pay for the storage you use.

Configure Jungle Disk with your Amazon Access Key
It will automatically prompt you the first time you run it.

Connect to your Jungle Disk
For Windows users, just use the Start Menu shortcut provided or map your disk to a local drive letter. On Mac, Jungle Disk will automatically appear as a mounted volume once configured. Connecting is easy for Linux users too.

Start using your Jungle Disk like a local hard drive!
You can copy files to it using Explorer (or Finder on Mac). When you copy a file to your Jungle Disk it is encrypted and uploaded in the background to Amazon.com’s servers.

Set up automatic backups (optional)
If you want to make sure your important files and directories are securely backed up on a regular basis, use the simple Automatic Backup feature.

Meanwhile behind the scenes…

Amazon S3™ provides a set of web services for web-scale, fast, reliable storage. They store your data in multiple data centers around the country for complete redundancy.

Jungle Disk runs on your local machine as a WebDAV server. WebDAV is a protocol for remote file access supported by all modern operating systems.

As you copy data to your Jungle Disk, it is transparently cached, encrypted, and uploaded to Amazon.com. Since uploads occur in the background, copying files to your Jungle Disk is as fast as a local hard drive.

When you browse your Jungle Disk, if the data is already available in the local cache nothing is downloaded from Amazon, which makes Jungle Disk super efficient.

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Collectorz: Database software for Movies,Books,Comics

Kevin — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 01:54:15 +0000

Collectorz:

http://www.collectorz.com/

Collectorz.com provides a series of database programs for cataloging your personal collection of music, movies, books, comics, video games, audio files (MP3, WMA, OGG and more) and digital photos.

Available for Windows and Apple Mac OS X
The Windows edition runs on Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP and Windows Vista, and is available in the following languages: English, Dutch, German, French, Turkish, Polish, Croatian, Italian, Slovenian, Swedish, Greek, Russian, Danish.
The OS X edition is available in English only.

This is really some of the best software for cataloging you collections. I have been using the Movie and the Book collector for years and highly recommend them, and I’m sure the others are of the same high quality. They offer great support through their forums and have a large community of users. They also offer many different user generated templates. You really need to give them a try. Plus they offer free trials.

To see an example of the Movie Collector visit my Movie Crate at http://www.kevinscrate.com/moviecrate/index.html
Sorry my site is loading alittle slow tonight.

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SyncToy: The Smart Way To Copy Files

Kevin — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 08:17:20 +0000

SyncToy

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=E0FC1154-C975-4814-9649-CCE41AF06EB7&displaylang=en

Backing up files just got easier

Now there is an easier way. SyncToy is a free PowerToy for Microsoft Windows XP that provides an easy to use, highly customizable program to help copy, move, and synchronize different directories. Most common operations can be performed with just a few clicks of the mouse, and additional customization is available without adding complexity. SyncToy can manage multiple sets of directories at the same time; it can combine files from two folders in one case, and mimic renames and deletes in another. Unlike other applications, SyncToy keeps track of renames to files and will make sure those changes get carried over to the synchronized folder.

There are new sources of files coming from every direction: digital cameras, e-mail, cell phones, portable media players, camcorders, PDAs, and laptops. Increasingly, computer users are using different folders, drives, and even different computers (such as a laptop and a desktop) to store and retrieve files. Yet managing hundreds or thousands of files is still largely a manual operation. In some cases it is necessary to get copies of files from one place; in other cases there is a need to keep two storage locations exactly in sync. Some users manage files manually, dragging and dropping from one place to another and keeping a mental card catalog in their heads. Others use one or more applications to provide this functionality for them.

System Requirements

Supported Operating Systems: Windows Vista; Windows XP

Microsoft .NET Framework v2.0
1GHz Intel P3 processor or equivalent
256MB RAM, 512MB RAM recommended
20MB free disk space

What more needs to be said. Want to see all the programs in the Crate click below.

http://www.kevinscrate.com/blog/program-crate/

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Watch Internet TV with Democracy Player

Kevin — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 10:20:44 +0000

Watch Internet TV with Democracy Player

You’ve probably watched hundreds of tiny videos and podcasts on websites. It’s tedious. Democracy Player makes video on the internet way less frustrating and way more enjoyable. You can subscribe to channels of internet video, download videos, and watch them fullscreen, one after the other, all in one application. Internet video becomes internet TV. It’s free and open for everyone to watch and to broadcast. The Democracy platform is free and open source (GPL), built by a great group of developers who are dedicated to making mainstream media open and democratic. It’s as easy as 1,2,3

1. Subscribe to Channels
Democracy has a built-in Channel Guide. It’s an open catalog of more than 1,000 free channels. Subscribe to any channel with a single click.

2. Download from Channels
Pick videos to download or set the channel to automatically get new stuff as it comes out (like a Tivo).

3. Watch Videos
Lean back and watch your new videos in standard mode or full screen. Democracy plays almost every video format.

Over 1,000 Channels Waiting for You

There are more than 1,000 channels in the Channel Guide that is built-in to Democracy and new ones are added every day. They’re as interesting and diverse as the internet itself. Subscribe to any of them for free with a single click. Here are a few examples.

1. Play All Your Videos
Play virtually any video– Quicktime, WMV, MPEG, AVI, XVID, and more. Browse your collection, make playlists, stay organized.

2. Get Internet TV Shows
Subscribe to any video RSS feed, podcast, or video blog. Explore over 1,000 free channels with the built-in Channel Guide.

3. Search YouTube
Download and save videos from YouTube, Google Video, Yahoo Video, and other sites.

4. High Definition and Fullscreen
Your computer screen is a high-def display. Watch free HD videos in gorgeous fullscreen.

5. Torrent Power
Easily download any BitTorrent file. Fast. Then watch it in the same app. Simple.
What more needs to be said. Want more click below.

http://www.kevinscrate.com/blog/website-crate-2/

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EasyBCD Easily Modify The Windows Vista bootloader

Kevin — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 07:02:09 +0000

EasyBCD http://neosmart.net/dl.php?id=1

For Windows Vista Users

EasyBCD is an advanced GUI application that makes it easy to modify the Windows Vista bootloader and the entries in it.

Windows Vista comes with a new bootloader and gives users much more control over the bootloading process – but it’s almost impossible to use.

With EasyBCD, users can easily add, remove, delete, and modify existing entries. It also allows users to even add new entries for legacy or LH-based operating systems. EasyBCD is a valuable recovery tool, used by support professionals, beginners, and even Microsoft employees on a daily basis!

EasyBCD is NeoSmart Technologies’ multiple award-winning answer to tweaking the new Windows Vista bootloader. With EasyBCD, almost anything is possible. Setting up and configuring Windows boot entries is simple, and there is no easier way to quickly boot right into Linux, Mac OS X, or BSD straight from the Windows Vista bootloader – on the fly, no expert knowledge needed!

EasyBCD is geared for users of all kinds. Whether you just want to add an entry to your old XP partition or want to create a duplicate for testing purposes; if you’re interested in debugging the Windows Kernel or hectuple-booting your seven test operating systems, EasyBCD is the key.

Automated MBR and BCD backups, boot sector restore kits, support for a dozen+ operating systems, detailed configuration of all boot entries, and award-winning guaranteed technical support is what makes EasyBCD stand out – all for free!

I’d like to announce the launch of my new site Vista Revisited at http://www.vistarevisited.com Stop by and have a look. I’ve copied all the Vista content from here to my new site and from now on I will only post Vista content to Vista Revisited. Thanks for visiting and be sure to check out my new site.

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N.A.S.A World Wind. A Globe On Your Desktop

Kevin — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 23:58:58 +0000

Fly Around The world From Your Desk With World Wind

World Wind, http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/

Is a open source 3D interactive world viewer, was created by NASA’s Learning Technologies project, and released in mid-2004. It is now developed by NASA staff and open source community developers.

At its simplest you can think of World Wind as a desk globe, however World Wind is not a simple desk globe.

World Wind allows any user to zoom from outer space into any place on Earth. World Wind uses satellite imagery and elevation data to allow users to experience Earth terrain in visually rich 3D, just as if they were really there. Virtually visit anyplace in the world. Look across the Andes, into the Grand Canyon, over the Alps or along the African Sahara.

Unlike your desk globe World Wind can display thousands of placenames all over the world, from country capitals to villages in sparsely populated regions. You can see country borders, and in some cases intracountry borders such as US states.

World Wind can also be expanded to include additional imagery and data.. There have already been a number of add-ons created, from Norway’s Prehistoric Hillforts to additional planets, for more information on using add-ons see the Add-on Launchpad.

Worldwind gets it imagery from the following

Blue Marble Next Generation — World Wind has a full copy of the Blue Marble, a spectacular true-color image of the entire Earth. Put together from data of a variety of satellites such as Terra and Aqua, the Blue Marble can be seen in all its glory at 1 km per pixel resolution. Blue Marble Next Generation is streamed from the NASA servers at 0.5 km per pixel and in 12 versions, one for each month of year.

Landsat — LandSat 7 is a collection of images from 1999-2003 at an impressive 15 m per pixel resolution. LandSat 7’s resolution makes it possible to see your own city, neighborhood, or landmarks in your vicinity. Seeing the whole globe like this puts the world in context with scientifically accurate data. You can view LandSat imagery in visible colors or in False Color bands.

USGS — United States Geological Survey data. USGS provides Topography maps of whole United States down to 1:24K scale, 1-Meter detail images of most of the United States and Urban Area images of most of the major U.S. cities down to detail of .25 Meters.

SRTM + — Combining LandSat 7 imagery with Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) Data, World Wind can display a dramatic view of the Earth at eye level. Users will literally be able to fly across the world in any direction. The data was acquired during the Feb 2000 flight of Space Shuttle Endeavour, using a short-wave radar device. It covers the whole world except near-polar regions and has horizontal resolution of 90m worldwide, 30m for the U.S. area and global bathymetry. SRTM is that, what really gives the Earth’s surface the third dimension

Windows Vista compatibility

Vista is reported to work but has some problems; UAC (User Account Control) needs to be turned off for install and during use, a reboot may be required after turning off UAC. However, if you install WW outside C:\Program Files disabling UAC may not be necessary.

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OS X Like Dock On Windows

Kevin — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 19:29:32 +0000

RocketDock http://www.punksoftware.com/

Rocketdock is the best program I’ve found yet to mimic the OS X dock. After a quick install and a few tweaks of the settings your up and running. I haven’t had any systems problems since installing it. Its using only 11k of memory and shows no sign system slowdowns and it look extremely cool.

RocketDock is a smoothly animated, alpha blended application launcher. It provides a nice clean interface to drop shortcuts on for easy access and organization. With each item completely customizable there is no end to what you can add and launch from the dock.

Now with added Taskbar support your minimized windows can appear as icons on the dock. This allows for better productivity and accessibility.

Features:

Minimize windows to the dock
Real-time window previews in Vista
Running application indicators
Simple drag-n-drop interface
Multi-monitor support
Supports alpha-blended PNG and ICO icons
Icons zoom and transition smoothly
Auto-hide and Popup on mouse over
Positioning and layering options
Fully customizable
Completely Portable
ObjectDock Docklet support
Compatible with MobyDock, ObjectDock, RK Launcher, and Y’z Dock skins
Runs great on slower computers
Unicode compliant

Supports many languages and can easily be translated

A friendly user base

And best of all… its FREE

What more needs to be said.

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Tweak-XP: Tweak And Tune Your XP System

Kevin — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 13:54:43 +0000

Tweak-XP

This is not a free program but it is so useful I thought I’d include it. With this program you can tweak and tune 100’s of settings without messing with the Registry. When you install it gives you 30 starts of the program so you should have plenty of time to tweak all your settings, and if you like it you can buy it. They also have a program for Windows Vista.

Tweak-XP Pro bundles over 56 different utilities in one: Tweak-XP Pro was developed to combine both optimizing and tweaking features to increase the speed of your Windows XP PC. Here are some key features of “TweakXP Pro”: · clean up your registry with Tweak-XPs Registry Cleaner · create a RAM discdrive and load files as fast as possible · use Tweak-XPs DiscDrive Doctor to detect and fix harddisc problems · backup your Microsoft software activations · view and inspect files in your Internet Cache folder · restrict access to your startmenu items · improve the readabilty of your monitor: ClearType configuration · don’t let other people see what files you recently used: clear the ‘Recent files’

Here are some key features of “TweakXP Pro”:

· clean up your registry with Tweak-XPs Registry Cleaner
· create a RAM discdrive and load files as fast as possible
· use Tweak-XPs DiscDrive Doctor to detect and fix harddisc problems
· backup your Microsoft software activations
· view and inspect files in your Internet Cache folder
· restrict access to your startmenu items
· improve the readabilty of your monitor: ClearType configuration
· don’t let other people see what files you recently used: clear the ‘Recent files’ lists of lots of common programs
· remote-shutdown your system
· optimize and personalize your Windows XP with just a few mouseclicks
· tweak lots of hidden Windows XP settings
· customize the Windows XP startmenu
· tweak lots of desktop settings
· make the Windows XP taskbar transparent
· enable several hidden performance options of Windows XP
· block internet banner ads
· block Internet Explorer Pop-Ups
· configure Outlook XP security settings
· check the integrity of ZIP files and repair them
· create virtual discdrives
· convert your compressed folders to selfextracting .exe files
· tweak your CPU and display adapter
· optimize the physical RAM of your machine
· optimize the Windows XP cache settings
· optimize your Internet connection speed
· censor the execution of applications
· protect any folder on your harddisc and hide its content from Windows Explorer
· control what is started on Windows startup
· tweak your Internet Explorer
· display the internet history files and remove them
· rename hundreds of files just by one mouseclick
· generate passwords
· destroy files securely

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Desktop Search Review

Kevin — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 12:55:01 +0000

Desktop Search:

If you’re like me you have lots of information on your computer. Wouldn’t it be great if you could find it all when you need it? You can use these programs to locate your files, emails, past IM chats, and web pages you’ve seen. Internet search engines help you find what you need online. Desktop search engines, on the other hand, are small software programs that can search millions of files on your computer and network in seconds. The best desktop search engines give previews of the files in the results. That way you can find that lost e-mail and forward it right from the search engine.

Google Desktop

http://desktop.google.com/index.html

Google Desktop makes searching your computer as easy as searching the web with Google. It’s a desktop search application that provides full text search over your email, files, music, photos, chats, Gmail, web pages that you’ve viewed, and more. By making your computer searchable, Desktop puts your information easily within your reach and frees you from having to manually organize your files, emails and bookmarks.

Google Desktop doesn’t just help you search your computer; it also helps you gather new information from the web and stay organized with gadgets and sidebar. Google Gadgets can be placed anywhere on your desktop to show you new email, weather, photos, personalized news, and more. Sidebar is a vertical bar on your desktop that helps you keep your gadgets organized.

Windows Desktop Search

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/desktopsearch/default.mspx

Windows Desktop Search (WDS) is the software that enables users to quickly find and retrieve e-mail messages, documents and files on a PC and company network. Windows Desktop Search is included with your Microsoft Windows License. Windows desktop search is built-in to Windows Vista. If you are running Windows Vista, you do not need to download this software. Windows Desktop Search offers key benefits for end users, including

Find Information Fast: You can find the information you need from the thousands of documents and e-mail located on your PC in seconds, improving your productivity.

Search Across Many File Types: Finds results from common file types (such as e-mail, Office documents, images, video, .pdf) with one tool.

Better Together with Office 2007: Office 2007 takes advantage of the technology in WDS 3.01 that enables instant search functionality in Microsoft Office Outlook.

Search from Familiar Interfaces: Enables you to quickly initiate searches from the Windows desktop, Outlook or Internet Explorer, offering familiarity, convenience and ease of use.

Privacy Protection: Adheres to Windows security and privacy model and doesn’t index sensitive data such as temporary Internet files and cache.

Yahoo Desktop Search

http://desktop.yahoo.com/

Yahoo! Desktop with the power of X1 often gets excellent scores in reviews, and Yahoo! usually ranks second for best Internet search engine (behind Google). So if you want one integrated product that covers all the bases, Yahoo! is a good choice. Yahoo! Desktop, when used with a free expansion kit, searches the most file types, and reviews praise the way it filters and previews results. It uses Yahoo! to search the web, and the Yahoo! Toolbar includes anti-spyware tools and a pop-up blocker.

Copernic Search and Discover

http://www.copernic.com/en/products/desktop-search/index.html

For searching your own files on a hard drive or network,Copernic Desktop as the simplest to install and use, and best for most users. Reviews also like its security — since it’s a stand-alone software program that keeps all information on your PC or network, no data is ever transmitted online. It uses a minimum of system resources and file space, and indexes most files, including Outlook e-mail messages, as soon as they’re received. Copernic works with Exchange servers, but it can’t see inside zipped files.

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SIW: Reviewed In The Programs Crate

Kevin — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 14:17:51 +0000

System Information for Windows

This small program is one of the best sources for information about your computer that I have found to date. It will display just about anything you want to know about you system, from what hardware and software is installed to networking and serial numbers of installed programs. It is a standalone utility that does not require installation just run the .EXE file, one less installed program on your PC as well the fact that you can run the program directly from a USB flash drive. It runs on Microsoft Windows 98/Me/NT4/2000/XP/Server 2003/Media Center/Tablet PC/Windows 2003 Server R2/Windows Server 2003 x64/Windows XP x64/Windows Vista/. I’m starting to like it more than Belarc Advisor I reviewed a few weeks ago.

SIW http://www.gtopala.com/

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Google Earth Take virtual tours around the world

Kevin — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 14:44:25 +0000

Google Earth: http://earth.google.com/index.html

Google Earth combines the power of Google Search with satellite imagery, maps, terrain and 3D buildings to put the world’s geographic information at your fingertips.

Zoom from outer space to street level in seconds. View geographical imagery, 3D buildings, maps, and local business information. Whether your business depends on location-related information or you simply love to explore, Google Earth is for you.

From popular destinations like Maui and Paris to local restaurants and schools, Google Earth puts a wealth of Earth imagery and other geographic information right on your desktop. See satellite images of your childhood home or read articles from Wikipedia. Google Earth is free for personal use. No registration is required.

Take virtual tours around the world

It’s the planet inside your PC; an atlas, encyclopedia and flight simulator, all rolled into one. Just point and zoom to any place you want to explore. Cities, mountains, and valleys are depicted in high-resolution 3D, along with related information.

Find local information and plan trips

Search for local businesses, and get driving directions. Results are shown on-screen. You can easily layer multiple searches, save results to folders, and share placemarks with others.

Explore multimedia content

Find rich multimedia information from the web community and popular sources like National Geographic. Explore the left sidebar and look for the Geographic Web and Featured Content layers as well as layers for 3D buildings, parks, schools, hospitals, airports, shops and more.

Share information about your travels

Placemark places you have visited, then share them with friends. Google Earth lets you add tons of information to placemarks, for example – photos, notes, restaurant reviews and more. View thousands of such data points created by other Google Earth users, using .KML, the Google Earth file format.http://www.kevinscrate.com/blog/program-crate/

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Belarc Advisor Reviewed In The Program Crate

Kevin — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 13:26:43 +0000

Belarc Advisor: http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html

Whether you’re troubleshooting, shopping for an upgrade, or just want to check what’s underneath the hood, it’s helpful to know what your PC has. Belarc Advisor gives you the scoop on what’s installed on your desktop or notebook. It scans your computer and generates a profile of everything installed on it, in the form of an HTML report that you can view in your browser. The information includes Local Drive Volumes, memory Modules, printer information, Installed Licenses, Installed software, Multimedia information and a lot more. The report can be save for later or re-generated as needed.

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Firefox browser Reviewed In The Program Crate

Kevin — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 13:52:42 +0000

Firefox 2 and Firefox Extensions. Firefox 2 FireFox is a web browser created by Mozilla, the original creators of the Netscape series of browsers. Version one was released in November 2004 and quickly gained new fans because of its open source license and multitude of features.

Open source means that the source code for the program is available to anyone who cares to download it. Any programmer can use the initial code to develop FireFox, whether they are creating customized options for themselves or working to improve the browser for all users. Being open source makes FireFox infinitely adaptable.

Some of FireFox’s specialized features include pop-up blockers and advanced privacy settings. FireFox also offers tabbed browsing. You can open more than one website in your browser window and tabs on the screen allow you to easily switch between them.

The browser also has several advanced search options. There is a Google search built into the toolbar, but that’s not necessarily unique. What makes FireFox stand out is the ability to create Smart Keywords that will work with your favorite sites the same way a Google toolbar search does. You can go straight to the information you want without having to visit unnecessary websites and menus. In addition, a specialized Find bar allows you to search for text within a site without having to bring up any additional editing prompts.

FireFox can be a highly personalized browser. And not just for programmers who can download the source code and tweak the browser to fit their needs. The average user can modify their toolbar look and settings and download extensions and themes. Themes simply change the look of the browser while extensions provide additional capabilities like mouse gestures or games. http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/

Extensions

Are small add-ons that add new functionality to Firefox, from a simple toolbar button to a completely new feature. They allow you to customize Firefox to fit your own needs and preferences, while letting us keep Firefox itself light and lean.Take a look around and make Firefox your own.

Here are some I use and enjoy.

Adblock Plus. by Wladimir Palant https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/1865/
Ever been annoyed by all those ads and banners on the internet that often take longer to download than everything else on the page? Install Adblock Plus now and get rid of them. Right-click on a banner and choose “Adblock” from the context menu – the banner won’t be downloaded again. Or click Adblock Plus icon in the toolbar to see all elements of the page and block the banners. You can use filters with wildcards or even regular expressions to block complete banner factories.

Adblock Filterset.G Updater. by Reid Rankin, Michael McDonald https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/1136/
This is a companion extension to Adblock or Adblock Plus and should be used in conjunction with it. This extension automatically downloads the latest version of Filterset.G every 4-7 days. Filterset.G is an excellent set of filters maintained by G for Adblock that blocks most ads on the internet. In addition, this extension allows you to define your own set of filters that you can add along with Filterset.G during an update. To report missed ads or problems with the extension visit the support forums http://forum.pierceive.com/.

CookieCuller. by Dan Yamaoka
https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/82/
Extended Cookie Manager–protect/unprotect selected cookies. A good cookie manager that lets you seclect what cookies you would like to keep and which you would like to delete.

Flashblock by Lorenzo Colitti, Philip Chee
https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/433/
Never be annoyed by a Flash animation again! Blocks Flash so it won’t get in your way, but if you want to see it, just click on it. An increasing number of sites are using flash these days and some will slow down your computer or your browsing. Flashblock will let you block unwanted Flash.

Tab Effect by s
https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/4258/
It gives a sorta 3d effect to the tabs. When you switch tabs with this installed it rotates cube style.

Firefox Extension Backup Extension (FEBE) by Chuck Baker
https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/2109/
FEBE allows you to quickly and easily backup your Firefox extensions. In fact, it goes beyond just backing up — It will actually rebuild your extensions individually into installable .xpi files. Now you can easily synchronize your office and home browsers.

FEBE backs up your extensions, themes, and (optionally) your bookmarks, preferences, passwords, cookies and just about everything else Firefox offers.

Many more are available here. https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/recommended/

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Picasa Photo Management Software

Kevin — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 01:06:34 +0000

Picasa Find the pictures you forgot you had.

Picasa organizes your entire collection while you watch, scanning the images on your computer and automatically sorting them by date.
Move and re-name pictures from inside Picasa.

Want to clean up messy folders and move pictures around on your computer’s hard drive? Simply drag and drop pictures from one folder in

Picasa to another. Picasa will make the change permanent after double-checking with you. Want to change a picture’s filename from 671056398a.jpg to Lisa.jpg? In Picasa, it only takes seconds to re-name one picture or a group of pictures.
Make an album.

Use the “Albums” collection to tag your photos into quick groupings inside Picasa. Viewing and sharing the pictures you grouped under an album is easy – they make great slideshows and movies or you can email them to friends.
Add a star rating.

Give a gold star to any photo you love: it turns your favorites into visual standouts at a glance. Picasa even has a star search that reduces your entire photo collection to the best of the best in less than a second.

Keep one picture in multiple albums.

Picasa creates a new “instance” of each photo you label without taking up more space on your computer, so you can put the same picture into multiple albums.
Password-protect collections.

Have photos you want to keep to yourself? You can add passwords to any of your Picasa collections (this does not affect which pictures you and otherscan see on your computer’s hard drive).

Send photos via email that are a joy to receive.

Take the guesswork out of sending photos. Picasa automatically resizes and attaches pictures to email messages at sizes your friends will be able to open. Works with most email programs, including Google’s Gmail.
Put pictures on your own site, for free.

Picasa Web Albums is the fast and easy way to put your photos on the web. Just select the photos in Picasa that you want to share and click to publish. In seconds, those photos are on your own web page, ready to share with

the people you know. Check out a few things you can do with Picasa Web Albums.

If you’re looking to post multiple photos onto your blog, Picasa’s “BlogThis!” button does the hard work for you by automatically transferring selected photos directly to Blogger.
Make beautiful slide shows.

With Picasa, you can turn a group of photos into a presentation with one click of the “Slideshow” button.

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