Topics

26

General Software Discussion / Direct Folders 3.2, Anyone Have This Version?

« on: December 21, 2006, 03:36 AM »

If you have Direct Folders 3.2, would someone consider emailing it to me?

I upgraded to 3.21 and I must say I'm very unhappy with it...but it could be a
conflict in my system causing problems. I deleted the old copy and can't reinstall it to test things out (stupid I know).

I'm not excited about waiting for Code Sector to get back to me about the problems I've submitted.

Please, if you have it, let me know.

27

General Software Discussion / Heads Up!!! Font Xplorer Now Freeware!!!

« on: December 18, 2006, 07:14 AM »

My favourite font manager is now free! 

Get it here: http://www.moonsoftware.com/download.asp

28

Screenshot Captor / Hey Mouser, Check out Kidsnapper...

« on: February 02, 2006, 04:12 PM »

I found this really great capture tool the other day...this is very cool...

http://www.philipp-spoeth.de/kidsnapper/

Maybe you'd add something like this to screenshot captor (which I'm finding more and more impressive btw). This functionality could be used in so many ways! Especially software support or monitoring a window from another computer.

29

General Software Discussion / ClipCache Plus 3.xx Preview...Don't Get Too Excited

« on: November 17, 2005, 05:33 AM »

Hey guys, I recently got my hands on a preview of the next release of ClipCache. To those who know and love it, you know why...well, it's not quite what I'd expected. It's no where near what you'd think it would be after all these years of waiting for a 3.xx build. Anyway, if you want to try it, it's right here.

I've posted the link to save you the bother of signing up at the forum just to get to it.

You will need this key to install it: kjd$9h34fh*kjf2923

I feel like I've lost an old friend. I'm going to miss this program. 

30

General Software Discussion / Some Cool Shell Extensions...

« on: November 11, 2005, 01:56 AM »

...I especially like having the toggle file extensions and hidden files in my context menu.

*Edit* Whoops! I forgot to post the link

31

Finished Programs / ARGH!!!! How To Save View In Open/Save Dialog???

« on: November 11, 2005, 01:52 AM »

Is there a small fix that allows you to choose the view in the open/save dialog and keep it that way?

I have having to switch to thumbs everytime in some programs that don't support drag and drop.

For example, I was playing with a screensaver making program and everytime I want to select another image I have to open that dreaded open/save dialog and switch to thumbview.

Anyway, I got tired of doing that and forgot about it.

Is there a way to do this or a way to patch it?

Thanks!

32

Living Room / Dead Motherboard....maybe....what do you think?

« on: November 01, 2005, 11:21 AM »

Well, I haven't been around for awhile, here's why:

My new mobo died after 4 days out of the box and I could use some advice as I'm going to have to figure out what to return to the online company that I purchased it from. Could it be the processor?

I put together a:
MSI P4N SLI mobo with a 3ghz Celeron and 512mb chunk of Geil 667 RAM with a 480 watt Mutant Mods PSU.

After 4 days of operating fine, yesterday I was talking on Skype and my machine went cold, lights out. 

Tried rebooting, can hear CPU crunching, fans and lights working, DVD drive blinking, hard drives are humming but monitor remains in sleep mode and there are no POST beeps to be heard. Tried resetting the CMOS, nada...no luck. Tried booting a few hours later and the monitor came on and I got into the BIOS so I let it sit like that. After a few minutes it died again. Does this mean anything to anyone?

Would a dead CPU prevent the BIOS from being accessed or is the BIOS able to operate without a CPU?

Would a dead mobo be able to boot again but only for a brief time?

Argh!!!! 

More sys info:

Motherboard: MSI P4N SLI
BIOS: AMI (version? Don't know...mobo is dead)
CPU: Intel Celeron D 340 2.93Ghz
RAM: Geil 512Mb PC5300 677Mhz DDR2 X1 Slot
GPU: ATI Radion 8Mb PCI (I have no PCIe card at the moment)
PSU: Mutant Mods 480 Watt PSU: +3.3V/30A, +5V/45A, +12V/26A
HDD: 30Gb Quantum Fire Ball IDE Master/120 Gb Maxtor IDE Slave
DVD: LG GSA-4120B
OS: Windows XP Pro SP2

...all housed in a Lian Li case with mobo risers all in the correct places. No shorts anywhere.

33

Mini-Reviews by Members / AltSwitch: Make Task Switching Cool

« on: October 10, 2005, 04:44 AM »

AltSwitch: www.ironbytes.com

AltSwitch is shareware. As you can see from the screenshots below
is has a pleasing, compact interface and has many features, my
favourites being the ability to select a program using my mouse
pointer and the option to show the process usage. In the first
frame of the main window you can see the tooltip that appears
when you move your mouse over the icons.

You can also right click on any displayed application and minimize it
to the system tray.

Problematic programs that won't display a snapshot properly in the
main dialog can be excluded under the "Exclusions" tab in the options
menu shown below in the second screenshot. You also have the option
to exclude known problematic programs from a list available to download
via server.

$15 is fairly reasonable for such a cool little program that is stable and uses
little resources. I can't remember how long the trial peroid was for, I believe
30 days. I only needed a few hours with it to cough up my cash!







From the developer's site:

"Nice computer desktop must be nice in all of its aspects. One of the ugliest things in any Microsoft Windows-based computer is a built-in Alt+Tab task switcher. It remains unchanged since Windows 95, released in August 1995."

Flexible skin support.   
Task previews.   
Tasks performance monitoring.
Two styles of task previews – "Fit" and "Desktop".
All windows of the task are displayed on the preview image, including floating palettes.
Previews caching for faster switching.
Set of simple task management commands.   
Easy switching with HotSwitch feature.
With AltSwitch you can minimize any window to the system tray.   
Internet integration.
Mouse navigation support.

TaskSwitchXP is a similar program (almost too similar... Last build of AltSwitch - 9 September 2004, first build of TaskSwitchXP - 8 November 2004) it's free and you can get it here: www.ntwind.com/taskswitchxp/index.html

34

Living Room / Textbook Disclaimer Stickers

« on: October 09, 2005, 09:35 PM »

I found this on StumbleUpon: http://www.swarthmor...textbookdisclaimers/

The top left sticker is actually authentic and applied to text books in Georgia (according to the site). The rest are paradies of course. I find them amusing but I know that some people are very religious and can become very vociferous regarding this subject.

I'm curious what opinions people on this forum have regarding this topic?

35

Mini-Reviews by Members / Disk Cleaner: A Great Freeware/Donationware Utility

« on: September 26, 2005, 08:09 PM »

Ok, I just discovered this one a few weeks ago: http://www.robertenfemke.nl/~diskclean/

Well, this is probably my last post for the day...hopefully you will find this as useful
as I am so far. Much easier and WAY faster to clean things out compared to the utility
packaged with Win XP. Supports custom plugins.

The screenshot speaks for itself but below is some info from the website. 

Disk Cleaner is a free tool to quickly and easily free disk space that is used by temporary files like those in the system temporary folder, the Internet Explorer Cache and Cookies folder, and the Recycle Bin. Disk Cleaner is absolutely free from adware and spyware.

Disk Cleaner was inspired by one of the system tools that can be found in Windows 98. As I was running Windows 95 myself those days, and upgrading my machine to 98 was not an option, I decided to write such a tool myself. However, Windows 98+ users may find that Disk Cleaner is smaller and faster, and one of its virtues is the ability to run quietly, i.e. on startup. This means that you can clear the cache every time you boot Windows.

Disk Cleaner is focused on ease of use, speed and a small size, both when downloading and when installed (the installation file is just over 360 kb). It is fast, since the crucial parts are written with just the plain Windows API giving high search and remove performance. Disk Cleaner is also entirely self-contained: no other (large) DLLs are necessary to run the application, so it can even be run from a floppy without trouble. Handy to remove your junk from public machines.

36

Mini-Reviews by Members / MouseIMP Pro...Shareware Gone Freeware

« on: September 26, 2005, 07:39 PM »

I love this little program. Full english app and source code here: http://cooler.irk.ru/mouseimp (Russian)

This little app I haven't been without for over 5 years...it is always running faithfully in the
tray and it has never crashed, not under Win 98, Win ME, or currently Win XP Pro.

It basically lets you scroll by grabbing the screen, much like you'd move an image around in an
image editor/viewer. It also can roll up windows, one of the very first apps to do so. It even keeps
statistics of how much mileage your mouse is getting as well as how much it has saved you from having to
reach for the scroll bars everytime.

Excellently designed GUI. Very clean and easy to use tabbed interface. Well layed out and easy to implement
options.

It has an icon that sits in the tray allowing you to enable/disable it with a click; eyes open and blinking for active, eyes closed for inactive.

Try it and wonder how you lived without it! Doesn't work in Firefox though although I'm sure the code can
be tweaked and recompiled to do so as it was for Winamp's playlist previously.

This is a screenshot from a version I've never seen...I'll try to attach two shots from the version
featured in this post.

37

Mini-Reviews by Members / Best Freeware...no, Best Audio File Tagger Period.

« on: September 26, 2005, 07:05 PM »

Mp3tag is the best tagger I've tried, freeware or otherwise! mp3tag.de/en
This program has a strong, dedicated following, those who love it, LOVE IT! 

Mp3tag is a powerful and yet easy-to-use tool to edit Tags of MP3-,
Ogg Vorbis, Musepack, Monkey's Audio, FLAC, and WavPack files.
It can rename files based on the tag information, replace characters or words
from tags and filenames, import/export tag information, create playlists and more.
The program supports online freedb database lookups for selected files, allowing
you to automatically gather proper tag information for selected files or CDs.



My download.com  review:

Best Tagger - You'll Wonder How You Lived Without It

14-Sep-2005 06:59:11 AM
Reviewer: Nighted

Pros: Not bloated with useless features.

Powerful, customizable naming routines including the ability to use regex.

Can be called from the context menu.

You can tag your files exactly how you want them.

Once you've familiarized yourself with the program and read through the help file,
you'll find that there's nearly nothing you can't do. If you think of something it can't,
it probably does...you just missed it!

Friendly support.

IT'S FREE!!!!!!!!!!!

Cons: A treeview of some sort would be nice for quickly selecting folders that contain
individual albums. A small inconvience considering how tightly coded and well layed
out the program is. However...there is a tray utilities that you can optionally install that
lets you choose directories.

38

Mini-Reviews by Members / Wallpaper Master: Freeware Edition

« on: September 26, 2005, 06:21 PM »

Awesome free wallpaper manager with excellent, clean GUI: Wallpaper Master

Great for people who hoard wallpapers in the thousands.
Although it's the freeware version, it's still the best
wallpaper changer on the web, trust me, I've wasted countless
hours trying them all . After trudging through one sloppy app after another
with mediocre features and atrocious user interfaces as well as questionable performance, I
finally found this application, not quite believing it. It looks great, has tons of cool features, is
backed up by a friendly developer and is constantly in update mode going though many version
changes in the last few months. This doesn't mean the program is buggy, it's not, but this is obviously
a labour of love for the author, who is consistently tweaking and tightening up the code.

# Store multiple wallpaper lists as different categories/libraries.
# The ability to rate wallpaper, so better wallpapers are chosen more often.
# Customizable Global Hotkeys - Quickly change/clear the wallpaper with any key combo.
# Very high quality resizing of images to fit the screen optimally and keep their aspect ratio.
# Auto change the wallpaper when windows starts, every x minutes, or use the ratings to choose an interval.
# Change wallpaper in order, in shuffle mode, or randomly according to rating.
# Analyse the wallpaper and automatically choose between Resize, Tile, Center or Stretch.
# Uses very little resources.
# Minimizes to tray area for easy access.
# Easy to use but powerful interface.
# Desktop Wallpaper Master is a free download (freeware)!
# And more!



 
The shareware version has a generous 30 day, nag free
evaluation period that will continue to work in limited function after the time limit
and is very reasonable priced at $15. It has a slicker, more compact GUI:



# Support for many more image types (GIF, PNG, JPEG-2000 (JP2), TGA, WMF and PCX images).
# Now includes a fullscreen Slideshow mode!
# Max wallpapers increased to 64000! (Rather than 5000).
# Automatically change wallpaper at specific times of every day.
# Transparent icon backgrounds (for pre-WinXP computers).
# Skip a cycle if CPU load is too high (useful for when playing games).
# Automatically position portrait images to uncover icons.
# Change the order of images in the list.
# Apply a simple effect to a certain percentage of wallpaper shown.
# Ability to overlay the image's name onto the wallpaper (watermarking).
# A huge performance boost and improved user interface.
# Even more customizable!

39

Mini-Reviews by Members / Mp3 Bitrate At A Glance...MP3ext

« on: September 26, 2005, 05:07 PM »

See what bitrate your mp3 files are from their icons!
Free open source application. www.mutschler.de/mp3ext

.....

Has customizable tooltips, icons, & column handlers:



Edit your mp3 tags from the properties context menu
using a powerful tag editor:



There is a simlar tool here: www.audioshell.com that supports
other audio formats in addition to mp3. There is no icon support and
the editor is no where near as brilliant as in mp3ext. Nor do the tooltips
show stereo mode. If you want the tooltips for other formats from
Audioshell but the mp3 tooltips from MP3ext, install Audioshell first and then MP3ext.

Download my MP3ext theme here: http://www.deviantar...m/deviation/13820114
I hope you enjoy them if you use MP3ext!

40

Mini-Reviews by Members / Messy Desktop? Hate Clicking To Hide Icons?

« on: September 26, 2005, 04:33 PM »

Iconoid!!! Free open source app. Very, very cool desktop utility!  www.sillysot.com

    * Only Iconoid hides and shows the icons when you need them.
    * Only Iconoid insures that when you restore icon positions, the saved positions do not overlay other icons.  Iconoid goes to great lengths to insure that all Icons are visible when you restore Icon positions.
    * Iconoid can be completely hidden or live in the system tray.
    * Iconoid is customizable.  For example, you can decide what options appear in the tray popup so that you don't have to see a cluttered list of items you don't use.
    * Iconoid can determine the optimal text background color whenever the wallpaper changes -- automatically.
    * Iconoid comes with complete source.




My download.com review:

Pure Serendipity!

Pros: Anyone who tries to keep their desktop clean probably doesn't for long as things get messy fast. I was using Desksweeper to hide my icons and Iconsaver to save my icon positions. I was thinking "Hey, wouldn't it be cool if there was a program that would auto hide my desktop icons" so that I wouldn't have to click on a tray icon everytime I wanted to hide/show them.

So I searched Google not really expecting to find anything and stumbled apon Iconoid...and so much more! It is incredibly configurable with a large array of options. You can save your icon positions or auto arrange them according to the programs built in presets. What a great find. This program is a keeper. I can't believe it's free.

Cons: Doesn't come standard with windows!

41

Mini-Reviews by Members / PaneKiller

« on: September 26, 2005, 04:14 PM »

If I have to pick one application that I couldn't live without it would be PaneKiller. www.maddogsw.com Hasn't been updated in four years yet still works flawlessly with XP. I'd like to see it updated and sent the author a few suggestions but never heard back from him. I'm surprised there are no other programs like this other than Stardock stuff. I guess I'll eventually replace the startmenu with ObjectDock anyway...

# Integrates into the Windows shell
# As easy to use as the Start Menu, but more flexible, powerful and configurable
# Access any file (application or document) on your computer, easily, from the taskbar
# If you prefer PaneKiller's power and flexibility over the Start menu, you can even replace the Start menu with PaneKiller.
# Drag and drop lets you manage files from within PaneKiller
# Tear-off menus give you handy access to oft-used items
# Fully configurable -- provide convenient access to as much or as little as you like
# Recent Files and Recent Folders features make your work easier by remembering items you've used recently, and making it easy to get to them
# Menus that are too long to fit on one screen give you a choice -- you can split them into several screen-sized pages, or you can scroll through them (using the mouse wheel if you have one)
# Customizable menu backgrounds let you determine the look of your computer
# Menu transition effects show off your computer's graphical abilities, are pretty, and are fun!
# In addition to opening files, you can also right-click to access context menus
# 32-bit, multithreaded for speed and stability
# One-click access to anything on your computer
# Hide icons on Windows desktop and access everything via PaneKiller, if you don't like clutter
# Fully accessible from the keyboard or with the mouse

42

General Software Discussion / Thumbnails on mouseover...

« on: September 26, 2005, 03:52 AM »

Hi!

I used to have a small freeware app that would generate a thumbnail image/tool tip when hovering a mouse pointer over a graphics file. I lost it and can not find it anywhere no matter how hard or long I search. I believe it was by the same author who created Color Set...a colour picker.

Now I know there's an app called Instant Thumbview which is similar but that's not the one I was looking for.

Anyone know of any other application (free or otherwise) that does this? If anyone can help me it's you fine people.

Thanks!