a bunch of old stuff

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None of this stuff is exactly new and some I got originally from tips here but I thought it might be useful to list out some of the utility progs I find useful on a day-to-day basis (rather than those that sound useful but just gather dust).
I use all of these on Win2k Pro and none give me any trouble – a lot I used to use on 98se and they gave no trouble there either.

SeeThru simply makes screen icons and text labels transparent to let your wonderful background picture shine in all its glory. Maybe not vital to life but it makes for a more pleasing desktop

TrayMin lets you choose where to minimise your applications to – left-click the min icon to go to the taskbar right-click to the tool tray. Works on any app I’ve tried it with.

startup control panel from Mike Lin lets you control what programs execute at startup. You can delete or temporarily disable any prog – dead easy to use

PrintKey – I’ve used PrintKey v4 for a few years now and it’s all I’ve ever needed for grabing screen images. There is also PrintKey v5.1 which I haven’t tried. The program has now gone commercial and is available as PrintKey-Pro. Might be worth grabing the freebie version while it lasts.

IrfanView v3.75 lets you view files in just about any graphics format going, also lets you convert between graphics types

TextWiz v2.1 is great if you ever have to do editing across a whole bunch of files. I often have to trawl through login script files and change every occurance of “server1” to “server2” – with Textwiz it takes seconds. Can use it in search only or search & replace modes.

rjhExtensions v1.3 adds a bunch of options to the right click menus in explorer (command prompt, print dir list etc)

PowerDesk v5 – ok I know this was mentioned here just a few days ago but I couldn’t not have it here. I’ve used v2 and then v4 for years and it just shows up what a half baked heap of crud windows explorer is. From what I see of v5 it doesn’t offer a lot new over v4 but if you ain’t got it – get it.

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Thanks Bryan – I’m gonna pick up SeeThru, Extensions, PrintKey and PowerDesk and give ’em a whirl. Sounds like some useful apps. Some of my favorite downloads (and I think I found most of them on the lounge) are:

FavOrg – It scans your Favorites folder and replaces the generic Windows icons with icons that readily identify the websites

Registry Robot – This tweaking utility picks up where TweakUI left off. Where it’s better than the rest, is it’s UNDO feature that will allow you to change your mind if you’re unhappy with any changes you’ve made. There are more extensive tweaking utilities, (like X-Teq and SiSoft Sandra) but many of these will have you reinstalling Windows in short order.

Karens Replicator – Just a well written, and eassy to use file backup program. I’ve got mine set to back up data directorys, excel toolbars, my favorites and several other directories and files. Four times each week, Karen’s little program will copy just what I want to a different hard drive on my system. And it happens while I’m sleeping. The program is smart enough to only copy the things that have changed.

My Drivers I can’t explain the usefulness of this program as good as the review on the download site explains it, so I would encourage anyone to click the link and read the review. I can tell you that this app will search your system, find all the driver files for your hardware and copy those files for you to any disc or directory you choose. And, it will search the web for updates for your driver files and assist you in upgrading. (Nothing’s automatic, you are in control and you make the decisions) From experience, I can say that it works great and is priceless when you have to recover from a crash or reinstall of the operating system. One more note, this program will wrap all your driver files into an exe file, which in turn, will allow you to rebuild all drivers with one mouse click.

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(Edited by bigaldoc on 13-Dec-02 07:53. To add a personal list of favorite freebies)

Hey, you guys have a good thing going here! Keep this thread alive and we’ll end up with a beautiful “Faves” list of utility software, if it doesn’t get out of hand.

OK, I too will make a contribution (I hope):

AboutTime This little freebie, suggested by WyllyWylly, keeps your PC clock on target.

Belarc Advisor Everything you ever wanted to know about your computer – also free.

Directory Printer Also free from Karen Kenworthy, for printing directory lists and/or file names.

Mailwasher The oft-mentioned front-end email monitoring and previewing software – free or donation.

NoteTab My fave replacement for NotePad. The Lite version is free.

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Thanks for the list Bryan.

Thought I ought to mention I’ve had probs with “PowerDesk” under Win ME (It don’t work!)

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Hi Rupert

Power Desk v5 works for me in ME…..so far, anyway!

Have a Great day!!!
Ken

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Yeh! Bril! It works!

Thanks Ken.

Just downloaded PD Ver5 and it works with win ME.

I used to use it all the time, but when I upgraded to win ME it stopped working. They must have put it right.

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[Edited by Diegol to add html Code]

I’m sorry I didn’t post earlier, but I’ve been overwhelmed at work… just drooled reading all the oddities…
Ok, this is my list:

e-prompter: http://www.eprompter.com/%5B/url%5D
Great utility for checking e-mails other than your corporate mail. For example, I use outlook for my corporate mail, while e-prompter runs in the systray and checks my other 3 mail accounts periodically (I set it to check them every 1 min). Supports hotmail’s http server, pop3, smtp, and some other types. Whenever you receive mail, you hear a sound and a number displays in the eprompter icon in the systray showing the number of unread mails. You assign a color for each account so if you have unread mails in several accounts, they will display in different colors. Said enough, great app. Ok, one more: not resource-munching.

Music Match Jukebox: http://www.musicmatch.com/%5B/url%5D
I don’t like it as a player, but it rocks when it comes to ripping CDs (real fast!). It’s format conversion feature also comes handy (conversion between mp3, wma, wav).

PGP: http://www.pgpi.org/%5B/url%5D
Depending on the version, you can encrypt (symmetrically / asymmetrically) files, the clipboard, mails, ICQ msgs; Establish VPNs; Overwrite deleted data so no one can restore it; Create encrypted virtual disks to store critical information; Create Self-Decrypting Archives. I really like the last two features (too bad they are in different versions and you cannot install them both at the same time).

Rambooster: http://www.sci.fi/~borg/rambooster/index.htm%5B/url%5D
Has several options for optimizing your RAM usage.

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The last time someone was told to include html code, I tried to check the Quick Guide link but the page was not available… so I dunno how to. If someone would tell me, next time things will be tidier.

Merry Christmas t’ y’all!!

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[indent]

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…to include html code…

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[/indent] If you’re talking about your links, while you’re composing your post click on the 1-Click TagPanel thingie right above your input box. The attachment shows which selection to make to enter a URL and a description of your choosing. Need more? Please post back. Did you look in Help?

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Thanks Big Al, I got it. I edited my post to hyperlink web addresses.

This thread is too good to let it fall into oblivion, so here go some entries I forgot to include:

Fine View: http://www.fine-view.com/%5B/url%5D
Very handy to view multiple images. Includes thumbnail view of a directory and slideshow. Does not require installation. FREE.

Photoplus: http://www.serif.com/%5B/url%5D
Excellent soft for heavy-duty image edition. Features layers and advanced options

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Good to see your “code changes.” Haven’t gone to look yet at any of your list. [indent]

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…thumbs up for two well-known apps, AVG antivirus…

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[/indent] I keep waiting to see if someone has tried their stand-alone email beta product yet, but nobody is saying anything. When I got the message from their (AVG’s) support people, I posted the link in this forum. But just now I tried it again and got a 404 message and it wasn’t in English. Maybe the beta product flunked!

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Hi Diegol

Photoplus v5.5 is alive and still to download here.

Caution…..they want your full name, full address, phone number, email address, etc. before you can download. Also, the full download is over 19 meg

Have a Great day!!!
Ken

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Hey Ken, thanks!

The version I downloaded was 5.0, and I don’t rember it being so…. big (plus I was downloading using a dial-up connection, woulda remembered 19 M for sure ).
In fact, I’m checking the executable files in my HD and the total three amount to 12 M.

There’s a point with personal data disclosure: you get offers from Serif too often. But the soft is definetly worth it.

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Ok Let me try this out.
universal hint system For game hints and walk throughs.

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Hi All

Here are a few of the many free and shareware programs I can recommend. I have hundreds I’ve downloaded and tried,way too many good ones to list here. If anyone is having trouble finding something or would like an opinion on a freeware or shareware program, drop me an email from the lounge and I’ll try to help.

AdAware – Keep your system free of adware and spyware – don’t forget to download RefUpdate
ClipOMatic – Customizable clipboard extender
Convert – Comprehensive conversion progam, easy to use
Dimension4 – Another way to keep your clock on time
FirstStopWebSearch – Search the web using multiple search engines simultaneously
Hook99 – Redesign your Start button
Kyodai – Game , addictive, customizable, go get it!!!
LupasRename – Batch file rename
Mozilla – Internet browser, email client – Is it any good?…Just ask Al
PrinterExpress – Got more than one printer?…Change printers on the fly!!
Snagit – Screen capture tool – cusomizable – will “Scroll Capture” off screen
StartupMonitor – Warns you of any program that tries to register itself to run
TclockEx – Highly customizable tray clock, calendar, text etc.
UlimateZip – Replace WinZip….just because.
WebFerretPro – Search the web using multiple search engines simultaneously
WetSock – Checks your “official” weather forecasts for you, worldwide
WorldTime6 – I use this when I’m in the Lounge so I know what time it is where you are.

I also highly recommend StartupControlPanel and IrfanView, both listed with links above.

Have a Great day!!!
Ken

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Here’s another graphics program that I believe is well worth the download.
You can get Pixia here or do a web search for Pixia for lots of sites with more info.

Have a Great day!!!
Ken

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May I add TypeRodent, a free Word add-in (actually a template) which makes a document that prints font sample sheets. I know other programs do this, but I like this Word-centric approach. Info at http://www.tatumweb.com/typerat/%5B/url%5D

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I’d like to add Spybot – Search and Destroy to this thread.
I recently ran Adaware and found one problem file which I cleaned out. I then ran Spybot-S&D and found one registry entry and ten files that Adaware had missed. Adaware has not updated their reference file since September, 2002. Maybe it’s about time they did.

Have a Great day!!!
Ken

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Hi Ken,
See my post 208603, re: Ad-Aware. It’s good, but needs updating.

Bob

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Hi Bob

Here’s a bit more info on one of LavasoftUSA‘s Forum Pages.

Have a Great day!!!
Ken

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http://www.guardwall.com/en/index.asp%5B/url%5D Guard IE stops popups, clears cookies and history on exit, other stuff. Free to try. I bought it and like it a lot.
http://www.hamrick.com/upg.html%5B/url%5D VuePrint (vuepro) great for looking at pictures, making wallpaper, printing pics, crop and save, I use it all the time.
John

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Never heard of VuePrint before. Seems pretty useful, PLUS has keyboard shortcuts for every function I checked .
Still I’ll stick to Irfanview till a freeware version of VuePrint is released. Not that I’d replace Irfanview, but VuePrint looks like a nice addition to my image edition apps.

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I’m going to try irfanview one of these days. I am very happy with vueprint. I’ve used it for a long time. If you decide to give it a try, it will work fine but give you a splash screen until you buy it. It also uninstalls very well, just three small files in the windows dir. You will just have to re-associate your image files with irfanview I imagine.

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Another oldie but a goodie, AutoIt, and a freebie to boot. In the the author’s own words:
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AutoIt is a simple tool that can simulate key presses, mouse movements and window commands (maximize, minimize, wait for, etc.) in order to automate any windows based task (or even windowed DOS tasks).

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[/indent]
And the “any” in the quote seems pretty close to the truth! I’ve used AutoIt almost from it’s inception in ’99, and I’d hate to have to live without it. Of course it has room for improvement. It lacks a record function. But, it is more capable than any macro recorder I know of, especially in it’s price bracket. Also, while you don’t need to be a programmer, a technical inclination won’t do any harm. But, when things do get tricky the documentation and help are comprehensive and well written.

AutoIt has been mentioned in a few posts here & there (well, not here, hence this), but only incidentally as a part of a problem solution. I think it”s worthy of a specific recommendation.

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There are a lot of good suggestions here, not necessarily old, and I thought it might be of interest to some if this thread was brought to the front again.

Anybody got anything new to add??????

Have a Great day!!!
Ken

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For the past year I’ve been using a free add-on ( add-on-top-of ??? ) called CrazyBrowser that sits on top of IE and turns it into what Microsoft should have. It has a tabbed interface like Opera, a way to define Groups ( which I use daily ), it stops pop-ups and it looks a heck of a lot better.
I downloaded it at http://www.crazybrowser.com and I highly recommend it.

Don

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Hi Don

Another browser that, I believe uses IE as its engine, is Avant Browser, mentioned several times in the Lounge but I don’t believe in this thread.
It sounds like it might be very similar to Crazy Browser.

Have a Great day!!!
Ken

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