Two utils to ease folder navigation

FileBox eXtender keeps favorite folders at your fingertips, free software for everyone, now also working under Vista

http://www.hyperionics.com/files/

Download Filebox eXtender

http://www.hyperionics.com/downloads/FbxSetup.exe

Ver 2.00.02 32-bit, English version (1.6 MB)

Folder Guide is a free handy utility that provides fast access to your frequently used and favorite folders. It can operate as the part of your context menu in your Windows Explorer.

http://www.freeware365.com/desktop/folderguide.htm

Download Folder Guide

http://www.freeware365.com/download/FGSetup.exe

Ver 1.2, Windows 9x/Me/NT/2000/XP/2003 (769 KB)

Two systray utils to display real time RAM and CPU load

How much is the CPU and RAM of our computer being stressed determines how much we can multitask. There are many utils to indicate the RAM in use and the load on the CPU. Some of these reside in the Systray so as to provide easy access and always on functionality. FreeRAM XP Pro and Process Lasso are decent choices. These are simple, professionally programmed and free to use.

A simple way to collect and manage web snippets

Usually we are interested in only some part of the webpage, a so-called web snippet. These snippets of information are even harder to manage. How to save only part of web page? One way is to copy the text and then paste it into Notepad then save it as text file. Also there is no way we can bookmark part of a webpage. We can simply use a clipboard manager. I personally like ClipMagic. If we merge or export selected snippets, we WANT the URLs to show in the result. There is a Firefox extension called QuoteURL Text. What this does is that it embeds the URL, title and date-time inside the clip so when ClipMagic stores the clip, the URL, title and date-time are stored alongside.

The password storing and filling problem

We all need to store and fill passwords almost everyday. There are many approaches to this problem. True to form, Mashable put out a megapost with over 60 tools to help us out in this area.

60+ Free Password Managers and Form Fillers

http://mashable.com/2007/09/17/password-managers/

I tried some of these. In my opinion, the following ones are worth trying.

Firefox 3 Portable on persistent WinMount ramdrive

Disclaimer: This blog (amolpatil2k) makes no representations as to the accuracy, completeness, currentness, suitability, or validity of any information on this site and will not be liable for any errors, omissions, or delays in this information or any losses, injuries, or damages arising from its display or use. All information is provided on an as-is basis.

SiteAdvisor: When we tested this site we found links to download.pchome.net, which we found to be a distributor of downloads some people consider adware, spyware or other potentially unwanted programs.

http://www.siteadvisor.com/sites/winmount.com

PortableApps.com provides us with portable versions of many excellent apps. One of these is the extremely popular Firefox 3. The advantage of a portable app is that it stores the configuration information in a local .ini file instead of the computer’s registry so that if we install such an app on a USB pendrive, the settings remain the same even if we use it on different computers.

http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/firefox_portable

WinMount is an incredible piece of software not just because it can mount various types of image files (such as .iso, .nrg etc) and archive files (such as .rar, .zip etc) but also because of its native format (.wmt) which works as a persistent ramdrive. This means that when we unmount the ramdrive, the contents are stored in a .wmt file on the hard disk. This allows us to mount the ramdrive again and find all the contents as we had left them.

http://www.winmount.com/download.html

The method described here applies to WinMount version 2.2.2

Apart from using Firefox 3 Portable on our pendrive, we can install it on a WinMount persistent ramdrive (.wmt file). The advantage of doing so it the blazing speeds we would experience by running Firefox 3 off a ramdrive.

Basic apps for web page design

Softpedia carries a lot of Freeware

http://win.softpedia.com/index1.free.shtml

It has a nice selection of free Web Design related apps

http://www.softpedia.com/catList/51,1,3,0,1.html

I was most impressed by three apps that help us:

1. Design the layout of our pages
2. Get the page style up to speed
3. Use this template and a data file to generate all our pages

Use Free Commander instead of Windows Explorer

I recently installed FreeCommander. I found it on SnapFiles:

http://www.snapfiles.com/topdownloads/freeware-top100-25.html

It has lots of features. I love the Layouts feature. Move the panes around, select some working folders then save the layout. It allows us to come back to this layout with a simple keyboard shortcut. My only gripe is that the tree view shows only one drive at a time. I would have loved to have an explorer like system where all drives are available on the same tree.

SourceForge.net 2008 Community Choice Awards

Update: SourceForge.net is proud to present the winners from the 2008 Community Choice Awards.

Best Project » OpenOffice.org

http://www.openoffice.org

Best Project for the Enterprise » OpenOffice.org

http://www.openoffice.org

Best Project for Educators » OpenOffice.org

http://www.openoffice.org

Most Likely to Be the Next $1B Acquisition » phpMyAdmin

http://sourceforge.net/projects/phpmyadmin

Best Project for Multimedia » VLC

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

Best Project for Gamers » XBMC

http://sourceforge.net/projects/xbmc

Most Likely to Change the World » Linux

http://www.linux.org

Best New Project » Magento

http://www.magentocommerce.com/

Most Likely to Be Ambiguously and Baselessly Accused of Patent Violation » Wine Is Not an Emulator

http://sourceforge.net/projects/wine

Most Likely to Get Users Sued by Anachronistic Industry Associations Defending Dead Business Models » eMule

http://sourceforge.net/projects/emule

Best Tool or Utility for SysAdmins » phpMyAdmin

http://sourceforge.net/projects/phpmyadmin

Best Tool or Utility for Developers » Notepad++

http://sourceforge.net/projects/notepad-plus

Giveaway of the Day

I recently heard about Giveaway of the Day and was pleasantly surprised that it works. About GOTD, Yahoo is believed to have said “You can’t beat the price”.

From http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/about/

Welcome to Giveaway of the day project, the new initiative in the software distribution world! Every day we offer for FREE licensed software you’d have to buy otherwise!

Our new initiative, Giveaway of the day, is finally open to its visitors and ready to present hot software titles and best software authors from all over the world. For game giveaways check out Game Giveaway of the Day. We wish you a Happy Giveaway!

http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/macrium-reflect/

I downloaded Macrium Reflect on June 16th, 2008. It is a superb piece of software. It normally costs $40. I am using it for free. The Giveaway of the day activation went off as advertised. Please note, you need to run the activate.exe file BEFORE installing the software. Also the activation must be completed within 24 hours from the start of download availability. No support is available for software downloaded from giveawayoftheday.com (refer to the README file below).

There is also a freeware version of Macrium Reflect with some of the features disabled.

Nothing can match the excitement of WinMount

Disclaimer: This blog (amolpatil2k) makes no representations as to the accuracy, completeness, currentness, suitability, or validity of any information on this site and will not be liable for any errors, omissions, or delays in this information or any losses, injuries, or damages arising from its display or use. All information is provided on an as-is basis.

SiteAdvisor: When we tested this site we found links to download.pchome.net, which we found to be a distributor of downloads some people consider adware, spyware or other potentially unwanted programs.

http://www.siteadvisor.com/sites/winmount.com

I am no expert but believe me, I have tried out a good number of programs, mostly freeware but also some shareware titles too.

Nothing, and I mean NOTHING, can match the excitement of WinMount. And isn’t that what it is all about – the excitement of a catch. It is like meeting the person of your dreams. I have felt like this only thrice before (1) when I first downloaded MD5Summer about 7 summers back (2) when I first downloaded Siren and (3) when I first downloaded Parse-o-matic. WinMount is even more special because it is a program that would be used everyday, all day. God Bless the creator of WinMount (Tao Tao Liu?).

Screen Grab, FS Capture, Irfan View and Time Keeper

Links
ScreenGrab
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1146
FS Capture
http://www.faststone.org/FSCaptureDetail.htm
Irfan View
http://www.irfanview.com/
TimeKeeper
http://www.12noon.com/timekeeper/timekeeper.htm

Those of us, who browse a lot tend to lose track of things. And because of the way we traverse the Web clicking one one link after the other, it is hard to go back more than a few steps.

I have tried to tackle this problem using screenshots and an image viewer. In my opinion, FastStone Capture is THE best screen grabber out there. The problem is that it was freeware only till version 5.3 (I think). Nowadays, it is shareware. IrfanView, the best viewer is, of course, freeware

How to do TODO on a spreadsheet

The reason why I am interested in Spread32 is because I want a table to organize my TODO list. I know about Treepad which allows one to organize TODO in a tree structure, which is a very good concept. My problem is that TODO involves two steps (1) quickly jot down something you remember (2) organize such things so that these can be done in an efficient manner.

Welcome to WFDI

Hello Everyone,

Welcome to my blog:

Windows Freeware Design Issues

WFDI seems to be a lofty title for what is essentially an average user’s whining. Yes, I like to whine when I don’t like a feature or its implementation.

I have a few problems.

(1) I like to design software (or rather its interface) but have never ever programmed even “Hello, World” in any language.

(2) I am very finicky when it comes down to interface. For instance Spread32 is an exemplary freeware spreadsheet but it does not have in cell editing.

I am finicky so I want in cell editing but I can’t program so I start a blog about WDFI. Please participate and help me out.