What’s This About?

Mouse Speed Switcher is a little program that sits in your system tray (systray) which allows you to control the speed of your mouse between two user definable “speed of movement” settings. This can be done either by a mouse lick or a system wide Hotkey combination.

Why Would You Want It?

The speed of your mouse movement will often be a compromise between precision and time. If the mouse moves to quickly it is hard to precisely locate a particular point for precision work such as graphics. If the mouse moves to slowly it can be frustrating where you have to locate points across a screen or screens with a multi-monitor setup. Another problem can be where you use a touchpad or similar pointing device on a laptop but sometimes also use an external mouse (on its own or with a docking station for instance). Here it can be very useful to change the speed between the touchpad and the mouse for maximum productivity.

While windows provides a control panel function to change the mouse settings it is a long winded process. Mouse Speed Switcher provides a quick and easy interface to change the speed settings, apply one of them at startup and then quickly switch between the two with the mouse or keyboard.

Mouse Speed Switcher will also be very useful where you have children, in-experienced users or users who may benefit advanced accessibility options for mouse movement using the same computer/account as another user.

What Does It Do – The Essentials?

Summary:

• Provides two interchangeable mouse speed settings
• Allows for quick change between speeds.

Pros: What’s Good?

Features & Benefits

• Freeware

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Popularity: 30% [?]

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If you keep up to date with Tech news you will know there has been a lot written about the impending release of the “Google Browser” Google Chrome over the last couple of days. Well now the Beta version (another Google everlasting beta? ) has been released to the world and ProReviewer has grabbed a copy to see what it does.

Why Would You Want It?

Google have done some clever pre-release marketing and in particular a comic strip talking about what \Google Chrome offers. It clearly takes on may of the great aspects of other browsers such as Firefox, Opera and Safari as well as making sure it has MS Internet Explorer * well in its sights. The particular aspects that appeal to me are the “sandboxing” of individual tabs (well it seems to be websites) so that if they crash or a script won’t complete it doesn’t crash or freeze the browser. A Task Manager for the browser to display information about the individual tabs and allow their termination. Other aspects related to search and history within the address bar or “Omnibar” reflect what the “opposition” is currently providing.

I have very gone through being slightly disappointed to indifferent to quite excited about Google Chrome over the last hour as I have experimented with its capabilities.I still realize that I am, at present, a “Dyed in the Wool” fan of Firefox 3 Portable and it will take a lot of development and add-ons (will there be any? ) to make me consider Google Chrome as my browser of choice. However, if their is a portable version with the current functionality I would certainly add it to my Portable Apps toolbox.

Screenshot Tour

Rather than follow the normal ProReviewer review template this post will take the form of a (similar) series of screenshots with notes.

Click on any screenshot to enlarge if necessary

Installation

Standard installer progress window

Installer Welcome and Customization:

About

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Popularity: 25% [?]

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ClipDiary is a a well and simply implemented clipboard extender. It saves multiple clips effortlessly and without user intervention. These clips are then quickly available either using your mouse or a hotkey combination.

Why Would You Want It?

As the standard Windows clipboard only saves one clip at a time the ability to save multiple clips (copied text and images) for reuse later by pasting into documents or just to keep a history of certain information such as web site addresses, or say brief details of a set of applications, names or something similar can be very useful. Also the ability to be able to have a history of information you are collecting is very useful. I have mentioned in a couple of recent  posts the usefulness of collecting information using automatic copying of selected information for research and writing.

What Does It Do – The Essentials?

Summary:

• Stores information copied to the clipboard
• Pastes to active application on demand
•  

Pros: What’s Good?

Features & Benefits

• Freeware

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Popularity: 19% [?]

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Have you ever typed the perfect sentence or paragraph? A real moment of inspiration, never to be repeated! It may be into a word document, or a blog comment  webform or some other program -  and then disaster. A system or program or Internet malfunction results in these never to be remembered words disappearing in a puff of random electrons. Well if it hasn’t happened to you then it has certainly happened to me on more than one occasion.

The answer I found was to use a keylogger to record everything that was being typed. While not a perfect solution it has certainly saved some of my more important sentences, phrases and paragraphs from an early grave as well as saving my time and frustration

REFOG Free Keylogger is an excellent freeware program that has most of the functions you require for this type of use.

This forms part of my overall instant to long term backup and archiving system that uses a number of different freeware solutions  which include ”on the fly” backup of files as new documents or versions are saved through to long term backup of essential documents and information to NAS devices and online storage solutions.

This is a great example of using a utility that may be seen as only having uses for spying on others or trying to nefariously obtain passwords for a good use.

What Does It Do – The Essentials?

Summary:

• Records “all” keyboard input (including Ctl-Shift_Alt, etc.)
• Records mouse clicks
• Records details of program, time and date.
• Records web addresses visited
• Monitors addresses for changes
• Copies the clipboard information
• Logs Information

Pros: What’s Good?

Features & Benefits

• Freeware

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Popularity: 19% [?]

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CatGrab is a handy program to download your photos and videos from a USB connected camera or from a Flashcard reader. CatGrab automatically renames your files and places them in separate folders for photos and videos on your desktop. This review is for the “small” or Freeware edition which has restricted options and a “nag” screen, however for a simple and quick method of downloading it is quite acceptable. Personally I use Picasa which is also free and provides more options.

Why Would You Want It?

Most cameras come with some proprietary software which will do the job of getting photos/videos from the camera to your PC. If you have more than 1 camera you may need to load more than one program and there may also be conflicts. CatGrab provides a simple and quick solution to this. It also separates photos from videos and provides renaming based on the date the photos were taken. Also it will not download duplicates.

(Note – Static addresses can be assigned if required. This is relatively easy for LAN addresses but will probably involve additional costs with an ISP for your WAN)

What Does It Do – The Essentials?

Summary:

• Downloads photos and videos to a PC/Laptop
• Renames files based on original date and time
• Separates Photos from Videos

Pros: What’s Good?

Features & Benefits

• Freeware (small version)

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Popularity: 15% [?]

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What Is It?

Scan2PDF is a small program designed to scan images or load images from standard image formats which can then be combined as pages to form a single pdf file. Images can be rotated and text can be added to overlay the image if required. What’s more, several images can be added to the same page, resized and arranged with text added as captions or for information.

Why Would You Want It?

In any home or small office environment there are hundred of documents you need to keep for one reason or another. In the home bank and credit card statements, normal house hold bills, receipts, guarantees, instructions, official letters, tax returns, car documents, etc. There are literally hundreds of documents you need to keep, some for a short time others for much longer. Managing all that paper, filing it, finding it when you need it, sorting out what you don’t need any longer and what you must still keep takes a lot of time to do properly. When you don’t do it well then you spend even more time trying to find something when suddenly you really need it.

The obvious answer is to keep all the documents on your computer. With an organised file naming system (and folders as well if you like, personally I prefer to minimise on folders and use the file naming system as a sort of virtual folder structure). A document scanner that is suitable for this is fairly cheap nowadays and many multi-function devices are also available.

So why scan to pdf rather than just standard jpg, tif, bmp or other image format files. Mostly as this is a convenient and standard document format which will store multiple page documents. That combined with the ready availability of programs to convert word documents to pdf also means that you can keep all correspondence in a single format and read it with a single application whether you use Adobe Acrobat or smaller and faster pdf applications such as Foxit or Sumatra.

There are a few quite to very expensive document management applications available to do this job so it is nice to find a freeware solution which will meet the needs of most home users if used with an appropriate file naming/folder storage method.

What Does It Do – The Essentials?

Summary:

• Scanning Interface for single or multiple pages
• Other images can be used to create pdf pages
• Text can be added where required

Pros: What’s Good?

Features & Benefits

• Freeware

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Popularity: 14% [?]

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Folder Size adds a “Folder Size” column to the standard Windows Explorer file explorer utility. It also adds a further 3 columns that report the number of files and folders that appear under the folder being viewed. This is a simple and brilliant Explorer add-on that is an essential tool for anyone interested in how disk space is being used or where all the large file/folders are.

Why Would You Want It?

Windows does not provide a utility that shows the size of folders in a simple and easily used way*.There are many reasons why you need to know the size of folders. It may be that you are running out of disk space. You may want to know why a particular folder is using so much space. Or you are simply interested in the fact that certain applications produce large files and use up so much disk space. Armed with this information you can make all sorts of decisions:

1. Do I want to use an application that uses lots of disk space?
2. Do I want to delete this folder?
3. Do I want to move this folder?
4. How can I use this utility more efficiently?
5. What do I delete now that I am running out of disk space?

I am sure there are lots of other reasons why you would want to know the sizes of folders.

*You can always use the “right click context menu” in Explorer to view propertied. This only give information for a single folder and is slow/cumbersome to use.

However, not only does Folder Size add a Windows Explorer column for the size of the folder, you can also add columns that will tell you the number of files and/or folders within that folder (sub-folders/files).

What Does It Do – The Essentials?

Summary:

• Displays Folder Size Information in Windows Explorer
• Displays Number of sub files and folders in additional columns
• Runs as a Service

Pros: What’s Good?

Features & Benefits

• Freeware

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Popularity: 26% [?]

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ShowIP is a handy utility that will show you your Local Area Network (LAN) and Internet (WAN or Wide Area Network) IP address. It will also monitor these IP addresses for change and warn you if this occurs.

Why Would You Want It?

Your IP address is used by remote computers and servers to find your computer. There are times when you need to know this information. For instance for remote login applications and setting up games consoles for multi player use over the Internet. Sometimes it is useful to know your Internet IP address to when looking at access by programs and “Web 2” applications. Most IP addresses assigned locally or by your ISP are dynamic and can change, so it may be useful for you to be aware of this.

(Note – Static addresses can be assigned if required. This is relatively easy for LAN addresses but will probably involve additional costs with an ISP for your WAN)

What Does It Do – The Essentials?

Summary:

• Looks up LAN & WAN IP addresses
• Monitors addresses for changes
• Copies addresses to the clipboard
• Allows release/refresh of LAN dynamic addresses
• Logs Information

Pros: What’s Good?

Features & Benefits

• Freeware

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Popularity: 13% [?]

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What Is It?

iRotate is a small utility which does a great job in its sole purpose is to rotate the image on your monitor. It works with most current  graphics cards and is a useful utility if you want to change the view from landscape to portrait.

Why Would You Want It?

It is sometimes very useful to be able to view a program window in portrait mode, particularly when writing documents or creating images which naturally appear that way. Generally you would want a pivoting monitor, but in a multimonitor setup an ordinary monitor could be stood on its end without too much difficulty.

What Does It Do – The Essentials?

Summary:

• Rotates the on-screen image
• Provides access to Display Properties dialog

Pros: What’s Good?

Features & Benefits

• Freeware

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Popularity: 28% [?]

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What Is It?

NetLimiter Monitor is a freeware “limited functionality” version of Netlimiter Lite or Pro which are shareware. NetLimiter monitor provides realtime and historical values for the data transfer of any process either across the Internet or across your Local Area Network (LAN). Information is provided on the application, process number, IP address and port being used for both sent and received data. Historical data can be exported to file.

Why Would You Want It?

There are many reasons that you may want or need to know the data being sent and received by your PC, these may include:

1. Bandwidth and total data capping or limitations by your ISP
2. Identifying processes that hog bandwidth
3. Checking if a process is communicating or has stalled
4. Identifying the external IP address that a process is communicating with
5. Idle curiosity

Why Do I Want It?

I use it as another general monitoring tool that I can run in the background without much strain on system resources. If I then need to try and identify some particular problem or trend of bandwidth use then there is both current and historical information available. A recent use has been checking the uploading of posts from Windows Live Writer to my host server which on occasion has been problematic. NetLimiter Monitor helped me identify this has an ISP problem and not my host server. I have also used it to get an idea of the amount of data transfer when my Windows Home Server was backing up my computers. Finally it has been useful in determining whether a process is communication with an IP address that I consider legitimate (such as a version update check rather than sending usage stats to a third party).

What Does It Do – The Essentials?

Summary:

• Measures data transfer across a computer network
• Identifies the different Zones:

1. Internet
2. My Computer
3. Local Network

Pros: What’s Good?

Features & Benefits

• Freeware

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Popularity: 30% [?]

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