What Is It?

Zonesize is a simple utility whose sole purpose is to predefine window sizing templates on your monitor. These zones can be defined by pixel position or as a percentage of the screen size and they can overlap which is what makes the utility really useful. You simply drag the window over the zone and it automatically resizes to fit. It is one of the many “1 Hour Software” utilities from Skrommel at DonationCoder.

Why Would You Want It?

There are often times when you need to have 2 or more windows displayed on the same screen where you are using both programs at once. For instance you may be viewing a browser window while writing to another document. In these situations you may also want to drag and drop text or graphics from one window to the other. Zonesize allows you to have a predefined set of window sizes or zones to suit your working pattern

How Do You Use it?

Having defined the zones you wish to use you simply drag the window over the zone and allow it to resize automatically within a predefined time (user definable). You can drag the window from one zone to another to suit your required working arrangements.

Why Do I Want It?

I generally manage quite well with a 2 monitor “multi-monitor setup but there are times when I need access to more windows. Zonesize not only allows me to predefine some windows sizes for my working area across both monitors, it also allows for overlapping zones and zones within zones as you will see later. The benefits of overlapping zones, as is demonstrated in the example below, is the ability to quickly make windows active by clicking on the non-overlapped areas. Using a utility to keep windows “always on top” such as DeskPins - Help to Stop Other Windows Stealing Focus further enhances the use of Zonesize so that you can keep a smaller windows always on top within another larger window.

Note: In carrying out this review I have also come across:

Auto Window Manager from Eusing Software

Gridmove from JGPaiva at DonationCoder

which may be even better,I will check them out shortly.

What Does It Do - The Essentials?

Summary:

• Resizes Windows to predefined “Zone” sizes by dragging

Pros: What’s Good?

Features & Benefits

• Freeware

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Popularity: 21% [?]

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Update Posting

A while back I posted on Daphne 1.32. A new version, 1.33 has now been released with some significant new features and improvements, these are:

• Fully Portable configuration using an “ini” file
• The ability to view a full list of installed software
• Display a snapshot of all current processes in a “Process Tree”
• Parent process name an PID at process’ properties
• Support for DRK’s database of process information

The original post review provides all the main details and can be viewed here Daphne - Modify, Control & Kill Processes with Your Mouse

There is also a follow up post with comments from Leo, the developer of Daphne here Daphne Update - Comments from Leo (Daphne Developer)

The original post noted:

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Popularity: 19% [?]

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What Does It Do - The Essentials?

TaskSwitchXP provides an alternative way to switch tasks using alt-tab. Described as “an advanced task management utility that picks up where the standard Windows Alt+Tab switcher leaves off” by the developers ntwind software. Quoting them more fully adequately describes the essentials of the program:

TaskSwitchXP is an advanced task management utility that picks up where the standard Windows Alt+Tab switcher leaves off. It provides the same functionality, and adds visual styles to the dialog and also enhances it by displaying thumbnail preview of the application that will be switched to.

TaskSwitchXP also has a powerful process and window management capability that allows you quickly to close/minimize applications and their groups. The unique capabilities of TaskSwitchXP make it useful for tracking down multitudinous windows, and provide insight into the way Windows and applications work.

Summary:

• Provides preview snapshots of all running windows (alt-tab)
• Designed for XP with XP visual styles
• Allows for windows management (minimise, cascade, etc)
• Can select groups of windows
• Multilingual
• Process/task management capabilities
• Can be set to run automatically at Startup

Pros: What’s Good?

• Freeware

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Popularity: 17% [?]

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Leo, the developer, sent me the following email answering some of the points I raised in the review. He has kindly given me permission to reproduce his comments (Thanks Leo!)

The bullet points in the email are my comments in the review and Leo’s replies are in blue.

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Popularity: 16% [?]

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What Does it Do - The Essentials?

There are several websites offering an online web service, one that I have used recently to create the “Favicon” for this website is at RealWorld Graphics. This is a quick way of creating a basic icon (*.ico) file. You can select colours and draw your own icon of you can upload a picture for it to interpret into an icon. I am not saying that this is the best available website for icon creation, but I have tried a couple of others and I found this one easy to use and smooth in its operation. (Any suggestions for better web based applications will be gratefully received in the comments!) (more…)

Popularity: 11% [?]

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Loved Ones

Tonight I am promised a nice meal, a bottle of champagne and the company of my “significant other”. Much as I enjoy the research and writing that goes into the reviews in the short life of this blog, more worldly pleasures are dragging me away from the keyboard and screen!

So just a couple of quick notes for this post as I am sure that you will all have better things to do as well.

Worms

The major malware/anti-virus sites are reporting a major onslaught of the worm Dref-AB in preparation for the unsuspecting on Valentine’s Day. this worm is spread by email and subject lines include:

• A Valentine Love Song
• Fly Away Valentine
• My Lucky Valentine
• For My Valentine
• Happy Valentine’s Day
• Be My Valentine
• My Valentine

The attachment containing the worm include the following titles:

• greeting postcard.exe
• flash postcard.exe
• postcard.exe.
• greeting card.exe

BUT This is not an exclusive list of email subjects or attachment executable names.

So treat everything you receive from unknown sources with the usual degree of caution and sceptism. Make sure you have a viris scanner installed, there are plenty of free ones (personally I use AVG Free Edition from Grisoft), that the definitions are up todate and that it is set to scan your email and downloads.

It is believed that the worm code is written to download more malicious code over the Internet which will  take over the PC in order to use it as part convert  of a zombie network. It could then be used to send spam or for DOS attacks.

Fun

I came across the following freeware programs with a Valentine’s Day theme. I haven’t tried them but they are listed on reputable download sites. Same caution as always use an anti-virus program and scan the downloads. Google for the download site or visit your favorite and search there.

Valentine’s Hearts Animated Screenmate

Let your house be full of warmth and coziness during these holidays!

Valentine’s Hearts is a holiday Screen Mate by EleFun Multimedia devoted to St. Valentine’s Day. From year to year people in many countries celebrate the day of all beloved — St. Valentine’s Day.
On this wonderful holiday it is a common practice to present greeting-cards in the form of hearts and to make an avowal of sentiments. Screen Mate Valentine’s Hearts is almost a greeting-card but it is much more interesting and unique. Just imagine a bright and beautiful heart on the desktop of your computer! A present like this can never be forgotten!
To present Valentine’s Hearts Screen Mate to your friend, you may use send from Valentine’s Hearts settings by Send To Friend button or copy URL of this page and send it.

Saturn-7 Valentine

Freeware Valentine’s heart like screenmate that allow to write any text on it. Had some function to slow down or faster slide speed. Egg inside.

Platform: Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows 2003

System Requirements: There is no specific requirements

Language: English

Have fun and enjoy your day!

Popularity: 9% [?]

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What Does It Do - The Essentials?

Daphne is a small utility that allows you to view and control the processes running on your system. The beauty of this utility is that it provides the ability to do this by dragging and dropping a target with your mouse. It also provides functions to modify, control and kill processes by name and to save these as rules. I had been looking for a “process manager” with the mouse capabilities for sometime so I am really pleased to have found this.

Summary:

• Lists all currently running processes
• Kill processes by name, from main window or by dragging a target onto the application window
• Control and modify processes in the same way as above
• Controls include hide application, always on top, hide , transparency, enable and disable
• Processes can be highlighted by colour in main window
• Shows full process path in main window
• Process priority can be changed in the main window
• Details of processes can be shown
• Access to database of process details (via web)
• Can be set to run automatically at Startup

Pros: What’s Good?

• Freeware

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Popularity: 25% [?]

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What’s the Problem?

Delaying the tedious, the boring and tasks with unwelcome consequences seems to be part of the normal human condition. It has certainly produced numerous academic studies and research projects into the syndrome. Procrastination is just part of life and yet we mostly feel guilty about it and look for ways to help us "Get Things Done". You only have to look around the web and you will find thousands of resources devoted to advising you on what to do, lots of software that is meant to help you and all sorts of systems based around forms or methods to help identify the tasks and keep you on track. It seems that many of us are looking for a solution for a problem that we are really not facing up to. A reality check may well suggest that the issue is a reluctance to do many things that need to be done but that we have no interest in even starting let alone finishing . In the end mostly we are looking for a crutch to support us, something that will help us overcome our natural tendencies.

I am among the world’s worst at GTD. I am not writing as some guru with the answers, but as someone who struggles on a daily basis to complete tasks, particularly at home. Work is a bit different, I struggle to complete tasks at work as well, but this is a factor of insufficient time. Thinking about these different situations makes me realise that there are at least two different factors in Getting Things Done, depending on the circumstances.

What Am I Doing?

I wrote briefly in this post - GTD - Getting Things Done - as an introduction to some of thoughts and issues. In the post I mention some of the software and tools I am currently using which include:

• MS Outlook - because I have to use this for work and it syncs to my work mobile and to my home PC
• Stickies - because this is an excellent freeware virtual sticky note program
• AAA - because this provides a multi-tab notepad with alarms and recurring event reminders
• Essential PIM (freeware version) - I would use this a lot more if I could easily sync with Outlook for free.

I have also tried gadgets like the AceCad DigiMemo (AceCad DigiMemo - Save Your Handwritten Notes and Convert to Images, Doc or PDF) to help me.

So what have I tried to do to help with completing tasks at work has been quite useful. I believe this is because at work the issues are to do with time management far more than reluctance to carry out the task. Various GTD sites on the web suggest that people often are afraid to start a task because of the fear of failure. This can be either in completing the work or in not meeting the expected standard. I like to think that most of the time this does not apply to my work tasks, although I can see that occasionally there may be a problem with a particularly difficult or unusual task. However, I never seem to be reluctant to start but may have some delay in the middle while I reflect on whether things are going well or if I have covered all the angles. Therefore, using tools that help identify what I need to do i.e my "To Do" list combined with time management and prioritisation through tabbed notes, alarms and reminders, keeps me on track.

What Am I Not Doing?

What are the Tags?

Popularity: 14% [?]

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