What’s This About?

ClipGuru is a semi Portable Application which monitors the clipboard and stores the information it finds there as text or images. This type of application is generally referred to as a “clipboard extender”. It stores this information in a database which provides a history of stored clips that can be reused. It has a variety of useful options for both storing and recalling the stored information

Why Would You Want It?

ClipGuru is a small, portable and light on resources. It allows you to store text clips or images (copied on there own without any text).So if you need to store text on it’s own, or images on their own, with the option to save different sets and paste multiple selections this could be very useful.

What Does It Do - The Essentials?

Summary:

• Monitors the Clipboard for text or Images
• Stores information in a simple database
• Multiple storage sets
• Clip text searching
• Combine clips
• Combined pasting
• Manage clips

Pros: What’s Good?

Features & Benefits

• Freeware

(more…)

Popularity: 13% [?]

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

What’s This About?

DisplayFusion (Portable Freeware version*) provides the ability to move and resize windows between monitors in a multi-monitor setup. It also allows you to set wallpaper and backgrounds from photos on your computer or from Flickr. It is a great alternative to the shareware “Ultramon” program.

* There is a shareware upgrade to a Pro version however the Free version does everything that I need.

Why Would You Want It?

If you use a multi-monitor setup (and for a serious computer user the only reasons I think you shouldn’t is lack of money or space) then moving windows, particularly maximized windows between the monitors is something you wan to easily do. The ability of DisplayFusion to move a maximized window from one monitor to another by dragging and dropping makes it worth installing for just this one feature. The addition of hotkey window operations and wallpaper/background management are just an incredible bonus

What Does It Do - The Essentials?

Summary:

• Drag Maximized Windows between monitors/screens
• Move, Size and Maximize Windows with Hotkeys
• Set Separate Images as Screen Background/Wallpaper
• Auto Snap Windows to Monitor edges

Pros: What’s Good?

Features & Benefits

• Freeware

(more…)

Popularity: 20% [?]

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

What’s This About?

Flexible Renamer is a portable program that will rename files and folders, change file attributes including dates, change tags for different file groups (music, photos, docs, etc.) It has very powerful rules and methods combined with a wide range of options, defined presets and methods as well as both simple and advanced ways of working.

Why Would You Want It?

The need to rename batches of files in collections of photos, music tracks, documents, archives, websites, etc. can be met by many programs. However, Flexible Renamer offers this and more in a small portable program which includes comprehensive renaming rules, changing dates, changing attributes, changing tag information for most common tagged files and the ability to create batches of prenamed files. Sometimes you just want to add something to a file name, for instance you may want to add a place and date to the name of all the photos you took on holiday. You might want to add  something to a batch of documents that all relate to the same project. As you can use the file date for sorting in many file explorer programs you may want to change dates as a method of indicating that older dated files are part of a “most recent” set on a particular subject. This, combined with the ability to also change the folder names and tag information makes Flexible Renamer very powerful

What Does It Do - The Essentials?

Summary:

• Renames Files and Folders
• Provides comprehensive rules and rename methods
• Changes Attributes including dates
• Changes File Tag information for common tagged file types
  such as photos, music, documents, etc.
• Adds Shell Extensions for Context Menus (Optional)

Pros: What’s Good?

Features & Benefits

• Freeware

(more…)

Popularity: 29% [?]

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

What’s This About?

PicPick is a portable freeware screen capture program and a drawing program combined with some other useful drawing tools including a screen ruler, color picker on screen drawing and screen protractor. The capture and drawing utilities are very much like Faststone Capture which is no longer freeware.

I first saw this on winAddons.com a couple of days ago, since when it has “been doing the rounds” on many of the tech blogs. So read on if you are interested in some more detail and screenshots on the full potential of this great little portable program. The version reviewed here is PicPick 1.8

Why Would You Want It?

PicPick provides several tools in one small portable package, all integrated into a single main Manager window(GUI) and also accessible from the system tray menu.

The main functions can all be used independently of each other so you could still use it as a drawing and picture or photo annotation tool even if you don’t need screen capture. Of course you might just want it as a free, portable and very versatile screen capture tool. The fact that extra tools are included is a real bonus

What Does It Do - The Essentials?

Summary:

• Captures Screen
  • Full Screen
  • Active Window
  • Window Control
  • Region
  • Fixed Region
  • Freehand
  • Repeat Last Capture
  • Autoscroll (for pages longer than the on screen window)
• Drawing Program/Image Editor with
  • Standard shapes, arrows, lines, etc.
  • Blur, opacity, hue, contrast, brightness, pixelate, etc.
  • Rotate, Flip, etc. (Whole or selected part of picture)
• On Screen Drawing Tools (Whiteboard)
• Color Picker
• Color Palette
• Screen Crosshair
• Screen Protractor

Pros: What’s Good?

Features & Benefits

• Freeware
• Portable

(more…)

Popularity: 31% [?]

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

What’s This About?

Winsock XP Fix is a tiny utility whose only purpose is to simply repair Winsock and TCP/IP errors from errors or corruption of the registry, etc. It also makes use of the Freeware ERDNT Registry Backup Program so that you can make a backup copy of the registry before changes are made.

Why Would You Want It?

Sometimes things just get messed up for no obvious reason, there are many reasons corruption of files and settings can occur. It may be a power failure or spike, a hardware malfunction or the action of some malware,virus or spyware. Maybe TCP/IP and Winsock settings are changed by mistake on the users part or installation/removal of software causes a problem. Firewall software may change settings or some sort of utility that needs proxy settings to work. The removal of Adware is a very common cause of these sort of problems. Whatever the cause it can be very difficult and time consuming to try and manually sort out the registry settings.

Winsock XP Fix provides a very simple and easy to use solution to the problem. It provides the means to backup the registry although, personally, I would prefer to create a Restore Point in Windows before applying.

So if you have Internet or Local Area Network Connection problems WinSock XP Fix is well worth a try

but create a Restore Point or backup your registry first

What Does It Do - The Essentials?

Summary:

• Repairs Winsock and TCP/IP Registry Settings
• Provides Registry Backup Facilities
• Gives Access to System Information Dialogs

Pros: What’s Good?

Features & Benefits

• Freeware

(more…)

Popularity: 40% [?]

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

What’s This About?

MMM Free is a utility that runs in the background that automatically alters the Explorer context menu to a configuration that you can choose. MMM Free is a cut down version of a shareware product but it does a very good job of moving items that you use infrequently to a “Rarely Used” Submenu. It is a good alternative to using ShellExView which was reviewed earlier. Control Your Context Menu Items with ShellExView

Why Would You Want It?

When ShellExView was reviewed I said:

MS Windows provides many shell extensions as part of the OS. Also lots of programs add their own commands to the Explore context menu, Internet Explorer, etc. when they are installed to help with using the program. This makes the right click context menu in the system applications very useful for carrying out all sorts of operations and commands, however they can become cluttered with commands you never need or use. This can make it difficult to find what you want.

MMM Free allows you to still have all the context menu items available but in a sub menu to the single line “Rarely Used” in the context menu rather than switching them off permanently (or until you enable them again using the ShellExView program). So MMM Free gives you the option of always having all the context menu items but in a more user friendly and manageable arrangement.

What Does It Do - The Essentials?

Summary:

• Wakes up your computer from Standby or Hibernation
•  

Pros: What’s Good?

Features & Benefits

• Freeware

(more…)

Popularity: 39% [?]

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

What’s This About?

ShellExView provides a detailed list of the shell extensions (in-process COM objects) that are used to display items in the Context Menu of Windows Explorer. These can then be individually disabled or enabled allowing you to have only those Context Menu Items that you really need.

Combined with a utility such as CMenuExtender which was reviewed here:

Create Your Own Explorer Context Menus with CMenuExtender

You can control your context menus to display only what you need and create commands to do what you want

Why Would You Want It?

MS Windows provides many shell extensions as part of the OS. Also lots of programs add their own commands to the Explore context menu, Internet Explorer, etc. when they are installed to help with using the program. This makes the right click context menu in the system applications very useful for carrying out all sorts of operations and commands, however they can become cluttered with commands you never need or use. This can make it difficult to find what you want. With ShellExView you an disable the menus you don’t need. ShellExView does not remove the shell extensions it just disables them so that you can always enable anything you need to get back. This also means that you can experiment using ShellExView to see whether you are making the right choice without any fear or permanently loosing any functions.

What Does It Do - The Essentials?

Summary:

• Lists all Shell Extension Objects on the PC
• Allows Enabling or Disabling of the Extensions
• Allows Details to be Copied to text or HTML files
• Opens Windows Registry at the Selected Object Entry
• Marks “Suspicious” Extensions
• Column Sorting of Display
• Highlight & Sort on Enabled/Disable Items

For more details about Shell Extensions and what they do go to ShellExView

Pros: What’s Good?

Features & Benefits

• Freeware

(more…)

Popularity: 28% [?]

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

What’s This All About?

Windows Seizer is a quick and easy to use portable application that lists all the program Windows that exist on the system including hidden and “no caption” ones.  Not only does it list the windows but it allows them to be closed individually or in groups, off screen (lost) windows to be moved on screen and processes to be killed. It also provides details of the windows size and class as well as some process details like a task manager

Why Do You Want It?

I wrote the other day in Recover Hidden & Off-screen Windows with this Simple Tip and Freeware Program ForceWindowVisible -

Sometimes Windows just disappear off of your computer monitor. There are several reasons why this may occur:

• Changing Screen Resolution
• Using a Single Monitor after using a Dual Monitor Display
• Corruption of Registry or “ini” file data
• Programming Errors
• Program Conflicts

When this happens you need a simple and reliable method to get them back onto your screen.

Windows Seizer not only does this in a quick, easy and intuitive way, it also provides some very useful additional functions as detailed below.

What Does It Do - The Essentials?

Summary:

• Displays a list of all current windows
• Displays or hides the window
• Moves the window to the top left of the monitor
• Closes Groups of Windows
• Shows the Desktop
• Kill Processes

Pros: What’s Good?

Features & Benefits

• Freeware

(more…)

Popularity: 27% [?]

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

What’s This All About?

A simple way to find hidden and off-screen windows using a tiny freeware program and a quick way to move “visible” windows back on screen.

Why Do You Need to Know?

Sometimes Windows just disappear off of your computer monitor. There are several reasons why this may occur:

• Changing Screen Resolution
• Using a Single Monitor after using a Dual Monitor Display
• Corruption of Registry or “ini” file data
• Programming Errors
• Program Conflicts

When this happens you need a simple and reliable method to get them back onto your screen.

Using Windows Standard Move Function

Sometimes you will see the “lost” window in the Taskbar and right clicking will allow you to carry out the normal windows functions. What has happened is that the coordinates the system has for the window (for whatever reason) make the system think the window should be displayed somewhere off of your actual monitor screen.

This standard Move function tip is available from many sites offering advice, hints and tips – this is what you need to do:

Right Clicking on the Taskbar Icon

This displays the standard windows controls and in this instance we are interested in Move

Click on Move and the move cursor will be displayed in the middle of the title bar for the window (although obviously you can’t see it on an offscreen window).

The important thing now is to press one of the cursor (up/down/right/left arrow) keys on the keyboard to attach the window to the mouse. If you don’t do this you can move the Move cursor onto the visible screen and click with the mouse but nothing happens (Why? It would have been simple and obvious for MS to have programmed it to work this way )

When you click on any one of the arrow keys it attaches the Window to the mouse cursor and you can drag it back to the visible area. Of course if you don’t know where it is and it is a long way off your actual screen this can be a bit of a hit and miss process.

Actually when you hit the arrow key it also moves the window in the direction of the arrow so you can use the arrows to get the window back but this can be even more long winded and frustrating if you don’t know where the window is in relation to your screen.

What is clear is that this solution works but can be difficult when you don’t know where the window is. Also if the window is “hidden” it will not show in the taskbar so you can’t use the above method,  so what is a better solution?

Useing ForceWindowsVisible

This is a very simple, very small portable executable file which will list all the windows currently created on your PC by the operating systema nd the programs you are running.

However a word of caution. Windows and the programs you run may create many “hidden” windows that you are never meant to see. Take care if you display these windows, which may not have any visible information, as closing them may cause problems or crashes of programs and the system.

What Does It Do - The Essentials?

Summary:

• Displays a list of all current windows
• Displays or hides the window
• Moves the window to the top left of the monitor
• Resizes the window to fit on the screen

Pros: What’s Good?

Features & Benefits

• Freeware

(more…)

Popularity: 30% [?]

Bookmark It