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

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Popularity: 25% [?]

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What Are They?

The Freecom ToughDrive 2.5″ is a mobile 2.5″ hard drive from Freecom with Anti-Shock mechanism contained in a durable, soft silicon cover. It has an integral USB 2.0 cable and plug and is USB 2.0, buspowered so you don’t need an additional power supply. It works with Win & Mac as well as other digital products with a suitable USB interface.

Why Would You Want One?

I could have written something here but the Freecom site has some text that I think covers what I would say anyway:

The toughest drive there is!
In today’s world mobility has become a key factor. People who are on the road carry their whole office with them. Notebook, mobile phone, PDA, external hard drive… Imagine what can happen when you’re late for a flight, running to the gate, and your external hard drive accidentally falls from your notebook case or out of your jacket pocket onto the floor… it breaks. Hundreds of hours of work, gigabytes of spreadsheets, documents, photo’s… all gone. Not anymore! Freecom introduces the ToughDrive. The ideal external storage solution for people on the move. Fitted with an internal anti-shock frame and a unique soft silicon cover, it can withstand bumps and drops so your drive is still fully functional after it has dropped. The ToughDrive ensures you can still access your valuable files.

What Are The Essentials?

Specification:

Product Short Spec – 250GB:
Compatibility: PC, Mac
Hard drive size: 250 GB
Interface type: Hi-Speed USB
Form factor: 2.5″
Buffer size: 8 MB
Average seek time: 12 ms
Spindle speed: 5400 rpm

View datasheet (PDF)

Pros: What’s Good?

Features & Benefits

• Durable, soft silicon cover
• Internal anti-shock mechanism – Withstand falling from 2 meters
• Integrated USB 2.0 cable
• Buspowered
• High quality, slimline design
• Fanless design thus no noise
• Including award-winning NTI Shadow backup software for PC and Mac,automatically & continuously protects your photo, music, video and other data files
• 2 years warranty

Cons:What’s Not So Good?

• Short integrated USB cable

(An extension is provided but it is one more thing to have to carry around)

Why Do I Use Them and

What is the ProReviewer Experience?

I have used 3 different Toughdrives over the past 2 years. an 80GB, a 160GB and my most recent purchase a 250GB. I bought the first one because I needed some lightweight portable storage as my Laptop only had a 30GB internal drive. I wanted something I could take on overseas trips and holidays with confidence that it was unlikely to fail due to being bumped about in the laptop bag or rucksack. The later purchases were to be able to carry more data and take some multimedia files for entertainment on my travels. The first drives also came with Acronis Backup software which is excellent. The latest drives come with NTI Shadow backup software which I haven’t tried.

The first two drives (80GB & 160GB) were called ToughDrive Pro but Freecom have now used this for a newer model which has both USB and FireWire connections. However you will see that both reviews in the “Useful Links” section below refer to the original model and describe them as the ToughDrive Pro so watch out for this inconsistency if you intend to purchase and don’t need the extra FireWire connection.

I have not been disappointed. Not a single problem with any of them which is more than I can say for 2 other drives I have used from other manufacturers. Acknowledging just 3 drives is a small sample to comment on overall reliability I have been very pleased with them and would recommend them to anyone. While a little more expensive the extra security and confidence you can get to your data when you need it is well worth it. The soft cases have not scuffed or marked with use despite being regularly carried in the front pocket of a rucksack with several items. Needless to say I keep a full copy of all my portable applications on all of them

Useful Links

Freecom

250 GB Drive – More info

View datasheet

PC Pro Review – Freecom ToughDrive Pro

Amazon.com – Freecom ToughDrive Pro – Hard drive – 250 GB

ZDNet Freecom ToughDrive Pro hard drive – 250 GB – Hi-Speed USB … (see Spec Tab)

What Other Posts are Relevant?

TIP – Format a USB Flash Drive for Speed or File Size – What’s Best and How to Overcome Some Problems

Data Rescue Tip – Use MS Utilities to Repair Outlook Files

Backup – Identify Where the Data Is – Find the Location of Your Information on a Windows Based PC?

Why You Want to Use Portable Freeware Applications

Why I decided to Write This Blog

What are the Tags?

Popularity: 17% [?]

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What Is It?

A utility that monitors the files accessed by any specified process or program. For the selected process it provides the filename and extension, last handle, last error, Opening module and address, the number of times that the file was opened and closed, number of read/write calls, total number of read/write bytes, the dll that made the last open-file call.

Why Would You Want It?

Ever wondered why a particular process is reading or writing to files so often or wondered what all the disk activity is about. Using Windows Task Manager and selecting the Read, Write and Other columns will show the overall activity but not which files or where they are located. This utility allows you to find out this information quickly and easily.

What Does It Do – The Essentials?

Summary:

• Provides details of files accessed by a selected process

Pros: What’s Good?

Features & Benefits

• Freeware

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Popularity: 14% [?]

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What Is It?

A POP3 and IMAP4 email viewer and manager. It will allow you to review emails on your email servers for multiple accounts in a tabbed interface. You can then choose to view the full text (but not HTML*) or delete the emails without full download.

*You can view the text portion of the HTML code.

Why Would You Want It?

To check, monitor and delete emails on your email account servers without having to download the complete email or using your email client. This can reduce the load on your Internet connection which can be useful if you are on a capped package or having to use a limited connection, particularly when travelling.

Why Do I Use It?

I use it mainly for quickly monitoring emails when I am away from home. The fact that I can carry it on a USB stick or removable drive or transfer it to another PC/Laptop makes it very useful to me. As removal of SPAM by ISP’s and the major web based mail providers is so good I don’t bother with defining rules, I simply delete manually anything that gets through.

What Does It Do – The Essentials?

Summary:

• Provides access to email on servers
• Allows email text to be viewed
• Allows emails to be deleted on the servers

Pros: What’s Good?

Features & Benefits

• Freeware

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Popularity: 21% [?]

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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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What Is It?

A simple and very versatile program to encrypt and decrypt text or files (less than 10mb in size).

Why Would You Want It?

To quickly and simply encrypt some text within a text file, word document etc. or to encrypt a small(ish) file.

Finding this utility started the other day, I needed to quickly encrypt a small amount of text. Full file encryption and attaching to an email seemed like a lot of work so I thought it would be useful just to encrypt the text. I then thought that quite often I send files to other people where we are developing the text but I don’t want some of them them to see all of it. So rather than cut out the text and send this to some of the group and then send a different file to others with all of the text, then have to get back different files and cut/paste the text into a master file, it would be better if I could just encrypt the sensitive information and send one file to everyone along with the password to reveal the hidden text to those who need to see it. This set me off on a mission to see if there was a suitable utility available. So I “Googled” using some of my essential keywords at the start of such a search which include “Freeware” and “Portable” – CliipSecure came up in the results so I downloaded it and tried it out. I was delighted with what I found .

What Does It Do – The Essentials?

Summary:

• Encrypts/Decrypts Text
• Encrypts/Decrypts Files (smallish)

So that is a pretty short list but the way it does it and the options available are what makes it so impressive.

Pros: What’s Good?

• Freeware

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Popularity: 27% [?]

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What Is It?

Recuva is a Portable Freeware Utility designed to very simply find and recover deleted files including photos on your hard drives or removable media including flash memory cards used in digital cameras, PDA’s and mobile phones, etc. It is deceptively simple to use but very effective and with a little experimenting surprisingly powerful. Hopefully this review will reveal a couple of things not obvious in a casual trial.

Having recently permanently deleted (i.e not sent the files to the Recycle Bin) a small test set up then decided I needed to re-run it with the same settings I used Recuva to get back the files. I have used several free and commercial utilities in the past for file recovery and was immediately impressed with the ease of use of Recuva, this prompted me to write this post.

Why Would You Want It?

If you have ever accidentally permanently deleted a file or suffered some hardware failure that has partially corrupted the media or file referencing/indexing system then the first thing you need is a file recovery utility. With a Windows OS a lot of file writing goes on behind the scenes so you should attempt to recover files immediately.

What Does It Do – The Essentials?

Summary:

• Recovers Deleted Files
• Works with fixed drives and removable Media

Pros: What’s Good?

• Freeware

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Popularity: 28% [?]

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Warning: This is a subjective and slightly philosophical post – My Personal Viewpoint – Feel Free to Disagree or Just Ignore

What resources does a program use, how do you measure them, does it mean anything?

Research, software testing, subjective viewpoints of the user all present challenges to giving expert opinion.

I received an interesting and valuable comment on my AVG 8 Free post (NEW – AVG Anti Virus 8 FREE – Quick Review) from mulligrub:

Good review but a few questions.

The 2 biggest pluses for AVG free in the past are:

1. Free &;

2. Very low overhead – doesn’t use much system resources in day to day operation

The negatives include:

Not the fastest when scanning

Only daily upadtes

Outdated User Interface (looks like that has been addressed)

No Spyware, rootkit, spam protection (Spyware included in AVG8)

So if we are getting more (spyware scanning) in a flashier package
still for free the only achillies heel I can see will be the resource
usage

have you compared what level of resources it is using now?

Does the user experience ‘feel’ slower?

I am keen to know before recommending to family and friends and will test for myself too

Cheers

Well firstly thanks to mulligrub for the comment, and secondly thanks for sparking my interest to write this post!

I felt a more detailed answer and explanation is required, far more than just a comment reply on the original post. This is because it gets into some of the basic philosophy and policy I have tried to put in place for this blog.

A bit of background information is relevant to explain where I am coming from:

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What Is It?

WatchDOG monitors active processes and performs a restart of that process if it is stopped or alternatively starts a different process.

Why Would You Want It?

Have you ever wished you could automatically restart an application if it crashes or is accidentally closed? Or have you ever needed to start a process when another finishes. WatchDOG is a small application that will do this for you in a simple, convenient and user friendly way.

What Does It Do – The Essentials?

Summary:

• Monitors all active programs/processes
• Starts a defined process when another stops OR
• Restarts the stopped process

Pros: What’s Good?

• Freeware

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Popularity: 29% [?]

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Reading a gHacks post earlier today reminded me that I have been using TaskBar Activate for quite some time on my main home PC. It is so unobtrusive that I had almost forgotten that it is there.

What Is It?

TaskBar Activate is a small utility that controls the autohide timing of the windows TaskBar. It is a simple utility last updated in 1999 but it still fulfills a very useful function in preventing the Windows taskbar appearing instantly every time your mouse pointer hits the bottom of the screen. It also provides similar functionality for other windows taskbars that are docked to any edge of the screen plus a couple of other useful features.

Why Would You Want It?

To help control the Windows Taskbar autohide actions, in particular it can be annoying when the taskbar inadvertently appears when you drag the mouse to the bottom of the screen(or other edge, depending on how you have windows bars set up) .

What Does It Do – The Essentials?

Summary:

• Delays the appearance of Windows autohidden taskbars

Pros: What’s Good?

• Freeware

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Popularity: 31% [?]

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