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

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Popularity: 60% [?]

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What Is It?

Tab Counter (by Morac) is a very simple Firefox Add-on that simply displays the number of tabs that are currently open in a Firefox Window. You say “Is that all”, I say “Read on”

(Note: Not to be confused with a similar add-on TabCounter by felipc)

Why Would You Want It?

As you open more tabs in Firefox it uses more and more resources. It is very easy to open a lot of tabs, particularly if you have Firefox set to open links in new tabs or, if like me, you use an RSS reader to open interesting posts in Firefox. At some point  Firefox will stop displaying pages or grind to a halt due to lack of available memory and the performance of your computer will also suffer. When this happens will depend on many things such as your PC hardware, the number of other programs in use, the Firefox add-ons you have installed and the information on the web pages. My experience with Firefox 2 Portable on my main PC was about 100 open tabs before Firefox started to misbehave. With my Firefox 3 Portable setup (and less add-ons than the old setup) I can open over 130 tabs without to many problems). Each setup may be different and you would need to work your own limits out, but once you know these you can keep an eye on the tabs you have open and take action before problems occur.

What Does It Do – The Essentials?

Summary:

• Displays the number of Open Tabs
• Options on display and placement

Pros: What’s Good?

• Freeware

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Popularity: 42% [?]

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What Is It?

Clear Private Data is a Firefox Add-on that provides a toolbar button, a Tools Menu Option and a Hotkey to clear private data. It uses the standard Firefox Private Data functions which can be accessed through the Tools_Options menu and selecting the privacy tab. However, it gives much quicker access and the ability to clear user set options at the click of a single toolbar button.

Why Would You Want It?

There are many reasons why you may want to clear private data and the ability to do it quickly and easily is a bonus. I won’t go into the reasons some are perfectly legitimate and some not so.

However, a word of warning to anyone who thinks this will completely cover their tracks, it won’t,  You will need to take other measures to remove all information from your PC which may be held in all sorts of different places and in files that, although deleted, can be recovered.

But, apart from the obvious privacy aspects there are other things you can do with it that are very useful.

What Does It Do – The Essentials?

Summary:

• Provides quick access to Firefox Privacy Functions
• Allows Private Data to be cleared by a clicking on a single toolbar button
• Alternatively Private Data can be cleared using a Hotkey

Pros: What’s Good?

• Freeware

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Popularity: 36% [?]

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FileTypesMan is a superior replacement for the standard Windows File Types dialog*. It allows you to quickly find the file type you are looking for, add new, edit existing, add or change actions, etc. in a simple but comprehensive way.

* To access File Types open Windows Explorer then go Tools-Folder Options from the menu and select the File Types tab

Why Would You Want It?

Perhaps files aren’t opening with the program you expect when double clicked in Windows Explorer and you need to find out why or change it back. Perhaps you want to just know what a particular file extension does, particularly if you are concerned about viruses, spyware or malware. Perhaps you need to change the program that a file type opens with. For example you may have a favorite freeware text editor that you wish top associate with .txt files or other text type files such as log and ini files. You may wish to add additional actions which appear under the context menu when the file is right clicked in explorer often you will see with document type files options such as Open, Print, New at the top of the context menu. These are all actions set in file types. More advanced users will also be able to add or change DDE (Dynamic Data Exchange) information.

What Does It Do – The Essentials?

Summary:

• Displays all File Type Associations
• Easy Sorting by multiple columns
• Add/Edit File Associations
• Add/Edit Actions for File Associations
•  

Pros: What’s Good?

Features & Benefits

• Freeware

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Popularity: 32% [?]

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What Is It?

Find in Tabs is a Firefox Add-on that extends the standard find functionality of Firefox to search through the text in all open tabs not just the current tab. Results are displayed in a separate pane and provide one click linking to the appropriate tab/web page

Why Would You Want It?

To allow you to find words or phrases in all the web pages you have open in Firefox at any one time rather than just the current page/tab. I find that I often have multiple pages open relating to the same subject or that I have opened lots of pages, such as when I am using the Brief RSS Reader Firefox Add-on. Quite often I might want to find:

1. All the tabs containing information on a certain subject
2. A single tab containing a subject which I can’t easily find because I have so many open.

Find in Tabs is a great solution, it works quickly and efficiently with really good integration into the standard Firefox Find tool.

What Does It Do – The Essentials?

Summary:

• Finds text in all Firefox Tabs (Open web pages)
• Integrates into Standard Firefox Search
• Highlights text found
• Provides instant link to tabs when clicking on Results lines

Pros: What’s Good?

• Freeware

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Popularity: 21% [?]

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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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CMenuExtender is a small utility that will allow you to create your own Windows Explorer context menu. (That’s the menu that appears when you right click on a file or folder in Windows Explorer).

Why Would You Want It?

The Windows Explorer right click context menu can be very useful for carrying out all sorts of operations and commands. Many programs add their own commands to the context menu when they are installed to help with the program. Have you ever wanted to be able to copy or move a file to a specified directory as the following screenshot shows:

Here you can see items added by the Teracopy, WinRar, WinZip and Unlocker programs, all of which help in using the program>

With CMenuExtender you can create your own specific commands to do a wide variety of things, such as running specific programs to open particular files, moving or copying files to specific directories, running a DOS command, get information on the file and many other thins including user specified items.

What Does It Do – The Essentials?

Summary:

• Creates User Defined Contwext Menus in Windows Explorer
• Allows the menus and items to be edited
• Allows the menus and items to be moved
• Comes with a number of predefined commands

Pros: What’s Good?

Features & Benefits

• Freeware

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Popularity: 17% [?]

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What’s This About?

Copernic Desktop Search has been my desktop search utility of choice for sometime. The main reasons for this were

1. Searching Network Shares
2. Reasonably stable
3. OK Interface

and in that order!

There are obviously other desktop search products out there and I have tried most of them. I quite like Google but I don’t like the browser interface. X1 has a great interface with lots of options for refining searches and setting personal searches but won’t index network shares in the free version. MS Windows product was not as good as other solutions but I will certainly be looking at the new version 4 in the next few days. Anyway up till now I have been using Copernic on my home network to index 3 desktop PCs, 2 Laptops, my Windows Home Server drives and my NAS boxes.

Yesterday I was greeted by the following message box while suing Copernic Desktop Search 2.3:

A major new version "update” (note they don’t use the word upgrade) is always interesting with the promise of new features and options.

In fact the message box states:

We recommend that you update the current version to benefit from the latest features and improvements.

I duly updated by letting the automatic download and install process run.

What Did I Find?

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Popularity: 39% [?]

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Edison is a program that allows you to change and save the standard windows power options in a simple interface for two different times “Work” and “Other”. It also has a simple scheduling option to switch between the two on a once per day basis.

Why Would You Want It?

You can easily change the standard Windows Power Options Properties by selecting Power Options in Control Panel as the last post  Windows Power Schemes – Set and Forget to Reduce Your Electricity Bill:

As you can see from the post under the Windows Power Options Properties – Power Schemes tab you can change all the options which are more than in Edison, you can also save as many different power schemes as you want. The advantage of Edison lies in the ability to automatically schedule two different power schemes to suit your pattern of use.

What Does It Do – The Essentials?

Summary:

• Quick and Simple Setting of 2 Power schemes
• Schedule Switching between the schemes once per day
• Helps save power for desktop PCs

Pros: What’s Good?

Features & Benefits

• Freeware
• See estimated savings

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Popularity: 19% [?]

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What’s This About?

Windows Control Panel provides a means to customize settings for when various power saving options are triggered following a set period of “inactivity” (no use of keyboard or mouse). For a Desktop PC (rather than a laptop) these include:

1. Turn Off Monitor
2. Turn Off Hard Disks
3. System Standby
4. System Hibernate

There is also an option to select what happens when the PC power button is pressed.

Optimizing these settings to suit you personal use can bring benefits in saving electricity, reducing wear on hard drives and cutting costs.

This article is part of a series on power saving.

Why Would You Want to Use It?

Whether you run your PC 24/7 or just switch it on for occasional use you can still make a difference to your bills by using these settings. Laptop users will probably be more familiar with power saving as this is a way to reduce the drain on the battery when not connected to the charger. Laptop manufacturers often provide more sophisticated power saving utilities that allow more options to conserve battery power. Windows Vista also has more options than XP.

This article is based on XP and is for Desktops only. Vista is very similar, but with  more comprehensive options in a slightly different interface. The Laptop version of Power Options Properties provides additional tabs and options for when the Laptop is running on batteries or on mains power.

What Does It Do – The Essentials?

Summary:

• Turns off monitor after a predefined period of inactivity
• Turns off hard disks after a predefined period of inactivity
• System goes to Standby after a predefined period of inactivity
• System Hibernates after a predefined period of inactivity
• Set Power Button action to:
  • Do Nothing
  • Ask
  • Standby
  • Hibernate
  • Shutdown
• Enable Hibernation
• Configure UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply)

Pros: What’s Good?

Features & Benefits

• Part of standard Windows OS

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Popularity: 19% [?]

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