RGdot

Month: January 2012

  • CaptureIt Plus: Simple Screen Capture

    CaptureIt Plus is a simple and small screen capture or screenshot program. It sits in the system tray and can do one of nine captures modes. It can be used using the mouse or the keyboard. Right click on the tray icon to access one of capture options or set keyboard shortcuts or hot keys to take screenshots using the keyboard.

    CaptureIt Plus

    The capture modes are Scheduled, Repeat Last Capture, Active Window, Window, Circle, Fixed Region, Free Form, Full Screen and Rectangle. The Scheduled option doesn’t have a keyboard hot key setting, when it is chosen a window prompts for a delay – “Schedule capture after X seconds” – with a choice of any one of the windows open at the time or just full screen.

    CaptureIt Plus’ output settings can be configured to save to another folder instead of the default Documents\My Pictures\CaptureItPlus location. The format and quality can be tweaked too. The output file name can be changed and there is an option to include the cursor in the capture.

    Sound notification is available. CaptureIt Plus can send captures to the clipboard, default email program, editor or printer with hot key settings available for the clipboard, email and printer options.

    CaptureIt Plus is licensed under GNU GPL and has plugin support which should be in development. The To Do section on the author’s site mentions Window scrolling – to capture webpages longer than the screen – support to come.

  • PC Wizard: Even More System Specs Than You Need

    PC Wizard (Version: 2010 1.961 as of this post) is a freeware from the same developers as CPU-Z, the popular CPU information utility. PC Wizard provides a lot of information about its host PC.

    PC Wizard

    Upon startup, which takes a few seconds, the Hardware section is first.

    Hardware has 12 sections for System Summary, Mainboard, Processor, Video, I/O ports, Drivers, Printers, Devices, Multimedia, Network, Power Status and finally Voltage, Temperatures and Fans. The information available are specs for system manufacturer, Direct X, PCI slot, Open GL, disk drives, Twain devices, UPnP, audio and video codecs, network card and connection, battery status, if applicable, and lots more.

    The Configuration section features information on Windows serial number, system uptime, default browser, default email client, control panel, desktop appearance, running processor and threads, DLL files, OLE applications, Microsoft components, fonts, Windows updates installed, uninstall info, startup info, file extensions, Window security status, services, .NET Framework and also a passwords section. Interestingly passwords detected one old and one current MSN (Live) Messenger password on the PC tested!

    The System Files section has viewers for boot.ini, system.ini, event logs, internet explorer cookies and history and a section on environment variables such as system paths, architecture and more.

    Resources section has IRQ info and a network sniffer with a list of IPs, ports and their state (listening, established, etc.)

    The Benchmark section has tools for various memory, processor and video tests and a global performance benchmark test to do them all together.

    Each section is printable and highlighted entries can be captured by the clipboard. The Tools menu has extras for enabling processor monitoring and gathering overclock information. PC Wizard is by no means the fastest program. Some info, like the DLL list for example, take a bit more than a few additional seconds to gather and present.

    PC Wizard

    PC Wizard is available in both portable and installer versions and should run on all Windows versions. As always with benchmark and system profile utilities some information may not be available if they are not supported either by the software or if they are not present on the host system.

  • Drag And Drop Notes: Freeware Notes Repository

    Drag And Drop Notes (Version: 1.1 as of this post) is a simple if somewhat unpolished note taker. Select any text in any application and drag and drop it in the program window to create a note.

    Drag And Drop Notes

    Drag And Drop Notes is basically a repository. There is no real organization in the way notes are saved, they are just added to a cell below others. It has a recycle bin (or is it history?) feature, one especially handy since a simple right click on a note deletes it. Clicking on the recycle bin icon brings up a window with deleted items ready to be restored. Double clicking a note brings up an edit window and notes can also be created manually using the + icon. Additionally images – local and web – are supported and so are local files. For images their ‘original’ location or path is saved as a note and a copy stored in the program’s Files folder (by default AgataSoft\AgataSoft Drag and Drop Notes\Data\Files) making Drag And Drop Notes a defacto document, but only image, manager.

    Notes are always saved automatically. Drag And Drop Notes works on Windows XP and newer.

  • RightNote: Powerful Notes Organizer

    RightNote is a feature packed notes organizer that can take simple notes and do more like include workable Excel spreadsheets (in its professional version). A not so limited freeware version has been recently released that is missing only a few features.

    RightNote

    I have decided to to post the complete review on the DonationCoder Mini-Reviews section at http://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=29681.0

    RightNote is a notes manager and organizer, it is also one able to import existing text (File—>Import). Each database is represented as a notebook, each notebook is then divided into pages (horizontally tabbed) and each page has its own notes structure within a tree…

     

  • iQ-Notes: Freeware Sticky Notes And More

    iQ-Notes (Version: 5.07 as of this post) is a freeware sticky notes program that has features that make it a good and fully capable notes taking one. It can create unlimited number of notes – and with a recent new feature up to 12 tabs inside each individual note.

    iQ-Notes

    iQ-Notes can back up and restore notes to and from an external source. Notes can be associated with a sound, each have their own colors and transparency, synchronized to a FTP server and sent encrypted over a network with a passphrase or password shared between the end users. A built-in clipboard manager can hold items and categorize items into URLs, email, IM and time based ones. Each clipboard item can then be saved as a note or made into a favorte clipboard item to remain there forever. iQ-Notes also features configurable hot keys for creating new notes, finding notes and hiding or unhiding all notes. It also keeps backups – daily – of all the data and has a built-in rollback feature to restore a backup.

    A new note is created via the tray icon or hot key and configured using the menu bar and drop down arrow to the top right of it. Colors, subject, title, alarm, tabs and password protection are just some of the available options. Furthermore each note can send and receive text from the clipboard, printed, emailed, saved as a text file, used as a contact list or expense entry and attached to a program window.

    iQ-Notes

    iQ-Notes also has a manage notes option which categorizes notes by date, changed date, subject and more. This window (see image above) includes a global search.

    iQ-Notes works on Windows 2000 and newer.

  • InDeep Notes: Unusual Freeware

    InDeep Notes (Version: 2.0 as of this post) is a somewhat unusual note taking application. The interface is not standard but beyond that it features some of the same minimalist aspects of a notepad type freeware. It saves notes in a ‘collection’ and each in a folder within its data folder keeping a tree like directory structure.

    InDeep Notes

    It has a search box, status bar and an action bar. The first requires a click to start a search and the latter has buttons to add empty lines, remove empty lines, export visible text as png and export note as png (both saved on the desktop). These final two features may not be the most common or useful and one created a very large non word wrapped png file that needed zooming to to be legible.

    Further options include changing the text encoding, changing the font for both the note area and the tree list and a toggle for word wrap.

    InDeep Notes is portable, runs on Windows XP, Vista and 7 and requires .Net Framework 2.0

  • QText For Quick Notes

    QText (Version: 2.50 as of this post) is a notepad alternative but it is best suited for quick note taking than anything else. It features a tabbed interface that saves each tab in a separate file. The notes are saved in individual txt or rtf files in the program’s application data folder but this is configurable in the Files tab of Tools—>Options.

    QText

    QText offers to create a new tab either in text or rich text with each having a slightly different toolbar. It features URL support, quick auto save and ‘regular’ auto save intervals that can be changed from the default 3 and 60 seconds.

    Hot keys Ctrl+Shift+Q (also configurable) bring up the program from the tray area and a carbon copy feature is available to keep a back up of the notes in another location, this is off by default but can be activated from the options. QText’s other features are zoom and formatting options (upper case, lower case and title case) plus sorting lines in ascending or descending orders.

    Version 3.0 in beta is coming soon with more improvements and changes to the portable version. It currently –  even in the portable version – saves notes in the application data (appdata) folder.

    QText is available in portable and installer versions and requires .NET framework 2.0.

  • System Information Is Another System Profiler

    System Information is a system profile and information utility. It presents the gathered information in a tabbed interface divided into System Info, Drive Info, Memory Info, Network Info, Installed Programs, Hardware Devices and Printers and Faxes.

    System Information

    System Info is an overview of the computer with Windows version, manufacturer, CPU type and speed and screen resolution. Drive Info has the specifications of the hard disk such as manufacturer, size, number of partitions, sector size and more. Memory Info has the RAM amount, total memory (including virtual) available and used. Network Info shows the network adapter type, machine name and MAC address. Installed Programs has a list of all programs, .NET framework, Adobe Acrobat and Internet Explorer versions installed. Hardware Devices is much like Windows’ device manager with a tree view showing processors, USB controllers and others (see image). Additional information on the devices is available when they are highlighted. Printers and Faxes provides information on peripherals and others like Microsoft XPS Document Writer and as the hardware tab before it additional info and properties are shown on the right hand side.

    The generic name of the program is sure to confuse. System Information requires .NET Framework 2.0 and should run on Windows 2000 and newer.

  • System Spec: Lots Of Information About Your PC

    System Spec (Version: 3.05 as of this post) is a system information utility that has some of the most comprehensive and complete set of information available. The initial screen provides a general system profile with the likes of Windows to BIOS version (see image) but there is lots more.

    System Spec

    System Spec divides the information it gathers into sections. These are, Personal Info, Memory Info, Display info, Disk Info, CD/DVD Info, CPU Info, BIOS Info, Internet, Installed Programs, Network, Printers, Sound, USB, Date and Time, Input Devices, Windows Version Info, Developer Info and USB Drives. A bit about the aforementioned sections follows.

    Personal Info. Windows username, install date, version, key and others.

    Memory Info. Total RAM, RAM speed, memory (RAM + virtual) totals, page file size and others.

    Display info. Monitor type, refresh frequency, GPU type, all resolutions supported by the graphics card and more.

    Disk Info. Hard disk size, (any) SMART info and file system flags.

    CD/DVD Info. Info on all optical devices installed including manufacturer, product ID and read and write speeds.

    CPU Info. A usage meter, CPU manufacturer, family, code name, voltage, clock speed, cache size and lots more.

    BIOS Info. BIOS identifier, version and date.

    Internet. Internet Explorer version, start page and other browsers detected. Explorer favorites and history.

    Installed Programs (see image below) is more impressive than most. A list of all programs installed, shortcut to uninstallers, installed location, date. Information on publishers and help info/URL if available.

    System Spec

    Network. A list of networks and network devices such as network adapter and if available a list of computers on the network.

    Printers. A list of attached printers.

    Sound. Sound card info and specs, a tone generator, shortcuts to system sounds, mixer settings and buttons to test speakers.

    USB. Number of USB controllers and info on any USB devices attached.

    Date and Time. Current time, time zone, system up time,  UTC (Coordinated Universal Time), daylight savings start and end dates and more.

    Input Devices. Information on the keyboard and mouse such as the type of mouse (number of buttons) and more.

    Windows Version Info. Root folder, service pack, 32 or 64 bit and a bit more.

    Developer Info. Java version, .NET version(s), ODBC drivers and IIS version among others.

    USB Drives. This section information that is already accessible in the section on attached devices.

    System Spec also features a whole set of commands and system shortcuts to control the system. Everything from shortcuts to safely remove USBs, start the run box, Windows Explorer, Task manager, Group Policy and hiding the taskbar (System menu). An on screen keyboard, System File Checker, Device Manager, Defrag, Scan Disk and Sys Edit (Programs menu). Standby Monitor, Eject CD and Mute Speakers and Microphone (Hardware menu).

    The File menu can save information to a CSV or HTML file and also print a selection. The Edit menu offers to save selected specs to the clipboard but this didn’t work in tests.

    System Spec is a freeware portable download and works on Windows versions going back to Windows 98.

  • KNote: Secure Note Keeping

    KNote (Version: 0.96 as of this post) is described as an advanced, secure note taking program. It is somewhat a mix of a blogging application and a wiki, borrowing a bit from the two in a password protected desktop-type interface. It is available in portable mode and optionally uploads notes into a private, unindexed webspace for sharing with others.

    KNote

    The note taking area is much like a blogging platform providing a TinyMCE toolbar that besides the usual formatting and other options includes a ‘KNote Link’ button to connect or link notes to each other similar to a wiki. KNote supports dragging or inserting links and images into notes, adding attachments to notes, tagging each note and creating journal type notes with dates as titles. Notes can also include portions of copied web pages with the format preserved pretty well. It can import notes from a TiddlyWiki HTML file.

    Log in to the program, click new note or new journal to start creating one, click done to finish and save and as mentioned optionally upload with any or all attachments intact. In the (Tiddly)Wiki tradition you can close other notes to view only the one needed and access all – including the tag list – from the right hand side list. The organizer panel on the left can group notes in their own virtual folders (right click—>add folder) and allows moving items or notes in between.

    KNote has a search function with results highlighted. KNote requires XP and newer and is free for personal use. To see a short demonstration two brief videos are available on knote.smartgoldfish.com.