Category: Software Reviews

  • XP Syspad Centralizes System Tools

    XP Syspad Centralizes System Tools

    XP Syspad from the very useful xtort.net site is described by its author as

    Windows system monitoring utility that allows easy access to Windows system information and Windows system utilities


    XP Syspad

    Startup of XP Syspad is on the slower side, especially at first launch as it seems to be collecting relevant info including the running processes list that it present in its main window. Continuous run of the program is not at all memory intensive and it uses well under 10MB of memory. The main attraction of XP Syspad is that it presents over 250 utilities and functions in one central place. Some of the features worth mentioning is easy two click access to such things as the Windows’ HOSTS file, navigating to the Disk Partition Manager, getting an expanded list of recent items opened under My Menus—>Recent, recovering Window’s and Office product keys, finding out the Windows’ installation date and even a dynamic small calender under the ? menu.
    Some functions did not work or not as intended on the tested system (Windows XP Pro SP3), for example System—>List Installed
    XP Syspad
    Drivers and the rather awkward (see image) Network—>Download Internet File. In the former case nothing happened and the latter case google.com’s homepage was the default download and action was taken even when the operation was cancelled.
    Also of note is the list of programs installed (Programs—>List Installed Programs) because the list presented included things like Norton that have long been uninstalled.  XP Syspad must be reading the list or components from the registry, where programs such as Norton are notorious for leaving orphan entries, because certainly such entries do not exist in the Add/Remove Programs section of the system’s control panel.

    Of most use to not so expert computer users but notwithstanding a few oddities XP Syspad an useful utility overall. Requires Windows 2000 or XP.

  • Locate32 Quicker And Easier Way Of Finding Files

    Locate32 Quicker And Easier Way Of Finding Files

    Locate32 is described by its author as

    Locate32 is a file finder which works by indexing all your files on your hard disk drive…

    When launching and using Locate32 for the first time the user creates a database which indexes all files on any drive. The indexing is relatively quick and can even be over in seconds depending on the number of files and folder on the system. Much like Unix systems it stores databases of directory structures and file names making post-indexing searches instant.

    Much like the native Windows’ search Locate32 supports searching by extension, size, creation and modification date. It also supports such search queries as matching whole names only and searching by file and folder name only.

    Locate32

    Database Info can be accessed under the File menu and includes such info as the size of the database and number of directories and files indexed. File—>Update Database is the place to re-run the database indexing when a number of new files have been created and to therefore keep the index up to date. Automatic updating of the database is also schedulable via the program’s settings.

    Additionally Locate32 has numerous settings that allows the user to tweak the program’s behaviour. It is possible to control such things as what happens when the program is closed (for example ‘minimized to tray’) and how the search results are sorted. The location of database(s) can be changed and database for separate searches, searching other drives for example, created. Keyboard shortcuts are also available for such things as activating controls (ie refining search or choosing a search criteria) and launching a database update. Finally the Advanced tab of Locate32’s Settings (see image) lets the user change such things as the Show As You Type behaviour, Logical Operations (inclusion of the + operator for example) and to things like setting another program to open folders. The latter is very useful when the native Windows Explorer is replaced by an alternative.

    Locate32 is compatible with Windows 98, ME, NT4, 2000, XP and Vista, is available as both 32bit and 64bit versions and can be portable.

  • Minipad2, Store Notes, Set Reminders And More

    Minipad2, Store Notes, Set Reminders And More

    Minipad2 is a tabbed, lightweight and portable – 305KB download – single executable that can be used as an text editor, note taker, calculator, dictionary and memo or reminder (tray popup without sound) program.
    It is also capable of watching the clipboard and inserting pre-defined text such as time, date, separator and signature – which can be defined via the Tools—>Edit Template menu. New tabs can be created for separate notes and aforementioned included functions. The features such as the calculator, memo and dictionary are available via typing and following a certain format. For example a memo or alarm can be set by typing

    @m1, 15 9:00, write report

    and pressing enter, this translates into a popup reminder every first and 15th of the month at 9AM with the text ‘write report’ (see images for two more examples).

    minipad2

    Other examples and syntax are given in the accompanying help file. Search and replace is also available but in my testing the search only worked on the current visible tab and not all text stored across the many tabs I had open. Another feature of minipad2 is called Special Effect. Effects can be enabled under the Options menu and chosen in Options—>Preferences. The two main effects available are auto scroll and auto hide. The auto scroll rolls up the window leaving only minipad2’s title bar intact. Auto hide, which didn’t perform as expected in my testing and usage, hides the window when focus is off minipad2, much like the feature available with Windows’ taskbar. But as mentioned, in my testing the minipad2 window seemed to want to hide – the animated effect hovered over my monitor – but the minipad2 window didn’t actually go away.

    minipad2

    To use the dictionary one or more chosen languages must be added via the Preferences menu after they have been downloaded separately. Currently Chinese, Spanish, French, German and Japanese are available.
    A very interesting application with a couple of unusual features and different ways of doing things. Minipad2 is a single executable that after hours of being used and tested remained under 10MB of RAM usage. Minipad2 is compatible with Windows 2000, XP, 2003 and Vista.

  • Capture All You Want From The Internet Using Canaware NetNotes

    Capture All You Want From The Internet Using Canaware NetNotes

    Canaware NetNotes allows the capture, organization and storage of whole webpages or excerpts directly from a browser. It is really easy to create a knowledgebase or simply a collection of text using NetNotes. The captured material can be categorized, highlighted and even edited using the built-in editor. The captures are organized and saved in folders that reside within libraries, all of which are fully searchable, movable and mergeable. It is further possible to email notes and captures and also to back them up in zipped format and since all are stored in HTML they remain usable even without the NetNotes application.

    netnotes

    Canaware NetNotes’ usage consists of highlighting the portion of a web page or just right clicking (Firefox requires the accompanying but optional Add-on) on an empty area of a page and choosing the Export To Canaware Netnotes option. The program then opens with the option of saving the capture and optionally editing its title and adding keywords. Prompt will be given to choose and download any attachments that are part of the capture as in elements that may exist within a webpage.
    Under the Tools—>Option menu such things as the default library, in which to automatically save new notes, is configurable but more importanly it is possible to make the captures safe by forcing NetNotes to filter out potentially dangerous elements and scripts. (see image above)
    Canaware NetNotes runs on Windows 2000 and up and requires Internet Explorer or Firefox and perhaps as a con the .Net framework. The limitation on browsers of either not being directly supported or needing an Add-on can be viewed as a negative, and when there is no support such as for Opera, to a positive because one is not forced into yet another download and can just launch the program directly to and paste the contents of the clipboard and use the program.

  • Easily Gather And Collect Notes with CintaNotes

    Easily Gather And Collect Notes with CintaNotes

    CintaNotes is a lightweight and potentially extremely useful note taking program. At a portable download of 344KB and an executable of 625KB CintaNotes is useful and small. Notes are collected via a configurable hot key (Ctrl+F12 by default), a simple paste or by opening the program and using the Add option. In the first two cases the title of the note is automatically taken from the originating application window and if it happens to be from a web browser the URL is added to the note’s Link field.

    CintaNotes

    Each note is dated and can be tagged. A real time search bar finds them by any or all of text and title, time, link, title, text and tag. It is also possible to merge notes by selecting them, by using the usual Ctrl or Shift keys, and pressing Ctrl+M. The font and color of notes and the whole program itself can be configured as well. A hot key is configurable to bring focus to the program and also to add a new note. Perhaps the feature that makes CintaNotes most useful and hassle free is the Silent Clipping one. When checked under the Options menu the program window does not pop up whenever a note is added, when using the aforementioned Ctrl+F12 for example, the program will instead show a balloon tip at the system tray with the contents of the note being captured.

    CintaNotes runs on Windows 2000, 2003, XP and Vista and fully supports unicode text.

  • Know Your System Better With Startup Control Panel

    One of the ways to see which process(es) and program(s) are taking over your system is to look at which starts along with your computer. Windows Start menu has a Startup shortcut that shows the often legitimate programs that start for the current or all users.

    Startup Control Panel and StartupMonitor by Mike Lin add to the arsenal of useful and simple tools that give computer users a better picture of their system. They provide powerful yet lightweight means of viewing, controlling and detecting possible resource hogs and even security threats.

    StartupMonitor at a 60KB download runs in the background and is only seen when a program wants to add an entry to the system’s startup. Sometimes such an entry may be necessary, may be a program such as a calendar has to be visible or running all the time, in which case the change or addition can be accepted with one click. At other times the program may be suspicious or not wanted, when for example a program wants to call home to retrieve updates automatically, and here a simple No click will do the job. StartupMonitor will add an entry to the Windows Start menu to stop it running, if needed.

    Startup Control Panel at a 34KB executable (to be installed) or a 59KB zip file (run straight after unzipping) download on the other hand has an interface.  It is divided into tabs that let the user view virtually all entries in the system’s startup. The tabs are Startup User which shows the items for the current user, Startup Common which shows the ones for all users, Run Once which are those that can occur when a program or report is installed or generated and needs to run at the next system startup only, HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE for the registry entries affecting all users when programs add a startup entry to the Windows registry and HKEY_CURRENT_USER for the registry entries affecting the current user.

    Each entry can be viewed in the control panel and unchecked to not run or simply be deleted to not be seen and be sent to the program’s Deleted tab. Much like looking at the aforementioned Startup shortcut provided by Windows some of the tasks acheivable by the StartupControl Panel tools can be done when accessing Microssoft’s own MSConfig but Startup Control Panel offers a more complete picture of what is happening. One additional feature is that it is possible to send an entry to other tabs via one right click. Sending to different tabs simply means, for example, that a process can be sent form Startup User to Startup Common and therefore allowing it to run for all users.

    Startup Control Panel and StartupMonitor are two extremely worthy free downloads from Mike Lin.

  • Clipboard Help+Spell From Donationcoder.com

    Clipboard Help+Spell From Donationcoder.com

    I wrote about the Donationcoder.com’s website in a previous article and one of the more impressive and useful software written there is the Clipboard Help+Spell.

    There are certainly many freeware, well reviewed, useful and popular clipboard utilities available. The sadly semi-abandoned Yankee Clipper, the open source Ditto and ArsClip just to name three and of course the clipboard capabilities of the all powerful PowerPro.

    Clipboard Help+Spell is nevertheless a worthy contender, if not down right winner in the category. It is simply described as

    …a text-based clipboard utility

    But it has many features. Among its many features is the ability to archive and delete clipboard based on configurable dates, defining hot keys for viewing, pasting and working with the stored clipboards, filtering entries to find the forgotten ones and backing up the database of collected clipboards. The features don’t stop there, an internal editor spell checks and adds text editor features to manipulate the entries as well. For example it possible to change the case of the clipboard entries within the editor, strip characters, add lines and even find and replace words using regular expressions.

    A clipboard utility won’t be complete without the ability to permanently store ‘favorites’ and in this case it is only a matter of dragging an entry into the said category (see images below).

    cliphs1cliphs2

    Having said all that one of the most innovative features is the ability to create ‘Virtual Folders’. This feature allows certain definable clipboards to be grouped separately. For example a preset Virtual Folder is  ‘Clips With URLs’ and the way it is defined, using SQL database conditional statements, is as follows

    (Lower(ClipText) LIKE ‘%http:%’) OR (Lower(ClipText) LIKE ‘%www.%’) OR (Lower(ClipText) LIKE ‘%https:%’) OR (Lower(ClipText) LIKE ‘%ftp:%’)

    in that the clipboards containing any of http, https, ftp or www will be placed as a subset of all clipboards under a separate icon (as shown in the above image).

    The program’s Windows tray icon is configured such that left click, double left click, right click and double right click are all defined and show stored clips, the program’s main window, the program’s general menu and the program’s on and off toggle respectively. With Clipboard Help+Spell there is a lot to play around with and discover, well worth the support and download.

  • Donationcoder.com

    Donationcoder is an active and unusual website. It is a one where not only members get help on computer and programming issues but one where useful code and programs are being written and reviewed everyday. What makes donationcoder even more unusual is the section they call Coding Snacks. This is where you get ‘Tiny programs coded on demand while you wait’. Through this and other active members and authors donationcoder has, over the years, accumulated a vast array of programs made for a wide variety of useful tasks. Some minor and some pretty innovative and even more useful. Software creation challenges such as the yearly NANY (New Apps For The New Year) challenge have also added to the list of programs available.

    Right now a 4th anniversary fundraiser has been setup with the aim of raising $8000 to cover all kinds of costs and any amount of money donated will entitle the donator to a non-expiring key to all the software created and even those that will be created in the future. Other benefits include full access to their shareware discount deals and more.

    But most of all donating is a way to support donationcoder, a place where members are helping each other in very concrete means. For a fun, tongue in cheek calculation of how much a person can and should donate check out the Scientifically Proven Optimal Donation Amount Chart.

  • White Spaces Internet

    White Spaces internet is one of the latest and perhaps most promising and close to reality internet technologies. It is supported by many of the biggest industry leaders such Microsoft and Google through alliances such as White Spaces Coalition and Wireless Innovation Alliance but also grassroots and non-profit groups that are closer to the consumer’s need such as Free Press that campaigned for it when the FCC was considering White Spaces.

    White Spaces refers to the use of an empty part of the broadcast spectrum that can be made available for other use. This year in the United States and soon in Canada television stations will cease to broadcast in the 700Mhz range and some consumers will need to use the much publicized digital convertors. That broadcast range has already been tested and approved by the FCC to deliver high speed internet. Years of TV viewing have shown the usability and range of TV broadcasts and how that signal penetrates walls and travels through obstacles. This characteristic makes the (up to) 700Mhz range almost ideal for internet delivery.

    With that potential seemingly close to realization there is a promise of cheaper and better internet access that may even be able to deliver 40Mbps – easily 8 times more than most current offerings – speeds in the near future. Most consumers having been forced into limited speeds, poor support and limited infrastructure by traditional telephone and cable companies have to be happy with a new technology that seems to hold real promise. Devices to deliver this, while not fully defined or publicized, are near and should be available in the not too distant future.

  • Internet2, The Next Generation Internet

    Internet2 is a concept born in 1996 as the needs of some universities and institutions where not being served by the traditional internet. Some universities met and decided to implement a non-profit internet that would provide high speed and high performance links for their use. The possible start back then was a 2.5Gbps network but that has since been upgraded to 100Gbps links.

    One high profile usage is the CERN Large Hadron Collider coming fully online this year. Using this network scientists can work with what they expect to be 15 million GB of data generated annually by the LHC.

    Initially Internet 2 worked by using a software detective that relayed a packet to a server to check the connection and bandwidth and then the time it took for a returning packet to get back to the sender was used as a means of confirming the suitability of the connection. Now Internet2 mainly works by allowing those who use it to set up temporary networks, called Dynamic Circuit Networks, to have access to very high transfer and performance rates for periods that they need it.

    Such large bandwidth has many applications like videoconferencing just to name one, it is also being tested using IPv6 and developing the next generation of 911.

    Since the danger is that they have created something that will cost more to access and use the advocates and project collaborators insist that they are for network neutrality, that is they oppose extra fees and charges to access certain networks or ‘parts’ of the internet that are faster or deliver more content.

    Lots more to read about this promising present and future at the Internet2 website, at Wikipedia and articles such as this at Internet Evolution