Tag: icon

  • Commands In Demand Delivers Lots

    Commands In Demand Delivers Lots

    Commands in Demand provides a collection of tools and shortcuts to make it a centralized all purpose utility.

    Commands in Demand

    Of note is that every time the program starts there is an error that it is “unable to add hot key Ctrl+Alt+S” (see image), in its help file this hot key combination is described as:

    …always reads the Clipboard contents (from any of its section you are working with, and even if its window is not visible), by pressing the Ctrl+Alt+S keys’ combination from your keyboard

    Going down the program’s sections Commands in Demand includes the following:

    It can kill unrepsonsive or other tasks, remove idle processes, copy text from any system error message, restart Windows Explorer, open task manager and kill a print job.

    Next is a section to manage Windows Explorer with buttons to open subfolders, go one level up or deeper, minimize or restore windows, keep the active window on top, resize the active window, add transparency to it and more.

    A Clipboard section that can read clipboard items, save them to a text file among others.

    A multi-page Desktop section to show or hide desktop icons, use a screen magnifier, an on screen keyboard, capture active or other areas of the screen and gain access to Windows 7’s GodMode control panel.

    The Devices section has shortcuts to Device Manager, open and close optical drives and safely remove USB.

    Files and Folder has a text file joiner, hash checksum calculator, a list alphabetizer tool ( that can import text files or work with manually enteredĀ  text) and a few more shortcuts.

    Graphics has a color picker, EXIF viewer and image convertor.

    Icons can extract icons from files, hide and show desktop icons and refresh them too.

    Internet has the shortcut to a translator, HOST file editor and additionally a shortcut to Google and Neave flash maps and another to search using any of 12 search engines.

    Memory and CPU has live CPU and memory usage meters and an ‘Instant memory cleaner’ button.

    Miscellaneous features a calendar that can calculate days between dates and a few ‘stress killing’ games.

    Network has the shortcut to the Network Connections window and a tool to create Network and TCP/IP statistics reports.

    System is another multipage section with shortcuts to the command prompt (normal and colored console), system folders plus an operating system ID report with common info like version, processor type, Windows product ID and more.

    SysTray can mute/unmute sound, hide/show clock and a few others.

    Taskbar can add transparency to the task bar and hide/show it.

    Text and Editing has the join files and online translation shortcuts and two potentially useful tools to separately convert Unicode and ASCII texts between upper and lower case.

    Windows Applications is simply a collection of shortcuts to things like Regedit, Task Scheduler, Character Map and others.

    The Shutdown Panel has the reboot, standby, logoff , hibernate, shutdown and monitor off buttons.

    Commands in Demand

    The Tools of Mine section is basically a launcher where the user can add any shortcut and run it (see image above).

    Commands in Demand (Version: 12.2 tested) is freeware, one zip file that doesn’t require installation and should run on Windows XP and newer.

  • Freeware Nimi Places Provides A New Way To Organize Your Desktop

    Freeware Nimi Places Provides A New Way To Organize Your Desktop

    Nimi Places is described by its author as

    Simple way to organize and keep important folders on desktop

    Nimi Places does things a bit differently, in practice or in theory an empty desktop devoid of any icons would use Nimi Places to assign movable or drag-able regions of it to important or often used folders. In other words Nimi Places creates opaque or transparent areas or windows where the contents of a folder will remain or become visible when needed. Nimi Places is, in a way, creating visual and somewhat workable shortcuts to folders while at the same time keeping the desktop clean.
    After running the program and left clicking the tray icon one can add places by clicking the + sign and choosing folders to create places for. Nimi Places allows most normal file operation inside these ‘places’. Copy and pasting and renaming file to name two. However it seems none of moving or dragging and dropping work or are buggy, indeed a few of the other operations listed on the Nimi Places page are not available or unworkable in the version I downloaded.
    Nimi Places is lightweight and very interesting. At its most basic it does a good job creating a new desktop experience. It is, however missing help or a clear explanation (perhaps there is a pro-version?) and even its “HD streamed video clip” – available on the home page linked at the beginning of this post – shows features that are not available or not possible to do on an XP machine.

  • RBTray: Save Some Taskbar Space

    There is not a lot to say about RBTray other than it is a small (total size of the unzipped program which includes RBTray for both 32 and 64 bit systems is 220KB) program that once double clicked will run in the background and adds one useful function to the minimize button of almost any Windows program.
    Instead of left clicking the minimize button right click it and the Window is minimized (iconized) to the system tray instead of the task bar. This saves valuable space in XP and Vista systems. RBTray can be added to the Startup group (a how-to example http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/setup/hwandprograms/autorun.mspx) to start with Windows and can be terminated via any of the minimized icons – right click the icon and choose Exit RBTray. Alternatively RBTray can be terminated via the command line or in the system’s task manager.

  • Krento: Interesting Freeware Application Launcher

    Krento: Interesting Freeware Application Launcher

    Krento is described by its author as

    Krento is an application manager and widget engine for Microsoft Windows

    Krento is a lightweight launcher that is not too unlike Radian featured earlier here. Upon installation a circular set of ‘stones’ and a ‘pulsar’ appear on the desktop (see image above). The pulsar which fades into the desktop if the mouse is away from it offers one way to activate the stones or the main interface of Krento. By right clicking on each segment or stone of the program it can be changed to one of the pre-configured settings like the ability to show, in the center of the program interface, the current time, IP address or to shut down the computer. Alternatively stones can be configured to open programs with command line parameter support. Win+C is the default keyboard method of opening the program, this and other settings, for example to activate Krento via the mouse, are available in the program’s option (right click the tray icon). Using the Ctrl key with any one of F1 to F12 keys is the keyboard method of opening each of the 12 stone targets (the stones are numbered as seen in the image above).

    Krento supports and includes many skins and is compatible with Rocket Dock and Object Dock skins as well, as explained here. One point to note is that as with any program with mouse and keyboard shortcuts this can interfere with other programs’ settings but since the defaults can change Krento of course remains useful.

    Krento requires the .Net Framework (2.0) and works with Windows XP, Vista and 7.

  • Radian: The Radial Circular Launcher

    Radian: The Radial Circular Launcher

    Radian is described by its author as

    Radian is a simple radial application launcher


    Radian

    When Radian is launched it starts with what it calls design mode, which is also accessible any time by right clicking or double clicking its system tray icon. This startup briefly slows the system while the program searches and indexes its pre-configured shortcuts, described below. In design mode Radian’s circular or radial interface is divided into 4 quadrants (see image). Each quadrant can be configured, using its corresponding wheel icon residing near the center of the circle, to hold chosen shortcuts and their respective icons. Three of the four quadrants are pre-configured to show desktop items, quick launch items and the recent documents entries. The fourth quadrant is called custom and any file or shortcut can be dragged to any of its regions. Right clicking on any of the individual regions also allows for the creation of custom shortcuts.

    After design mode is done Radian stays in the tray and can be activated by clicking and holding down the right click button any where on the screen. Then the second, third orĀ  fourth quadrants can then be made visible by moving the mouse in a circular fashion while still holding down the right click button.

    Radian is one launcher that certainly needs getting used to but it is a different and original looking download.

  • WinTray Saves Taskbar Space

    WinTray Saves Taskbar Space

    WinTray is a small and simple no install script or program built using the AutoIt scripting tool that works with Windows Vista and earlier Windows versions which allows programs to be minimized to the tray instead of the taskbar therefore saving taskbar space.

    wintray

    The icon used in the tray will be that of the minimized program’s executable. The default way of activating WinTray, after running it, is to hold the shift key while minimizing. Shift can be replaced by the Ctrl key as well.

    WinTray is one of many scripts written using AutoIt, a similar program to AutoHotKey.