Clean Up Your Windows Context Menu

Mmm: Is your context menu a mile long? Trouble weeding through all the crud to find the things that you use all the time? This program from Hace will enable you to easily and efficiently edit your context menu and move all the junk under a file heading "rarely used". It is an easy interface that lets you select which entries to leave in your context menu. The name of the product is Mmm. Once you pick what you want to show in your context menu Mmm has to run all the time but it uses almost no cpu or memory and is a process clearly visible in task manager (or process explorer). Therefore, it does assign itself to your "start with Windows" list of programs that run automatically every time you boot up. I have experienced no problems, there is no spyware. Mmm is just an easy, clean, and efficient way to take care of your context menu.


http://www.hace.us-inc.com/

This Handy Tool Will Keep You Running!

Caffe1ne (notice the 1 in place of the i) is one of the handiest little programs I've run into lately. It puts an icon in your system tray that will prevent your screen saver, or system lock, from engaging. Have you ever been watching a video when your screensaver engages? It's a drag!! So this little product solves that problem nicely. Try it out, you won't be disappointed.

http://www.snapfiles.com/opinions/Caffe1ne/Caffe1ne.html

Utilities You Gotta Love

Registry Cleaner

A few months ago I got an offer in my email telling me that I should "speed up my computer" and at that time I was struggling with resources so I checked into it. One of the areas it said I should devote some attention to was cleaning my registry, which I had never done. So I typed "free registry cleaner" in Google and it returned many results. Every site said "Free Download" so I went ahead and downloaded, installed, scanned, backed up... All this probably took me a half hour but when it came time to "fix" the problems the software had identified it would only fix the first 10 errors found (I'm ashamed to admit that I had over 900 errors). So obviously fixing the first 10 would do me no good.


This experience inspires me to discuss a "pet peeve". If a software product is not free than why to developers insist on using little tricks to make it look free. I am certainly never going to pay someone who "cons" me into downloading their shareware by advertising it as a "free download" and then limits the functions to make the product unpractical. It has to be the worst marketing move in history. Get a clue shareware developers!

On to better things... After much frustration with the fake freeware products I did find a registry cleaner that truly was freeware that operates so well, so professionally, that it is hard for me to imagine any other software doing a better job. I can't say enough good things about Eusing Free Registry cleaner. It backs up your registry, analyzes it, and fixes it all with no hassles. So use their product and avoid the shareware scams. Here is the link to download Eusing's product.

http://www.eusing.com/free_registry_cleaner/registry_cleaner.htm


BK Replace

In the UNIX world there is a function called "grep" that allows you to search for a string of text and replace each occurrence of that string of text with something else. It was mainly a programmers tool but in the windows world there are all kinds of other needs for this same function, BK Replace handles all those needs. Everyone should keep this tool handy because you are not sure when you will need it. Download it and be prepared, you'll be glad you did!



http://www.orbit.org/replace/







PS Hotlaunch

There are lots of “launch” programs out there. This one is the best one I've found. It’s simple, clean, and resource efficient. I think everyone should have a program launcher. It’s a centralized location to pull up your common programs and most used files.



http://www.pssoftlab.com/pshl_info.phtml





Gadwin Print Screen!

Take a snapshot of your desktop and save it as a .jpg. You can control what happens when you hit the printscreen button. I have mine set up so that when I hit the printscreen button it pulls up the picture of my desktop and when I hit continue output it brings up a window to save the file, you could also specify for it to go to a printer... There are many options and tools to help you take snapshots of your desktop screen.



http://www.gadwin.com/download/



Deskhide

As you can tell from the product name, this program hides your desktop. It works well. I couldn’t find the actual manufacturers site so I’ve pointed you to Major Geeks to download.



http://www.majorgeeks.com/download1308.html

Visual Desktop Enhancements - Lots of Value, Free of Charge!

Icolor Folder - A new dimension to file management

This is a really great application that allows you to easily and dependably change the colors of your "folders". I use this to organize the files in my program folder, everything that I know and use I color blue, everything I know I want to unistall I color red, and anything that I don't know what it is I color Green. It's another dimension to folder management and it is very useful. After you install this freeware right click on a folder and click on "color label" and choose your color... it is as easy as it can get. This is another Mighty Joe Must Have for everyone!

http://icolorfolder.sourceforge.net/


XEarth - Dynamic Wallpaper


XEarth provides a picture of the world and updates you with earthquake information worldwide in near real time. It's the best thing I've found to use as your desktop background. After you install it right click on the earth icon in your tray and choose properties. Then go to the "image" tab and select cylindrical. That will display a flat earth and allow you to see the quakes updated in real time.

Check it out!!! I think you'll really love it!!!

http://hewgill.com/xearth/


Panorama - Wallpaper Management



I really prefer Xearth to any static desktop environment but if you need a change and want to use pictures as a background wallpaper then you should try Panorama! Panorama is the best freeware to manage your wallpapers that I've found. It is easy to use and does a good job and I have not experienced an problems. The reason that I mention problems is because I have had other programs that, for some reason, confuse the XP interface but this one is so simple and straight forward that I don't think we'll ever have any problems with it. Try it out!!!

http://www.ivory.org/panorama.html

Fonts

Download some cool new fonts. It’s a great way to spice up your documents and it's easy to do. After you download the font file, move it into C:\Windows\Fonts or you can pull up "fonts" from the control panel. You can download free fonts from the sites mentioned below.


http://simplythebest.net/fonts/index.html



http://www.fontdiner.com/main.html



http://www.fonthead.com/freeware.php





Icons

Another way to "dress the mess" is to change the icons on your system. This can be done simply by selecting a folder and choosing properties then choosing "customize". At the bottom that says "change icon". There are a number of really great icon management programs out there. I've used some and I'll write up a review after I decide which I think is best. There are also a number of programs that let you create and edit fonts and I'm in the process of looking into those as well.



This is a good location to download icons on the web.

http://www.entity.cc/archives4.php