Virtual Desktop from Microsoft

Second useful desktop utility from Microsoft that is better in User Interface and simplicity is the Microsoft Virtual Desktop Manager (MSVDM). This allows 4 virtual desktop screens to group your Windows. It allows you to configure different wallpaper for each virtual desktop. It is easy to switch between virtual desktops. To go to second (top right) desktop just type keys “Win+2”. Typing “Win+W” will show all 4 desktops, like below.

Another option is to have access to this as part of taskbar. You can get single icon for switching to all screen mode or you can additionally get desktop numbers displayed in the taskbar. That will allow you to click on the number with mouse and go to that desktop.

   

SyncToy from Microsoft

There are few freeware from Microsoft that are really good as Desktop utilities, one of them is the SyncToy. Compared to other freeware, I settled on this tool for the simplicity of the UI. You will find this tool useful if you what to sync-up directories  and files between say Computer and external USB hard disk or Computer and your mobile. Then this tool is very handy.

The tool lets you choose multiple profiles, which is set of source and destination drives or folders. Then in each profile, you can have set of devices to sync. For example, in below picture you will see profile to sync between my mobile SD Card and computers. This is mainly to sync-up songs. Button ‘Preview’ will let you get list of differences between folders/devices. Clicking on ‘Run’ will actually perform the sync operation. The operation I found it to be fast. For around 3 GB data, it got sync-ed in around 25 minutes.

Analog Clock in Taskbar

An essential freeware for those who prefer Analog clocks over the digital. This small and handy tool sits in corner of the taskbar where the digital clock is displayed in Windows. This application also has options to sync-up automatically and manually with Atomic Clock servers. 

There are few configuration options to change GUI settings, like display seconds hand, skins, days of another month.

Windows Live Writer

This freeware is from Microsoft. One of the good software from the company. This makes it very easy to post the blog to any site – Windows Live Spaces, Blogger, WordPress, TypePad, etc. I always use this to write all my blogs.

Some good features are, you do not need to login to net or any blog page to write your article. It is very simple like opening Microsoft Word. You will feel you are writing a document in MS Word. Features like inserting an image, hyperlink, table, video are all possible with this WYSIWYG editor. After you are done with drafting, just click ‘Publish’. The software takes your login credentials one time. All posts can be sent to blog server with a single click.

Another important feature is storing the blogs locally. Many time you may not complete an article in one sitting. Then this software saves as draft.

Windows Liver Writer lets you manage multiple blog accounts from single software. For switching from one blog to another, you just need to select the blog from drop down – right top corner.

Third important feature is the backup of your articles. I realized this feature and its importance recently. Some reason I saw all my articles previously written vanished online (Blogger). Fortunately, I had all articles in my local computer as part of this software.

Essential Freeware

 

Essential Freeware are set of software that you will find useful for various tasks. Though I prefer Open Source software, these applications listed here may or may not be open source.

Opera Browser

The most innovative browser and the most neglected freeware is the Opera Browser. We will not discuss much on why it does not gain market share, what went wrong, blah..blah… that does not matter in this blog. There are many to discuss those.

Opera 10.53

Major reasons to use the browser:

• Most secure browser – Recommend this browser at least for banking and other financial / confidential transactions on net
• Built-in Email client (POP3 and IMAP) – Easy configuration and multi accounts support. If you are worried about accessing Yahoo mail and  your account (like .com domain) does not support POP3 in free Yahoo, use the freeware freePOPs.
• Leader in innovation – Many features that other browsers have copied are initially from Opera. So you get to experience the good and the bad features first, before others see it.
• Multi-device (computer, mobile) browser – Allows you to keep your bookmarks, notes, history in central location on opera home page.  You can access all this information, either on office Laptop, home desktop or mobile phone.
• Opera Unite is a great feature to share content like pictures, video, songs online. Simply put, the browser acts as a HTTP server too. You can also host a chat server and post-it wall for people to drop a line for you (on fridge).
• Form Filling feature lets you enter your personal details one time in the browser. It will prompt you every time you are filling a form online – to create any account – say twitter, blogger, etc.
• Auto Fill login password details. When you allow browser to store passwords, browser will hint you about it next time you visit the same page. It will display the fields with yellow border. Just enter CTRL-ENTER. This is equal entering login password and clicking on submit button.
• Block content – like videos and images. Some web designers add lot of animation with flashy images to grab attention. At times that is annoying. Also you will find some sites that start a video (Ad) as soon as page loads. This can be annoyance and also consume bandwidth. Opera has capability to block images or video from other sites.
• Custom search engine – lets you add a search engine using the URL. For example, CUIL is another search engine that has good grouping of Internet search results. To add this search engine to my Opera search bar, I need to add this URL http://www.cuil.com/search?q=%s. The last “%s” is replaced by word I give it in the search field. If you have not tried CUIL earlier, it is worth using.
• Visual tabs – lets you view all open tabs in miniature version top of the browser.
• Speed dial – makes it easy to access frequently browsed sites like your favourite newspaper, Internet email, stock market page, etc.
• Opera Turbo features makes web page access faster for low speed connections. It has cool features of compressing the images that makes data transfer lower and hence making it faster.
• Search word in a a page. All browsers have this feature. But the cool UI of search is worth the mention. In a page, when you search for a string (say “Internet”), the whole page is greyed out and the ‘search word’ is highlighted in special font and background.
• Fit width feature lets web pages with tables or page width more than screen size to shrink to fit to your window size.
• Opera Link is a great little feature that makes Opera data available across computers and devices. Opera as you might be aware, is a desktop browser and also a mobile browser. Opera link gives you space in Opera server to store your bookmarks, speed dial, notes, history on net. You login into browser once and your data is synced to be available on any other computer or device. Where I use it mostly is for notes. I store lot of information like interesting excerpts from web pages and also links. If you are working on project / thesis, you can make use of this notes feature to collect all information in one place. I access my bookmarks on my mobile phone using Opera Mobile 10.0 version.
• Opera widgets are not as extensive as other browsers like Firefox, but they do have some good extensions like Google Calendar, Stock charts, timer (reminder), clocks, etc. Since the browser has rich features in-built, I do not see lack of extensions as a handicap.
• Address book – If you are using Opera as your email client, it lets you store addresses as part of your browser. Some cool aspect of the address book is, you can click on a contact and you will get all conversation (email) relating to that person.
• Dragonfly – I have not used this feature much. This is essentially for web page developers. They can dissect the web pages and find issues in compliance and also debug.
• Bookmark search – in the left panel you get to access bookmarks, mail, history, Unite, Notes, downloads, Address book. In the left panel, you can search your complete bookmarks by typing a word. You will give filtered list of bookmarks matching the word.
• Feeds – essentially RSS feeds from net. This is part of your mail panel. When you see an RSS icon in the address bar, you can make the feed as part of your monitor list to track updates (like news, score, etc).
• Download manager is integrated with the browser. It will allow multiple downloads to be tracked, paused, restarted, stop.
• Torrents – Opera is capable of downloading torrent content. I never was successful in downloading content using Opera. But possible due to restrictions on ports or service provider.
• Themes – Opera has capability to modify skins to change look and feel.
• Newserver – along with email you can subscribe to news servers.
• Print preview feature in Opera is good. Press CTRL-SHIFT-P.

Memento

memento is another freeware utility, very small and quick note taker. Install it. Then type Ctrl-Alt-N to type a new note. Click on ‘X’ button to close it. All these notes get listed in your system tray, when you right click on the small ‘post-it’ icon.

Time snapper (classic)

Does your boss expect you to write daily or weekly report to account your accomplishments or productivity? Or you are in need of a Time Management course, as  you do not know where your 8 or 12 hours in office go? This is the tool to use.

Time snapper (classic) takes screenshots of your computer periodically. End of the day, you can watch like a movie what all (useless) things you have done whole day. As I type this blog, my Time Snapper is busy taking pictures. I can always retrieve the content and the time when i wrote this blog, without visiting the blog again.

The concept is screen capture is very simple. It is only limited to your imagination how you use it.

RxTx32

Bandwidth measurement freeware tool. Small and simple. I have tried many other freeware for same purpose, but was not convinced the measurement shown was accurate. This tool does not need installation. You can download RxTx32.zip file from Internet, unzip and execute RxTx32.exe.

For modifying settings, right click on the graph window. It will open a window. Select ‘Options’ to change graphical display settings and graph update period. You can also get the data on total MB downloaded from the start of the tool.

Note: I am looking for a freeware that can give bandwidth measurement per program / process. I have not succeeded to find one. For example, sometimes I see that when I am not actively browsing on my computer, I still see my modem lights blinking. I go to netstat to find all active connections. I can know which programs are accessing the net, but I would like to know which application is using how much bandwidth. Especially software like Adobe or Microsoft OS, the patches and updates get downloaded automatically and utilizing bandwidth. I would like to kill or postpone them to another hour, so that it does not affect bandwidth. If any of you know of such software, please drop a comment in my blog.

Windows desktop search

On my office laptop, soon after OS (Windows) installation, immediate software I install after that is “Windows Desktop Search”. I have compared with other desktop search tools Google Desktop Search, Copernic desktop search. Windows desktop search stands out with some very good features. Two most important features are – search results display and search keywords support. Only thing I like about Google Desktop search is the ‘Ctrl-Ctrl’ to get the search strip to type. That is cool.

I would recommend this software to anyone who are lazy to create folders (emails, documents, etc) and whose computer has 1GB or more RAM.

If you use Microsoft Outlook (for official purposes) on your computer, recommend you to add your GMail, Yahoo accounts to Outlook. Then you can search all your email communication using Windows desktop search. For those Yahoo users who don’t have POP3 access free, please refer to my earlier post – FreePOPs. Easy to use and effective.

Will add examples of search keywords and use of Windows Desktop Search in another post later.

DeepBurner

CD and DVD burner freeware that can burn content in multiple sessions. Interface is simple and you can drag and drop files from Windows Explorer to burn CD/DVD.

DeepBurner has capability to burn CD/DVD, create an Audio CD or burn from iso. If the content you want to burn is less than capacity of CD / DVD, choose the option of multi session disk. If the CD/DVD is already burnt with some content, be careful to choose ‘Append session’.

Taskbar Calculator

Simple calculator in the task bar that appears as simple text field. You can enable and disable appearance in taskbar, by right clicking taskbar, choose ‘Taskbar Calculator’ in the ‘Toolbar’ menu item.

Mathematical functions supported are, basic arithmetic, square root, Inverse, percentage, Decimal to hex conversion. Refer to README for special keys and mapping to function.

Screenshot of taskbar calculator. My taskbar is vertical and to the left of the screen. I have an analog clock instead of default Windows digital clock.

Folder Guide

Microsoft Windows creates ‘My Documents’ folder for each user and sub-folders like ‘My Pictures’, ‘My Templates’, etc. Usually users might have different directory to store files, which necessarily not be under ‘My Documents’. For operations such as ‘Open’ a folder and ‘Save As’, users needs to navigate to sub-folder deep inside.

For example, my frequently accessed directory could be:

D:\JANARDAN\DOWNLOADS\TORRENTS\BOOKS\

You can see that every time I need to access my sub-folder BOOKS, I need to navigate in GUI from D:, then JANARDAN, then DOWNLOADS, then TORRENTS, then BOOKS.

Instead with Folder Guide, you can right click in Windows Explorer the sub-folder BOOKs and ‘Add to Folder Guide’. Folder Guide software helps you to make ‘BOOKS’ folder available quickly either right clicking on Desktop or right click in ‘Save As’ window to select ‘BOOKS’ folder.

Very useful and convenient software. I recommend users to try it.

dirLock

This freeware help you keep your password files, personal pictures, confidential folders well protected. There are many other uses for boys, but I will stick to utility of the program :-)

This program can make folders ‘locked’ and even ‘hidden’ with password protection. You can Lock/Unlock folders from Windows Explorer context menu. Small and simple.

Blaze – Automated Desktop Experience

This freeware is an enhancement over the Launchy. This is much more superior in functionality. The key feature is to launch a program, just by typing few key strokes. No need to use mouse. Press the short-cut key, default is CTRL-ALT-SPACE. You will get a small pop-up window of Blaze. Type “Inter” to launch “Internet Explorer”. Blaze is smart. It will remember history and can suggest you “Internet Explorer”, just even by typing “I”. It will expect to application “Internet Explorer” if that is the most used.

Second biggest feature is the ‘File Search’ functionality. It not only suggests programs, but also file name. You can choose to ‘catalog’ a directory where you store your documents. By typing few characters, Blaze will suggest you set of files that you may want to open. Best match should more probably what you want to open. This could be your miniature program if you do not want the overhead of dedicated desktop search applications like ‘Windows Desktop Search’ and ‘Google Desktop Search’.

Now comes the cool feature. The program helps you type frequently types text with a short cut. For example, I type my post address in most emails to my family or friends, I can use Blaze to remember that text. I can store is under keyword (say) ‘address’. To type that text in any window next time, I press the key combination CTRL-ALT-SPACE to invoke Blaze. Then type ‘insert address’. insert is a command followed by the keyword. In the window I am in, say Notepad or Email, it will insert my address. Many other cases you will find it useful are for storing frequently typed phone numbers, or template in emails. I write lot of complaint letters to telecom and utility service providers. Most of the times I forget to add my account number or phone number. So, I prepare a template including my signature and contact number.

Next is the coolest of features. It is still not it perfect shape, but a leap towards ‘intelligent’ applications. Blaze keeps monitoring of key strokes you are pressing. If it sees a pattern or a cycle. For example, in an Excel sheet you are deleting every third row. So, you press ‘down arrow’ twice and press ‘delete’ a cell. Blaze recognizes and the tray icons becomes YELLOW. It is an indication, it sensed a pattern. You can press CAPS-LOCK twice and a window pops-up giving sequence and number of times you want to repeat it.

It is not easy to find Blaze EXE with simple google searches. You will get all except this application. Directly go to below link and start BLAZING !!

http://blaze-wins.sourceforge.net/

Tata Photon+ - High Speed Internet (EV-DO)

I purchased recently the Tata Photon+ High Speed Internet broadband Device. The product vendor is Huawei and service provider is Tata Tele Services. The device cost now is around Rs.2,499/- They have various plans based on time limit and download limit.

Speeds:

• At home I get signal strength (93% - 99%). The speeds I am getting are 300 kbps to 1200 kbps download. I was able to download  105 MB of puppy linux in around 20 minutes. Average download speed would have been around 660 kbps.
• Overall browsing speed and experience is great.
• Since the device is USB based, the power problems at home are isolated with this device. Normally external broadband modems will need power.

Cons:

• I have tried the Photon TV trial offer of watching TV using Photon+ device. I would rate the experience as poor. Though the device is theoretically capable of 3.2 Mbps download, I still experience buffering problem like my broadband.
• Watching YouTube. There is some weird problem with this device. I use Opera for browsing. When I visit YouTube to experience high-speed, I see serious problems. The video does not play at all. This may be specific to my setup and may not be device problem. But I will check again and update this blog. If anyone else faced the problem, please comment.
• I use broadband for voice over IP calls connecting to office network. There is a real serious problem here. When I am in conference call, I can hear other talk very clear. But when I speak they hear my voice breaking. This has been the case last one week. As a technology EV-DO has higher download rate than upload. But it is hard for me to understand that uplink is not even capable of taking voice clearly. 

AMKETTE Integrated Wireless keyboard with trackball

 I bought the AMKETTE Integrated Wireless keyboard with trackball for Rs.2,250 in Bangalore (More. Mall). I wanted to write feedback about the product before someone else buys it.

Pros:

• Mainly I use it when I connect my laptop to my LCD TV and browse net. The experience of browsing is very good. The track wheel on the keyboard makes scrolling in browser smooth. The less frequent typing URL and forms is just fine with this keyboard.
•  The mouse buttons are in two places. Right side of the QWERTY keyboard along with trackball.Also the left side of the keyboard left of TAB and ESC key. The left side of the mouse buttons is convenient to use. It will not strain fingers and make it convenient to use left hand and right hand (trackball).
• The top keys for volume, email, search are all good. Shortcut to most common used applications. 

Cons:

•      Biggest drawback is that the keyboard sucks when it comes to typing any document more than 10 words. They keys repeat automatically. For example, you will frequently find "eeeeeee" or "aaaaaa" going on endlessly. Mostly frustrating, when you press backspace, it will delete your whole paragraph in few seconds. Very painful and wouldn't recommend this product for serious writers. May be it is better if you use it at desk. My usage is sitting in a couch at a distance 3 - 5 feet. I would expect wireless keyboard to tolerate this distance.
• Another major drawback is the positioning of keys. To save on realestate of the keyboard, manufactures do some optimization. But cutting down on "backspace" key and placing "home" key next it, makes typing nightmare.
• Another issue with positioning is the position of "del" key. The position is very close to "left arrow" key. The problem is, the arrow keys are half the regular size of keys. So, when you want to press left arrow, you may press DEL and erase few characters.
•  

Overall rating: 4 / 5 for browsing and 1/5 for using as regular keyboard replacement to edit documents.