What "little" program could you simply not do without?

FILE CONVERTER
http://snurl.com/FILECONVERT
from-to:acme,acrobat,au,binary,binhex,dvi,excel,gif,html,jpeg,latex,macbinary,mail,mif,mpeg,msword,multipart,pdf,pict,pilot~doc,pkzip,png,postscript,powerpoint,ppm,ps,quicktime,rtf,sun-raster.

AdDESIGN BANNERS
http://www.addesigner.com/
AdDesigner.com is a unique FREE service that gives you the power to design and download professional-quality, animated banner ads quickly and easily. In seconds, you can create top-quality, optimized banner ads that are perfect for your favorite banner exchange, a paid advertising campaign, or anywhere else.

Use the high-quality banner ads you design at AdDesigner.com to get higher click-through rates (which means more traffic to your website), to build a professional image for your website, and to create a favorable and lasting impression on everyone who sees your banner ads.


Design an ad like this for your website in seconds!
Click here to view more sample ads.

Custom-design your own banner ad in three simple steps:
Choose an ad style from our vast library of 91 high-quality, attention-grabbing animated choices;
Customize your ad by specifying exactly what you want your ad to say
(and even the font styles, font sizes and font colors to use, if you wish);
Instantly download (or receive via email) your custom banner ad.

BANNER CREATIONS
http://snurl.com/1743

ANIMATED BANNERS
http://snurl.com/1745

SWF BANNERS
http://snurl.com/1746

EASY SPAM RIDDER:

1ST:
SET UP A MAIL MESSAGE FROM EACH E-MAIL THAT YOU WISH TO VIEW AS SAFE.

CLICK MESSAGE,CLICK RULE FROM MESSAGE,CHECK WHERE THE FROM LINE CONTAINS PEOPLE,THEN CHECK MOVE IT TO SPECIFIED FOLDER,THEN CLICK ON HIGHLIGHTED LINK,SPECIFIED FOLDER.
THIS WILL TAKE YOU TO THE LIST OF FOLDERS YOU HAVE SET UP.

I USED,FAMILY,FRIENDS,NEWSLETTERS AND A SEPERATE FOLDER FOR EACH WEB GROUP I BELONG TO.

NOW CLICK ON THE FOLDER YOU WISH ALL FUTURE E-MAIL FROM THIS PERSON OR GROUP TO BE STORED IN.

AFTER HAVING DONE THIS FOR EVERYONE/GROUP,ALL THAT'S LEFT IN YOUR INBOX,IS SPAM!

PRESS CTRL-A AND THEN CTRL-D AND ALL THAT SPAM IS DELETED.

MOUSELESS OUTLOOK EXPRESS:

WHEN YOU OPEN A FOLDER,THERE ARE ALL YOUR E-MAILS LISTED. HIGHLIGHT THE 1ST,THEN PRESS ENTER. YOUR 1ST E-MAIL WILL OPEN,VIEW IT AND THEN PRESS CTRL-R TO REPLY TO IT OR CTRL-D TO DELETE IT.

WHEN YOU HAVE DELETED THAT E-MAIL,THE NEXT OPENS AUTOMATICALLY.

WHEN IN OUTLOOK EXPRESS AND YOU WANT TO CREATE A NEW E-MAIL:

PRESS CTRL-N
OPENS YOUR WRITE E-MAIL PAGE. ADDRESS,SUBJECT,WRITE AND PRESS CTRL-ENTER,IT'S SENT ON IT'S WAY.

TO FORWARD AN E-MAIL:
PRESS CTRL-F

WHEN YOU HAVE FINISHED READING ALL THE E-MAIL IN A FOLDER AND YOU WISH TO RETURN TO YOUR INBOX,PRESS CTRL-i.

CLICK:
START
SELECT ALL PROGRAMS
SELECT ACCESSORIES
SELECT ACCESSIBILITY
SELECT ACCESSIBILITY WIZARD

1ST PAGE:
CLICK NEXT
2ND PAGE:
CHOOSE LARGE TITLES,MENU'S
CLICK NEXT
3RD PAGE:
CHECK CHANGE FONT SIZE

AT THIS TIME,YOU WILL BE OFFERED THE USE OF WINDOWS MAGNIFIER. UNCHECK [I DID] IF YOU DON'T WANT THIS FEATURE.

CLICK NEXT

4TH PAGE:
CHECK I AM BLIND
CLICK NEXT

5TH PAGE:
SELECT BORDER SIZE [SMALLEST IS BEST]
CLICK NEXT

6TH PAGE:
SELECT ICON SIZE
CLICK NEXT

7TH PAGE;
DO NOT MESS WITH THIS !!!
CLICK NEXT

8TH PAGE:
SELECT CURSOR
CLICK NEXT

9TH PAGE:
LEAVE THIS ALONE !!
CLICK NEXT

LAST PAGE:
CLICK FINISH

Hey Fuelm@n

Thanks for the E-Sword link...Very Nice!!!

:cool:

EARLE:
Perhaps an alternate, and easier, way of hiding your desktop icons is to get this freebie from an Australian company:

http://www.coolbananas.com.au/prod2.htm

I have used it for a couple of years and it does an easy job. I do not let it check for emails.
Many thanks for your interesting inputs here. Have a couple saved already!!

it can't get any easier than 4-5 clicks to transfer your icons to your taskbar into a pop up menu.
downloading a file to do that is superferlous [misspelled ?].

course now,i'm running XP/HOME so that may make the dif. have to put that info into a sig.

Better late than never, maybe some other stragglers will stumble onto this and find the info usefull.

These two "little" jewels that I am going to document, would be of most benefit primarily to those that work at a computer a lot and have to keep track of a lot of tasks, things to do, and so on... Both of these do that, but one is a repository for less volatile info that can be "put away" for a while, and the other is for quick, easily accessible, highly volatile notes.

The latter component, for quick and easy use, is a nifty little freeware package called "ATNotes". Yeh, it is basically one of those "sticky notes" programs, but it is what I would consider "best of breed" and so much more powerful yet easier to use than the rest, that you can hit a control key, make a note, and the rest you kind of have to experience to understand (I've only got so much room here...).

From there, it is sometimes necessary to archive notes, basically offloading them from the screen to a "database", and for that I use "TreeDBNotes". Again, too much to go into the benefits here, you kind of have to shake it down to see the potential (don't let the initial display of the interface perplex you, it is really quite easy to use once you get the concept).

'Nuff said...

Well, having said that, I have to throw in a reccomendation to check out "Desktop Sidebar", but it requires XP or 2k and Outlook (not Outlook EXPRESS, just Outlook, as in Outlook XP or Outllook 2000). I actually went to the trouble to migrate from OE6 to Outlook 2000 just to be able to get this hummer goin. A caution if you do try it out: it initially docks at the righthand side of the screen (can be changed to, and is better at, the lefthand side of the screen (better because it can be set to "hide" and tends to jump out with most of the cursor activity occurring on the right side...)), and if you have any meticulously arranged desktop icons, the sidebar will unmercilessly scatter the icons all over the screen, even with something like FavOrg that supposedly locks icons in place.

I use Launchmate.....have for about 3 years...and I love it. So easy to get into my program: LaunchMate 3.0 free download by TDRWare. One of the little programs I always keep on my computer..




http://www.softpile.com/Games/Miscel...956_index.html

Quote:

---

Originally posted by mawil
Drive Image . Don't know how I lived without it.

---

Drive Image 2002 creates a complete image (compressed) of your entire hard drive. I don't have a lot of stuff on my new HD, little over 4GB and it takes 3 CDs.

Much easier to use than Ghost.

Now my two cents that I always make sure I add to a pc:
Sam Spade
DiskSpace Explorer
EndItAll (Beats Alt/Ctrl/Delete)
Eye fo the Storm (Hurricane country!)
FreshUI
Mailwasher
NetPerSec
The Fourth Day
Weatherbug
WinZip
TweakUI

back a few posts to "NanasBusy":

Regarding "LaunchMate" - getting reluctant to "try out" freeware these days before checking it out, so I did some research and I caught that LM is "dockable", but so no indication as to whether it will "autohide" or not, so I was hoping you could tell me if it will "hide" like the taskbar and pop out when you hover the cursor near it?

Also, looks like they are offering a "beta" version 4 - if you have tried that, is it stable?

Anyone else out there -- I have decided that I absolutely must get away from using my desktop icons to launch apps, so I am looking at something like LaunchMate, and saw a bunch of free apps out there that basically do the same thing, so anyone have any reccomendations or precautions along this line ???

Since this thread still lives, I thought I'd post again with another great free tool. I'm sure several here will find this tool very useful, and some possibly already use it.

"Hot CPU Tester Pro (LE) is a system health and stability tester. It tests CPU, and virtually all parts of motherboard for errors/bugs and defective parts. It is a burn-in test... ...diagnostic systems regarding its stability and in general computer's health. ...reliable diagnostic and trouble shooting program."

http://fileforum.betanews.com/screenshots/968979338.gif

i use WEBKEY [see previous must have listing] to lauch most of my files with a alt-key,ctrl-key or shift-key stroke.

i use WINKEY

Windows keyboard enhancer. Enables you to start applications, folders and Web pages instantly by using your own Windows key. This FREE utility allows you to define keyboard shortcuts with the Windows key. You can use almost any key combination and create shortcuts to system folders e.g. My Computer, Dial-Up Networking, Control Panel and Recycle Bin.

http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/gra...hots/5506f.jpg

if you have the windows key on your keyboard,press window key +:
d=desktop
pause=system properties
c=control panel
e=my computer
i=mouse prpoerties
k=keyboard properties
m=min page
l=switch user
f=search
r=run

windows key alone=start page

:rolleyes:

Keywester: I haven't tried Launchmate beta. So I don't know how it works. But the other one works great and doesn't pull down my resources. And with windows Me I try to keep and eye on that. Launchmate can be used at the side or the top and hides just like your taskbar. You can even set it up not to come down except where you want it to. I set mine at 75% so i can go up to the right side and it won't come down...but will anywhere else I go. You can have the colors set different for each bar. It really is nice having my computer, control panel and all on it. I even set one up for the games and things I use. Hope this helps you. Really small file and great little program.

Excellent is this, Well Done Folks....found some nice progys to try Thanks to you lot....Now lets see, what have I Got!!
Some have been mentioned but others have Not.......
Winamp.........dbPowerAmp music converter...(would not be without it).......Irfanview.....(Great)
Arcsoft photoprinter.......Ad-Aware....Winzip.....xp-AntiSpy....
Acrobat Reader (you need it)......Spybot-Search n destroy.....
SpywareBlaster.........Belarc Advisor........Microangelo (not free, but great progy)......Info Tools..CDInfo...CDVDInfo....ASPI Layers + ASPI Check....VCDEasy.....Thumber.....Photo2VCD....JAlbum.....
BR Exif Extracter......Mediachance BWorks......and for those looking for an on-line photoshare, try this site, free for first year, thereafter £4 a year.....photoshare.co.nz.....(Great Site)
Have a Good Week folks...Take Care from Dennis..

WEBKEY gets my vote,wester

Thanks Earle, WebKey does look pretty good, but before I knew about it, I ran across a post about moving all, or most, destktop icons to a toolbar in the taskbar. Since I had not yet found the jewel that I was seeking, I tried that, and lo and behold, it works pretty danged good so far, so guess I will stick with that.

For anyone interested in trying it, just right click on the taskbar, select toolbars, then new toolbar, make new folder, then open the folder and make any subfolders for specific categories (like online, system utilities, security, etc...), then drop/drag whatever icons you want to their respective folders, then it should be in place as a popup similar to the "desktop" toolbar, except that you have everything organized in folders/toolbars the way you want it instead of all desktop icons in one stream. Pretty darned good, and no software to download and eat up resources. For maybe a better description, google for something like "move desktop icons to toolbar"... Sorry if this is boring for those of you that have known about this, but I have been working with Windows since it came out from under a rock and was not aware that you could take this simple approach to uncluttering the desktop, plus sorry to diverge from the subject of the thread.
EDIT: after creating the toolbar, you may have to go back in and select it for it to appear on the taskbar; accordingly, you can unselect it if your taskbar gets cluttered... Note that you can easily drop and drag icons back out of the toolbar folders to the desktop if need be...

OH, speaking of the actual subject of this thread, I don't recall that anyone mentioned "FreeZip". In my opinion, it is an excellent replacement for WinZip, especially if using free WinZip and it's danged shuffelling nag screen which you have to wait on to count the number of days you have been using it... Also, I always thought that WinZip was more than a little obtuse, and FreeZip is straightforward and seems to have better capabilities. However FreeZip does have an ad subpanel at the bottom, but it is pretty easy to ignore...

Also, some recent additions for me (not sure if I picked it up here or not...) are Fresh Diagnose and Aida32 - great little system info packages, and more (Belarc was great, but these two "leave it in the dust"). And for you creative thinkers out there, check out the "Literary Machine". Not exactly sure yet if it is "something I could just not do without", but looks intriguingly like it might well be down the road and thought I should mention it...

CLEAR DESKTOP OF ICONS:
right click desktop
click show desktop

SAVE DESKTOP ICONS TO TASKBAR
right click taskbar
click launch desktop

you end up with this
http://images3.fotki.com/v27/photos/...hprom31-vi.jpg

no downloads

WEBKEY & QUICK SHUTDOWN are 2 apps that i absolutly can't do with out.

kontiki download manager. Fastest out there though made for private businesses. Can't download anything without it. And it's for free.www.kontiki.com

EARLE:
Finally took the time to try your suggestion. Couldn't accomplish the feat. Must be because I have Win98SE--NOT XP! Looks neat.

MOVING ICONS
CLEAR DESKTOP OF ICONS:
right click desktop
click show desktop

SAVE DESKTOP ICONS TO TASKBAR
right click taskbar
click launch desktop

you end up with this
http://images3.fotki.com/v27/photos...nhprom31-vi.jpg

no downloads

great little icon tool= Iconoid

:D for making the best out of windows:D

TWEAKUI

Cryos6:

Yeh, TweakUI is great. In addition, to supplement TweakUI, I have tried out FreshUI. And for Win XP systems, there is now XPtweak. A lot of redundancy between the three, but they all have their own special little offsetting complementary benefits...

EDIT: correction, "XP Smoker", not XPtweak; I had renamed it on the icon and had come to think of it incorrectly (well, I didn't like the "Smoker" part...). Anyway, between the three of them, they allow tweaking just about anything...

I can't remember if it has been mentioned yet, but I also like XP-Antispy to make some additional tweaks (such as turning off the automatic update service, etc).

You can get XP-Antispy here.

This has got to be the single most valuable thread, in any forum, anywhere since the beginning of time! :D

My "can't-do-without" 's:

Norton SystemWorks
X-teq Setup
WinZip

And my favorite all-purpose editor, NoteTab Light . Does everything great, and even the paid-for version is worth every cent.

This whole thread begs another question, which I ask here:

Looking for a download "commenter"

Thanks all, Dex

I love this thread.

I love "pushpin". You can't get it anymore, but if anyone wants it, I can send you the small file.

It allows you to keep a windows on top while using another active window.

RE: UltimateZip
version 2.6 is available here.


I'm working on a webpage to simplify reading this thread... 8 pages is a lot to sort through. Give me a week or so!

I admit that I have only been using this new little prog for a couple of days, and have not really shaken it down or tweaked it much yet, but already it has become my top favorite little time-saving freeware component that I just can't do without.

I did do a search first and did not find much on it. Hard to imagine that this little gem is not more "talked about". Might be that it is one of those things that people keep quiet so that the rest of the world does not find out about it? Surely not, I must be missing something, and likely there is something out there that is even better, and that maybe I am just clueless when it comes to spiffy browsers (I have stayed away from the likes of Eudora or Opera because of supposed problems...)…

Anyway, the little tool is called "Crazy Browser". Even with the plain-vanilla config, there are several advantages so far that I have seen over Netscape and good old IE, but the main plus is that it saves time and hundreds of pointer clicks over the course of a typical day - mostly, via the "groups" feature (which may be available in other browsers and I just missed it…). As an example, I have several set categories of sites that I check out every day, like webcams, tech forums, weather sites, news, health, sports in general, and specific sites just on my favorite sports teams.

Long story short, I have set up each category in what CB refers to as a group. When I want to check out one of these, say the weather sites, I select the group and CB loads all of the sites up in tabbed format, and then I browse through the tabbed sites, and one of the resultant niceties is that I do not have to wait on them to load, as they all do that behind the scenes while I am viewing the first site in the group. Easier and saves time and mouse gyrations (ie, avoiding carpal tunnel syndrome). And, there is another (as advertised) plus, CB is noticeably "faster" than IE or Netscape.

One last assurance. CB is what I would term (probably erroneously) a psuedo-interface for IE (maybe more correctly it uses IE components?), so (how could it be faster than IE itself?) it is entirely unproblematic - no glitches that I have seen in using it for a couple of days. There are lots of other little nice features (like ad blocking, etc.) that I will try not to bore you all with, so just give it try, you can always uneventfully switch back and forth with other browsers, but frankly I have set CB as my default browser, for a number of reasons other than the group feature…

Now, I suppose someone is going to clue me in to an even better browser, which is just fine, that's what this thread is all about.

http://www.crazybrowser.com/index.htm

One more late addition. This might not be something for everyone, and it ain't out of this world great, but I have also recently become slightly enamored with a little hideaway toolbar called "StatBar", using it's quick launch feature as kind of an overflow of the standard taskbar to free up room on the taskbar, but it also has cpu graphs and other extras like that, all very configurable, and of course it auto-hides…

Addendum. Possibly a disclaimer on Crazy Browser - I have noticed via my firewall log that there is a significant amount of seemingly strange and maybe even suspicious activity that I am not sure should be going on, so if you try it out you may want to check on that (anyone already know about that?)…

EDIT: being so favorably impressed with (some of) Crazy Browsers features and speed, and having seen similar features mentioned about the Opera browser and Mozilla's new Firebird browser, I have taken a few hours over the last few days to install and shake down both of them also. Result to date is that altho I have not given up on them yet because they do present some nice features, I find them both cumbersome and buggy (Opera v7.11 is reallllly buggy) and have significant learning curves (I just did not find them "intuitive" - necessary to muddle through very extensive help facilities and tutorials...). So, I will force myself to keep trying to get up to speed on both of them, because I think that in the long run they will prove of better value, but it is a real pain trying to deal with the bugs, especially when I simply am unable to do things that need to be done because they just don't work. Also, I did not see the where they were so blazingly fast, but that might be due to an optimal machine and OS and fast DSL connection negating speed factors -- frankly, at this point I thought Crazy Browser was faster based on what I have done with all three browsers so far. Maybe I should hold off for upgrades. Anyone else noted similar results and know if they are doing much repair work on them?

Hi!

Many I use have been mentioned already (GetRight, Javacool's SpywareBlaster, SpybotS&D, WinAmp, ZoneAlarm) but here are some others:

Mike Lin's "Startup Control Panel" - invaluable way to enable/disable what runs at startup.
http://www.mlin.net/StartupCPL.shtml

ACDSee3 - fast image viewer with batch rename and lossless JPEG rotation. Pity v4 and v5 became such bloat.

DNSKong - very effective way of blocking your PC from even accessing ad/spy sites without making a huge hosts file (which some Windows configs hate) or doing complex configuration (eg proxomitron).
http://www.pyrenean.com/dnsk.php

Mozilla - my favourite browser - its popup blocking is brilliantly done and its tabbed browsing is a must.

Best wishes,

Andrew

I was amazed that there were a couple of fantastic progs that were not listed in this thread, so I gotta jump in and open my big yap about em.

First one, may be new, just recently ran on to it, may be why it is not listed here. Called JExplorer. I have always detested plain old Explorer, and went with 2xExplorer to avoid it. 2xEx is great, but has some minor drawbacks. JExplorer is basically the same two pane file manager concept as 2xEx, but is much improved and incorporates some additional features over and above the basic file management. Unless there is somthing better that I do not know about, give it a try, otherwise fill me in on the better mousetrap...

http://www.webattack.com/get/jexplorer.shtml

Second one, is an alternative browser, called SlimBrowser. Not perfect, but pretty danged good, don't take my word for it, link to the postive CNET reviews posted in the other thread on this forum, subject "SlimBrowser" (well, I pasted in the link below)... Most should be glad that you did -- a time saving breath of fresh air...

http://download.com.com/3302-2356_4-...html?pn=1&fb=1

I saw this one mentioned on tech TV I use mailwasher pro, but this one is free and is a good spam filter=

SpamPal


:D

My SPAM solution:

MailWasher Pro -- http://www.firetrust.com
Benign -- firetrust.com
CFS db -- firetrust.com

V2i Protector, Desktop Edition v2
http://www.powerquest.com/

This does everything that Drive Image 7 does but it also does incremental backups. This makes it easy to do a backup before I install a new software product or download something from the net. I also keep a record of date and time for identifying each backup and then what was downloaded or installed.

Having fought for 8 months to figure out what was causing a "blue screen of death" on my 6 month old top of the line computer, I have learned the hard way that it is important to have both backups and a record of what I did when. This is a tremendous help in tracking down the offending problem. I also learned that BSODs can be caused by anything and they frequently occur on a random basis, which is what makes it so much fun to figure out what is going on.

Panda Platinum AV & firewall, http://www.pandasoftware.com/

SpyBot

Raxco's PerfectDisk v6 defrag software, http://www.raxco.com/

Modesitt 's TimeSlice, http://www.modesittsoftware.com/. This is a great package for anyone, who needs to track their time for billing purposes.

Cheers,

Linda

:D

Great programs all!!!

Not sure if these have been metioned or not.

But check these out:

Program

Desktop X - http://www.stardock.com/products/desktopx/

Website

Betanews - http://www.betanews.com

LindaHewitt,

I currently use both MailWasher Pro and Benign (b9). What is CFS db I can't locate it on the www.firetrust.com site. Can you provide a direct link? Thanks.


Never mind Linda, I finally found the info about CFS db in MailWasher Pro and the link it provided me. I assume you're beta testing the service, looks like there'll be an added fee to use the option. The option of having it looks good, but I'll wait to see what they'll charge.

WebAttack.com...#1

SSSleeper is a handy app also. It enables you to move your cursor to a corner so that the screen saver will come on or to another corner so that the ss will not come on.

some programs that i find helpful...
*window blinds
*cutePDF- simplest way to create pdf files. simply acts as a PDF printer which prints to ur hard disk a copy of ANY file as a PDF. absolutely free and no watermarks!
*Jaws PDF Editor- merging and extracting pages/whole PDF files.
*Trillian

all of these can be downloaded from www.download.com