Rating: 4.5

Version tested: 2.2

Description: "The Wonderful Icon" is a memory resident app that allows you to install a customized list of tasks and functions so that they can be launched from an icon in the system tray or through a hotkey (or both). It provides a large number of tasks for you to choose from, ranging from windows management to audio, clipboard, document, and hardware management functions.

The idea behind "The Wonderful Icon" is to enable the user to create a customized system tray utility that provides only the functions that the user feels that they need or wish they could access easily. Or alternately, to create a number of hotkeys for tasks that the user likes to be able to access quickly (or both hotkeys and system-tray based functions). A degree of creativity and user-involvement is required in setting this program up, since it provides such a large array of functions and tasks that the best way to get the most out of it is to figure out which functions you actually want/like to have.

Here are some notes on this program:

• System tray tasks: you can mix and match and install the ones you want in the system tray, separated by dividers.
• Hotkeyed tasks: you can set these up without them having to be in the system tray at all.
• Command line tasks: if you want, you can access all of the tasks this program offers from the command line.
• Some of my favorite functions (see screenshot above): hide/unhide desktop icons, hide/unhide individual windows (or all visible windows), minimize a window (or all windows) to taskbar,close all visible windows, close all visible windows, save/restore clipboard, mute/unmute volume, enable/disable (or launch) screen saver, type characters into window (you can copy this one multiple times for multiple phrases and invoke them with different hotkeys to get the functionality of a program such as PhraseExpress).

  Read more »

Rating: 5 pick

Version tested: 1.3

Description: "Find As You Type" is an add-on for Internet Explorer which installs a search box on the IE toolbar that will interactively find and highlight the first instance of the search string as you type it. It also makes it easy to scroll through instances of the search string in the page, and adds the ability to highlight all instances of your search string that occur in the page.

Here are some notes on this program:

• Searching from the toolbar: this program allows you to search for strings straight from the toolbar (no need to press CTRL-F).
• Finding as you type: will find and highlight the found search string in the page as you type it.
• Scrolling through found entries: buttons on the toolbar itself that make it easy to find next/previous instances of the search string.
• Highlighting all search strings on page: (this one is my favorite); if you’ve ever wished that there was something equivalent to the highlighted-search-text function in Google whereby your search terms are highlighted across the browser page for easy identification; this is it.
  Read more »

Rating: 5 pick

Version tested: engine version: 0.23.11029 beta (Nov 12, 2007)

Description: VectorMagic is a web service that can convert your uploaded bitmap images into vector images and allow you to download the result into several formats (EPS, SVG, and PNG).

Vectorization is the process whereby a pixel-based image it transformed into an image that is represented by a number of geometrical shapes (such as lines, circles, and curves). The obvious advantage to this is that vector images can be enlarged significantly without any of the pixellization and loss of fidelity that occurs with bitmap images. This makes them very practical to work with for designers/artists. Here are some notes on this web service:

• Quality settings: you can convert your images across low, medium, and high quality settings (the latter taking the most time to process).
• Quality of output: is simply excellent, in my (subjective) opinion. However, these guys have published comparisons between Vectormagic and leading commercial vecotrization products (Adobe Live Trace and Corel PowerTRACE) that seem to show Vectormagic as the best product.
• Source images: allows you to upload the following image types: JPG, GIF, PNG, BMP, TIFF. However, large images will be degraded to 1 megapixel in order not to overload the service (although it seems to be frequently overloaded/unavailable all the same).
  Read more »

Rating: 4.5

Version tested: 3.3

Description: Sizer is a Windows enhancement that adds the ability to quickly change the size and/or placement of active Windows to a predefined profile. It is accessed by right-clicking on the "maximize" button on the title bar, right clicking the taskbar window, or from the system tray.

Here are some notes on this program:

• Pre-sets: comes with 3 preset sizes, but gives you the option to create size entries of your own. (see first screenshot above).
• Custom profiles: you can create sizing profiles that comprise desired size of a window as well as its placement on screen: Top, Bottom, Center, etc. (even a user-defined placement anywhere on screen). You can define your own pre-sets to obtain most of the window managing functionality provided by a program like WinSplit Revolution.
• Resize any window: even ones that normally do not allow you to do so (this comes handy more often than you would expect).
  Read more »

Rating: 4.5

Version tested: 0.9.2

Description: ITunes Art Importer is a plugin for Itunes that downloads album art from Amazon.com and saves it within the music files ID3 tag. It adds an additional layer of user control over the process of finding album art beyond that provided by ITunes.

While ITunes provides a fairly decent ability to mass-retrieve album artwork for a music library, it suffers from problems in that (a) ITunes will not retrieve album art for tracks that do not contain album info or are not tagged exactly the way it expects, and (b) ITunes requires the user to have an ITunes account and be logged in in order for the album art function to work (simple to set up but requires a valid credit card).

ITunes Art Importer can provide a very practical (and powerful) tool to get the album art for your music collection. It can be used to auto-import album art for an entire music collection (or part of one), but for those tracks for which auto importing will not succeed, ITunes Art Importer is versatile enough to be used effectively on a per-case basis to get album art imported for all of your tracks.

• Auto Importing: ITunes Art Importer can scan an entire library (or part of one) and automatically import the album art for tracks. When in doubt, it can be set to automatically use a ’best guess’, and can be instructed to either leave all tracks that already have images alone or re-process them. In my experience, auto-importing by best guess works brilliantly.
• User assisted album art downloading: for those tracks that auto importing doesn’t identify, you can manually override the automatic search by typing an alternative search string in the search box. This will typically generate a list of possible entries to visually browse through and work from, and is an extremely handy way to quickly take care of all those tracks in your library that don’t auto import their album art.
  Read more »

Rating: 5

Version tested: n/a

Description: Reso is a tiny (9K) freeware program that can be used to create shortcuts to any program whereby the program will open and run at a pre-defined resolution. Once you exit the program your system will then automatically revert to your default resolution.

You might have encountered a situation where (a) a program you want to use was designed to run at a much lower resolution. This often seems the case with some freeware games that will not maximize to full screen, especially emulated games or flash games that insist on occupying only a tiny fraction of screen. Or conversely (b) you might be setting your system by default to a resolution that you are comfortable with, yet occasionally need to run certain programs that work better at higher resolutions.

For any of the two scenarios described above, Reso can come extremely handy in that it can create a permanent shortcut for an application that will open it at the resolution you want. Here are some notes on this program:
Read more »

Rating: 4.5

Version tested: 1.1

Description: Dizzler Desktop is a media player that connects to online sources and delivers free streaming music, internet radio, videos, and flash games. It allows users to search for content and add their favorites songs, videos, internet radio stations or flash games to their personal playlists. Dizzler also provides widgets that can be added to blogs and websites (including online community sites such as Myspace, Facebook, Friendster, etc.) and that can broadcast a user’s personal playlists.

A very good way to describe the Dizzler Media player is as a search engine: type in a name of an artist or song that you are interested in, and Dizzler will present you with a list of results to choose from. Once you have your results you can choose to play any of the entries, or otherwise mark them as favorites to add them to your personal playlist. Note that Dizzler is NOT a recommendation engine in the way Last.fm, Slacker, Pandora and others fashion themselves.

So, first off let’s get some logistical questions out of the way: you will have to register with a valid email address in order to get a Dizzler account; and once you set it up you can access it from Dizzler desktop, from the Dizzler.com website, or from a Dizzler widget that you put on a site (or sites). Here are some more notes on this program:

• The user interface: manages to be both simple and flashy-looking (which is an altogether good thing). Dizzler gets high marks for the simplicity of the interface, which is nearly segmented into 4 tabs for ’music’, ’video’, ’radio’, and ’games’. At times I found myself wishing I could scroll up/down lists using the arrow keys rather than the mouse but that’s no issue.
• Music: you will most likely find just about any music you are looking for (assuming it is not completely obscure). MP3s are streamed from all over the net, including blogs and random websites. In general the quality is quite good, but its possible to come across some surprises where the content is not entirely what you expect or where tracks are not named or tagged correctly.
  Read more »

Rating: 5

Version tested: 1.0.2

Description: Xentient Thumbnails changes the default icons for image files in Windows explorer and replaces them with thumbnails of the images themselves. It works automatically on all image files within the Windows environment without user intervention.

Every Windows user knows that setting "thumbnails" in the folder view options results in a thumbnail view of the pictures within it. Xentient Thumbnails goes a step further by replacing all image icons on-the-fly with thumbnails that are visible in all folder views (icons, tiles, list and details views, and even images placed on the Desktop). Here are more notes on this program:

• How it works: once installed/activated, this program starts generating thumbnails on the fly for all folders that you open. (Conversely a folder containing images that is never opened will not get its icons converted to thumbnails).
• Controls: interaction with the program is through a "Xentient Thumbnails" entry it adds to the Windows’ Control Panel. The only three options there are (a) switching the "generate thumbnails" function on/off, (b) increasing/decreasing the cache size for thumbnails, or (c) clearing the cache of all thumbnails.
• Image types: affects an impressive range of image types (JPG, JPE, JPEG, JP2, J2K, GIF, PNG, BMP, WBMP, EMF, WMF, PCX, PBM, PGM, PNM, PPM, RAS, TIF, TIFF, and TGA).
  Read more »

Rating: 4

Version tested: 1.00.07

Description: DesktopCoral is a program that can reserve a part of the edge of your screen (on any of the 4 sides) such as to prevent applications and windows from maximizing over the reserved area. This allows the user to place some objects in the reserved space that will be visible at all times (and will not be maximized over by other windows).

When I first found this program I was attracted to its uniqueness and originality much more so than any practical applications of it. Having said that it is easy to imagine how a reserved area on any side of the screen can be the perfect spot to place some applications; however, unfortunately you cannot place all apps in this reserved space but rather those that do not use normal windows but rather a sort of ’floating window or icon(s)’ (the only way to be sure if the app you want will work is to try it). The following are examples:

• A desktop sticky notes program such as Shock Sticker works (see first screenshot).
• A launcher such as RocketDock. Since a launcher can provide links to your favorite apps and folders it seems an especially good idea to be able to have access it at all times (see first screenshot).
  Read more »

Rating: 5 pick

Version tested: 0.9.1 (Windows GUI build 2.4.1)

Description: Handbrake is a free program that can convert DVD’s or VOB files into video files. Supported containers are: MP4/M4V (for Ipod), AVI, OGM, and MKV, while supported video encoders are Xvid, H264, and Mpeg4.

Handbrake has established a reputation as being a 1-click solution for converting DVDs to Ipod video format (MP4/M4V), but it can also be used simply for encoding to AVI/Xvid, as well as to a variety of handheld devices such as PSP, PS3, Iphone and a number of other formats (e.g. Quicktime, "Apple TV").

I’ve been looking at Handbrake for some time now and waiting for a version that works well on Windows; which I think is accomplished with this release (if you have problems running it, see "Tools and codecs" below). Here are some notes on this program:

• DVD sources: Handbrake will NOT convert encrypted DVDs. This means that you will need to decrypt your favorite films and TV shows and copy them to your hard drive before Handbrake can process them. This can be done using a number of freeware programs such as RipIt4Me/DVD Decrypter, DVD Shrink, or DVD FAB HD Decrypter. Once this happens you will need to point Handbrake to the VIDEO_TS folder that is copied to your hard drive as the source.
• Profiles: Handbrake comes with a number of pre-defined profiles that are very useful for getting your desired output format. If you are interested in creating a video file for the Ipod, for example, you would simply select one of the three existing Ipod profiles (Ipod High-Rez, Ipod Low-Rez, or Iphone/Ipod Touch). Or you can use these as starting points and change them to your desired settings, which you can then save as a profile (e.g. I start with Ipod High-Rez, change the encoder to Xvid, then lower the bitrate to 1000 in to get a smaller output file).
  Read more »