If you’ve ever been on the National Geographic Photography site then you already know that they feature some of the best, high quality photographs to be found on the internet. What you may not know, however, is that the site has a special wallpapers section, and that the majority of images in the Photography site are available for download in wallpaper sizes (with a maximum width of at least 1280 pixels for most images, and some are available at 1600 pixels).

Note that there are in fact two different National Geographic URLs with two different wallpaper sections, here and here.

I recently stumbled on a wallpaper image from the National Geographic Photography site, completely by accident, and then went on to discover nothing less than a treasure trove of desktop wallpaper images.

Max Wallpaper size: 1280 pixel width vs 1600

It took me a while to figure out why it was that some images where offered at a max of 1280 pixel width while others at 1600 pixels. I finally found out that in fact there were TWO National Geographic URLs that offered downloadable wallpapers.

(1) The images from the http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/ site went up to a max of 1280 pixel width (and sometimes only to 1024), even in its Wallpaper section. Images in galleries will have a little “Wallpaper” download button on the bottom left (see screenshot to the right). Here are some interesting galleries from this site:

• Photo of the week
• Photo of the day archive
• Photo of the day: best of 2008
• Photo of the day: best of 2007
• Note that there is a “Photo of the day” gallery for each month; for example Photo of the day: best of October 2009

(2) The other URL is http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/, and only offers wallpaper downloads in its wallpaper section, with a better resolution that above at a width of 1600 pixels.

Use the dropdown on the top left to scroll through different galleries. The download link is below the image (see screenshot to the right).

The verdict: I cannot believe how cool these images are. Enjoy!!.

This is a kind of swiss army knife of tools for working with file types and extensions. As you can see from the description above, it does more in Vista/Windows Seven environments than in XP. And since I am using Windows XP I will not cover DefaultPrograms’ ability to edit autoplay handler programs, no’r will I be using it to edit the registered default programs and their assigned types.

Instead, for this review I will go through two exercises that can (a) show what this program can do and just how cool itis in general, and (b) illustrate the user experience a little bit.

Exercise #1. Changing the default icon for PDF files on Windows XP.

I use PDF-XChange Viewer as my default PDF reader, and don’t particularly care for the default icon it uses for PDF’s. Here’s how DefaultPrograms can change the default used icon for a specific file type.

1. Click the "Icon" button in the interface
2. The next screen will display a list of file extensions
3. Filter by the desired extension ("PDF" in this case)
4. The next screen shows the current icon used. Click "Browse" to select a new icon
5. Select the new icon. You can point to executables, individual icon files, or icon libraries
6. Click "Save Icon" and you’re done

Exercise #2: Changing the context menu options a file type (.JPG).

You may have noticed that, at least in XP, when you right click an image file and click "Edit" in the context menu, the default program used to edit is MS Paint. Here’s how you can use DefaultPrograms to edit the context menu for JPG’s.

1. Click the "Icon" button in the interface
2. The next screen will display a list of file extensions
3. Typed "JP" in the filter then CTRL-selected four image types at once (see image to the right)
4. Next, in the list of context menu commands, select "Edit" and click "Edited Selected Command"
5. The next prompt shows the command name and program path
6. Change the path and parameters to the new program; in this case I will be using my favorite "PhotoScape"
7. That’s it (although you will need to do this for remaining image types).

The verdict: what I like about this program is the user interface, which is simple and intuitive, and the fact that it works and does exactly what it claims to do. I’ve seen and written about a number of programs whose functions intersect with this one (Types and Icon Phile come to mind) but DefaultPrograms is without a question the utility that I would prefer to use to perform these sorts of tasks. Highly recommended.

Version Tested: 2.4

Compatibility: Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7. MS .NET Framework 3.5 required.

Go to the program home page to download the latest version (approx 675K).

It happened to me a couple of weeks ago: my computer started acting flaky and unreliable, taking an unreasonably long time to boot (and sometimes failing do so), and driving me nuts in the process. In these situations most people I (believe), start wondering if they’ve contracted a virus or other malware, or puzzling over whether a recently added software might have caused the matter. All of these are plausible avenues of exploration, but if nothing seems to work you should check to see if your hard drive might have bad sectors on it that may be causing the problem. This is what Surface Scanner does and performs the job quite rapidly.

Surface Scanner vs. Windows’ check disk tool: the main reason why you would use this is for a quick diagnosis – it is considerably faster than Windows’ built in checker and the scan can be performed from within Windows without a reboot. However, it does not have a “repair” bad sectors option which the Windows utility offers.

A couple of quick notes:

• How to use: install then run; mount the hard drive you want to check then press “scan”. This can be done from within Windows, no need to reboot.
• Fast: it took about 10 minutes to scan my 5400 rpm 80-gig drive.
• If you encounter many errors: then stop the scan; you now have the information you need, and forcing the scan might further damage the drive and decrease the chances of salvaging your data.

The verdict: the scan is fast enough that its worth doing every once in a while if your system is acting weird, seeming to work fine in one instance and hanging up the next.

If you do find bad sectors: the first thing I would do is get my data out of there ASAP. Next you might try to run software that will attempt to apply fixes to the problem. Windows’ own check disk seems to have an option to do that. I am not sure if there are any good freeware tools that will attempt to fix bad sectors … if you know of any let me know in the comments. In any case fix or no fix if you have bad sectors you should start planning to replace the drive immediately. (Oh, and in the case I described above my hard drive turned out fine, to my relief!).

Version Tested: 1.0

Compatibility: WinAll.

Go to the program home page to download the latest version (approx 1.78 megs).

If you’ve ever read or heard about ordinary people being sued for downloading files from torrent or other p2p networks, and worried about your own downloading activities, this program is for you. Typically, agencies that are out to detect people’s downloading activity will actually take part in providing the file for download, then attempt to find out as much information about the computers that connect to them as possible.

How it works:

What PeerBlock does is it taps into publicly available lists that classify IP addresses in order to simply avoid "bad" IP addresses. It utilizes the collective wisdom of communities and sites that classify IP addresses (go here for more on where these lists come from). It works much in the same way as a virus killer program in that it is constantly updating the lists of known "bad" IP addresses, even as more of these come into existence.

What kind of protection to expect:

In keeping with the virus killer analogy above, PeerBlock will not necessarily protect you from the latest unknown threat or bad IP, but it will greatly decrease your chances of being detected. Moreover (and this is where the viruskiller analogy ends), PeerBlock will make you harder to detect compared to others on the network; the PeerBlock documentation cites the so-called "bear principle: "when running away from an angry bear you don’t need to be faster than that bear … you only need to be faster than the guy next to you". The Peerblock site also states that "the only way to be safe with P2P downloading is to not share copyrighted content!".

Ease of Use:

What I really like about PeerBlock is that it is very easy to use; all you need to do is run it and specify what kinds of "lists" you would like to be protected from (P2P, Spyware, Advertising, or Education/Universities) and that’s it. It now runs in the background, preventing your computer from connecting to known bad sources, not just for torrent or p2p networks but for (optionally) for general web usage as well. It will also periodically auto-update the lists that it needs to do its job.

Program options:

You can enable or disable PeerBlock at will. You can also set up your own lists if you are so inclined as well as use PeerBlock to block custom IP ranges that you set up (such as the IP range of entire countries). You can allow or disallow IP filtering for HTTP access as well (i.e. regular browsing).

PeerBlock vs. PeerGuardian:

PeerBlock is based on the code from PeerGuardian (v. PG2 RC1 Test3). I would recommend using PeerBlock because it (a) is under development; (b) does not suffer from the kind of bugs that PeerGuardian had, (c) most importantly, runs on XP, Vista, and Windows 7 without hitch. You cannot run both simultaneously.

The verdict:

Convenient, easy to use, and might just save your bacon. Download it and be safe.

Version Tested: 1.0 r181

Compatibility: Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7.

Go to the program home page to download the latest version (approx 800K).

Are you interested in stocks? Do you invest or want to invest? Whatever your need, if you’ve ever wanted to put a stock ticker on your desktop this is the program that will do it. Here are more notes on this app:

• Data source: stock prices and news headlines are downloaded from Yahoo Finance.
• Info provided: stock price and difference from last price in dollars and percentages, color coded.
• Interactivity: hover over your stock price and a balloon tooltip with the latest related headlines from Yahoo Finance will be displayed.
• Regular RSS feeds: can be defined in the settings. You can then right click on any of the scrolling lines and select an RSS feed to view it. You can also randomize regular RSS feeds or randomize RSS feeds and stocks (see image to the right).
• Number of lines/tickers: you can have up to six bands scrolling simultaneously.
• Placement: top or bottom (which can be defined in the setup)
• Customizable: you can customize text and background colors, opacity, and scrolling speed.

Wish list (or how this program can be even better)

• The ability to switch interactivity on and off. I noticed that I would inadvertently trigger tooltips during my normal computer activity without intending it. It would be great if, for example, the stock ticker optionally responded to shift+clicking rather than just clicking, to avoid unintended triggering.
• The ability to remove Fox news and CNN RSS feeds, which are predefined.

The verdict: a nice little app for sure. I like (a) that it can display regular RSS feeds as well as stock, (b) that the scrolling is nice and smooth, and (c) its general look and feel, which is quite nice (see the screenshots). But Free Stock Ticker can be even better (see wish list above).

Note that there are a number of free programs that deliver the same function, such as another app with the exact same name (Free Stock Ticker) and TickerTape. If you want to try another program that is just an RSS news ticker and dont care for stocks check out Easy Desk Ticker which I mentioned previously in my posting entitled "Nine Ways to Check RSS feeds".

Version Tested: 1.2.2

Compatibility: WinAll. Requires MS .NET Framework 3.5. Download it here.

Go to the program home page to download the latest version (approx 319K).

I learned about this from a comment on the RocketDock post that read “best launcher ever – RUNit 2.0.1b!” (thanks to reader “rws”). So I searched for and found it and … I really, really like it.

As launchers go the unique aspect of RUNit is the way it is accessed, by right clicking on the upper edge of the screen (or alternately you can enable shift-right-clicking anywhere on the screen or simply ctrl+shift). Which isn’t quite revolutionary, except that it can be accessed extremely quickly and somehow delivers a really nice user experience. Here are more notes:

• Set up different lists: you can create wholly different lists of items and specify different shortcuts for accessing them. For example you can set it up such that right clicking the top edge of the screen can display your apps while right clicking the bottom edge displays favorite URLs or whatever.
• Drag and drop: to add items, simply drag shortcuts, files, URLs or pretty much anything from anywhere to the RUNit setup dialog. The setup has a button that can reconcile shortcuts automatically, though I am not sure why the user has to actually “press it” for this to take place.
• Customizable: you can select large or different icons, change the font used, edit the order of items, launch apps minimized or maximized, and even set the coordinated on screen where you want a particular app to be placed when launched.
• Cascading menu structure: is supported; use dividers and create folders and subfolders within your menu.
• Portable: unzip and run; does not write to the registry.
• Source code: is available for download.

The verdict: the RUNit site states that “no one who has ever tried it could live without it anymore”, and after trying it I can see that there’s a lot of truth to that statement. A very nice launcher indeed.

Version Tested: 2.1beta6a

Compatibility: WinAll; no info on Vista.

Go to program home page to download the latest version (approx 67K).

Firefox extension "InvisibleHand" is an on-the-fly comparison shopping tool designed to instantly retrieve and display the best prices from a wide variety of online vendors for the items that you are looking at as you surf. See our Freewaregenius review here. Some of the added features in this new version are as follows:

• Google search integration: InvisibleHand can now grab deals from within a Google search. The cheapest offers for an item are presented discretely above the search results.
• Support for German retailers.
• Notifications are refreshed, presented more discretely.

If you have any feedback, comments, questions or suggestions they would love to hear them!

I am always on the lookout for interesting animations to feature on this blog (click this link for a list). I was just sent this by reader and sometimes contributor Elioz Heffer who described it as follows (with some edits on my part):

"Zoomquilt II is just like a quilt blanket was made from about 20 artists contributions. The beauty of it is that the drawings are put into a never ending zoom motion (inwards or outwards) [as] you enter the microscopic world …

When opening the picture, it will take few moments to upload and then will present the pictures (interrelated) in a zoom motion. You can choose the direction (Zoom in or Zoom out) and the speed … If you look [closely] enough you’ll notice that it finally returns to the same starting point like a perpetuum mobile, but you are tricked to believe it is a fluid part of the Hellish world presented there.

The pictures remind [me of] some ideas of Hieronymus Bosch the famous painter, and there is also a [downloadable] screen saver".

The only thing I will add is that the screensaver is awesome and highly recommended. Check it out for yourself!

Go to the Zoomquilt II page, where you can download the screensaver (approx 5.66 megs).

I’m not sure if most people have a certain topic that they are partial to for wallpaper images, but I know for myself that I generally like expansive landscapes with an awesome sky and (for some reason) a single tree. In fact, I’ve written a previous posting about it which even makes an attempt at a psychological explanation. I also like representations of the globe (see the Desktop Earth post). Bing image search has a "wallpaper" filter that allows you to find wallpaper images for the topic of your choice.

Can I do this with Google?: although Bing and Google both provide size filters that can help you hone in on large images, Bing IMHO has a three-pronged advantage (1) the filters are right there in the sidebar whereas in Google you have to dig for them; (2) the Google filters are much more granular, which can be an advantage, except in this case I like the "wallpaper" size option in Bing, and most importantly (3) Bing’s image results are simply cooler; it seems to be looking for "wallpaper" images as such rather than big images. (Note this is what I found at least for terms I was searching for; make the comparison yourself).

Here’s a step by step.

1. Go to Bing Image Search and type in a topic you like. Make it broad (do not make it too narrow) in order to get a decent set of results. For this exercise I typed in "Tree".
2. Next, scroll down to the "size" filter in the left sidebar and click on "Wallpaper"
3. Check out the set of results.
4. Filter some more: if you like, you can use the other filters in the left sidebar to further filter the results by layout, color, style, etc.

Bonus: once you find desktop wallpapers you like, check out the sites where you found them for other cool wallpaper. For this posting I made two searches for the keywords "tree" and "cloud" and the images displayed above came from this, this, this, and this cool wallpaper site/sources.

You likely have a reason for having multiple browsers installed on your PC (assuming that you do!). I use IE7 at work, for example, because most of the people who browse our work sites use that browser and I prefer to have their same browsing experience. But I also have Firefox installed because of the many interesting extensions and plugins that it has, etc.

Whatever your reasons for having multiple browsers, BrowserMaster is a small app that becomes, in effect, your default browser, and once it detects a request to open an internet link it briefly flashes browser icons on screen and allows you to quickly select the browser that you want to use. More notes below:

• Applies to links clicked outside a browser: for example shortcuts on your desktop, in a notes program, in an email notifier app, in an Office or PDF document or an email client, etc. Links clicked inside a browser behave as normal.
• Links: works for HTTP:\\ or HTTPS:\\ links.
• Default wait time: it gives you 2 seconds to choose your browser before going with the default. This can be changed in the settings file, but has to be done manually using a text editor. The settings file is in “C:\Documents and Settings\yourusername\Application Data\BrowserMaster\BrowserMaster.xml”; find the “delayin seconds” tag and change the value from 2 to something else.
• Other settings: from the settings file mentioned above, you could also enable/disable specific browsers. Find and change (Enabled=”true”) to (Enabled=”false”) for each listed browser.

Wish list (or how to make this program even better)

• Force a choice: I wish that BrowserMaster could be set to force the user to make a choice rather than the few seconds that this version waits for a decision.
• Set a default browser: it does not seem possible to set a default browser choice. It will default to whatever browser is open, but if no browser is open it defaulted to something and I couldn’t figure out how it made its decision (or whether that can be changed).
• Present a choice when opening local links: for pages that were stored on my hard drive, it didn’t give a choice, which I thought was strange.
• GUI interface: to quickly change the settings. Would be great.

The verdict: an original, clever little app that has a lot of potential. As it is it can be very useful, but they can really push this one and make it a lot better in my opinion. Check it out for yourself.

[Via: Umair from Crispytech tipped me off about this one; check out his BrowserMaster writeup here]

Version Tested: 1.1.0 Beta (note: I STRONGLY recommend installing this one over 1.0)

Compatibility: WinAll

Go to the program page to download the latest version (approx 376K).

Your audio library likely comes from a hodge-podge of sources; tracks that you ripped from CDs using different programs and settings over the years, tracks that you downloaded from sites and file sharing services, and tracks that you bought from services such as iTunes, etc. This means that unless you have put in a lot of time and energy fixing tags, normalizing volume, and generally doing maintenance on your audio files your audio library probably has a lot of issues that need to be remedied (including many problems that you were never aware of). This is where MP3 Diags steps is to discover, diagnose, and fix any problems or other issues that your audio library may have.

Problems? What Problems?
The most visible problem are of course tagging and missing normalization data, but there are other, more technical issues that you may not be aware of. MP3 Diags, to quote its website, “is a one stop solution that identifies more than 50 different issues in MP3 files and provides the means to fix many of them”. These (again from the website) include broken tags/headers/audio, duplicate tags/headers, incorrect placement of tags/headers, low quality audio, missing VBR header, missing (or broken) track info/cover art, missing normalization data, and character encoding issues (for languages other than English).

What I like about this program
Is that it doesn’t just diagnose, it includes the tools to fix. However, here’s a specific list of things I like about this MP3 Diags

1. Full fledged Tag editor: which is really very cool. I like that you can copy from one “cell” in its Excel-like grid, then paste into multiple places.
2. MusicBrainz (and Discogs) integration: it includes a full fledged tag editor that can pull data from Musicbrainz and Discogs. (Musicbrainz is a community based digital thumbprinting database that can identify and tag audio files with no tag or filename information).
3. Volume normalization: uses external app Mp3Gain to process and normalize albums, in order to ensure that played tracks from different albums or different source don’t exhibit volumes that are too loud or too low on transition. To enable Mp3Gain download the zipped version of that program nd extract in the MP3 Diags directory.
4. Tooltips: while most of the issues that MP3Diags are technical and in many cases not easily understandable, the program will let you hover over the different columns and get an instant explanation. This makes the program so much more accessible and easier to use for novices and experts alike.
5. Maintains backups of changed files

Wish list (or how this program can be even better):

• A “fix everything” button: as it is there are a number of “action” buttons, and each will perform a certain group of fixes (which are editable in the settings). However, I found myself clicking on these on after the other in order to get all the issues taken care of.
• Search box: although there are many kinds of filters available for sorting through files, it is not possible to filter by typing in a string of text, which I found very strange.
• Column sort: issues found are laid out in a grid, and it was strange to discover that I couldn’t click on column heads in order to sort by these.
• Context menu integration for the tag editor: i.e. the ability to right click on a folder or selected audio files and open these in the tag editor. This is one thing that Mp3Tag does which I love, and I wish this program would do it as well.

The verdict: I’ve seen a handful of programs that scan your audio library to identify quality issues, but MP3Diag is without a doubt in a league of its own. If you’ve every wished there was a single program that can help you identify problems in your audio library and allow you to fix then you’ve found it.

Some caveats though: this program is still in beta so be mindful of that if you encounter any bugs (I didn’t). Also note that what constitutes low quality is user defined in the settings, so change that according to your preference.

My experience with this program is that it works great; however, I often found myself a little … incredulous (may be the word) … that problems were found with audio files that I didn’t think had anything wrong with them (such as containing invalid streams for example). In cases like these, you could either use the auto backup and apply the fix or simply decide to move on. In my case I did the former without adverse effects, and I actually have a high degree of trust that the program “knows what its doing”. Highly recommended.

Version Tested: 0.99.06.042

Compatibility: Windows, Linux.

Go to the program home page for more info; download link can be found here (installer and portable versions available; approx 6.36 megs).

I have a soft spot for little apps that access to favorite items on-the-fly. JumpTo provides access to folders, files, apps, and URLs from anywhere and can be displayed in any program. It is very similar to previously mentioned Folder Menu, with some differences. Here’s a list of pros and cons.

PROS:

• Launch your favorite folders, files, apps, or URLs from anywhere: simply launch the app via its keyboard shortcut and you can be quickly on your way.
• Memos: JumpTo also includes a simple notes app. It can quickly
• Create your own submenus: which is to say it lets you create and organize the cascading menu entries as you like.
• Adding items: can be performed via the context menu entry, by highlighting an item and pressing Alt+shift+S, or by opening the add items dialog and dragging and dropping items into it.
• Less than 4 megs in memory: makes this program truly lightweight.
• Extra functions: via the "extra functions" context menu entry launch a run box, insert dates dynamically into your text, or strip any text in the clipboard from any formatting. You can also hide and display windows.
• Portable version: is available for download on the site.

CONS:

• Does not provide access to favorite folders in Windows open/save dialogs: unlike for example similar apps such as Folder Menu.
• Does not support icons: which is to say your app shortcuts and other shortcuts will be represented using text only. Not a big deal, but could have looked better with icons.

The verdict: a nice little app that and is truly lightweight. It has room for improvement in terms of accessing folders in open/save dialogs but as it is it can be extremely useful and a huge time saver.

JumpTo video Tutorial:

Version Tested: 1.0

Compatibility: WinAll.

Go to the program home page to download the latest version (approx 787K).

Although I have a handful of folders designated for specific projects and topics, I notice that whenever I am working on something most of the files I am using invariably end up on the desktop. If this is your experience as well (or indeed if you download a lot of files into the desktop and have to sort them out later) then you should check this program out.

What DragTargets does is allow you to set up your frequently used favorite folders as buttons in a floating desktop widget. You can then drag and drop your files to the appropriate folder in the DragTargets window to copy or move them to the right place, or simply click on the folder button to open the folder. More notes on this program below:

• Copy or move: dragging files copies them by default; to move files instead check the little box next to the “stop” button.
• Open folders: click on the folder button to open it in explorer
• Portable: unzip and use, no install needed.
• Memory use: about 7 megs, which is fairly small.

Wish list (or how this program can be a lot better)

• Minimize to tray: essential, I think, for a program like this.
• Show and hide by hotkey: would make it so much more useful.
• The option to switch off semi-transparency

The verdict: a nice little program that can potentially be extremely useful. It can however be much improved with a few little tweaks though (see wish list above!).

Version Tested: 1.0

Compatibility: WinAll.

Click this link to download (approx 281K). Developer homepage here but does not provide any info. See this page for more info on this program.

Although there is probably no one left in the universe that hasn’t figured out how to find and download music on the internet, Songr is a nice program to have for the following reasons (consider this the PROS section):

1. It has a nice, compact interface.
2. The fact that it searches multiple sources, acting as a meta-search engine for audio search engines such as Skreemr and others.
3. It can identify songs based on lyrics. Perfect for those times when you have a section of a song echoing over and over in your head that you don’t have the name of and/or don’t know the artist.
4. It can download songs from YouTube as MP3 audio or as FLV or MPG video. (For this, click on the little blue floppy disk icon next to “search by lyrics”).

The CONS section:

• Reliability: many entries in the list of results turned out to be broken links when I tried to download them. And while eventually I invariably found entries in the list that worked, it would be great if Songr could check for and remove broken links from the list.

The verdict: a nice program; straightforward and does the job, but with room for improvement in terms of reliability. Regardless, Kudos to the developers for this nice little program.

Version Tested: 1.2

Compatibility: Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7. Requires Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5.

Go to the program home page to download the latest version (approx 0.45 megs).

This is one of those programs that are difficult to write about just because they contain so many functions and do many things. In some ways Signo is comparable to such automation tools as AutoHotkey, although it is less complex and more accessible. However, unlike AutoHotkey Signo does not have a scripting component so it is not a full fledged macro engine and development environment.

Aside from its accessibly what I also like about Signo is that it is very small (occupies a mere 9 megs in memory); I also like that it can give you a sort of "shortcut report" for your system that displays all of its keyboard shortcuts as well as ones that are used by other apps and by Windows (part of which is in fact pictured in the screenshot above).

Here are 7 (Seven!) cool things that this program can do:

1. Snap windows to the edges of the screen: in the style of Windows 7, using keyboard shortcuts (Alt+Win+Up/left/right/top/bottom).
2. Minimize to tray: (Ctrl+Win+T) will minimize the current window or app to the tray. Interestingly, you can minimize all windows to the tray in one fell swoop by pressing (Ctrl+Win+Z).
3. Launch apps and URLs: from the system tray or via hotkey.
4. Auto corrections (and abbreviations): we’ve seen this before with AutoHotkey; you can add frequently misspelled words to a list such that every time you type in a misspelling it is automatically corrected for you.
5. Insert predefined text: you can either set a custom hotkey that would insert a specified text, or define a "textkey" that you can type in and watch it magically being transformed to your predefined text (e.g. you can set "#sig" to automatically insert your signature/name/etc. inside the text you’re writing).
6. Optimize applications’ memory utilization: this program is by the same developer who released Minimem, an excellent memory optimization utility designed to reduce the memory footprint of individual programs. It would appear that they have incorporated that program’s functionality into Signo such that you could add any app from within Signo and create a shortcut that would optimize its memory use. Super cool!. For browsers use the predefined Shift+Win+B if your browser starts gobbling up large amounts of RAM.
7. Context menu of functions, anywhere: Ctrl+Alt+leftmouse will display a handy context menu of Signo functions anywhere you happen to be at that time.

Wish list: (or how this program can be even better)

• Disabling functions: although it is possible to delete functions you don’t want, I found myself wishing I could simply de-activate them without deleting (as it is you have the option to export them then delete, which keeps the option to re-import later if you want to).
• The screenshot function: needs to be improved. I was not able to capture a screenshot of a context menu (the program kept releasing it for me), wasn’t able to define a quality setting for my saved JPG, wasn’t able to attach a suffix or prefix to filenames. A "Repeat last capture" function would also be good.

The verdict: a nice program overall. If you find that it contains a bit too many functions and shortcuts you can always remove the ones that you don’t want and customize the keyboard shortcuts if needed. And at 9 megs in memory, Signo manages to be both powerful and small. Check it out.

Version Tested: 1.4

Compatibility: Windows 2003, Vista, Server 2008, 2000, XP, Windows 7.

Go to the program home page to download the latest version (approx 2.46 megs).

Do you want a cool application switching / Alt+Tab replacement app? Check out VistaSwitch. More notes on this one below:

• It looks pretty darn slick: don’t take my word for it, check out the screenshot.
• Preview thumbnails: see a thumbnail preview of the apps or windows as you scroll through them. Previews are available not just for maximized windows but for minimized windows in Vista and Windows 7 (but not in XP).
• Sticky: you can turn this mode on if you like. It will allow you to launch VistaSwitcher with Alt+Tab (or another shortcut), release the keys, and have the VistaSwitcher interface remain open. (Which I quite like actually)
• Windows operations: you can right click on an entry in the VistaSwitcher interface and perform some operations such as minimize, maximize, or close.
• Memory use: about 9 megs (which is fairly small).
• Native 64 bit version available.

The verdict: this app is the successor to TaskSwitchXP, which I am very fond of (they are both from the same developer). What I like about it is that it manages to be simultaneously slick, simple, and low on resources (and of course free). What more could you ask for?

Version Tested: 1.0.3

Compatibility: Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7. 32 bit and 64 bit versions available.

Go to the program home page to download the latest version (approx 271K).

I had two reactions here: the first was … wow! cool!. The second, I was initially wondering what the point of this was, exactly. If you are asking the same question, the answer is that this is built to view really large images; which is to say images with enough detail and visual data to make it worthwhile zooming in, panning, and doing all the cool stuff that Seadragon can do. More notes below:

• Fullscreen: can maximize to fullscreen (click on the icon in the bottom right).
• Images: can be used on images found on the web. If you want to use your own images, upload them somewhere first. Remember that its designed to view really large, hi-res images.
• Sharing links: Seadragon will provide a URL that you can send to and share with others.
• Embedding in a website: Seadragon will also provide the code you need to embed the image and in a page. You can modify the code to customize width and height.

See it in action below

Note: I’ve had this image on my hard drive for a while and unfortunately do not remember whence it came; cannot give credit.

The verdict: a nice toy to play with. It is perfect if you have large images that you would like to view or share without making them small and “internet friendly”, and for panoramic images as well. This is also a great way to publish images of artwork, commercial brochures or scientific images that may be rich in both visual information and text.

Compatibility: a modern browser.

Go to Seadragon.com.

If you post images on the internet you know that in most cases images need to be resized for optimal viewing in a browser and the compression quality adjusted to make the file sizes smaller and faster to download (my preferred settings, for example, are a width of 800 pixels and 80% quality setting). Dropresize is a program that provides a simple way to perform these adjustments on images simply by moving them to a designated folder. Here are more notes on this program.

• How it works: Dropresize is a background app that lives in the system tray and monitors a designated folder on your hard drive. Once it detects images moved into that folder it automatically resizes them based on your size and quality settings. (Note: max resize is 1600 pixels, and images smaller than your defined resolution settings will not be enlarged).
• Settings: users can specify desired height OR desired width in pixels, as well as the compression quality settings.
• Supported filetypes: at the moment of this writing only Jpegs are supported, but it seems there are plans to support other image types.
• Portable: unzip and run. No install needed. If you want this app to be launched when you boot into Windows you need to manually add it to the startup folder (found in the Windows’ start menu).
• Memory consumption: this is a MS .NET app and therefore memory consumption can be somewhat unclear. I believe its takes about 15 megs in memory, which is not that much but not quite lightweight.

Wish list: I could go on and on with ideas to make this better, but will make it brief

• Auto rename: automatically adding a prefix or suffix to the file names; such as appending an “_s” to the filename fo example to indicate that it is a resized version.
• Multiple profiles: for example having one folder resize to width=800 and another to width=200 (for thumbnails), etc.

The verdict: while there are many ways to resize images in batch, the “designated folder” concept employed by Dropresize is both innovative and appealing. The program is still in beta and my guess is that it will be improved greatly, but at what it does Dropresize works really well. If you frequently have to resize images for the internet then check this one out for sure.

Version Tested: 0.1.3b

Compatibility: Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7. Requires Requires Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 or newer. (This is already pre-installed in Vista).

Go to the program home page to download the latest version (approx 22.99K).

Why you need this app: although many sites have RSS feeds or email subscription options that can notify you when there’s new content, many sites do not and may require constant follow up in order to keep up with changes. And even if a site supports RSS some types of content may not be supported, such as comments or discussions on forums and the like.

I’ve been looking at desktop-based apps that monitor websites for changes when I found this site. Changedetection.com will monitor a list of websites you specify for changes and send you email notifications whenever it detects them. More notes below:

• Highlighting changes: once it detects a change, Changedetection.com will render a version of the web page that displays new text on the page highlighted in a yellow marker style. Text that is no longer on the page is also displayed in a strike-through style.
• Changes it detects: text changes anywhere at all (including in the sidebar). Images, videos, or other elements such as HTML tags are not detected.
• History: what is truly amazing is that once you create an account, a history of the website(s) you are tracking is kept and can be accessed for later reference (see the screenshot to the right above).
• Schedule: Changedetection.com will check a website for changes once per day.

The verdict: this is a truly great service. I prefer this to local apps that track site changes because the monitoring and detection is performed remotely on their servers, so you do not have to worry about your PC being online, and your computer’s resources are not being used at all times.

I’m also blown away by the fact that changes are tracked and saved, such that you could access older versions of the sites you are interested in.

Compatibility: Browser based. You will need to provide an email address where your notifications will be sent.

Go to the changedetection.com page.

As your image collection grows you may have noticed that although it is taking more and more space on your hard drive, yet ironically you seldom get to actually look at your pictures. Wouldn’t it be great if you could integrate your images into your desktop and screensaver so you could actually get to see them? If this sounds like something you want then read on.

There are three types of toys that this program offers:

1. Dynamic wallpaper (”collages”): these consist of a backdrops with three “postcards” overlayed on top where PhotoJoy will randomly shuffle pictures from your collection.
2. Photo widgets (which it calls Photo Toys): reminiscent of other desktop widget engines (e.g. Klipfolio or Vista’s built in widgets). There are 5 variations on this in the version I tested that feature animation and interesting transitions (see screenshot to the right). The downside is that these seem to consume too much CPU power, so I would use sparingly and only on powerful PCs (see CONS section below).
3. Animated Screensavers: I’ve seen screensavers based on images before, but must admit that these are very interesting and the range of different screensavers on offer is impressive (screenshot on top left of this post).

Here’s a list of PROS and CONS:

PROS:

1. An excellent range of choices; many “toys” that you can download and use
2. The screensavers: very cool and smoothly animated
3. The dynamic wallpaper “collages” are generally very interesting

CONS:

1. Memory use is approx 40 megs, which is not insignificant. But the more important issue is that this program seems to be constantly using up CPU processing cycles on my PC (about 20%-30%). Upon further investigation I found that it was the widgets (Photo Toys) that were responsible. The other toys were ok in terms of CPU usage. See more on this subject in the “verdict” section below.
2. The backgrounds for the dynamic wallpaper tends to be somewhat, erm… cheesy.

Wish list (or how this program can be even better):

• The ability to create custom dynamic wallpaper would be great, such that you would use your favorite image as wallpaper and overlay it with the postcard style changing images.

The verdict: generally a very good, well made program. What’s interesting about PhotoJoy is the range of options that it has on offer; there are dozens of “collages” and screensavers to choose from and most of them are innovative and well done. On the flip side the high CPU usage for the widgets (Photo Toys) was a deal breaker for me, and I quickly removed these. Unless you have a powerful PC or really want the widgets on your desktop I would skip those and stick with just the wallpaper and screensaver options instead (which to me are the more interesting ones anyway).

Demo video:

Version Tested: build 200956

Compatibility: Windows XP or Vista, graphic card with 64 mb of memory

Go to the program home page to download the latest version (approx 621K for the installer, which will then download more files on installation).