[Editor’s note: this review was written by Freewaregenius contributor Jason H. Check out his tech blog: 404techsupport.com].

Netalyzr is not the traditional freeware covered here at Freewaregenius, but it is a free service that allows you to test and find out more information about the Internet connection you’re paying for. With no real established metrics for what an ISP must provide, Netalyzr gives you the inside scoop in a convenient report. By running the test, not only will you find out information about your connection and its capabilities, but you’ll also share information with researchers that may improve the Internet infrastructure and provide data to the Net Neutrality argument. From their Learn More page:

The Netalyzr analyzes various properties of your Internet connection that you should care about — including blocking of important services, HTTP caching behavior and proxy correctness, your DNS server’s resilience to abuse, NAT detection, as well as latency & bandwidth measurements — and reports its findings in a detailed report.

Netalyzr is a simple 3-step process and simply requires that you have Java installed and visit a site with your browser. From the ICSI Netalyzr home page, just click the Start analysis link. If you don’t see the text, Start analysis, it means you don’t have a compatible version of Java installed. After you start the test, you’ll be prompted to allow the Java Applet run from the International Computer Science Institute. Hit Run, if you want to take the test.

After the Applet begins running, you can watch the status to see all the different things that are tested. The test will take a few minutes to complete so you might want to let it run while you’re doing something else. Visiting other websites should not effect the final results, so maybe go play some Chibi Knight or go visit my website, 404 Tech Support.

After the test completes, you’ll get a long list telling you the results of the tests in accurate, but not-too-technical terms. This can alert you to any problems with your connection, issues with your router, or limitations of your ISP. A small example of what the results can tell you include NAT detection, Access to remote ports: FTP, IMAP/SSL, BitTorrent, DNS, HTTP; Connection Latency; Upload and Download speeds; IPv6 compatibility, and many more. Netalyzr has a sample results page that you can view to see all of what gets tested.

One small note is that your antivirus might give you a notice (not an alert or a warning) because of some of the ports that Netalyzr tests, but everything is safe.

You can visit the site and take the test at ICSI Netalyzr’s page hosted by UC-Berkley. Be sure to check out their links to similar projects if this kind of thing interests you.

Another day, another free utility that puts nifty function in the right click context menu. And although it may seem that we’ve seen a lot of the functions that Lammer Context menu offers before, a closer look will reveal some very interesting and noteworthy functions on here, such as mounting folders as virtual drives, search and replace file contents, batch file-and-folder renaming, select all similar files by type, and path operations (copy/move/list/delete) using regular expressions. Supports 32 bit and 64 bit operating systems both.

This app was mentioned in the comments section of my JDcontextmenu review (thanks reader “Free” for letting me know about it). This was the same discussion where it was mostly agreed that LopeSoft’s FileMenu Tools was likely the best free app (or at least one of the best) in it’s class in terms of installing useful functions in the context menu.

However, you should definitely check out Lammer Context menu for the following reasons:

• The functions are noteworthy and interesting (see my top 5 favorites below)
• The program is generally very well designed; you can tell that a lot of attention to detail went into each and every function.
• 32 bit and 64 bit versions available. I mention this because every since I switched to 64 bit Windows 7 a few months ago I’ve noticed that a lot of Windows extensions do not offer 64 bit support. It plays nice with the Windows UAC as well.

My Top 5 Lammer Context Menu functions

(1) Batch Rename:

Very handy tool with a well designed tabbed interface. Supports a wide range of interventions, and can be used to batch-rename files using a base name and number sequence. Will display previews of changes before renaming.

(2) Mount path as virtual drive:

This option allows you to right click on any folder and mount is as a virtual drive; i.e. give it its own drive letter and access it as a drive from “My Computer”. This lasts until you reboot or right click on the virtual drive and unmount the folder later on. If you want a more permanent way to do this, or at least one that survives a reboot, check out previously mentioned Visual Subst.

(3) Search and replace

Right click on a folder in order to perform search and replace operations on the files within it. You can search using regular expressions and search recursively through subdirectories as well. Search results are neatly displayed within the interface and so that you can preview the search/replace operation before implementing.

(4) Path operations

This will let you perform copy/move/delete or change attribute operations on folder contents intelligently. Suppose you want to move all files that are bigger than x K in size, whose modification date is on or after a certain date, who have either .jpg, .gif, or .png extensions to a new folder while preserving relative paths, this function can easily do this for you. This function will process folders recursively, supports regular expressions, and will let you invert your set of results by simply checking a box.

What’s worth mentioning is that if you have a set of criteria/filters that you want to re-use you can easily save them as a template.

(5) Select by Type

Right click on any file and choose “select by type” and all of the files of the same extension in that location will be selected for you. Very cool.

The verdict: this app gives an impression of being generally well designed and well built. What I like about it is that it packages a range of useful functions in one place in the right-click context menu. Aside from my favorite functions detailed above, it also includes staple functions that everyone should have such as “command prompt in current folder”, “copy path”, “jump to shortcut target”, and “calculate checksum”, etc.

And although it doesn’t offer the range of functions that FileMenu tools offers (or the ability to customize the context menu and manage other, third party extensions), it still offers a lot of value.

Note that this app is still in its early stages and some aspects of it (e.g. help files) are not fully implemented yet. These kinks will be ironed out in time, and I hope that new functions will be made available going forward, as mentioned somewhere on the program web site.

Version Tested: 1.0.1.4

Compatibility: Supports Windows XP through Windows 7, 32 and 64bit. Requires .NET Framework 3.51 for XP.

Go to the program home page to download the latest version (approx 1.51 megs).

A nice little utility that provides a number of useful tools at your fingertips, and packages them neatly in a single context menu entry. Most of these functions are self explanatory (copy full path, copy name, CMD line here, MD5 checksum, FileDateTime Stamp, send fullname by email as link, add file to startup folder); however, here are a few notes that may be of interest:

1. Lets you pick and choose: the functions you would like to display and use.
2. The "clear folders" function: is interesting. It allows you to right click and clear temp files or empty folders from a folder. You can define your own wildcard/pattern for the kind of files you want to delete (see screenshot to the right).
3. The "new folder" function: also interesting. Can create a bunch of numbered folders.
4. The favorite folders function: lets you define favorite folders and access them via the context menu (see screenshot to the right). But this is flawed, unfortunately, as (a) it only works when you are right clicking on a file or folder (as opposed to when you are just hovering on the desktop), (b) it doesn’t work in windows open/save dialogs, and (c) it requires users to restart Windows explorer when adding or changing favorite folders for the changes to "take", which is rather inconvenient.
5. 32 bit only: no 64 bit version, unfortunately.

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

• A 64 bit version: please
• The ability to install entries in the root of the context menu: rather than within the JDcontextmenu entry, as an option.
• A better favorite folder function: see point #4 above.

The verdict: a nice utility overall. I am very keen on cool functions added to the right click menu (see Shell Tools, Open++, QwikTulz, and my favorite FileMenu Tools).

I’ve already gone over my wish list above on how JDcontextmenu can be better, but will re-iterate the hope that the would release a 64 bit version as I am running a 64 bit version of Windows and cannot use it on my machine. If you’re running a 32 bit version of windows definitely check this one out you will like it.

Version Tested: 1.3

Compatibility: Windows 9x, ME, NT4, 2000, XP, 2003. I tested on Windows 7, so I would add Windows 7 and Vista to this list. 32 bit OS’s only.

Go to the program home pageto download the latest version (approx 4.75 megs).

If you’ve switched to a 64 bit versions of Windows, as I have, you may have noticed that many right-click shell extensions associated with some programs (specifically those written for a 32 bit environment) no longer appear in the Windows context menu. These shell / Windows extensions, however will still work in a 32 bit environment, and the objective of this app is to quickly launch a 32 bit file browser that provides instant access to any 32 bit Windows/shell extensions that may be installed on your system.

To use this program you can right click any file or folder and choose “FileBrowser32″ from the context menu. A 32-bit file browser will appear in the current folder location, allowing you to right click on files and use the 32-bit context menu. That is all the program is supposed to do (selecting files and clicking on them will do nothing). Another way to invoke this program is to launch the program from the start menu; it will appear in the system tray and can be accessed there.

The verdict: some readers, like myself, will be quite excited about this little context menu utility; others, however, who might not have any 32-bit explorer extensions they particularly use or miss do not need this.

If you do use a 64 bit Windows it is best to find Window tweaks/extensions and generally speaking software that does what you want and is specifically compiled for 64 bit OS’s. But that is not always possible, especially with free software that may no longer be in development; in which case this little app will come in handy, at least for the time being.

If I were to suggest one improvement it would be to remove the “FileBrowser32″ context menu entry from the 32 bit browser. I am not sure why it is there, if any reason at all.

Version Tested: 1.01

Compatibility: Any 64-bit Windows OS.

Go to here to download the latest version (approx 140K).

Acer GridVista supports a custom configuration for each monitor, and provides a great user experience. It also offers a handful of other functions, such as transparency and stay-on-top options.

The ability to snap your windows to sections of the screen has become very fashionable after it was introduced with windows 7, and once you get accustomed to having this feature it becomes integral to the way you use your computer. Acer GridVista is one of a handful of free programs that provide this and has a few points to recommend it:

1. It is activated on drag and drop, or by using the special buttons it adds to the top right of your open windows next to the default minimize, maximize, and close buttons (see image to the right).
2. It works with multiple monitors, each with its own custom configuration. It also allows for extending the desktop into external monitors (a feature which I did not test because I do not have one).
3. It sticks to a range of 4 possible configurations, giving users an excellent range of options while not going overboard with too many screen configurations that may be too complex or esoteric (see images to the bottom, to the right).
4. It adds a couple of other functions: namely transparency and pin on top of other windows.
5. Can easily be disabled: on any individual window: using the aforementioned button extensions on the top right of your window.
6. Plays well with Windows’ 7 snap function. This is because the Windows 7 snap behavior kicks in once you drag a window to the edge, while GridVista can kick in the moment you hold down the mousebutton.

Wish list: I am not sure if this program is still in development, but all the same here are some suggestions that can make this program can be even better.

• The ability to set it to be inactive by default. With GridVista any window you move will be poised for snapping to a pre-defined area, even if you are simply interested in moving it. You can disable GridVista easily using the buttons on the top right, but it would be nice if you could set it to be inactive by default and only activate it when you need it.

The verdict: if you do not have Windows 7 and would like the snap functionality this program is an excellent option and one of the best programs of the sort around (I’ve reviewed a few which I will mention below). Acer GridVista is free, useful and delivers exactly what it promises.

If you would like a more powerful program, however, that offers more options (although admittedly at the cost of more complexity) you might want to look at WinSplit Revolution, which is one of my favorites.

Thanks to user usersp001 for letting me know about this program (he/she mentioned it in the comments for my MaxTo posting, which is another similar program).

Version Tested: 2.72.317

Compatibility: WinAll.

Go to this page on Softpedia to download or go here for more information (approx 1.8 megs).

Prism HUD (heads up display) is a free, lightweight performance and resource monitoring software. It provides a wealth of information in real-time right on the desktop. Although there are many free system monitoring tools out there, what is unique about Prism HUD is the way it displays information: it does not display continuous chart; rather, colorful icons appear on the desktop in a designated area of the screen only when events are taking place, and disappear altogether when the event has passed.

The five performance areas include CPU (total usage and each core’s load); Memory (total usage and hard faults); Disk (used space, utilization and transfer rate for each drive); Network (each interface’s transfer rate); and Process (the CPU usage, memory usage, page faults and IO transfer rate for each process). If you only care for a subset of these metrics you can customize the program to show exactly the ones you want.

If you’re interested in what’s going on inside your computer Prism HUD is an excellent resource and performance monitoring software. Here are a more notes on this program:

• Drill down: which is to say it doesn’t just report the macro level but individual performance data for each process (memory usage, CPU usage, etc.; see screenshots above).
• Customizable: metrics are displayed within 3 invisible floating panels on the top right of the screen by default. You can add or remove panels or move them around, and you can specify which performance measure (or submeasures) to be displayed in which panels (see image to the right).
• Lightweight: around 10 megs in memory.

The verdict: if you’re looking for a visually appealing system monitoring software then by all means give Prism HUD a try. It is very light on resources and will let you make the little visualizations as large or small as you want, and place them exactly where you want them to be. If there is one feature that I would have asked for, however, it would be for some sort of logging support, which some people would find crucial for this sort of app.

Version Tested: 1.x0

Compatibility: Windows XP or higher.

Go to the program home page to download the latest version (approx 242K).

This post will outline how to get rid of these security prompts without switching off the UAC altogether, by using a free app called TweakUAC to switch the UAC to "quiet mode".

There is always a tradeoff between defense mechanisms and quality of life. You may be more secure if you walled off your house completely yet might end up concealing what might be a nice view, and if you never risked rejection you might never start a romance with someone you really like, etc.

This is basically how I feel about the UAC in Vista and Windows 7: a well-meaning device that basically costs too much in terms of the quality of the user experience. What’s more, the presumed protection that the UAC provides is very debatable (see below).

The rest of this article will consist of 4 sections as follows:

1. Why UAC does NOT work
2. Why UAC does work
3. A definition of the UAC quiet mode
4. How to enable quiet mode using TweakUAC

1. Why UAC does NOT work: in a nutshell, because you do not listen to the boy that cries "wolf". The frequency of these security prompts makes them essentially useless. If in 99.9% of instances I am being asked to give permission to safe apps and processes how can I be expected to take note of the 0.1% of the time when it may not be wise? This seems to me like a classic case of technologists forgetting that their users are human beings.

Moreover, the UAC is really intended to protect you from yourself. In itself it is not adequate security and you still need to have the usual arsenal of protection software (an antivirus, antispyware, and possibly firewall).

2. Why UAC does work: it works because, after reading up on the subject it seems that the primary impetus behind UAC is probably a policy decision by Microsoft intended to force developers to create applications that only require standard user rights. My guess is that in the long run this objective will have some measure of success, but it only reinforces the idea that as a normal user in the here-and-now it would be a good idea to simply get rid of UAC. Or at least to switch it to "quiet" mode.

3. A definition of the UAC quiet mode: the so-called UAC quiet mode offered by TweakUAC suppresses the elevation prompts of UAC without turning the UAC off completely. The following is a direct quote from the TweakUAC web site:

"In such a mode, you keep all the positive effects of UAC, such as Internet Explorer operating in the protected mode, applications starting without the administrative privileges by default, etc. The only thing that gets changed is that you will no longer see the infamous "Windows needs your permission to continue" messages whenever you attempt to make a change to your Vista configuration, or when you run a program that needs administrative rights."

(Note: click here to visit the original page where this text was found)

In addition, quiet mode seems to disable prompts in your administrator account while maintaining these in other user accounts.

4. How to enable quiet mode using TweakUAC:

Go to the TweakUAC program page; download, install, and run. Select "Switch UAC to quiet mode" and click ok (you will not need to reboot). UAC prompts from this point onward will not appear, but the UAC is not completely switched off and preserves some measure of protection as defined above..

Coffee was originally designed to enable changing file associations to portable apps but will work with installed apps as well. It will allow you to store your file type configurations and carry these portably in order to instantly switch the default handlers of selected file types to apps on your USB in any new environment. Coffee can be disabled at any time to revert back to the system’s default applications.

[Editor’s note: this post was written by Freewaregenius contributor EngineerHead. Check out his tech blog here].

The use of portable applications is growing rapidly, whether because they can be utilized at any workstation or because they can be used without installation or writing to the registry. This app allows you to temporarily re-assign file types to both portable applications or installed applications, and can be used, say, on a system where you are not familiar with the installed applications and prefer to use your own out of a USB, or temporarily re-assign filetypes to alternate apps on your own computer. Once Coffee is terminated, all filetype assignments revert back to normal. Here are more notes:

• Set Primary and alternate applications: Coffee will allow you to set a primary and alternate application, as there may be cases when you want to switch between two applications to launch a file (the applications can installed or portable apps). When you double click the file holding ALT key, the alternate application will launch the file. You can set an secondary alternate application without setting a primary one if you like.
• Relative Paths: of the chosen applications are stored in a configuration file. This makes your preferences portable also.
• Auto Associate New to Host: you will be prompted to set a new association once you run Coffee and click on any file type. This behavior can be disabled to avoid being asked to set an association whenever a double click is performed on file type that are not already configured in Coffee.
• Double Click Sensitivity: can be increased or decreased according to your own preference. You can figure out the response time by double clicking in the test area.
• Shortcut Keys: are supported for almost every function, such as Pause, Refresh, etc.
• Works only from within Windows Explorer: once you set an alternate app (and assuming Coffee is activated), double clicking from within Windows Explorer will open the file using the alternate app. However, note that launching from any environment that is not Windows Explorer (e.g. an explorer replacement, a desktop search app, etc.) will open the file using Windows’ system defaults.

The Verdict: A tiny but handy utility that is also very original; I have never come across a utility to handle the default behavior of file types. It can not only change the default apps to portable apps, but will allow you to carry the new configurations on a USB to instantly transfer these preferences to any new environment. Give it a try, especially if you are an avid user of portable apps.

Version Tested: 0.1 R2

Compatibility: Windows 2000, XP, Vista, Seven

Visit the program home page to download the latest version packaged with source code (approx 0.4 MB).

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).

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.

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).

A reader asked me about how he could launch a number of different apps using a single shortcut, and Lacuna Launcher is the small freeware program that I found that can do this. As an example, you may find that you always launch and work with your image editor, screen capturing program, and HTML editor together, and would like the ability to simply click on a single shortcut to launch all three simultaneously.

How to use this app: here’s an example that illustrates how Lacuna Launcher works.

1. Download and unzip: let’s say that the location is “D:\Lacuna Launcher”
2. Create a list of items: using your favorite text editor, enter the full path for each item you want to launch, one per line. Save it somewhere (say as “D:’Lacuna Launcher’newlist.txt’”
3. Create a shortcut for Lacuna Launcher: right-click on the executable (ll.exe) and select “create shortcut”.
4. Customize the new shortcut: right click properties, then edit the “target” field such that the path to the exe is followed by the path to your new text file. Both paths need to be inside quotes. You can (optionally) add two numbers after the paths; the first to specify the number of seconds to wait before the items should start running, and the second to specify the number of seconds to wait before running the next item. The following is an example where the apps launch immediately after and wait one second before each successive item (of course you can skip the numbers altogether for instant launches).
   • example: “D:\Lacuna Launcher\ll.exe” “D:\Lacuna Launcher\newlist.txt” 0 1
5. Modify the shortcut name and icon: if you want. Right click properties/change icon to change the icon in XP, rename the shortcut, then place it in the desired location (e.g. the desktop)
6. That’s it. Your new shortcut will now launch all the items on your list specified in your text file. Note that you can make as many lists and create as many shortcuts as you want.

Supported file types: Lacuna Launcher will launch executables (.exe’s), shortcuts (.lnk), internet shortcuts (.url), or anything that can be opened on your system (image files, music files, movies, etc.)

Usage from the command line interface: is supported.

The verdict: a nice, simple, freeware that gets the job done. What I like is that you can make as many lists as you like and as many shortcuts that all point to the single executable on your hard drive. Although a GUI for this where users could drag and drop shortcuts would be nice, as it is the program is very easy to use and you will be up and running within minutes of downloading. Recommended.

Version Tested: 1.0.0

Compatibility: WinAll.

Go to the program page to download the latest version (approx 234K).

This is a simple shell extension that allows you to copy the path for files and folder via the right click menu. Interestingly, there are at least two other utilities on the internet with the same exact name that do the same thing; also, this function is offered in other utilities bundled-in with other functions (see here, here, and here for example). It is also built into Vista if you press shift while right clicking on a file, but I nonetheless really like this program for several reasons:

1. Path, folderpath, or filename: you can specify whether to copy the entire path, the filename only, or the folder path only.
2. UNC: can generate a UNC (Uniform Naming Convention) path, which can be very useful. For example “\\YOURCOMPUTER\C$\File.txt” instead of “C:\File.txt”.
3. Multiple items: select multiple files and folders and copy the path for all at once into the clipboard.
4. I like that it’s an individual download not bundled with other functions.
5. Will display the path in the context menu itself (see screenshot above). Note that this is optional and can be switched off.

The verdict: really nice. Recommended.

Version Tested: 1.1

Compatibility: WinAll. There’s a fix that allows it to run on 64 bit machines. Read the comment section on the program page (read all the way to the end).

Go to the program page to download the latest version (approx 348K).

This program can provide instant termination of a program or app that may have crashed or frozen on you. It is designed to always be running in the background should the need for it arise, wherein it can kick into action via hotkey.

You might wonder why you may want this since you could always press Alt+F4 or CTRL+ALT+Delete, get to the “Task Manager”, and terminate the app from there. The answer is that when doing it this way the program can refuse to quit; in this case, to quote the developer’s site “Windows essentially only asks the program to quit, and lets it decide for itself what to do”; SuperF4, on the other hand, will force the program to quit. Here are more notes on this program:

• Termination: SuperF4 is designed to terminate any program; note, however, that the terminated program will shut down immediately and will not give the option to save your work.
• Hotkeys: CTRL+ALT+F4 terminates active app;WIN+F4 will allow you to use
  click on a visible window to terminate it. You cannot change these hotkeys.
• Terminate by clicking on an app: once you press the hotkey (WIN+F4) they cursor will change its appearance to a skull and crossbones icon (see screenshot above). Press ESC if you change your mind and don’t want to terminate anything.
• Size in memory: approx. 7 megs. Which is rather small if you’re wondering.
• System tray icon: can be disabled if you do not want it to show.

The verdict: a very nice program. And while you may not have an immediate use for it when you first use it, you will really appreciate that its there when/if you encounter an obstinate program that previously would have required a reboot.

Check out previously mentioned AltDrag from the same author.

Version Tested: 1.0

Compatibility: WinAll.

Go to the program page to download the latest version (approx 1.15 megs).

[Editor’s note: this review was written by Freewaregenius contributor Jason H. Check out his tech blog: 404techsupport.com].

Mouse Gestures serve much the same purpose as keyboard shortcuts; they’re supposed to make you faster, more productive, more efficient, and more comfortable. Instead of switching hands from mouse to keyboard and back or minimizing everything to the desktop, mouse gestures allow you to perform actions or start programs all from the mouse with a few swift movements. High Sign comes pre-loaded with a number of gestures, some work for all applications like closing or minimizing a window.

You can create your own gestures by entering a Training mode. High Sign starts in Training mode by default or right-click on the system tray icon to find the option to toggle. Anything you draw (by holding down the right-click) in training will prompt and ask what you drew. You can specify an existing gesture or create a new gesture. The prompt offers what it thinks the closest existing gesture is. This is a good function because it can let you know if the gestures are too much alike where a different action might occur because your gesturing was a little sloppy. For example, when I drew the number 4 below, it prompted with a pre-existing gesture ’H’. When you toggle out of Training Mode, it will just perform any actions that are associated with the gestures you’ve drawn.

High Sign seems to be very forgiving and very accurate when it comes to getting the correct gesture from what you drew. When you create a new gesture, you can specify the action that it takes to come from a list of preset functions like sending a hotkey, sending a keystroke, running a command, opening a web browser or others. You can choose to affect a select program by choosing from those processes running at the time. To send keystrokes, you use the Send Keys syntax. You can do a quick Google Search to find the Send Keys syntax. As an example, the keystroke Alt-D would be %D, Ctrl-C would be ^C, and taking a screenshot of the active window (Alt + Print Screen) would be %{PRTSC}. For some more tips on using High Sign, read the brief wiki article on the High Sign page.

High Sign, by default, does not start up with Windows. It has a system tray icon that allows you access to all the different functions. You can find the preferences and preconfigured actions and gestures. High Sign comes as 820 KB installer and a 50 MB process when running. You can’t easily toggle HighSign off or on, but you can close the program from the system tray.

The preferences allow you to customize a lot of the different options. You can change the color of your line and startup options. It also allows a sneak peak at some upcoming features that could be pretty cool like opacity control and an “Ignore” key option.

While High Sign is only a 2nd alpha preview release, it’s fully functional. If the program continues to see development time, I have to believe that it’s going to be made into one stellar program as far as mouse gesture programs can go. It was originally created as a StrokeIt replacement but the developer has changed his goals to be more ambitious than just recreating StrokeIt. High Sign is open source and hosted by CodePlex, a site and repository for open-source projects.

Version Tested: Alpha Preview 2

Compatibility: WinAll.

Go to the program page to download the latest version (approx 2.09 megs).

I recently needed to find a way around Vista’s blocking of my favorite desktop search app (Everything) which launches as a startup entry on my Windows XP machine but is perpetually blocked on startup on my wife’s Vista laptop. I was somewhat surprised to find that there was no easy way to simply override this and enable the item on startup. This is because of Windows Vista’s “User Account Control” (UAC) security infrastructure; and although it is possible to disable the UAC, this is not at all recommended. There is, however, a relatively simple method to get any app to launch on startup using Windows’ task scheduling feature. (A number of interventions that are mentioned on the internet that will NOT work, including allowing the program on Windows’ firewall.)

For the purposes of this post I will use the example of the “Everything” app mentioned above. The way we will do this is to remove the app from the startup items and schedule it to launch on log-on using Windows Vista’s task scheduler.

Step by step:

First we will remove the app from the startup items (“everything.exe” in this example). You can do this using some startup items’ management utilities or manually as follows:

1. Click on Vista’s start menu, and type “run” in the search box. Select the “run” program which should appear as the first entry in the set of results:
   
2. In the Run program dialog, type “msconfig” and press enter.
    
3. Once the system configuration program shows up, click on the “startup” tab. Find your app in the list (“everything.exe” in this example) and uncheck the box next to it so it no longer starts with windows. Note the path to the app, as you will need it later. Also note any arguments (“-startup” in this case). Click “Ok” to close; if you are prompted to restart the computer select “exit without restart” and continue with the steps below.
   

Next, we will need to create a scheduled event that will launch the app on logon, as follows:

1. Launch Vista’s “Task Scheduler” app. An easy way to do this is to type “task scheduler” in the search box in Vista’s start menu, then select “task scheduler” which should appear as the first entry in the set of results.
   
2. Once launched, click on “Create Task” in the right pane.
   
3. In the “general” tab, enter a name for your task and (optionally) a description. Click on “Run only when user is logged on” and check “Run with highest privileges”.
4. Next go to the “triggers” tab and click the “new” button to create a new trigger.
5. Once the “new trigger” dialog appears select “At logon” from the dropdown, “any user” in the settings, and “enabled” in the advanced settings.
6. Go to the “Actions” tab and click the “New..” button
7. In the “Edit Action” dialog that appears, select “Start a program” from the actions dropdown. Click “browse” and browse to your desired app, then type in any arguments in the “add arguments” field. Remember that this (the path to your app and any arguments used) is simply re-stating the path and arguments from step #3 above.
   
8. Go to the “Settings” tab. Make sure that the following are checked: “Allow task to be run on demand” , and “Run task as soon as possible after a scheduled start is missed”. If “stop the task if it runs longer than” is checked then uncheck it.
   
9. [This step only relevant on laptops]. Go to the “Conditions” tab and uncheck “Start the task only if the computer is on AC power”. (Unless you want the task to only start if the computer is plugged in, inwhich case keep it checked).
   
10. Click “Ok” then exit the Task Scheduler. Restart the computer or log off/log on.

That’s it! The next time you log on your app will launch without the dreaded (“Windows blocked some startup programs” message).

[Editor’s note: this review was written by Freewaregenius contributor Jason H. Check out his tech blog: 404techsupport.com].You can focus on a wall by double-clicking it. This will cause you to fly-in so you only look at that wall. You’ll be able to see the edges of the adjacent walls and the floor while you’re focused on one wall, so you can double click on the edge to move from one wall to the next. Don’t worry! The four walls and the floor makes your desktop seem more like diorama than another cubicle. You can throw icons on to the wall to hang them there or slide them across the floor and they’ll bump into other icons. You can use this to throw files to the recycle bin or into some of the desktop widgets that integrates E-mail, Facebook, or Twitter. These widgets will allow you to throw a file into them and then start a new message with the file attached. You can also pin sticky notes to the walls so you can write down notes to yourself. You’re limited to two (2) notes in the free version. Double click to edit a sticky note or right-click to add one.

Your normal right-click context menu is replaced with an easy to use circle menu where you can choose different features of BumpTop. You can still access the normal right-click menu (with some additions) under the More… selection. All of these selections, as you can see, also come with keyboard shortcuts so you can really work how you do.

One great feature of BumpTop is the ability to increase or decrease icon size. If you use something frequently, why not make it bigger so it’s an easier target to hit? You can increase the size of icons to make them easier to access. With the physics that are implemented by BumpTop, this also increases their weight and they won’t get bumped out of the way so easily. It could also make the Recycle Bin an easier target if you want to throw files away.

Some of the practical uses of BumpTop include searching and piling. You can search your desktop for a file just by typing and any matching icons will be highlighted. You can also access the search through the right-click menu. You can also pile icons together to tag them as related and to keep them physically together. To pile icons, you just highlight them and go to the pile icon. This will move all the icons on to a stack and you can then double-click on the pile to spread them out in a separated grid or right-click and fan them out.

Your mileage may vary, but BumpTop measured in as a 60-75 MB process for me and was a 10.7MB download for the installer. You can optionally configure BumpTop to start with Windows. Otherwise you can start it manually and close it with a system tray icon. It will remember your icon layout each time it starts up.

I used BB Flashback Express to record a video of going through the opening tutorial, so you can see some of the animations in action in the below video.

You can configure a number of settings: icons physics, photo frame cycling, and the desk widgets which allow integration to e-mail, Facebook, and Twitter. You can also change some of the visuals and graphic card usage. If you have multiple monitors, it looks like BumpTop can only be used on one desktop at a time. You can change the theme that BumpTop uses or just specify individual images for each wall/floor. You can have your current Windows background be the floor and then specify images for each wall or leave it with the theme defaults. You can see how to install a theme and browse the growing number of themes to really customize it to your liking. There are some really cool themes out there!

Another cool thing that BumpTop adds to your desktop comes in the form of Photoframes. Photoframes allow you to run a slide show from a local directory or an online source like a Flickr RSS feed. They can be configured with how frequently they update their source and how often they change images.

If you’re curious for more info you can watch a TED talk on the software.

Version tested: 1.0 build 3038

Compatibility: A 32-bit or 64-bit version of Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7, with latest service packs. Intel 915 integrated graphics or Nvidia GeForce 6200 or ATI X300 or better with updated drivers. OpenGL 2.0 driver support required (may require additional drivers available at the bumptop drivers page).

Go to the program page to download the latest version (approx 10.73 megs).