Posted by Samer on October 13, 2010 in Freewaregenius Picks, Productivity & Applications |
Actions is a free automation app that can perform a wide range of time consuming tasks quickly and efficiently. Examples of these are limited by your needs and your imagination: renaming files in batch, copying or moving files or folders, resizing and renaming images, backing up specific files or folders, etc. The range of options that Actions supports, I will say, is truly impressive.
This software, inspired by Automator on Mac, is not a macro-recording tool but a kind of graphical user interface where average users can drag and drop the individual steps to build a process that accomplishes a task, without having any knowledge of scripting languages or code. These can then be saved and executed at any time and/or modified later on. It can also create shortcuts that can be launched from the desktop environment without having to open the application first, although these do require that the Actions application be present.
Actions is a multiplatform app and will run on both Windows or Mac. Continue reading ..
Posted by Samer on October 12, 2010 in System, Utilities | Tagged Desktop Enhancements |
DriveGleam is a free app that installs a handful of activity indicators as icons in your system tray, including a CPU usage, a RAM usage, virtual RAM usage, as well as an icon that displays hard drive activity for each of your partitions.
You can pick and choose which of these indicators (or all of them) you want to display in your system tray depending on what you’re interested in.. For each indicator displayed, additional information can be attained via tooltip by hovering over any of the system tray icon (see the right image above). Continue reading ..
Posted by Samer on October 8, 2010 in Productivity & Applications |
This program is a free, desktop-based task management software. These programs tend to come in two flavors; feature intensive and complex, vs. simple and straightforward. GeeTeeDee falls squarely in the “simple and straightforward” camp.
While GeeTeeDee’s name is a reference to the GTD (getting things done) organizational methodology, it is in fact a simple to-do list which only supports the GTD concepts of writing things down and organizing them into lists (or groups). GeeTeeDee will let you create groups and marshall your tasks into them via dragging and dropping, all within a stylishly elegant interface. It will let you add a due date and a note to your task, as well as check it off when you’re finished, but that’s about all. However, it is exactly this simplicity and elegance which makes this program attractive (take one glance at the screenshot above and you will see what I mean). Continue reading ..
Posted by Samer on October 7, 2010 in Launchers, Utilities | Tagged Desktop Enhancements, Launchers |
Quick Cliq is a free, small app that provides instant access to program, folders, files, and URLs.
Created by the same developers that brought us previously mentioned JumpTo, Quick Cliq offers a slew of additional functions, including “folder menu” shortcuts that automatically display all sub folders recursively in cascading menus.
Quick Cliq also includes a unique clipboard management component (unique because it only captures text via special hotkeys, rather than the contents of the Windows clipboard), a “Memo” function which provides quick access to notes or bits of text and can insert them into applications (as for example frequently used email signatures), and a function whereby you can quickly hide and retrieve open windows right from the Quick Cliq interface Moroever, any functions that you might not want can be simply disabled. Continue reading ..
Posted by Samer on October 5, 2010 in Productivity & Applications, System, Utilities |
Ever wanted your computer to play a sound at a certain time or when a certain time period has lapsed? How about shutting down or locking the computer or even launching a specific app at a particular time?
TimeComX is a small free app that can schedule any task at a set time or when a certain time period has passed. Events include beeping (launching a sound file), running any executable or app you like, or locking/shutting down/logging off/putting your computer in sleep mode etc.
TimeComX can also display your PC’s CPU and network usage. Continue reading ..
Posted by Samer on October 4, 2010 in System, Utilities | Tagged Desktop Enhancements |
This is one of those programs that ostensibly does so little, but in fact can have a significant impact on your notebook’s battery life. Aerofoil is a small, free app for Windows Vista and Windows 7 that reduces your computer’s power consumption whenever it is running on battery. It does this by automatically switching off some features, namely the Windows Vista/7 Aero glass interface, the Windows sidebar, muting the sound whenever your notebook is running on battery.
More interestingly, it can also switch across different Windows power plans, enabling one power plan when plugged in and a different one when running on battery.
The Aerofoil icon in the system tray also provides a very quick and easy way to toggle the Windows Aero Glass interface on and off, useful for conserving CPU resources if and when you need to. Continue reading ..
Posted by Samer on October 1, 2010 in Launchers, System, Utilities | Tagged Launchers |
This program provides an interesting way to access favorite folders and files or performing any of range of functions (running any program, running the screensaver, searching Google, showing the desktop, etc.) by hovering over any of the four corners of your screen, which apparently is inspired by
Obviously, you can launch no more than 4 items this way, but the program offers another method of launching shortcuts via mouse movement, by pressing a hotkey (Win+X) and then moving the mouse in any of the 4 directions.
Hot Corners is particularly well suited as a launcher for frequently used items, especially those that run in the background such as a notes program or an email client. Accidental launching (as, for example, when your mouse touches the corners while doing other things like closing windows) can be avoided by adding a “delay” in the settings, requiring your mouse to linger for a few milliseconds before the program activates.. Continue reading ..
