Entries tagged with utility - Channel 10

Snooze UAC With A New App

sarahintampa — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 20:16:00 GMT

We’ve heard that Windows 7 will bring us a kinder, gentler version of Vista’s User Account Control (UAC), a security service which pops up windows asking for permission when you try run .exe files, make system changes, access restricted files, or perform other actions that could impact your computer’s safety and stability. However, until we have Windows 7, Vista users can take advantage of a new utility for temporarily disabling UAC – without a reboot!

The new app UAC Snooze lets you temporarily shut off UAC prompts by clicking on the icon it installs in your system tray. The app is available as a free trial for 30 days, then, to continue using it, a one-time fee of $5 is required.

UAC Snooze provides the following features:

Temporarily turn off UAC prompts by clicking on the UAC Snooze icon in the system tray
Can be configured to start automatically with Windows and not require a UAC prompt
Clicking on the icon can turn off UAC prompts or snooze for 1, 5, 10, 30 or 60 minutes (or user-defined time)
10 user-defined snooze intervals can be defined
Right-click on icon to bring up menu to select action other than the default
When prompts are off, click on icon again to turn prompts back on
Options to modify prompt action when program opens and closes
Tooltip shows time remaining until prompts will be turned back on
Icon changes based on state (Prompts On: UAC Shield , Snooze: Shield with a Z , Off: Shield with an X)

UAC Snooze works on both 32 and 64 bit systems and can be downloaded from here.

(via AskVG)

Finding More Space On Your Hard Drive (Part 2)

sarahintampa — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 16:55:00 GMT

In the past, I looked at a couple of programs that can help you find more space on your hard drive: Xinorbis and WinDirStat (my current favorite). However, I recently discovered a couple more tools thanks to Steve Smith’s blog. Steve recommends a program called SpaceMonger. The current version of the program, version 2.1, claims to work on any version of Windows from 95 to XP to Server 2003. Although it doesn’t mention Windows Vista, Steve is using it on Vista with few issues. The program displays your disk space using proportionally sized rectangles so you can easily identify the places where you may be able to delete files.

He also mentions another utility called Easy Duplicate File Finder, which he found on PCWorld’s site. However, this program was not too good for Windows Vista as it had issues with the Vista file junctions (like, for example, the program didn’t know that c:\Users\Sarah\Pictures is really the same as c:\Users\Sarah\Documents\My Pictures\). This slowed the program down quite a bit.

If you have any favorite programs to recommend, leave us a note in the comments!

Black Coffee, A New Tool For Locking Down PCs

sarahintampa — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 14:54:00 GMT

Over on gHacks, Martin recently previewed a new tool that system admins for small shops will find handy: Black Coffee. Presumably named for one of the favorite beverages of I.T. pros everywhere, the utility provides an admin an easy way to enable and disable certain options on a PC like disabling the ability to shutdown Windows, disabling command prompt, disabling the ability to download and install apps from IE, and so on. The program is made to lock down the settings of local users and local admins, so it’s not really designed to be run in a domain environment. But for a small workgroup setup, it could certainly be a useful way to quickly lock down a few settings. It might also prove useful for a home workgroup, too, to secure a shared PC from being overrun by programs downloaded by the kids. Local users can run the utility and view the settings, but they cannot make changes. The program is freeware and is available for download from here.

NitroDesk Launches New Media Edition

sarahintampa — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 14:00:00 GMT

NitroDesk is a program that helps photographers easily manage, upload, transfer, and sync their photos and/or videos from their PC to several online media sharing websites including PlanetEye, SmugMug, Zenfolio, Picasa Web Albums, Flickr, Facebook, ShutterPoint, and Windows Live Spaces for photos and Vimeo and YouTube for video. Nitrodesk also support workflow tools like Adobe LightRoom, Google Picasa2, and Microsoft Expression Media 2. With this latest release of Media Edition, users can now drag and drop photos, albums, or video from one site to another or upload to multiple sites simultaneously. For anyone who works with publishing their media to several different sites, NitroDesk Media Edition may just be worth the one-time fee of $29.99 to save you the hassle. To use this software, you’ll need Windows XP or Windows Vista, and Microsoft .Net Framework 3.0. You can watch a video about Nitrodesk here.

Troubleshoot Network Connections with Your Mobile Phone

sarahintampa — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 12:17:00 GMT

From Enterprise Mobile, there comes an application for Windows Mobile users that allows you to troubleshoot network connections right from your Windows Mobile device. The app is called the Windows Mobile IP Utility and it lets you run the following commands: ping, trace route, ping sweep (ping a sequential range of IPs), speed test, and ipconfig. The utility will also log all your results into a text file which you can then save or share with others. The Windows Mobile IP Utility works on both Windows Mobile 5 & 6 devices that have the .NET Compact Framework 2.0 installed. (Thanks to Jason Langridge for the tip!)

Switcher 2.0 Beta

sarahintampa — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 09:00:00 GMT

Switcher is free utility for Windows Vista (running Aero) that lets you arrange the windows on your screen in different ways. The default view is the "tile view," which arranges the windows so that you can see all of them, even across multiple monitors. Another view, called the "dock view" magnifies one window and arranges the rest along the side. There is also a grid view, which is a good one to use if you are also going to use the number shortcuts for the windows (the first 9 windows can be activated by pressing the respective number on the keyboard).

Your desktop can be treated as a window, too. In this new version of Switcher, the windows now have a customizable background color, border, and a label which can display any of the following: the filename of the application, window icon, the number shortcut, the memory used in megabytes, the process name and the window title. Other new features include filters to help you narrow down the windows that appear, the ability to close windows during a session, smoother animations, and additional keyboard shortcuts. To learn more about Switcher, check out Bao's Blog. To download the program, visit the Switcher website here.