What’s This About?
CMenuExtender is a small utility that will allow you to create your own Windows Explorer context menu. (That’s the menu that appears when you right click on a file or folder in Windows Explorer).
Why Would You Want It?
The Windows Explorer right click context menu can be very useful for carrying out all sorts of operations and commands. Many programs add their own commands to the context menu when they are installed to help with the program. Have you ever wanted to be able to copy or move a file to a specified directory as the following screenshot shows:
Here you can see items added by the Teracopy, WinRar, WinZip and Unlocker programs, all of which help in using the program>
With CMenuExtender you can create your own specific commands to do a wide variety of things, such as running specific programs to open particular files, moving or copying files to specific directories, running a DOS command, get information on the file and many other thins including user specified items.
What Does It Do - The Essentials?
Summary:
- Creates User Defined Contwext Menus in Windows Explorer
- Allows the menus and items to be edited
- Allows the menus and items to be moved
- Comes with a number of predefined commands
Pros: What’s Good?
Features & Benefits
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Popularity: 1% [?]
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Posted by: Barry Cleave in Freeware, News, tags: Desktop Search, Independant Review, Independent Review, Power Saving, Pro Reviewer, Utilities, Windows, WIndows Vista, Windows XP
What’s This About?
Copernic Desktop Search has been my desktop search utility of choice for sometime. The main reasons for this were
- Searching Network Shares
- Reasonably stable
- OK Interface
and in that order!
There are obviously other desktop search products out there and I have tried most of them. I quite like Google but I don’t like the browser interface. X1 has a great interface with lots of options for refining searches and setting personal searches but won’t index network shares in the free version. MS Windows product was not as good as other solutions but I will certainly be looking at the new version 4 in the next few days. Anyway up till now I have been using Copernic on my home network to index 3 desktop PCs, 2 Laptops, my Windows Home Server drives and my NAS boxes.
Yesterday I was greeted by the following message box while suing Copernic Desktop Search 2.3:
A major new version "update” (note they don’t use the word upgrade) is always interesting with the promise of new features and options.
In fact the message box states:
We recommend that you update the current version to benefit from the latest features and improvements.
I duly updated by letting the automatic download and install process run.
What Did I Find?
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Popularity: 10% [?]
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Posted by: Barry Cleave in Freeware, tags: Climate Change, Energy Saving, Gadgets, Greenhouse Gas, Independant Review, Independent Review, Power Saving, Pro Reviewer, Utilities, Windows, WIndows Vista, Windows XP
What’s This About?
Edison is a program that allows you to change and save the standard windows power options in a simple interface for two different times “Work” and “Other”. It also has a simple scheduling option to switch between the two on a once per day basis.
Why Would You Want It?
You can easily change the standard Windows Power Options Properties by selecting Power Options in Control Panel as the last post Windows Power Schemes - Set and Forget to Reduce Your Electricity Bill:
As you can see from the post under the Windows Power Options Properties - Power Schemes tab you can change all the options which are more than in Edison, you can also save as many different power schemes as you want. The advantage of Edison lies in the ability to automatically schedule two different power schemes to suit your pattern of use.
What Does It Do - The Essentials?
Summary:
- Quick and Simple Setting of 2 Power schemes
- Schedule Switching between the schemes once per day
- Helps save power for desktop PCs
Pros: What’s Good?
Features & Benefits
- Freeware
- See estimated savings
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Popularity: 8% [?]
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What’s This About?
Windows Control Panel provides a means to customize settings for when various power saving options are triggered following a set period of “inactivity” (no use of keyboard or mouse). For a Desktop PC (rather than a laptop) these include:
- Turn Off Monitor
- Turn Off Hard Disks
- System Standby
- System Hibernate
There is also an option to select what happens when the PC power button is pressed.
Optimizing these settings to suit you personal use can bring benefits in saving electricity, reducing wear on hard drives and cutting costs.
This article is part of a series on power saving.
Why Would You Want to Use It?
Whether you run your PC 24/7 or just switch it on for occasional use you can still make a difference to your bills by using these settings. Laptop users will probably be more familiar with power saving as this is a way to reduce the drain on the battery when not connected to the charger. Laptop manufacturers often provide more sophisticated power saving utilities that allow more options to conserve battery power. Windows Vista also has more options than XP.
This article is based on XP and is for Desktops only. Vista is very similar, but with more comprehensive options in a slightly different interface. The Laptop version of Power Options Properties provides additional tabs and options for when the Laptop is running on batteries or on mains power.
What Does It Do - The Essentials?
Summary:
- Turns off monitor after a predefined period of inactivity
- Turns off hard disks after a predefined period of inactivity
- System goes to Standby after a predefined period of inactivity
- System Hibernates after a predefined period of inactivity
- Set Power Button action to:
- Do Nothing
- Ask
- Standby
- Hibernate
- Shutdown
- Enable Hibernation
- Configure UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply)
Pros: What’s Good?
Features & Benefits
- Part of standard Windows OS
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Popularity: 9% [?]
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What’s This About?
The recent large increases in electricity prices has really focused my attention on how much electricity I am using. In an effort to try to cut consumption I have started on a plan to reduce my usage of electricity without to much impact on what I normally do about the house. One of the steps is to find out how much I am using at any one time and what can be done to cut back. I therefore decided that to help with this a method of monitoring electricity consumption in real time and with a means to instantly see the effect of switching something on or off was needed. Having done a quick trawl of the web I found the OWL Wireless Electricity Monitor.
Why Would You Want It?
The most pressing reason for many will be an effort to reduce electricity bills which was started me off on this course as I said above. If you also have a concern for the unnecessary consumption of diminishing resources, the effect of greenhouse gas emissions on global warming along with the obvious damage to the environment, weather changes that are causing short term destruction through storms and long term damage to peoples live and livelihoods through local climate change then this is a way to help do your bit. As with all these things there is something of a trade off You have to recoup the financial cost of the meter to you personally and the cost of manufacturing and transporting the meter in environmental terms.
The ProReviewer post Be Clean, Green and Energy Efficient - Plus Save Money with WakeupOnStandBy pointed to one way to help save electricity and there will be some more posts on reducing bills as well as saving energy consumption and helping the environment, sustainability, etc.
What Does It Do - The Essentials?
Summary:
- Measures Electricity Usage at the meter
- Displays power used, cost and greenhouse gas emission
- Gives room temperature and humidity
- Easy DIY “Connection”
Pros: What’s Good?
Features & Benefits
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Popularity: 18% [?]
3 Comments »
Posted by: Barry Cleave in Portable Freeware, tags: CD/DVD Drive, Drive Management Programs, Freeware, Hard Drive, Independant Review, Software, Utilities, Vista, Windows, Windows XP
What’s This All About?
Drive Manager is a small utility that provides quick access to information on all your disk drives, CD/DVD drives, Removable drives, Flash/USB Drives, Network Shares and Virtual Drives in one handy and easy to use interface. It provides an excellent way to get to essential information quickly as well as allowing you to run some essential drive maintenance utilities.
Why Would You Want It?
Simply because this is a small portable application that provides independent access to lots of drive information and functions in a single interface. You can access the majority of this information using Windows Explorer and various standard Windows Accessories and System utilities. However, with Drive Manger nearly all these functions are combined within a single, easy to use interface which quickly gives access to the information you need.
What Does It Do - The Essentials?
Summary:
- Displays a list of all drives
- Plenty of essential information is instantly available in the main interface
- Lots of other functions are available through the toolbars and menus
- Quick filtering of different drive types
Pros: What’s Good?
Features & Benefits
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Popularity: 23% [?]
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Posted by: mori_gda in Freeware, tags: Carbon Footprint, Energy Efficient, Freeware, Independant Review, Power Saving, Programs, Save Money, Software, Utilities, Vista, Windows, Windows XP
What’s This About?
WakeupOnStandBy is a small program that will automatically wake up your computer from Standby or Hibernation mode at a predetermined schedule of time and days of the week, then run programs, open web pages, etc. before closing down your computer again if you want. It also has the ability to run multiple schedules allowing you to effectively shutdown and start your computer when you want.
Why Would You Want It?
Many computers are run 24/7 as a matter of convenience rather than necessity. Just to be able to get on the computer instantly without waiting for what might be quite a long boot period and get to your emails or instantly access web pages is a convenience. This is trade doff against the cost of running the PC and the consequential use of “scarce” resources, carbon footprint, global warming and a general disregard for he environment and future availability of resources for our children and grandchildren.
I am as bad as anyone and worse than many. I run several computers and some of them run 24/7 because I need them to be doing scheduled actions while am not actively using them. These include indexing, backups, fetching email, etc. so the information is ready and available when I need. The fact is that these computers could be shutdown for several hours a day when I am at work or asleep without any real inconvenience. In fact unless your running a server of some sort or downloading over P2P networks you really don’t need any computer running all the time.
The recent severe increases in oil and gas prices has been a bit of a wake up call and started to make me look at ways of reducing my energy consumption so I can get the bills down. I am ashamed to admit it is the impact on my pocket and not my impact on the environment that has spurred me into action 
So I am across WakeupOnStandBy in a search for a freeware program that would allow me to schedule the time my computer was running to suit my daily./weekly programme. As you will see it is not a perfect solution and could do with a bit of work to make it easier to use but it will certainly do the job needed with a little bit of perseverance.
However, if you want to save yourself some money or feel you should do your bit to preserve our planet it is worth a bit of effort to set up the necessary schedules 
What Does It Do - The Essentials?
Summary:
- Wakes up your computer from Standby or Hibernation
- Puts the computer into Standby or Hibernation Mode
- Allows for scheduling based on time, days, and weeks
- Runs programs on Startup or Shutdown/Hibernate
- Saves power for desktop PCs
- Saves battery life for laptop PCs
Pros: What’s Good?
Features & Benefits
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Popularity: 32% [?]
7 Comments »
Posted by: Barry Cleave in Freeware, tags: Freeware, Graphics, Independant Review, Monitor, Mouse, Programs, Software, Utilities, Vista, Windows, Windows XP
What’s This About?
CrossHairs is a very small program/utility that will display a vertical and horizontal line on the monitor at the mouse cursor position. It can be set to be static at the original position or to follow the mouse position.
Why Would You Want It?
CrossHair has 5 obvious functions:
- As an aid to lining up graphics and text for page layouts
- As an aid to estimating values on graphs and charts
- To pinpoint the mouse cursor position on "busy" screens or difficult backgrounds
- As an aid to people with impaired vision
- To help young children spot the mouse position
I have found it very useful for all of the first 3 items over the past couple of years, particular 1 & 2. I am also sure it will be a great help to people with impaired vision or for children.
What Does It Do - The Essentials?
Summary:
- Shows vertical and horizontal lines activated by Hotkeys
- Lines can be static
- Lines can follow the mouse position
Pros: What’s Good?
Features & Benefits
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Popularity: 32% [?]
2 Comments »
Posted by: Barry Cleave in Freeware, tags: Calcualtor, Finace, Freeware, Maths, Programs, Software, Unit Conversion, Utilities, Windows, Windows XP
What Is It?
A wonderful calculator with basic math functions plus extended financial, unit conversion, algebra and scientific functions. Combined with the ability to add your own requirements this is a truly versatile utility.
Why Would You Want It?
Ms Windows calculator provides basic functionality, Farsight Free fills many of the missing gaps you need. While some of the functions of Farsight may be beyond the your needs in the extensive options there is something here for everybody and it deserves to be part of your essential toolbox. Don’t let the fact that some of the functions and options are beyond your usual needs put you off that this utility is worthy of your attention.
What Does It Do - The Essentials?
Summary:
- Maths Functions
- Algebra and Trig Functions
- Financial Calculations
- Statistical Functions
- Logical Expressions
- Reverse Polish Notation
Pros: What’s Good?
Features & Benefits
- Freeware
- Simple to Use as a basic calculator
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Popularity: 35% [?]
1 Comment »
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