OT: Your Favorite Utilities

I thought it might be useful to discuss favorite utility programs.
Utilities really improve my "computing experience". By posting this I
am hoping to find some more.

Here are the ones I use and like the most:

Fine Print
http://www.fineprint.com/products/fi.../benefits.html

This is definitely my favorite utility. It works with Vista. It
installs as a virtual printer. Just like any other printer, you print
to it and instead of going to the printer, it pops up a window with
the print onscreen. There you can make many changes before printing,
and combine different print jobs.


Tree Size Professional
http://www.jam-software.com/treesize/

This utility shows very clearly where your disk space is being used.
It can be invoked as a right click context menu command. Just right
click on the drive or folder, and it computes the space for all the
folders underneath. You can then see where the space is being used
and drill down to see space used by sub-folders.


Taskbar Commander
http://www.onlinetoolsteam.com/TaskbarCommander/

This enables you to rearrange the buttons on your task bar. If I want
mail to be the leftmost button, I can make it that way, so that when I
hear an indicator that I have more mail I know just where to click.


PowerDesk Pro
http://www.v-com.com/product/PowerDesk_Pro_Home.html

I like this program but am hoping that someone can post a better one.
This program is similar to Windows Explorer. It enables two trees so
that you can drag and drop from one to the other. It also has a
viewer window so that you can see the contents of files (.doc, .txt,
..pdf..) without opening them.


Snagit Screen Capture
http://www.techsmith.com/snagit.asp

This enables you to capture anything that you can see on your screen.
It has amazing flexibility. It even allows screen capturing while
scrolling a window, such as a whole web page that doesn't fit
on-screen. I haven't tried it yet, but it also has OCR to recognize
text in graphics.


Stardock Object Dock Plus
http://www.stardock.com/products/objectdock/

This has a few types of docks that can be added to the edge of your
screen. One is a doc of running programs. It can be further
customized to contain whether applets, or any kind of shortcut.

The kind of dock that I use this for is a "tray dock" that can be used
to categorize and launch programs quickly. I dock it to the bottom
edge, and set it so that it pops up if I keep my pointer there for a
short period (customizable, mine is about a half second). One
category for example is "Palm", where I keep all my Palm apps.


--------------------

I use all of the above with Vista. Utility support was one of my
concerns with Vista, but I have found that my main utilities run on
Vista.

Here are three others that make my list:

Vista's Windows Explorer
This is very much improved over prior versions. I like the new
navigation method showing the path at the top. I like how it quickly
displays image thumbnails, including extra large versions.


Windows Remote Desktop Connection
This allows connecting to another computer and viewing that computer's
screen and working with it remotely. It comes with certain versions
of Windows -- XP Media Center, XP Pro, Vista Business. I don't know
if it comes with Vista Premium.


Microsoft Office Picture Manager
I set this as my default program for graphics files. It enables easy
zooming using a slider. You can go to next and previous files easily.
You can also display a film strip showing all the files to easily
navigate and switch to one. It also has a good auto touch up button
that seems to do what I want it to do without a lot of fussing over a
picture.


That's my list. I know it's off-topic, but it might be a very useful
thread even if someone finds one useful utility. Often I find the
best (movies, music, restaurants) by asking others what they like the
best.

On Thu, 17 May 2007 18:30:33 -0500, Journey <> wrote:

>I thought it might be useful to discuss favorite utility programs.
>Utilities really improve my "computing experience". By posting this I
>am hoping to find some more.
>
>Here are the ones I use and like the most:
>
>
>
>PowerDesk Pro
>http://www.v-com.com/product/PowerDesk_Pro_Home.html
>
>I like this program but am hoping that someone can post a better one.
>This program is similar to Windows Explorer. It enables two trees so
>that you can drag and drop from one to the other. It also has a
>viewer window so that you can see the contents of files (.doc, .txt,
>.pdf..) without opening them.
>
>


I used PowerDesk once but liked "Total Commander" v. 6.5x better. Of
course it's whatever you prefer....

http://www.ghisler.com/

On Thu, 17 May 2007 19:09:16 -0500, RnR <> wrote:

>On Thu, 17 May 2007 18:30:33 -0500, Journey <> wrote:
>
>>I thought it might be useful to discuss favorite utility programs.
>>Utilities really improve my "computing experience". By posting this I
>>am hoping to find some more.
>>
>>Here are the ones I use and like the most:
>>
>>
>>
>>PowerDesk Pro
>>http://www.v-com.com/product/PowerDesk_Pro_Home.html
>>
>>I like this program but am hoping that someone can post a better one.
>>This program is similar to Windows Explorer. It enables two trees so
>>that you can drag and drop from one to the other. It also has a
>>viewer window so that you can see the contents of files (.doc, .txt,
>>.pdf..) without opening them.
>>
>>
>
>
>I used PowerDesk once but liked "Total Commander" v. 6.5x better. Of
>course it's whatever you prefer....
>
>http://www.ghisler.com/

I'm glad that you posted about Total Commander. I looked at it and
don't like it, but it reminded me that I have Explorer Plus which had
a problem but is OK now that it's been updated to 6.2. It also has a
file viewer and seems to run fine under Vista.

On Thu, 17 May 2007 22:35:57 -0500, Journey <> wrote:

>On Thu, 17 May 2007 19:09:16 -0500, RnR <> wrote:
>
>>On Thu, 17 May 2007 18:30:33 -0500, Journey <> wrote:
>>
>>>I thought it might be useful to discuss favorite utility programs.
>>>Utilities really improve my "computing experience". By posting this I
>>>am hoping to find some more.
>>>
>>>Here are the ones I use and like the most:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>PowerDesk Pro
>>>http://www.v-com.com/product/PowerDesk_Pro_Home.html
>>>
>>>I like this program but am hoping that someone can post a better one.
>>>This program is similar to Windows Explorer. It enables two trees so
>>>that you can drag and drop from one to the other. It also has a
>>>viewer window so that you can see the contents of files (.doc, .txt,
>>>.pdf..) without opening them.
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>I used PowerDesk once but liked "Total Commander" v. 6.5x better. Of
>>course it's whatever you prefer....
>>
>>http://www.ghisler.com/
>
>I'm glad that you posted about Total Commander. I looked at it and
>don't like it, but it reminded me that I have Explorer Plus which had
>a problem but is OK now that it's been updated to 6.2. It also has a
>file viewer and seems to run fine under Vista.


Glad you found better software even if you don't like Total Commander.
I remember in the dos days I went thru maybe a dozen file managers
before I settled on ztree (xtree??). I used it religiously then and
for some reason which I forgot now, began to use PowerDesk and then
Total Commander. I like the idea of the twin directories among other
features.

I'm hoping others might jump in here too, to express their favorites
because I might want to try their favorites too.

"Journey" <> wrote in message
news:...
>I thought it might be useful to discuss favorite utility programs.
> Utilities really improve my "computing experience". By posting this I
> am hoping to find some more.
>
> Here are the ones I use and like the most:
>
>>
> PowerDesk Pro
> http://www.v-com.com/product/PowerDesk_Pro_Home.html
>
> I like this program but am hoping that someone can post a better one.
> This program is similar to Windows Explorer. It enables two trees so
> that you can drag and drop from one to the other. It also has a
> viewer window so that you can see the contents of files (.doc, .txt,
> .pdf..) without opening them.
>
I have used PowerDesk but I like xplorer2 better.
There are free & paid versions.
http://zabkat.com/

Pete

On Fri, 18 May 2007 16:00:42 -0400, "Pete Angelakos"
<> wrote:

>
>"Journey" <> wrote in message
>news:.. .
>>I thought it might be useful to discuss favorite utility programs.
>> Utilities really improve my "computing experience". By posting this I
>> am hoping to find some more.
>>
>> Here are the ones I use and like the most:
>>
>>>
>> PowerDesk Pro
>> http://www.v-com.com/product/PowerDesk_Pro_Home.html
>>
>> I like this program but am hoping that someone can post a better one.
>> This program is similar to Windows Explorer. It enables two trees so
>> that you can drag and drop from one to the other. It also has a
>> viewer window so that you can see the contents of files (.doc, .txt,
>> .pdf..) without opening them.
>>
>I have used PowerDesk but I like xplorer2 better.
>There are free & paid versions.
>http://zabkat.com/
>
>Pete

Thank you -- looks promising. I installed the trial.

Hi!

> I thought it might be useful to discuss favorite utility programs.
> Utilities really improve my "computing experience". By posting this I
> am hoping to find some more.

It's a somewhat short list for me...but may expand as I think about it.

At the top of the list has to be WinImage. Since I'm into vintage software,
WinImage is great for recording old diskettes where one might get exactly
one good read out of them. I got my copy of version 4.0 secondhand, from
someone who was selling all their old software and did not need it any
longer. I'm sure newer versions have improved a lot, but I've never been
left wanting with 4.0. It works on all my systems, including those who will
only come as close as Win32s allows them to in terms of running 32-bit
Windows software.

Second--WS_FTP Pro...I still have the registration data and installer, but
haven't touched either in a long while. I read about FileZilla and found I
liked it better.

Microsoft Photo Editor--I wish this had come out as a free download all by
itself. It isn't terribly powerful, but it works well for my needs when
scanning, rotating and doing other basic work on images. It loads quickly
and speaks a fairly wide variety of different file formats. Part of M$
Office until at least 2000 and possibly XP, where I think it can be
installed by doing a custom installation. I've heard a lot of negative talk
about this program, but I always thought it was a *great* little utility.

Undisker - not cheap, but I've found it to be the last word in capturing ISO
image files from CD or DVD. It also has a very nice mode of operation to let
you view the contents of .ISO files and extract the things that interest you
from them. It's only ever given me trouble once, and that was a result of my
trying to do something very stupid.

WinZip 9.0 SR-1 and 6.3 16-bit...handy to have around when the majority of
your systems don't have built in support for handling .ZIP files.

OpenOffice.org - I came into using this out of necessity (working at a place
where I had a PC on my desk--and a good one at that--but the computing
environment was heavily biased toward the Mac. I couldn't get a copy of
Office and so I installed OOO. It works *great*. I've actually taken to
liking the word processor better than Microsoft's Word.

Microangelo - I'd known about this for a while and took my sweet time
registering it. It is a great icon editing and management suite.

Nvu - lots of web editors came and went, but none could replace the 1996-era
editor I was still using. Everything I used just irritated me to no end. Nvu
isn't perfect, but I think I finally found the replacement for that old
program...

Memtest/86 - works great to find flaky memory.

And, saving the best for last (at least as of this writing):

Gibson Research Corporation's SpinRite product - I'll be the first to say
that I was skeptical at first. But I thought for a bit and decided that if
it didn't work out I could take advantage of the 30 day money back no
questions asked guarantee. It's nothing short of an amazing tool and it
could well save your day, as well as your data. There are drawbacks and
limitations--SpinRite doesn't do damaged filesystem repair, I've found some
drives too far too gone to be saved, and your drive must able to at least
put itself online in order for SpinRite to do anything. But for the vast
majority of cases (three drives out of nearly one hundred that I've run
through SpinRite as either a data recovery or preventative measure) SpinRite
pulled off some true miracles and bought me enough time to get the
endangered data to a safe location. Steve Gibson hasn't always been right
(his predictions about Windows XP causing a TCP/IP nightmare attack scenario
come to mind) but SpinRite really *does* live up to the advertising.

I've even had it pull back data from an ailing floppy, something I had
previously considered impossible to recover from. SpinRite told me when it
was done that it could not recover all the data, but in the twelve pages of
text I'd written to that file, only one sentence was garbled.

A couple of nits regarding SpinRite: There's no manual yet, and SpinRite,
while easy to use, offers a lot of information display that's not entirely
clear. It's easy to put it into motion and use it, but no information is
offered on the information displayed with the program. The documentation for
the version 5 release exists but does not cover many of the new features in
SR6 at all. By default, SpinRite beeps and makes noises when it is running
from its self-bootable diskette. I don't care for that with systems running
in the background. It is distracting. Finally, many SATA controllers don't
publish SMART data where SpinRite knows to find it. It still works, but you
miss out on seeing what the drive has to say about its condition while under
load.

I know this all reads like quite the advertisement, but I have absolutely
*no* connection with GRC other than as a satisfied customer. If you were to
buy the license for only one piece of software on my list (or download, in
the case of the free software) this would be the one I'd most strongly
recommend. You simply should have a copy.

Stuff I wish existed (usually does, but is only for a limited computer/OS
selection):

Warning...I'm going to get on my soap box here. You may want to skip this
part if you think it too far off the topic.

A port of Jamie Zawinski's XScreenSaver collection for Windows. I use
multiple computers with diverse operating systems and like it when the
software I use can run on all of them, or at least as many as possible. It's
nice when everyone gets along and the same thing can happen despite OS and
even processor type differences. I'm surprised nobody has ever done
this--the source is available and pieces of the set have been ported over. I
don't mean him any disrespect...it'd just be nice to have one more thing
that works across as many different platforms as possible.

The same request above for the Hills screen saver for Mac OS X. I have at
least one of my Macs configured to start either in the Mac OS or Windows.
It'd be nice if it did the same thing when it's screen saver time,
irregardless of what OS is running. I did ask the developer, and I don't
remember him being too opposed to the concept...

Oh, and a port or workalike of Amar Sagoo's Tofu text reader from Mac OS X
to Windows, DOS and maybe even OS/2 wouldn't be missed. It's a neat idea.

A really insanely *great* lightweight (and native!) modern web browser for
OS/2. Come on, someone's got to be able to do this.

A news reading client that is very capable but has an interface that's easy
to pick up and use. It must also get and sort the messages properly. Outlook
Express has a terrible track record of security, doesn't obey many
standards, is now a dead-end product and has many other things not to like.
But the one thing it does is sort and display news messages as I want to see
them. I'll give it up when another program does half as good of a job in the
display and sorting department.

A hard disk image tool that really works -- forget Ghost, True Image, DFSee,
etc...something like Apple Disk Utility (point it at the disk and go, for
the most part) would be great. I've used many and liked none of them very
well, if at all.

Okay, now I'll stop. This has gone on for a long while, probably too long.

William

On Sat, 19 May 2007 05:06:01 GMT, "William R. Walsh"
< m> wrote:

>A news reading client that is very capable but has an interface that's easy
>to pick up and use. It must also get and sort the messages properly. Outlook
>Express has a terrible track record of security, doesn't obey many
>standards, is now a dead-end product and has many other things not to like.
>But the one thing it does is sort and display news messages as I want to see
>them. I'll give it up when another program does half as good of a job in the
>display and sorting department.
>
>A hard disk image tool that really works -- forget Ghost, True Image, DFSee,
>etc...something like Apple Disk Utility (point it at the disk and go, for
>the most part) would be great. I've used many and liked none of them very
>well, if at all.
>
>Okay, now I'll stop. This has gone on for a long while, probably too long.
>
>William

I read all the way to the end and noted some of your utilities of
interest.

I was confused about a modern lightweight web browser for OS/2.
"Modern OS/2" seems like an oxymoron of sorts...

What don't you like about the Agent newsreader. I find the sort
threads with newest messages to the top to work really well.

I like True Image, but when I did a restore recently I had to do
things in a certain order -- not just one operation, and it was only
thru feedback here that I was able to do it. Disconcerting.

If you are interested in a good text editor, try Notetab Pro. I like
it the best. It has some good formatting commands that others don't
have, extensive clip libraries, and is very programmable. IMO
definitely beats Text Plus, Ultra Edit, and jEdit.

One I found tonight is

uberOptions
http://www.mstarmetro.net/~rlowens/

Which enables much more flexibility in Logitech setpoint.

As I was using it, I realized that my 3200 laser keyboard / mouse
actually has fewer useful buttons than my MX 3000 even though the 3200
is newer.

I wish Logitech would just come out with a keyboard twice the size of
a normal keyboard with buttons on it for everything :-)

uberOptions enables much more flexibility.

On Sat, 19 May 2007 03:19:40 -0500, Journey <> wrote:

>On Sat, 19 May 2007 05:06:01 GMT, "William R. Walsh"
>< om> wrote:
>
>>A news reading client that is very capable but has an interface that's easy
>>to pick up and use. It must also get and sort the messages properly. Outlook
>>Express has a terrible track record of security, doesn't obey many
>>standards, is now a dead-end product and has many other things not to like.
>>But the one thing it does is sort and display news messages as I want to see
>>them. I'll give it up when another program does half as good of a job in the
>>display and sorting department.
>>
>>A hard disk image tool that really works -- forget Ghost, True Image, DFSee,
>>etc...something like Apple Disk Utility (point it at the disk and go, for
>>the most part) would be great. I've used many and liked none of them very
>>well, if at all.
>>
>>Okay, now I'll stop. This has gone on for a long while, probably too long.
>>
>>William
>
>I read all the way to the end and noted some of your utilities of
>interest.
>
>I was confused about a modern lightweight web browser for OS/2.
>"Modern OS/2" seems like an oxymoron of sorts...
>
>What don't you like about the Agent newsreader. I find the sort
>threads with newest messages to the top to work really well.
>
>I like True Image, but when I did a restore recently I had to do
>things in a certain order -- not just one operation, and it was only
>thru feedback here that I was able to do it. Disconcerting.
>
>If you are interested in a good text editor, try Notetab Pro. I like
>it the best. It has some good formatting commands that others don't
>have, extensive clip libraries, and is very programmable. IMO
>definitely beats Text Plus, Ultra Edit, and jEdit.


I only tried Ultra Edit and prefer TextPad. There are a lot of
text/html editors out there. Reading other's comments makes me think
it's like buying a car.... just personal preferences to which you like
or works for you.

I'm using an older version of TextPad but it works for me.
www.textpad.com