Usman Javaid

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MouseWrangler: Launch Applications & Replace Lengthy Hotkeys With Mouse Gestures

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Ever wanted to use a simple mouse gesture application that doesn’t force you to draw complex shapes to perform the tasks? MouseWrangler lets you associate the combination of 4 simple mouse movements, including right, left, up, and down with defined hotkey (single or multiple keystrokes) to perform any application-specific action, as well as with application executable to launch it by drawing the mouse gesture. You can use the application to quickly open an associated file or application, and run an exhaustive hotkey combination for any application. All you need is to map the mouse directions with hotkey or application executable file to use the gesture for performing the required tasks. Moreover, the application saves all the mouse gesture related information in INI file, allowing you to share your mouse gesture list with others. Unlike other mouse gesture applications, it allows setting minimum length required to draw a gesture, drawing speed, and distance required to detect a mouse gesture. Read More

NTFS Permissions Reporter: View Access Permissions Applied On Folders Under One Hood

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Even though Windows 7 lets you check drive, folder and file permission from Security window (accessible from Property dialog), it doesn't provide an option to check which drives can be accessed by which Administrators or Users group . For instance, if you want to know that which users that belong to Administrators group are allowed to make changes to system-wide locations, you have to open Advance Security Settings to view the folder/drive owners and access permissions. NTFS Permissions Reporter is a minuscule, yet powerful application that reads NTFS access permissions for both Administrators and Users group, letting you view users who have full control over selected drive’s content. Not only does it report Full Control access permissions, but it also shows Modify and Special file access permission for NTFS formatted drives. Apart from specified drives, it also shows access permissions for directories and sub-directories. More on NTFS Permissions Reporter after the jump. Read More

Merge Outlook 2010 Storage & Folders Within Specified Date Range [Add-in]

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Outlook 2010 saves emails, notes, tasks and other items in folders, which can be easily copied/moved within the email account storage or to other Outlook 2010 storages from folder right-click context menu. If you’re managing multiple email accounts in Outlook, you may want to merge folders or entire email account storage into specified storage to easily organize archives of required email accounts. Merge Storage is an add-in for Outlook that allows merging storage and folders to specified location. You can save the merge jobs and run them any time you want. It lets you choose source storages/folders and destination storage for performing the merge operation. Additionally, you can specify the start and end dates to merge only specific content to defined storage. For instance, you can merge all the emails, notes, journal of last year (01 Jan 2011 – 31 December 2011) to a separate location. Read More

CPU-M: Benchmark CPU, Save Test Scores, Check RAM & Processor Details

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CPU benchmarking tools are designed to measure the computing and stress handling ability of processor, enabling users to not only check CPU performance, but also share benchmark scores with others. Although Windows 7 lets you calculate Windows Experience Index to check ability of all major system components including CPU, RAM, Disk etc., it doesn’t provide in-depth information on each system component. For this reason, most proficient users rely on third-party benchmarking tools, like Phronix, in order to test each system component ability to withstand extreme stress. CPU-M is built to benchmark processor cores. It also maintains an offline benchmark score history to let you easily evaluate the performance of processors over the period of time. Despite being a simple CPU benchmark tool, it also shows current memory usage and other important information on CPU and main memory. You can choose to conduct benchmark test for each CPU core or put entire CPU through a thread test. Read More

Quickly Switch To Related Code Or Design File In Visual Studio 2010 [Add-in]

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You may know that Visual Studio Solution Explorer not only loads the all the projects in a solution, but also design, code and other related files of the project, allowing you to quickly navigate and open the required file in editor. Opening related files in Visual Studio editor becomes quite tedious, especially when you’re dealing with multiple individual code files and projects. Wouldn’t it be better if you could easily open related files without having to find them from Solution Explorer? Switch is a small add-in for both Visual Studio 2008 and Visual Studio 2010 that lets you switch between related files of current code/design file opened in Visual Studio editor, with a click. The add-in comes without any settings or configuration console. It supports switching between CPP and H (header) files, WinForms Designer and C# Code, and XAML and its code files. Read past the jump for more. Read More

What’s New In VLC 2.0? We Review The New Features & Improvements

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Developed by VideoLAN, VLC is one of the few media players, which support a huge array of codecs, compression methods and file formats, and is best known for the way it handles multimedia file rendering. There’re surely sheer number of media players available nowadays, but VLC is arguably the most powerful, open source media player that comes with an extensive list of features and options. Last month, VideoLAN announced that the next version of VLC (codenamed Twoflower) would be released soon, and provided some nightly builds of  VLC 2.0 for testing purposes. If you’ve been eagerly waiting for VLC 2.0 final version, you will be glad to know that it has just been released. In this post, we discuss some of the most significant improvements and features of this major update. Read More

Automatically Remove Duplicate Contacts From Outlook 2010 Folders [Add-in]

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Although Outlook 2010 allows users to import contacts from numerous email services, it doesn’t provide an option to automatically detect and remove duplicate entries. For this reason, if you’ve imported contacts from multiple accounts, then you must’ve been dealing with a lot of duplicate contact entries. Since it’s practically quite tedious to select each duplicate entry, and then delete it from Outlook Address Book, we recommend using Remove Duplicate Contacts for this very purpose. It’s small add-in for MS Outlook that automates the process of deleting duplicate contacts from specified Outlook native and configured email accounts’ folders. Additionally, it provides a one-click duplicate contact cleaning option to quickly remove the duplicates in one go. Read More

iBoostUp: Clean Junk, View System Crashes & Startup Items And Optimize Mac

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In the past, we have featured numerous system repair and performance optimization tools for Mac OS X, including OnyX, Magican, and IceClean, which enable you to check fatal system exceptions, repair errors and, and perform various system cleanup operations over entire system to boost the overall performance. If you’re looking for an automated system optimization and cleanup tool to check system for Disk, Memory, and Network issues, and apply quick fixes, iBoostUp is probably just what you need. iBoostUp isn’t meant to replace your existing system optimization utilities, and it can work in conjunction with other tools without showing any issues. It comes packed with a powerful system cleaner to purge system and applications’ left over superfluous data, and browsers’ temp & cookie files. Moreover, it lets you check disk performance and attempt to fix network and internet connectivity issues. More on iBoost after the break. Read More

Perform Real Time Sync, Backup Large Storage Mediums With DSynchronize

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Earlier, we have covered a lot of data backup and synchronization utilities for both Windows and Mac OS X platforms, including DFIncBackup, O&O AutoBackup, Ocster Backup, Simple Backup Utility and Backuplist+. Data backup utilties help users not only create exact copies of important files and folders, but also restore data without having to manually copy each backed up folder and folder back to source folders. Moreover, most file backup applications come packed with synchronization feature, enabling users to create bi-directional sync jobs to sync specified folders in real time. Today, we came across another powerful application called DSynchronize, which lets you create, customize and execute file backup and synchronization jobs. Apart from providing all conventional tools and features to seamlessly back up data, it includes two special options, namely Antifragmentation and Ignore file path errors, which allow you to backup large volume of data from one storage medium to another without facing any issues. Read More

How To Share Windows 7 System Folders Across The Network

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Unlike previous versions of Windows, including Windows XP and Windows Vista, Windows 7 allows you to easily share files and folders over network without having to follow tedious process of setting up IP address on network PCs. The inclusion of network groups, such as Homegroup, Work and Public type of networks make is easy to share files with others on same network. In Windows 7, you can easily share files and folders over Network from right-click context menu, but what if you want to share system-wide locations like Programs Files, AppData and other core system folders with others? Since Windows 7 applies strict security policy over system folders, users on network can’t gain access to such folders when shared from a Windows 7 PC. In this post, we will guide you through the process of sharing system files and folders on a network, so that you can easily access them from other PCs on the network. Read More

Clipboardic: Save Clipboard Items In Files & Share Text Clippings Across Network

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Clipboard managers offer an easy way to keep track of items you move to Windows clipboard during a session, and help you use selected clipboard items in required applications. Since clipboard tools allow saving only a limited number of items in the list, you may want to save the entire clipboard items stack separately to restore the clipboard data anytime you want, but wouldn't it be better if the clipboard manager could automatically move the saved clipboard items to Windows clipboard to let you easily use the paste the items. Nirsoft’s Clipboardic has been designed keeping this very idea in mind. It’s lightweight, portable clipboard manager that lets you save clipboard items in a file (CLP). You can use clipboard files to move the saved clipboard items to Windows clipboard by simply selecting the file from the application. Read More

Rename Master Provides Powerful, Customizable Script To Rename Files

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The file renaming tools are built to let users create a custom rule to perform file rename operations, append specified prefixes and post fixes to file names, replace the file name characters with defined text string, but what if you want to extract file properties (meta tag information), and the use the information for changing file names. Rename Master provides you with just that. It is a powerful application that is developed for both novice and advanced users. While it includes all the conventional options to rename files in bulk, like add characters at the start and end of file name, replace text etc., it also lets you use file properties and meta information such as MP3, JPG, JPEG, and TIFF files’ tags to change file names. Other noteworthy features are: intelligent number sorting, support for a wide range of file types, auto-preview (file rename simulation), save file renaming scripts, wildcard entry support, undo file renaming operation and more. Details to follow after the jump. Read More

PopClip: Search Web, Open Links, Correct Spelling & Work With Text [Mac]

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Looking for a tool that can help you easily work with text in all applications? What you might need is an universal text assistant that can perform numerous text-related operations without having to use exhaustive hotkey combinations. PopClip is small, menu bar application that comes with a variety of text-related options to help you compose emails, change file/folder names, type text, open mail links, search the web etc. The application has been developed to prevent you from doing lengthy text-related tasks, such as copying and pasting text from one app to another, searching the web, opening file and email links, and correcting spelling mistakes. It provides a small, on-screen menu with text to perform all the related operations with a click. For instance, if you want to compose an email, just select the email address, and click the @ button to open default email client for composing mail. Read past the break for more. Read More

DataCleaner Is All-in-One Data Analysis And Database Cleaning Software

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Database analysis tools help DBAs in identifying the discrepancies and illogical connections between data sets, so that they can be removed from the database. However, the capability of database analysis tools depend upon the platform on which database is built. For instance, small-scale relational database created on MS Access needs a whole lot of different DB analysis utility than one created using MySQL. If you’re looking for an all-in-one database analysis tool that can help you identify and clean redundant entries from the database, odds of you coming across a paid utility are high. Today, we discovered an open source, java-based utility called DataCleaner that implements a variety of database analysis and cleaning concepts including Data Quality, Master Data Management, Data Profiling, and Data Quality Monitoring, to remove all superfluous data sets off the specified data store. The application supports a wide range of database platforms and data files including CSV, MS Excel (XLS and XLSX), MS Access, SAS library, DBase database, Fixed Width File, XML, OpenOffice Database, MonoDB, MySQL, Oracle and MS SQL Server. Read More

Create Custom Color Chart, Blend Color Shades & Copy HTML Hex Value Using Color Warlock

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In the past, we have featured numerous color picking tools for both Windows and Mac OS X platforms, including ColorUtility, Instant Color Picker, Just Color Picker, Gradient, Pick, Color Picker Pro. The color picking tools are built to help graphic designers pick the required color shade off the screen and use in their projects. One of the most common feature of color pickers is copy HEX value of selected color, which lets users quickly use the color in stylesheet documents, such as CSS. Today, we have another color picking tool for you, called Color Warlock. The application lets you easily create custom color charts to assist you in picking required range of color shades. It provides you with a number of color charts, which not only allow you to choose the color shade, but also copy the color code (HTML Hex value) or color name with a click. Read past the break for more details. Read More

Important Mail Alert: Create Text-Based Email Alert Rule In Outlook 2010

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Although Outlook 2010 comes with a comprehensive Rule Manager feature that supports creating customized email notifications and alerts for all types of mail accounts, one has to follow quite a tedious process to define the rule settings. If you’re looking for a simple way to create rule-based email alert notification, Important Mail Alert is a solid pick. It’s light-weight add-in for Outlook that lets you create and configure email rules & alerts without having to go through the hassle of selecting the email accounts. It integrates into Outlook interface, letting you manage the rules and alerts from Mail window. Apart from supporting all types of configured email accounts including POP3, IMAP, and Exchange, it automatically adds the accounts to rule box letting you disable the mail alert for a specific email account. Read More

Mp3 Rename Is A Powerful, File Rename Rule-based Music Collection Organizer

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Organizing a large music collection into separate folders and then rename each audio track’s ID3 V1 and V2 meta tag information is arguably a time consuming task, as it requires creating a list of audio tracks that are to be moved to folders, and then manually editing each track’s file name and meta data. If you’re looking for an all-in-one music collection organizer, Mp3 Rename is probably just what you need. It’s lightweight, music library manager that lets you perform a wide range of operations over the music folders including rule-based file renaming, use ID3 info as file name, remove specified characters from file names, make directories according to file names, and change audio tracks’ names by removing directory names and more. The application has specifically been designed for MP3 files, but it provides you with an option to change file extension to seamlessly organize all types of music files. More on MP3 Rename after the break. Read More

Disk Investigator: View MFT Zone, Check Raw Data Saved On Disk Sectors & Clusters

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Disk Investigator is a multi-purpose, powerful hard disk tool that lets you find raw data saved on disk partitions, and check unreadable disk clusters and sectors. The application is built to navigate through the disk sectors, while showing the raw data in HEX, TEXT, and Decimal form. This not only helps you identify identical data written on the disk partitions, but also verify the performance of data shredding utilities. If you’ve recently used a file shredder to securely delete data from disk partition, it lets you view the current raw data present on the disk. Moreover, the application gives detailed insight into disk structure, including total logical sectors, bytes per sector, sectors per cluster, cluster size, MFT start cluster, MFT zone clusters and more. Additionally, it includes a simple, yet feature-rich file explorer that lets you view files and folders saved on disk, check raw data (in Text, Dec, and Hex form) of selected file, and check CRC-32, and MD5, Hash, RipeMD, and SHA hash value. Read More

Process Explorer Updated: Check App GPU & Disk Usage, Restart Services, Create Minidump & More

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Developed by Windows Sysinternals, Process Explorer is probably the most feature-rich Windows process explorer that gives in-depth information on each process running in the background. It also allows you to investigate that which application is accessing which files and system/user locations. Back in 2009, we covered numerous aspects of Process Explorer. Since then, it has been updated with quite a lot of new options and features, including svchost’s service host category display, option to restart service, mapping of service names to threads, ability to generate full and minidump process crash dump file, comprehensive network and disk monitoring, detailed memory statistics, separate column to check aggregate CPU usage,  summary tab in System Information dialog to view CPU, Memory, I/O and GPU usage graphs and more. Apart from significant feature improvements, the application has also been deeply debugged to give most accurate system information including CPU, Memory and Network usage, and overall system performance. Read More

Now Remove Locked Files & Apps Left Over Data, Check Viruses With FreeFixer

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FreeFixer is a powerful Windows application that enables you to remove apps’ left over data, and potentially dangerous applications, scripts and hidden payloads that can cause serious damage to the system. Since our review of FreeFixer back in 2009, the application has seen quite a lot of improvements in terms of both file removal options and features, including show file path and owning process that prevents file from deletion, improved error messages, support for additional companies, manual file registration, file authenticity check, virus check report from VirusTotal.com, increased file upload size limit and a lot more. Read past the jump for more details. Read More