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The Send To menu is a very useful but underrated feature of Windows. The reason for it to be underrated, is the fact that the default number of application shortcuts provided in the Send To menu is very low, and editing it is a bit of a hassle. If you don’t want to manually navigate to the Send To folder and add shortcuts to the menu, you can use Send To Manager. It is a portable application for Windows that allows you to manage the shortcuts present in the Windows Send To menu. It lets you view the list of currently available shortcuts, remove unwanted shortcuts, add new custom shortcuts and view the target path of each shortcut. More on Send To Manager after the break.

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High dynamic Range Imaging, aka HDRI, or simply HDR, is a technique that allows bringing out the range of intensity levels (in images), which are found in real scenes, such as direct sunlight or faint moonlight. HDR techniques are geared towards the representation of contrast between photos of a single imagery. Non-HDR cameras, for example, take pictures at a single exposure level, and hence, have a limited contrast range. This often results in the loss of bright and dark areas of a picture, which can be corrected by using similar images and using HDR techniques. Picturenaut is a HDR imaging application that enables users to create High Dynamic Range (HDR) images from bracketed exposures. All you have to do is to select the input images, and Picturenaut will adjust the exposures in a single HDR image, with automatic exposure correction, picture alignment and color balancing. Additionally, you can tweak the image by managing the tone mapping for creating a desired image effect. Picturenaut provides 8-bit, 16-bit and 32-bit modes, gamma adjustment, support for RAW images and real-time preview. Furthermore, this application is fully capable of making use of multi-core processors.

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Shadow Copy (Volume Snapshot Service) is a technology included in Microsoft Windows that allows users to take manual or automatic backup copies of data. This was first included in Microsoft Windows XP and updated in Windows Vista to make better use of the Shadow Copy service. From time to time, Windows Vista and Windows 7 create copies of your file and store them, enabling you to retrieve previous version of the files and folders in case they are accidently deleted or modified by you or someone else. This service is turned on by default in every system running the Windows Vista or Windows 7 operating systems. However, Microsoft only grants access to Windows Ultimate, Business and Enterprise edition users. Shadow Explorer is a tool that allows Windows Home version users to access the shadow copies, and provides a unified interface to explore and export all shadow copies viewable according to time filters.

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Pomodoro is a time management technique that was developed by Francesco Cirillo in the late 1980s. It is basically a working method used to increase efficiency by breaking down the work periods into 25 minutes intervals with 5 minutes breaks. The idea behind the technique is that frequent breaks, instead of working straight for in long stretches, can improve mental agility. Previously we have covered some very good Pomodoro applications, such as Flowkeeper, PomodoroApp, CherryTomato and browser extensions, including Strict Pomodoro that adds a timer to your browser, as well as effectively blocking distracting and time wasting websites. Today, we have a Pomodoro web-based service for you called orkanizer. It allows you to add and break down tasks to be completed in 25 minute intervals and shows a timer at the top to monitor how much time has passed.

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Back in 2009, we covered FotoSketcher, an image editing application that allows you to automatically convert your photos into art with just a few simple clicks. At that time, the application had some stability issues, as well as the number of usable brushes was quite limited. In the last 3 years, the application has come a long way and the developer has been regularly dishing out updates. Now, FotoSketcher has over 20 drawing effects and is available for download in 18 different languages. More on the latest version of FotoSketcher after the break.

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Some days ago, we covered an application by Plastiliq called Plastiliq PixelPicker, that allowed you to view color codes in 10 different formats, such as RGB, ARM, HTML, CMYK, HEX etc. Today, we have another application from the same developer, titled Plastiliq ImageResizer. As the name suggests, it is a simple image resizing application with a beautiful GUI, which allows you resize the height and width of your images, as well as change their output format just with a few clicks. Adding files and folders is just a matter of dragging and dropping them onto the main interface. Moreover, it can also convert files to different formats, and currently supports JPG, PNG, TIF and BMP output formats. More on Plastiliq ImageResizer after the break.

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Copying files from one location to another can be a tedious task if you have huge folder structures containing a lot different formats of files. If the files are scattered over multiple folders, you have to manually locate the required files and copy them from each folder to the new location one by one. It can be both time consuming and confusing, since you might forget which folders you have already skimmed through. SmartCopyTool is an open source application for Windows that allows you to copy files from a source location to a target location by specifying name and format filters. More on SmartCopyTool after the break.

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Instagram is a famous photo sharing application, exclusive to the iOS, which enables users to share and explore pictures, apply filters, and share them via a number of social networking services, such as Facebook, Twitter,  Flickr, etc. Instagram is famous among iOS users and has supported web service that allow viewing Instagram images. Previously, we reviewed Extragram web service that acts as a web interface for Instagram. This time, we have InstagramDownloader, which is a portable application for quickly downloading Instagrams. You can simply download images by entering an Instagram username.

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Automating processes to run when your computer comes out of stand by can come in very handy if you are required to perform the same set of tasks with the same set of applications or webpages each day. WOSB (Wake Up From Stand-by Mode & Hibernation) is a portable application for Windows that lets you specify when to wake up your PC and assign a set of tasks to perform when it does. The application provides you with very detailed options related to computer wake up, running an application or opening a file or a webpage and what to do next. You can set the schedules for the defined set of tasks depending on your requirement. More on WOSB after the break.

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There has always been a debate on whether the internet does more bad than good for the young users. On one hand, the free availability of everything allows kids to research and study articles and news, but on the other, the number of inappropriate websites increasing day by day can really corrupt those young minds. Protecting their children from these websites as they browse through the internet is the responsibility of parents, but to protect them, first they have to know if their curious kids are accessing any inappropriate content or not. Parental control applications are a great way to keep tabs on your kids and restrict what they can access and view online. Care4Teen is an application for Windows that allows you to monitor, control and block the content viewed by your children, even remotely.

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Developed by Francesco Cirillo, Pomodoro is the widely used time management technique that helps users divide the total work into 25 minute intervals called pomodoros (Italian word for potatoes) to efficiently manage both amount of work to be done and total time. Not only does it help users manage time, it also makes it easy to breakdown the total amount of work into smaller tasks, so that they can be performed within 25 minute time interval. After working on tasks for 25 minutes, it alerts users to take a break for improving mental agility. Flowkeeper is a light-weight, unobtrusive Pomodoro application that allows you to keep track of pomodoros as well as tasks. The application operates from system tray, letting you quickly view pomodoros history and currently assigned tasks to complete the work within set time frame.

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