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iTunes is a powerful media player, used for playing, downloading, and organizing digital media files on a computer. It is also used for complete management and related operations for iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. iTunes can also connect to the iTunes Store, which allows users to purchase and download music, music videos, TV Shows, audio books, games, ringtones and more. Since it’s inception in 2001, it has become one of the most popular media apps for Mac, Windows and smartphone users. iTunesKeys is a system-tray utility, which lets you control iTunes with global hotkeys or via the tray icon menu, which runs in the background. You can control your playback actions, such as play, previous track, play, pause, stop, next, rewind and fast forward, adjust volume and rate items. You can even create a customized rating system for your tracks. iTunesKeys provides display track info on song change, including artwork, launches iTunes automatically and closes it at exit.

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With each passing day, more and more files are downloaded, copied and moved in your computer. Usually what happens is that there is a huge influx of these files, but no outflow. Either we are too busy, or too lazy to get to cleaning our computer of all the junk files and empty folders that get created with time. Not to mention the files that are stored in multiple locations inside our computer, taking up valuable space and cluttering the hard disk. Not only does it make hard for you to find a file or folder, it also slows down the search process of your computer because the system has to look in more locations for locating the file being queried. Autodelete is an application by Cyber-D that can automatically delete old files and folders for you.

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Earlier, we showed you how to prevent PC users from accessing Internet Connection Properties dialog, so that they can not change the DHCP settings and DNS server address. Using the built-in Microsoft Management Console snap-in called Local Group Policy Editor, you could define a wide range of system components’ usage constraints to limit users’ access to core system settings as well as visual configurations. Like previous Windows versions, Windows 7 lets you prevent PC users from tweaking the default or specified Desktop Personalization settings, including theme settings, screen saver, sounds, desktop background, and other visual styles. This post shows you a simple way of applying user access limits on Personalization and Visual Styles in order to prevent PC users from changing their settings.

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Pomodoro is a technique for productivity enhancement, which is meant to help you focus on completing tasks within a set time frame. Assuming “time is money”, what better way to utilize this asset than to use the Pomodoro technique. We have previously covered a number of Pomodoro related applications, such as Tomighty and CherryTomato. This time we have a more advanced Pomodoro application for you, known as PomodoroApp. With the help of this application, you can set a timer to help you complete a task within a set period of time. It has been designed to help you organize your tasks and to improve personal productivity using the Pomodoro Technique. The tool provides options for task management, GTD (getting things done) planning, tracking Pomodoro, track interruptions, daily, weekly, monthly and yearly stats and task integration.

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OEM Configurator is a portable application by AskVG that allows you to personalize the information in the Windows System Properties section. This eliminates the need of any kind of manual registry editing, and allows setting accurate naming resolution and associated settings according to a standard method. Although such changes can be made individually as well, OEM Configurator, however, makes it quite easy to configure the required text, logo (e.g., company logo) etc, to set all parameters automatically for the OEM (original equipment manufacturer) information. Changing the OEM Configurations can help people accurately label computers according to the right naming convention. Such settings can help easily identify computers in a domain via the Active Directory. More after the break. READ MORE

There was a time when one might have found it difficult to make high definition video slideshows, or might even have required hiring a professional for the job. Thanks to free applications, this task can now be performed by all kinds of novice and expert users in just a few easy steps. Slideshow Creator is a free application for creating video slideshows from still images, with transition effects and background audio. Most of the options in this application are quite self explanatory, and make it easy to create picture slideshows for users who may not have any kind of video editing experience.

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Do you hate using multiple network tools for performing required tasks, including domain lookup, resolve DNS, ping domain, trace route and more? eToolz is a light-weight, portable application suite that includes a total of 10 most useful network utilities, enabling you to perform numerous network-specific operations from one window. The application has been specifically built to help network administrators diagnose and resolve a wide range of network-related issues. While the application comes packed with superior-alternatives to various Windows command line utilities, including Tracert, Ping etc, it hosts a number of web-related tools as well, that allow you to view page rank of any website, view domain whois information, verify email address, extract and view HTTP header info from given URL, and connect to internet time servers.

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All major browsers have a history pane that allow you to view all the webpages that have been opened on your computer, sometimes even up to a couple of months back. This allows you to locate and access a URL even if you did not/could not bookmark it. Windows also saves history for visited locations, recently opened documents, searched items, Run history, typed paths etc. The problem faced when trying to access the Windows history lies in the fact that there is no central location for  accessing it. History Viewer is an application that allows you to access the history of all your installed browsers and Windows components from a single interface. Moreover, you can create HTML reports of the items included in the history lists. Read on to find out more. READ MORE

NeoDownloader is a windows application that allows you to download images from different websites in a batch operation. The application sports a user-friendly and easy-to-understand GUI, allowing users to easily start downloading images from websites. It recognizes each new website as a separate project and creates a new folder, enabling you to easily sort and manage the downloaded files. The application also allows you to specify which keywords to ignore in URLs when downloading images, the minimum and/or maximum size of images to download, and auto-delete pictures smaller than a user-defined resolution. Once the scan is complete, you can further filter out the results by options, such as File Mask, File Type, Image Orientation, Image Resolution etc.

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Mind mapping applications help create diagram maps that represent words, ideas, tasks, or other items linked and arranged around a central keyword. Edraw Mind Map is a vector-based application that provides templates for creating mind maps, brain-storming diagrams, timelines for projects, financial and business based analysis such as the SWOT analysis and more. It comes with built-in libraries that contain almost everything, from clip-art, symbols, connectors, mind shapes, to objects that can be added for annotating mind maps. What makes Edraw better than other mind mapping applications like Mind On Track, is the availability of a wide range of built-in templates, automatic map layouts, support for multiple pages and MS Office integration. Once you have created mind maps or other kind of models, they can be saved in various image formats, as well as PDF and HTML files.

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You may know that Windows 7 comes with an enhanced UAC (User Account Control) feature that regulates the access to user account profile folders, allowing local account holders to seperately save their application settings, files and library folders, including Music, Documents, Videos, Pictures, etc. It doesn’t provide a convenient option to prevent local account holders from enforcing Windows 7 system-wide settings. For example, local user accounts, including standard account, can change the default screen resolution, modify DHCP settings (including primary & alternate DNS server address), default gateway and PC local IP. Many times, it happens that local account users change the DHCP settings while diagnosing internet connectivity issues, and modify the correct gateway, IP address and DNS server address. If you hold an administrator account on your home PC, you can prevent others from changing these settings. This post shows a simple way to prevent others from accessing internet/network configuration settings.

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