Articles about Know Your PC

You don’t have to have too many programs running to start to find the amount of space available on your desktop to be a little tight. Rather than rushing out to buy a larger monitor, you might want to think about trying a virtual desktop tool. There are plenty of these apps to choose from, many of which are very similar top each other, but DeskSpace stands out from the crowd with a delightful 3D interface.

The program provides you with six virtual desktops, each of which is the face of a cube. You can navigate from desktop to desktop by dragging your way around the cube faces in three dimensions, but you also have the option of jumping straight to a particular workspace by using a keyboard shortcut or a menu. This is not the first time that a three dimensional concept has been used in virtual desktops, but here it has been beautifully implemented.

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When you need to track an application’s behavior then Sysinternals Process Monitor is a great place to start. In a click or two you can be watching the target program’s file, Registry and process-related activities, perfect for troubleshooting all kinds of odd problems.

Of course Process Monitor is watching only a relatively small number of Windows API calls, in an effort to keep things simple. These are well chosen, and will help you solve most common issues. But if your problem relates to something the program doesn’t track, an Internet function, say, then you might want to try a more powerful troubleshooting tool, like API Monitor.

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NirSoft has released SysExporter 1.60, the latest version of an interesting tool that allows you to grab data stored in otherwise inaccessible Windows controls: list views, tree views, list boxes and more. And if you’ve not used the program before this may sound a little odd, but SysExporter does have plenty of practical applications.

Suppose, for example, you wanted to make a note of the video files supported by VLC Media Player. You can see them by clicking File > Open and opening the file type list, but there’s no way to copy that text to the clipboard. And so you either have to retype them manually, or waste time browsing the documentation or website in the hope that there’s a more accessible list elsewhere.

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If you’ve tried a few Notepad replacements before then you’ll know they’re usually aimed at a fairly technical audience. And so top-of-the-features-list will be items like “code folding” or “syntax highlighting”, which is fine if you’re a developer, but not quite as interesting for everybody else.

TED Notepad is a little different. It’s not short on developer-friendly options -- it’s easy to play around with indents, search and replace supports regular expressions, you can even add custom scripts or programs to process text according to your own rules -- but you don’t have to get into these complexities, unless you really want to. And so the program is just as appealing to regular users who want something like Notepad, but a little more powerful.

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May is coming to a close, and as June beckons there are still countless software releases to keep track of. If you’ve had trouble keeping up with everything, this handy roundup is here to bring you up to speed.

This past week saw the release of WikidPad 2.1_01, a wiki-style text editor that can be used to capture thoughts and ideas -- stored locally or exported as an HTML file to upload to the web. If you need to store reminders of things you need to do and appointments you need to attend, PNotes 9.0.107 is a great sticky note tool that may be able to help you out. There’s also PNotes Portable 9 for anyone who likes the idea of running the same program from a USB drive. If pictures are more important to you than words, Juicebox 1.0.2 can be used to create a stunning gallery to show off your digital photos -- all in HTML5 glory.

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A couple of weeks ago we wrote about wpic, a console tool that could easily save a complete webpage as an image. But while this works well, it seemed a little basic, and is probably best used within scripts if you needed to automate the saving process. If you were also interested in the core idea, but wished wpic had more features, though, Web Page Saver might appeal: it can also save webpages for you, but takes the idea to the next level.

The program’s simple GUI allows you to enter up to five URLs, for instance, which can then all be saved in the same operation. (You need to enter the protocol, though -- http://my.domain.com, not just my.domain.com -- for this to work properly.) And it can also import URLs from text or CSV files, which may be handy if you often need to capture the same groups of sites.

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Piriform Ltd has updated two of its flagship free products for Windows users with the release of CCleaner 3.19 and Defraggler 2.10. CCleaner 3.19, an all-purpose cleaning tool, adds an option for skipping the User Account Control warning in Vista and Windows 7, plus includes new and improved application cleaning options.

Defraggler 2.10 promises to improve defrag speeds by up to 30 per cent, and includes a revamped scheduler and various other optimizations.

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In beta since September 2011, Ghisler Software has finally announced the release of the plainly very thoroughly tested Total Commander 8.0, the company’s flagship file manager.

The big news in this release is the availability of a native 64-bit version of the program, which has a very real impact on functionality. Total Commander has been able to compare files by their content for a very long time, for instance, but version 8.0 x64 is the first release to support this for files greater than 2GB in size.

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It’s easily done. You’ve finished working on a friend’s PC, close it down and walk away, completely forgetting about the USB key you plugged in a little earlier. Or maybe you’re at home, closing down your own PC, even though there’s a CD or DVD in the drive that you’ll need later. And then, once you realize, you’re perhaps forced to restart the system before you can eject it.

They’re both common problems, but easy to address with a little help from Free USB Guard. Just launch the program, and if you log off or shut down later then it checks for leftover discs or forgotten external drives, stops the shutdown process if any are found, and displays a suitable warning message to let you know.

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Halfway through May and the software release schedule shows no sign of abating, and beta releases stand out over the past week. Some of the biggest releases come from security experts Norton, which updated 2013 public betas. Norton AntiVirus 2013 v20.0.0.106 beta, Norton Internet Security 2013 v20.0.0.106 beta and Norton 360 2013 v20.0.0.106 beta provide an early look at what to expect from the upcoming security line, and all of these tools are free during the beta testing period.

But Norton is far from the only name in the security world, and ESET Smart Security 6 Beta (32-bit) includes not only antivirus protection but a firewall and interesting anti-theft features for laptop users; there’s also a 64-bit version of the program available -- ESET Smart Security 6 Beta (64-bit).

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Australian software developer Auslogics has released major updates for two of its Windows performance tools. Auslogics BoostSpeed 5.3.0.0 is the company’s flagship tool, an all-in-one performance manager, whileAuslogics Disk Defrag 3.4.3.0 - whose functionality is included in BoostSpeed -- provides a free (for personal use) hard drive optimization tool.

The latest build includes numerous feature additions, performance improvements and bug fixes, plus introduces “partial” compatibility with Windows 8, with full compatibility promised for version 5.4.

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If you used PCs back in the 1980s then you’ll probably remember that file management was, well, a little basic. To put it politely. But that all changed in 1985 with the arrival of XTree, a powerful file manager that came packed with functionality: the geeks of the day loved its feature set, speed and extensive list of keyboard shortcuts.

It didn’t last, of course -- the program was essentially killed off by the arrival of Windows Explorer. Which, while nothing like as powerful as XTree, was free and included with every PC. But if you still have fond memories of those early file managers then there could be a way to recapture them, as XTree Gold clone XFile has just been released as freeware.

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When you need to know more about a web domain, then your first instinct will probably be to visit your favorite WHOIS site. But while that’s quick and easy, there could be an even more convenient solution in NirSoft’s DomainHostingView.

As ever with NirSoft tools, the program is portable and extremely small (just 219KB including documentation), and it’s very straightforward to use: just type the name in question in the Domain box, click Go, then wait as DomainHostingView uses a variety of DNS and WHOIS queries to assemble the data you need.

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At first glance, MiTeC InfoBar looks much like a host of other desktop tools. There’s a display of your CPU utilization here, your free RAM there -- not exactly the most interesting or essential of applications. But wait. There’s much more here than you might think, and on closer exploration, InfoBar just might be one of the most versatile and feature-packed desktop accessories we’ve ever seen.

Launch the program, for instance, and a small horizontal toolbar will appear at the top of your screen, displaying the date, time, free memory, CPU utilization, power status (mains/ on battery, if applicable), system up time, current weather conditions and scrolling headlines from Reuters.

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SyncBackSE is a solid, reliable backup tool that has fared well in tests and compares very well to expensive alternatives. Version 6.1 of the software has just been released, and besides the addition of a Russian translation and new email options, there are a host of updates and fixes to explore. There are very few new features in the latest release, but the ability to view FTP and email communication messages has been added.

On the problem fixes front, an issue that saw file and folder filtering check boxes unnecessary checked has been addressed. If you found that backups included unnecessary operations such as the creation and subsequent deletion of empty directories, you should find that this is no longer a problem, and when you view the application history you will now find that the list starts with the newest events rather than the oldest.

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