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| They Have A Program For That? |
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Spotlight March 2003 • Vol.3 Issue 3 Page(s) 52-58 in print issue |
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They Have A Program For That? The Utilities You Keep Meaning To Download |
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Sure, we like to complain about Windows. It's our God-given right as PC geeks to whine about the sluggishness of our OS or to snipe at all of the "obvious" features that the wizards of Redmond left out. But truth be told, if Windows did do everything we wanted in just the way we wanted it to, there would be no place for all of those wonderful add-on toys, the diagnostic programs, interface modifiers, performance tweakers, Web enhancers, and disk utilities that breathe new life into our familiar OS. In the wide world of shareware and freeware, there seems to be a tool to enhance or supplement just about everything in Windows XP or 2000, and that's where we come in. For the following overview of utilities we went off-road a bit, uncovering the small, oft-overlooked software writers who dedicate themselves to improving our PC experience. This catalog is just the tip of the utilities iceberg, but it reflects some of the best of those little programming gems we kept meaning to download and try. Unless otherwise noted, each utility will work with WinXP and 2000. Don't use Windows? Don't trust some things to freeware and shareware? Don't worry: In this section you'll also find articles full of utilities and tools for improving your Linux and Apple rigs. Enjoy!  System Monitor & Diagnostic Tools AleGr MEMTEST Could it be my memory modules? Windows XP and Windows 2000 users will need a boot disk to use this DOS-based memory diagnostician, but it is worth it if it spares you from buying new memory unnecessarily. MEMTEST puts your DRAM through numerous testing passes. It won't be thwarted or confused by CPU caches, and it has numerous command line switches for testing specific memory address ranges. (Freeware) www.home.earthlink.net/~alegr/download/memtest.htm
We need to know more than just "83% remaining" to understand how and why our notebook batteries work. BatteryMon gives your power supplies a full cavity search. In addition to displaying a graphical depiction of your battery charging down and time-based meters for time remaining on a charge, BatteryMon also identifies the battery make, wattage, and type. It also monitors extra bays, so you can compare several installed batteries on the same system. BatteryMon works just as well on uninterruptible power supplies. (Shareware, $15) www.passmark.com
Put your PC through the wringer. This comprehensive stress test for your desktop machine runs a suite of simultaneous diagnostics on specific CPU mathematical operations, the sound cards, hard drive, memory integrity, CD/DVD drives, and all of your ports. Better yet, it delights our inner geek by filling the screen with test windows that illustrate its progress. This is like taking a new car out onto the highway and flooring it to see what it can do without breaking. (Shareware, Professional $39.90; Standard $22) www.passmark.com CPUBench 4.0.0.6 This quick and easy benchmark humbles you and your CPU by running the processor through a dozen sprints and comparing the results to a long list of specific motherboards, CPUs, and PC models. Unlike some other benchmarks, this one is very straightforward and quick, and it uses a wide range of test processes. (Freeware) haagsite.nl/wisu Hot CPU Tester Pro A CPU analysis and benchmarking program, Hot CPU does not deliver the comparative and comprehensive scores of CPUBench, but it goes further in identifying the CPU and its attributes. It also checks and certifies overall system stability. Finally, Hot CPU has one of the most accessible tabbed interfaces we have seen in a diagnostic utility and a useful Help file with explanations of the various benchmarks. If you want to learn a bit more about your CPU, this is your benchmark. (Shareware, $19.95) www.7byte.com
Here's an accessible and informative white hat hacker tool. Once installed, the Baseline Security Analyzer probes your PC from the Web. It detects patchable holes in the OS and alerts you to any available updates and fixes. We were thrilled to see that the MBSA notes lax password policies, poor security settings in IE and Outlook, and where drive shares are in force on your PC. It also has detailed instructions for plugging most of these holes. This freebie almost makes up for all of the money we've pumped into Microsoft . . . almost. (Freeware) support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;320454 Interface & Desktop Tweakers
Among the oddest shareware collections online, 12Ghosts refers to more than two dozen discrete utilities that you can buy individually or in bundles for $74.95 (12Gee package of 12 utilities) or $109.95 (SuperGee package of 28 utilities). They range from the sublime and useful to the trivial. For instance, 12-ShutDown can run programs according to schedules, shut down with a single click, and even reboot or automatically restart a system into different account names or even a different OS on multiboot systems. On the other hand, 12-Synchronize offers countless ways to sync your system clock with an atomic clock. There are file shredders, a ZIP and area code catalog, a file date changer, a note taker, a desktop layout manager, and on and on. They add up to a neat mega-bundle of little tools you may never want to lose. (Shareware, $14.95 to $24.95 each) www.12ghosts.com BootXP Never has changing such a simple thing as the boot screen in Windows XP or 2000 been so complicated. BootXP allows users tremendous flexibility in replacing the startup screen for their OS, from pulling images from the hard drive to installing great pre-fab screens from BootXP's own Web site. It even lets you replace the animated progress bar on XP's boot screen. If you can get past the inscrutable interface (a ton of unexplained, cryptically named function buttons), then you have yourself a great, arcane customizer for a very simple thing. (Shareware, $7.95) www.bootxp.net CursorXP From candy cane pointers to fingers, gears, and cartoon arrows, CursorXP lets you jazz up your Desktop with a library of imaginative cursor sets and further customize everything about them, including the angle and darkness of the cursor shadow. Unlike some cursor modifiers, this program lets you apply fully realized new themes to all of your pointer's different states. For instance, the candy cane set changes your "busy" hourglass icon into a burning candle and the "working in background" icon into a candy cane with a bell. The cursor artwork itself is top-notch, and everything works from a dedicated CursorXP tab in your Mouse Properties dialog box. (Shareware, $10) www.stardock.com/products/cursorxp Keyboard King Keyboard King does one thing and one thing only: customize the delay time and repeat rates of every key on your keyboard. It can lift the repeat rate on select keys up to 200 times per second, way faster than Windows does on its own. Likewise, the King will cut the delay rate (the lag before repeating starts when you press a key) to 10 milliseconds. The interface is neat and easy: Just highlight the key and move the sliders. (Shareware, $19.95) www.keyboardking.com Optimal Desktop Remember the DOS days when we relied on desktop replacements such as of X-Tree and DesqView? Optimal Desktop brings back those halcyon memories with an alternative way of browsing your system. It allows multiple explorer windows, filtered file views, and file preview functions (which is very handy indeed for browsing your own directories). Optimal Desktop also works as a Web browser, so you can do most of your Internet and PC file management chores within a single interface and switch among tasks via the tab-based structure. (Free with registration) www.webattack.com/optimaldesktop.html ToggleDeskIcons This one-trick pony does exactly what the name says: It toggles your Desktop icons on or off, leaving your Windows screen clean or cluttered. The program does its work and then clears itself out of memory: neat and clean. Be forewarned, however: Don't plant the program on your Desktop because ToggleDeskIcons even makes its own icon disappear. (Freeware) home.online.no/~akjersem/AKSoftware/index.htm TweakNow PowerPack This is among the most polished and accessible of interface and performance tweak utilities. The user-friendly console offers options for cleaning out Add/Remove Programs, changing startup programs and options, enabling/disabling many of the most common Registry performance and interface tweaks, and more. It lets you hide or remove items from the Start menu and protect access to drives and the Control Panel, so it is great for system administrators. TweakNow even cleans out unnecessary Temp files and browser history. The virtual desktop utility is a nice value-add, too. This lets you switch among four desktops from a Taskbar menu. Only the Professional version of the program supports Win2000. (Shareware, $25) www.tweaknow.com/PowerPack.html
Powerful and fun, WindowBlinds makes every aspect of the Windows interface skinnable and customizable, from the appearance of window frames to buttons and overall color schemes. Make your own skins or download prefab skins from a vast library of user-generated alternatives. The utility is seamless, installing a new set of options into Windows' Display Properties box, so that changing your look and feel is as easy as swapping new Desktop themes. (Shareware, $20) www.windowblinds.net X-Setup 6.3 Although not as pretty and user-accessible as more mainstream retail tweaking packages, this remarkably robust and free package toggles a host of interface and performance settings. It works across Windows OS versions and sports some tweaks for specific third-party hardware vendors, such as Logitech mice and ATI and NVIDIA video cards. Unlike just about every other tweak utility out there, X-Setup also allows for plug-ins, tweaks developed by others that the company offers at its home page. Home users can use X-Setup for free; commercial groups will have to register the product. (Freeware) www.xteq.com/products/xset/index.html Disk Utilities Add/Remove Pro 2.06 When you or your software fail to uninstall a program properly, your Add/Remove Programs box in Windows' Control Panel gets cluttered with obsolete program names that just won't go away without editing the Registry. Add/Remove Pro analyzes the system and tells you which programs in the Add/Remove box still exist on your system and which don't. It lets you uninstall the legit listings properly and delete the outmoded ones for good. The program even lets you hunt down and repair broken links to the correct uninstall routine. (Freeware) www.superwin.com/freeware.htm Boot-US For multiboot freaks like us, Boot-US lets you add, exclude, password-protect, and otherwise manage your bootable partitions across multiple drives. The program offers exhaustive detail about the partitions themselves and very instructive Help files. One especially nice feature is that it gives you the option at start to boot from a floppy disk. (Freeware) www.boot-us.com BootVis.exe  BootVis.exe isn't as impressive a freebie as Microsoft's Baseline Security Analyzer (see above), but this system boot analyzer and optimizer helps you diagnose slow boot times in WinXP. The utility reboots your PC and records which drivers and processes start and how long they take, then reports the results in a cool graphical display. It flags any delays that third-party drivers sometimes enforce in the boot process. The optional optimize utility relocates your boot files in a faster area of your hard drive, sometimes shaving a few seconds off startup times. (Freeware) www.microsoft.com/hwdev/platform/performance/fastboot/bootvis.asp
The classic caching and memory management utility remains one of the best additions you can make to a WinXP or 2000 system. Cacheman optimizes the hard drive cache and helps minimize page file swaps. It also caches CD drives for faster response and manages the caches for desktop icons and file and path names for faster navigation. On the memory management end, it recovers system RAM that is being wasted on hung or closed programs that linger in memory. It is unobtrusive and has a noticeable effect on performance. (Shareware, $10) www.outertech.com
To deep clean your hard drive of ephemeral files and ugly PC build-up (aka Temp files), you need a virtual neat freak like Complete Cleanup. If you are going to hire a maid to clean, then you might as well hire an obsessive-compulsive one. CC vacuums everywhere: not only IE and Netscape caches, cookies, and Temp files, but even AOL garbage and ActiveX clutter. It even protects your privacy by emptying out browser histories and recent document and Run program listings, then wiping the files so that they can't be undeleted by enterprising snoops. (Shareware, $29.95) www.softdd.com DRVImagerXP 2.2 DRVImagerXP makes an exact image of a drive partition so that you can reinstall the partition later, operating system and all. The procedure is not for the faint-hearted, as it is involved and requires a lot of free disk space to store the saved partition. Luckily, the author provides a very thorough tutorial and troubleshooting guide to walk you through the process and make clear which situations DRVImager-XP does and does not fix. The program works best after a fresh install of your WinXP or Win2000 OS and when you tweak the settings and interface to your liking. Make a partition image of this, and you can install your perfect setup on this or another machine later. Despite the program name, DRVImagerXP works under Win2000, as well. (Freeware) home.carolina.rr.com/lexunfreeware/DrvImagerXP/DrvImagerXP.htm WinRescue XP & 2000 This comprehensive rescue and system restore tool comes in separate versions for Win2000 and WinXP, and both are a dream to use. WinRescue bundles together backup and rescue tools in a nice tab-based interface. It lets you back up both data files and key system components, such as the Registry; it troubleshoots potential system problems; and it creates a set of boot rescue disks, including DOS disks, for getting back into your system when Windows won't boot at all. WinRescue is distinguished by its user-friendliness and the degree of automation it offers for most operations. (Shareware, $24.95) www.superwin.com/index.htm Audio Tools SoundCheck Consider this a stress test for your audio card and speakers. SoundCheck lets you record and play back audio at a wide range of frequencies to better understand how each frequency plays through your card and speakers and how it affects CPU loads. The interface is insanely flexible, letting you adjust everything from sample rates to waveform graphic representations of the sound output. A 3D audio tester lets you play with spatial synthesis. Sound-Check also sports test tones that are so high they may attract neighborhood dogs. (Shareware, $18) www.passmark.com/products/soundcheck.htm
Who can resist having his email read by a wizard? This talking email client looks and feels a lot like Outlook but it comes with a cartoon wizard who alerts you to new mail, reads the sender names and subject lines, and reads the messages if you like. The vocal rendering is pretty good, in a Stephen Hawking sort of way. The text-to-speech algorithms are believable, with appropriate pauses and inflections. This is a versatile wizard because he can stay resident and vocalize the contents of your clipboard, too. A new female email reader is available now. (Shareware, $29.95) www.shadisoft.com/talkymail/index.html Total Recorder This is among the easiest streaming audio recorders we have seen. A familiar tape recorder menu pops up on-screen and simply records whatever stream is coming through your audio card, whether it is a Web cast of an earnings conference call or an online radio station. You can set the recording quality and even tell the program to split the stream at any given point into multiple files without losing a second of sound. This is stream recording as it should be but often isn't: as easy as running a tape deck. The free, downloadable version of the inexpensive program severely restricts the length of a recorded stream, so if you're interested, you'll need to buy the full program for it to be of any real-world use. (Shareware, $11.95) http://www.highcriteria.com Video Wizardry ABView Dubbing itself the "right-click viewer," ABView lets you preview just about any kind of multimedia file by right-clicking the file name. We just love being able to play MP3s and even many video clips right from the context menu. Image files all show up as large thumbnails when you right-click the file, and the attached menus let you choose to run the file in your associated media viewer, edit it, or print it. Some video file formats would not play in a window in our tests. The program supports a wide set of file formats, but in the case of some AVIs or MPEGs, you will need to have the appropriate codec in your system to see the video play in your menu. Otherwise, the program works extremely well and lets you review your media collection quickly. (Shareware $19.95) www.sycory.com/abview.htm
Not only is Download Accelerator Plus extremely evolved and rich in features, but unlike many programs that accelerate and manage file downloads, it integrates nicely into your browser. In fact, it helped us write this utilities feature. The program latches onto your browser, detects when you click a download link, and then opens multiple simultaneous connections to the file server to speed the process. We realized consistently high download speeds on a number of sites that are notoriously slow. Download Accelerator Plus even seeks out alternative locations that download the same file faster. (Shareware, $29.95) www.speedbit.com Fraps 1.9 Can't figure out how to run that benchmark in Jedi Knight II? Or do you just need a quick and dirty assessment of whether the last little tweak you made to your RADEON card made any difference? This cool tool superimposes a real-time counter of your current frame rate in Direct3D and OpenGL games. The program lets you put the counter in any corner, make it opaque or translucent, grab a screen image, and record the FPS log to a text file. This is a great way to calculate on the fly how changes to in-game video settings affect performance. (Freeware) www.fraps.com/index.htm Fusion Media Player 1.5 This great little freebie has a much cleaner and faster design than the Windows Media Player, and obviously it costs less than many of the shareware alternatives. Fusion plays most media types, from MP3 music to the more popular video streams, including MPEGs, AVIs, WMVs, and DivX. It lets you create and swap in skins with ease. Fusion also boasts a built-in media stream recorder, although AB-View does a poor job of explaining its functionality, so we found it impossible to configure. Nevertheless, at 348KB, this program is a mighty mite compared to the slow-loading, feature-clogged behemoths we call media players. (Freeware) www.fusionmedia.org PowerStrip 3.30 All serious frame rate freaks have got to try PowerStrip, the universal video card tweaker. It works with just about every major graphics chipset, including the latest NVIDIA GeForce4s and RADEON 9700s, and it can overclock most cards. PowerStrip gives you total, granular control over monitor refresh rates, color controls, gamma settings, DirectX, and OpenGL defaults, and it even associates and loads specific display profiles for any program you like. Yeah, this is what we're talking about. (Shareware, $29.95) www.entechtaiwan.com RefreshForce 1.10 Windows XP inherited from Windows 2000 a refresh rate problem that Microsoft doesn't like to talk about. In 3D modes for OpenGL and Direct3D, the OS pulls your refresh rate back to an eye-straining 60MHz. Argh! This free utility is among the quickest, most reliable, and automatic fixes we have seen. RefreshForce will detect the top refresh rates your monitor can achieve for each major display setting and lock them in, even during 3D modes. Otherwise, you can set your favorite refresh rate manually for every display setting. But we still don't get why Microsoft can't fix this itself. (Freeware) www.pagehosting.co.uk/rf CD/DVD Utilities CloneCD 4 The classic CD copier makes exact copies of your optical media. The simple four-button interface lets you read from a disc to your hard drive and write it back to a blank CD-R/RW. The program explains all operations so that they are simple for the uninitiated. At the same time, CloneCD offers a lot of control over devices behind this deceptively simple interface. You can adjust buffers to provide underrun protection for drives that do not come with this feature. The multilingual interface translates all program text into one of nearly two dozen languages. If you think CD ripping and recording is cool in English, try it in Thai or Lithuanian. (Shareware, $43) www.elby.ch/english/products/clone_cd/index.html
Although it isn't cheap as utilities go, Alcohol 120% is a great general CD cloning and virtual drive program with one of the most accessible interfaces we have used in this class of programs. Like other cloners, Alcohol will make an image of your CD or DVD, store it to your hard drive, or burn it to a blank. The virtual drive feature is superb, however. Alcohol automates the process of copying a disc to your hard drive and mounting it to appear to your system as a CD drive. This is superb for notebook users who want to keep games or even DVDs to run without having to cart around the original discs. The range of reading and recording options is tremendous, and Alcohol 120% lets you create up to six virtual disc drives on your hard drive. Cheers! (Shareware, $49.95) www.alcohol-software.com/?aff=15&banner=b Traction CD Menu Creation Make your own point-and-click menus with this clever little launch pad for your CDs. Although it's rudimentary, the program lets you create autorun menus that you can join to any data or program files you are going to burn onto CDs. You create menu buttons and associate a file or groups of files with them. The program lets you import images as backgrounds and tab labels. Once the menu is created, you gather the CD Creation files and the data files into a directory and use your own CD burner to write the whole project to the CD. Voila: You pop in the disc, and the autorun facility pops up a navigation menu of your own making. (Shareware, $25) www.traction-software.co.uk DVD Decrypter This is a stripped-down but fully functional ripper that "decrypts" a standard DVD to your hard drive. Although there isn't much in the way of help or explanation in this freebie, all the necessary tools are here for the adventurous movie hound. You can copy a DVD to your hard drive in its entirety or in chapters. The resulting VOB files are legible to most software DVD players, although generally you will need to open the film a chapter at a time. We decrypted a full commercial DVD flick in about half an hour, and it played perfectly. This is a great way for mobile users to store a movie to watch without needing the original disc. (Freeware) www.dvddecrypter.com  by Steve Smith
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