at the end of the tunnel. It has been forever since I posted. That will hopefully change in the coming weeks. We are nearing completion of our house and with that my studio. I plan on given some details once I have it completed as well as getting back to the reviews.
stay tuned…
|> brandon
I am, for the most part, a simple kind of guy. I like things that just work. This is no exception when it comes to my computer. I like simple programs that perform the task they were intended to perform without crashing or otherwise breaking my system.
If you try think of a company who is known for this level of performance the first one that comes to mind might not be Microsoft. But in spite of all of their mishaps (i.e. BSOD, ME, BOB) they did manage to get a few things right. The only Microsoft programs that are worth having, in my opinion, are paint, excel, and the original media player.
If you’ve been keeping up to date with Microsoft’s media player you are well aware that with each new release it becomes more bloated. Some time back I became frustrated with the amount of system resources that were being used to play a simple mp3 file. So I began to search for something that could replace Windows media player and give me the same, or better, functionality with a smaller resource use footprint. I found Media Player Classic, or more specifically the Klite codec pack which includes MPC.
I’ll not go into all of the details of what this little program can do (very long list) but let me just summarize its features by saying that it will play just about any audio or video format without hardly making a dent in your system memory. This is a very useful program that I would suggest everyone trying. You can find it here. Let me know what you think!
|> brandon
Wow! I have been unbelievably busy lately. We are in the process of building a new house, and it is taking a lot of my free time. Another project that I’ve taken on recently is the conversion of my VW diesel bug to run on WVO (waste vegetable oil). I used a kit from a company call Greasecar. I installed the system myself (which is pretty amazing considering I’m not very good with cars) and have been running on WVO for about a month now. I will post some pictures and more detail as I get the time. I just thought I would mention it briefly here, since it is somewhat technology related, and also because when I drove by the Chevron this morning diesel was $3.15/gallon!
|> brandon
I’ve been working on/repairing computers for a long time now. The following is a typical scenario: I’ll get a call from a customer whose computer is running really slow/bad. I go out to their house to take a look, and I notice that they are running Norton Antivirus. (Note: I have no ill will towards Norton in any way, this is just what I have found from personal experience.) More times than not, I take Norton off of the system and do some other housecleaning and things begin to magically work right. I’m not sure what the reason is for this but I have seen this scenario so many times, I’ve lost count. You might be thinking, “Well I have to have some virus protection on my computer”. Well, your right, but Norton, in my opinion, is not the answer. I have been using Avast for about 5 or 6 years and it works great. And on top of that, the home edition (the one I use) is absolutely free. I highly recommend that you give it a try.
|> brandon
Here another great little app that’s a real time saver. Do you ever find yourself inputing the same data time after time. If so, Texter will make your life much easier. It does this by allowing you to create keyboard shortcuts for commonly used text. For example, let’s say that you type in your email address 15 times during the day, we’ll use my address, btodd3@gmail.com. Well if you were using Texter you could setup a keyboard shortcut to automatically enter it for you. Let’s call the shortcut “em”. As you can see in the picture below, you click the plus sign at the bottom of the Texter window and it will allow you to enter your new shortcut.
After we enter the shortcut, and the text we want to insert when using the shortcut, we need to chose a “trigger”. This is the key that will be pressed after the shortcut to “activate” it. So after setting up our “em” shortcut, any time I want to insert my email address I type:
em {tab}
Note: Don’t spell out tab, just hit the tab key after you type em.
Congratulations you’ve just set up your first Texter shortcut!
This is only a small part of what Texter will do, you can also setup scripts to enter multiple lines of data and much more.
Download here.
If you have any questions you can email me, or you can go to the author’s post about Texter and get some good info there.
|> brandon
Windows. When you first install it works pretty well. Files open and close with a relative amount of speed and the system is pretty responsive. But after a few months you notice a drop in performance. Tasks that used to take a few seconds now take 30 or 45 seconds. If you have more than one program open at a time the system slows to a crawl. One of the main culprits for this problem is the Windows system registry. In simple terms, the registry houses information about everything that is installed or created on your computer (and a few others things as well…configuration settings, etc.) If you uninstall a program or delete a file it may appear to have been completely removed from your system. This is not always the case, as the registry still will contain traces of what you deleted. Over time this can (will) slow down your system. Well by now you might be thinking, “how can I clean out the registry”. I’m glad you asked.
There are basically two methods for accomplishing this task. The first one is to manually go in to the registry and clean out by hand. I don’t recommend doing this. If you’re not sure about what your doing you can really mess things up. The second method is to use a program to clean the registry for you. There are a ton of available programs that will clean the registry, some with better results than others. I have found that CCleaner does the best job, with the least amount of hassle.
CCleaner is very easy to use. All you do is open the program, click on a few buttons and your done. CCleaner will also clean out your temp files as well, which can also slow down your system over time. Once you open the program you will have several options to choose from on the left side: Cleaner, Issues, Tools, Options.
The Cleaner will clean out your temp files, just click on “Run Cleaner” in the bottom right corner. Issues will scan your registry, show you what it found, and then let you choose to clean it up. Click on “Scan for Issues” and then “Fix Selected Issues”. After you click on “Fix Selected Issues” the program will ask if you want to back anything up, there is no need to do this. I have been using this program for a long time now, and I’ve never had a problem.
I recommend cleaning out temp files and the registry at least once a month, more if you have time. By doing this, you will save yourself the frustration of working with a slow system. Download CCleaner here. The download link is at the top right of the page. Happy cleaning!
|> brandon
Two-for-one today…I’m making up for being a slacker this past week. This next one is a little program that I use all the time. If you have a digital camera, or for any other reason have need to frequently open large pictures, you will love this program. It’s a viewer for jpg, bmp, and gif (and probably others) files. If you normally use a program like photoshop or psp for viewing these files you will be amazed at how quickly vjpeg does it’s thing. It takes only a few seconds to open and close a file, regardless of the size. When your finished, just right click the image to close. Simple, effective, my kind of program…
|> brandon
Also, before I forget…the writer lists a few keyboard/mouse commands on his sire that are very helpful when using vjpeg. I have reposted them here:
Left click-drag: resize, move
Right click: close the active picture
double-click: go 1:1 or fit on screen, whichever is smaller
Escape: close the active picture
Ctrl-Alt-Q: close all pictures!
e: email the original file
E: email the bits on the screen (good if you open a big file and want to compress it.)
a: auto-levels
-> / r: rotate right
<- / R: rotate left
“Windows Media/Quicktime” commands:
ctrl-1 / alt-1: 50%
ctrl-2 / alt-2: 100%
ctrl-3 / alt-3: 200%
alt-enter: fullscreen (kinda)
“Photoshop” commands:
ctrl-alt-0: 100%
ctrl +: next bigger size
ctrl -: next smaller size
There are things in life that go together really well. Peanut butter and jelly, fries and ketchup, apple pie and vanilla ice cream. They just seem right together. This is also true with computers. Windows and the BSOD, over priced components today > bargain bin tomorrow, recompiling from source and a headache. The feature that Taskbar Shuffle adds to Windows, is one of these great combinations. Its something that honestly should have been included from the start. Its the ability rearrange the programs on your Windows taskbar. I know this may sound pretty boring on the surface but it is actually really helpful. All you do is left-click and hold the program on the taskbar that you want to move, and drag it to it’s new location. Give it a try, I think you’ll like it!
|> brandon
The company that I work for is making a big push to “go paperless”. As a result, there has been an increase in the number of pdfs that are being circulated. The standard software for viewing pdfs is Adobe Acrobat. I’ve never really liked it though because it’s extremely slow and takes a huge toll on the system when opening large documents. Driven by this frustration I began to look for an alternative. If you’ve done this search before, you know that there is no shortage of Acrobat clones, but most of them aren’t any better than the original. Foxit Reader, however, seems to be a real improvement over the competition. I use it exclusively now for reading pdfs and am really enjoying not waiting as long for documents to open. Check it out and see what you think.
|> brandon
I think you can tell a lot about a person by how clean or organized they keep their workspace. I won’t say what you can tell, because mine fluctuates from really clean to really messy. When it comes to my computer I like to keep my desktop (Windows/Linux desktop that is…) as free from clutter as possible. I’ve never been a big fan of having 600 icons on the desktop just for the sake of having everything easily accessible. There is a better way people. For a long time I was a fan of the quick launch bar. It resides next to the start button and houses all of your program shortcuts in one place. This is still a really great way to keep organized but I have moved on to another program in my quest for desktop tidiness. Enter RocketDock.
It’s like the quick launch bar on steroids. It allows you to do all of the stuff you could do with the quick launch bar and much more. Check out this demo video. The system resource hit is relatively minimal and on newer systems it shouldn’t be a problem at all. Download here.
|> brandon
