Discoveries

Is most of your work done on your computer? Would it be helpful to know how much time you spend using the various software installed on your computer? With an easy way to tag usage to a particular project or client? If so, the freeware ManicTime may be just what you need.

Features (From the web site)

ManicTime automatically collects data on your computer usage. It records active and away time, as well as which applications you used and for how long you used them.

If you are looking for a complete web server package that can run from read-only devices like CD-Roms, DVDs, usb memory sticks, etc. Server2Go is definitely worth a look.

Server2Go is a Webserver that runs out of the box without any installation and on write protected media. This means that web applications based on Server2Go can be used directly from cdrom, a usb stick or from any folder on a hard disk without the hassle of configuring Apache, PHP or MySQL.

AutoHotKey is one of the few windows programs I have really missed using Linux. While it had a lot of power, I used it mainly for its "hot string" abilities. I'd type =btw and AutoHotKey would replace "=btw" with "by the way." Linux didn't seem to have anything that could easily replace that feature of AutoHotKey. That was annoying, but I learned to live without it.

Did you know that FLV files are really just wrapped boxes holding audio and video files in fairly standard formats? Probably not. Until I discovered this little gem, I didn't know this either. This program extracts video and audio without decompressing them and then recompressing them. Therefore, this program avoids the loss of quality that comes from doing so. The video portion is saved to AVI (H.263/FLV1 and VP6/VP6F are supported). The audio is saved to MP3. It's simple to use and very useful.

Many parents want some way to control their children's computer use: to help prevent them from accidentally (or purposely) accessing inappropriate sites, to prevent them from using the computer to play games when they should be using it to do their homework, etc. Most parental control software is not cheap, sometimes even requiring regular fees to keep it up to date and blocking the newest obviously inappropriate sites. Crawler Parental Control is freeware from the people who make Spyware Terminator.

Microsoft did it again with Word 2007. They changed the file format so that older versions and other Word Processors can't read it. If you get a Word 2007 .docx file from an associate or client, you no longer need to buy Office 2007 to read it. Docx2rtf is a freeware program that converts .docx files to the much more standard richtext (.rtf) format -- preserving as much of the original formating as the .rtf format allows. It will also convert the new "ODF" format used by the latest versions Openoffice, NeoOffice and similar program to standard richtext format.

WinMover enhances the Microsoft Windows desktop environment by giving you more ways to move and position windows on your desktop. For example, if you hold down the Alt-key with WinMover running, you can move or resize a window by pressing the mouse button anywhere in the windows and dragging. This is very handy when a program displays its windows mostly off-screen where you can't get to the the title bar and/or the edges to click and drag.

However, WinMover can do more as its "main features" list shows:

- Works with MDI-windows

You've probably seen programs that display a graph of the directories/folders on your computer so you can see which are taking the most space. WTF!? Music Info is a free program that analyzes the ID3v1, ID3v2, and ApeTags metadata in music files and displays a graph showing the size of your music collection by artist, genre, or year. This program will not earn many points for usefulness, but it is different and a lot of fun if you have a large music collection stored on your computer. Of course, you might not want to know that you have more Disco music than anything else.

Sizer is a tiny program that lives in your Windows System Tray and allows you to easily resize windows (including many windows that do not normally allow you to resize them at all) to an exact size. You can resize your current window to a preset size from the Sizer menu in the system tray, from the window's system menu or from a menu that appears when you right-click a window's maximize button. You can define what sizes appear in these menus.

Word processor programs have become monsters in recent years with so may features that writing a simple letter or report can be hard due to feature bloat. The basic features one needs for everyday writing tasks are lost in menus and toolbars among all the features that most people do not use (or even understand) but are loved by marketing people who need "New Features!!!" to convince people to spend money buying the latest and greatest upgrade (that few people really need).