Making Material and a PSA video

This past week (as well as the prior one) have been fairly slow on the “new app” front.

I’ve been collecting these links for a bit so here you go. Pick ‘em over, yard-sale style.  No rush.

• Windows Live Essentials 2011 beta refresh - My WLWriter just got updated. I was running the earlier beta and it worked great but was like a old sedan with the wax left on…functional but off. This new one has had the wax buffed off and polish added. GET : Windows Live Essentials beta
• Reboot computers on your network -- (IntelliAdmin) - Handy micro utility.
• Remotely Enable Remote Desktop -- (IntelliAdmin) - It does work as delivered.
• Open command prompt in any folder -- (IntelliAdmin) - see above comment.
• Enterprise Remote Control – Beta -- (IntelliAdmin) -- clever new beta tool that could be used with an internal “reflection server” to help manage remote-connection negotiations with minimal bandwidth hit.
• Cleanup Outlook Attachments -- (IntelliAdmin) -- new GUI tool to help manage those blasted Outlook Secure Temporary files.  I personally like my own OSTff batch file clearing solution.
• DriverBackup! -- SourceForge.net project.  Previously mentioned here on GSD recently but this Free tool to backup drivers post by IntelliAdmin blog has more details on it.  I personally like Double Driver myself though DriverMax is popular and Nir Sofer’s DriverView is a must-have as well for cataloging/auditing.
• Mouse Jiggler got updated with a new “Zen jiggle” feature which “virtually” jiggles the cursor for the system but visibly no movement occurs so it isn’t annoying while using the system.
• WhoCrashed -- automatic crash dump analyzer from Resplendence software. Couple that with BlueScreenView and AppCrashView and you have some great sytem-troubleshooting tools.  Related:How to read the small memory dump files that Windows creates for debugging - MS KB Article 315263 and Download details: Microsoft Exchange Server Error Code Look-up Tool. with Looking up error codes with Err.exe - Alex D’Angelo’s Blog
• Google makes a smart move; makes Chrome MSI available to Enterprises -- The Windows Club. Direct link: Google Chrome Standalone Enterprise MSI package
• girl quits job on dry erase board exposes farmville boss called her hopa -- theCHIVE  Absoulutely not related remotely to anything here but even though this is now revealed as a spoof/hoax, the real “actress” Elyse Porterfield is cute as a button and has that sultry Angelina Jolie look that GSD finds sooo irresistible.

GSD PSA

For social American cultural redemption from the above Elyse Porterfield and Angelina Jolie yumminess link and comments, I offer you this video.

Soldiers returning from war surprise kids, loved ones. NSFW b/c you will bawl your eyes out (video) - TheChive

FYI, the song synced in the video is "Praan," by Garry Schyman.  Interesting but wonderful choice.

Saw this one at my bro’s last week with my mom and had to fight back the man-eye-sweating.  Damn, hate it when that happens.

Back to normal Linkfest programming…

• Introduction to the new Sysinternals tool: RAMMap - Ask the Performance Team -Granted RAMMap isn’t really that new anymore but this is indeed a great introductory post on the utility.
• The Mystery of the Missing Memory -or- It Pays to Know Your Hardware  - Ask the Performance Team - Awesome troubleshooting post that introduced me to the Redundant Memory, or RAS Memory Mirroring feature supported in some server hardware BIOS systems. Cool!
• OutlookStatView -- NirSoft utility updates.  “Added 'Add Header Line To CSV/Tab-Delimited File' option. When this option is turned on, the column names are added as the first line when you export to csv or tab-delimited file.” and “Added 2 new columns: 'Average Incoming Messages Size' and 'Average Outgoing Messages Size'.”
• OutlookAttachView -- NirSoft utility update.  “Added support for embedded message attachments (attachments of another message). These attachments are saved as .msg files that can be opened by Outlook.”
• NK2Edit -- NirSoft utility update.  “Added 'NK2 Control Center' which allows companies to watch the status and the location of Outlook AutoComplete files (NK2) in all computers.”
• Roadkil’s Unstoppable Copier -- Recently bumped up to v5.0 “· Now supports unicode, automatical system shutdown and basic context menu integration.”
• FileZilla - The free FTP solution and FileZilla Portable. I’m having to play with this tool now a bit at work and also found this recent post Top 3 FTP Applications for your Windows PC | The Windows Club offered some alternatives as well.
• SunlitGreen -- is a new source that has some light-weight freeware photo image management tools well worth checking out. Lifehacker featured SunlitGreen Photo Editor in a recent article.
• WirelessNetView -- Nir Sofer tool update.
• altdrag - was a tiny tool highlighted by CyberNet News to help manage “lost” windows that open on a phantom position when you have removed a dual monitor output.  Sure if you are in Windows 7 you can do that natively.  My favorite freeware power-tool to do this is Window Seizer. Works on all my systems from XP to Win 7 x64 just fine. It has lots of other features as well for Windowed management.  See also: WinSize2 and the WindowPad projects.

Windows Program Launch tools

Note: I know there are LOTS of other great app-launchers, not just these.  I’m only focusing on “dock” style launchers in this conversation.

Nexus -- I’m going to follow up to this blip in a later detailed post but for now, know that I have upgraded my Windows dock utility from the GSD-beloved free RocketDock application to the spanking hot Nexus dock system on my Windows 7 x64 platform which I had to destroy as noted in my last post.  RocketDock is not specifically offered as Windows 7 compatible, though it generally plays well on my system, it is prone to issues with startup and shutdown of the system.

So I did some research and came up with Nexus.  It is very mature and come is both a free (full featured!) version and a “Ultimate” for $ version.

It supports Windows 7, has all the eye-candy and high-res icon support you can want. Nice defaut skins and icon-action management options.

For a tiny version on Windows 7 systems, check out Ali’s Dünnpfiff’s free Jumplist-Launcher.  It took me a while to get familiar with it (not because it is technically hard, just a different way of interacting with an power-icon).  It is now my preferred quick-pick launching solution on business systems I use as it is more sedate but just as useful as the eye-candy of Nexus.

Of course you can still go “old-school” even in Windows 7 and use a Win2k/XP style “quick-launch” toolbar on your taskbar/superbar. Quick Launch - Enable or Disable - Windows 7 Forums

Want more options?

• 5 Amazing Dock application for Windows 7 ultimate tweak ALL FREE! -- Windows7hacker
• Replacing Start Run - The Quest Continues -- Scott Hanselman’s blog

Finally, not related, but I found this tool as well supporting customization of Win 7 logon screens.

• Logon Editor - Freeware - via a Windows7hacker post.

It has a lot more options and logon screen control setting tuning options than my oft-usedWindows 7 Logon Background Changer tool.  I still also deploy the FxVisor Shortcut Arrow (method two) tool to minimize but retain the Windows Shortcut symbol applied to shortcut icons.  Frameworxx looks to have disappeared but the VistaForums hosted downloads are still kickin.

Cheers.

--Claus V.