These programs are always really helpful when you need to create a quick how to visual. Also this program is free. Microsoft Expression Encoder I have used these in the past but apparently this one is rated really high so I figured I would write it down before I forgot.
Tag Archive: Applications
This is a pretty cool deal this will scan your email and let you know what your biggest email culprits are as far as size is concerned. Since I stopped deleting my email in Gmail my inbox was growing pretty large. Well this is a way to let you know where the big emails are and remove them. After running this service I went from 20% space use to 5% space use and that was just deleting the Ultra big emails. What it does is scans your emails and then adds labels to them so you can identify your big emails. This is a great way to clean out your inbox quickly. All you do is go to FindBigMail.com and let her rip!
Will with our new work laptops running 64-bit software sometimes the old 32-bit software doesn’t work as expected. In this case it was effecting my screen capture program I typically use, Faststone. So this is another alternative that works just as well (some features are actually better) This is also free software to use and download
Wow this site may have eliminated the reason for my blog. This is a site that lets you select the applications you want to install and then downloads all the installers into a single install for easy multiple application setup. The best part is this is basically all the software that I use to run my computer! Looks like they are still in a private beta but I was able to get in and test it out, amazing and huge time saver when setting up a family computer which inevitably happens way too often!
Web Site: Volery
UPDATE: now the site is called NiNite
I was looking for a way to assign a hotkey to Q-Dir for file management as I will never use it unless it is as easy as running Windows-E. Well I ran across this program which is awesome it allows you to assign any hotkeys you want with the Windows button. It has a very easy to use graphical interface to assign the buttons and you can assign anything. So far I have it setup to run Q-Dir, Firefox, Outlook, and Command Prompt (cygwin) in a single hotkey. It is a huge time saver and picks up where Launchy is lacking.
I have started using Paint.Net a lot lately to do a lot of my website graphics as it seems to be the easiest to use. Although the only real issue I was having was figuring out to crop an image with rounded corners for headers and whatnot. After searching around the web for a while I found an answer. Below are the steps to create a rounded corner cropping of an image.
- Open the image and add a new layer
- In the new layer draw a rectangle with rounded corners and solid fill (this will be your finished image size)
- Use the Magic Wand to select your new solid rectangle
- Then go to Edit->Invert Selection
- Then delete the inverted selection
- Then delete the new layer
Not the most intuitive way to do it but very effective none the less. Click here to see a more detailed description with screen-shots if you need more explanation.
This is a very simple program that can create small animated GIF images for websites or whatever you need them for. It is a stand alone application and can be installed on a pen drive.
Simple to use just add the images that you want to create the animation with and then create your transitions and then save the .gif file.
I have tried playing around with some different file archiving tools and basically have come back to 7Zip again as it seems to be the most functional and useful one I can find. Plus it is hard to beat the price. Well if you are worried about the way that yours looks (yes I know I am kinda a skinning crazy person) there is a theme manager out there that you can use to stylize your 7zip application. I have attached the latest version as well as the website below:
Latest Version: Theme Manager 1.1
Website: 7 Zip Theme Manager
So I have been using Gimp for a while and wasn’t really happy with it and found it very cumbersome to use especially when I am trying to some very generic photo editing or resizing or whatnot. Well using my LiberKey on my USB drive has pointed me towards using Paint.Net instead. I love it, makes editing super fast and easy and the interface is very easy to use. I would highly suggest using this software it just requires .Net Framework to be installed which isn’t a big deal. I would highly suggest this software for basic image manipulation.
website: GetPaint.net
I have been looking for this since I started playing with Linux a long time ago. This way you do not have to reboot your machine to run Linux and you can run it natively in Windows. This allows you to run your favorite Linux applications inside Windows without rebooting and it just shows up like a windows application.
Sure you can go the virtual machine route, but that is a huge pain in the butt and can take a long time to setup. This makes it so that Ubuntu runs totally separately from Windows so you can install applications and take it with you and put it in another computer with all your favorite applications ready for you to use. This is hugely helpful for things that need X-windows or any terminal output as Linux does a better job. Lifehacker has a full writeup on the application check it out to read the full article.
Download Portable Ubuntu!
