Filed under: Utilities, Windows
How to add network activity lights to your system tray in Windows 7
by Sebastian Anthony Nov 24th 2009 at 10:30AM
With the aid of a tiny little program -- of the juicy, sub-100-kilobyte freeware variety -- you can get those cute little blinking-blue screens back onto your system tray in Windows 7.In yet another case of inspired naming, Network Activity Indicator for Windows lets you re-attach the network activity indicator to your system tray. It's been sorely missed in both Vista and Windows 7 by many users, and now... you can have it back! Yay! No longer must you wonder if your router has crashed -- you can see it right there on your desktop!
I wish I had more to say, but... that's it really. You can set a blink duration (though it doesn't seem to make much difference), and you can tell it to load at startup... and that's it. Quick and simple, just how I like my, er, apps.
Visit the site, if you really need more information -- or download it directly (57KB).
I don't know if this is a labor of love or merely the brainchild of four very gifted games designers, but Level Up is a really weird mash-up of gaming elements that you have probably never seen in a Flash game before.
Let's start with the premise itself: Groundhog Day meets Memento. The game experience revolves around 'days': you explore the world and the clock slowly ticks towards the evening. You bounce around picking up gems and talking to the denizens of 'Level Upland'. Eventually you feel tired and head back to ...
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
ericloewe said 12:49PM on 11-24-2009
Uhmm, it DID exist under Vista. You just had to activate it, but believe me, once you do, you'll want to turn it off again.
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Sebastian Anthony said 12:54PM on 11-24-2009
Yeah, it was nasty under Vista.
No idea why they disabled it fully for Windows 7... no idea at all.
the pl4gue said 6:14PM on 11-24-2009
Yes, you could re-enable it back in Windows Vista. But then I turned it back off again. It looked good in XP and all, but in Vista and 7 it's just... crappy.
If they made an updated, newer, better-looking icon that looked great I'd do it, but that graphic from 2001 simply won't do.
3tear said 1:39PM on 11-24-2009
Another option is to use a program like Netmeter. It puts an icon in your system tray that also indicates network activity.
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Network-Tools/Bandwidth-Tools/NetMeter.shtml
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Dave Forster said 2:27PM on 11-24-2009
can you right click on it to do a "Repair" ... rather than jump thru Vista (and Win 7) hoops ! Network troubleshooter is so pants !
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kojo87 said 6:46PM on 11-24-2009
i just use Wireless Network Meter windows gadget. i know its not for everyone but i like to see how fast and how much im downloading.
http://addgadget.com/wireless_network_meter/
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kkzone said 3:39AM on 11-25-2009
LanLights is way better than this one with customizable colours for activity lights.
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