Cyber Bandwidth Monitor does pretty much exactly what you'd expect it to do, and more. This little WIndows utility tracks your upload and download speeds over time and plots your network activity on a little graph. The utility grabs data once per second, but you can adjust the settings so that it refreshes more frequently. You can also tweak a ton of display settings, ranging from the font and window size to the graph scale.
In addition to real-time information, the program also logs all of your activity over time and can send you daily, weekly, or monthly updates. Cyber Bandwidth Monitor also has a few other useful features, like built in Ping and Traceroute utilities.
Advanced Run is a utility that replaces the Windows Run dialog with an advanced version. But it has one feature up its sleeve that you won't find in the Windows run box: the ability to run any program as another user without logging out and logging back in as that user.
You can launch Advanced Run by clicking Run in the Windows Start Menu, hitting the Win+R keys on your keyboard, or startng a new task from Windows task manager. You can also right-click on any program and select Run As to run the program as another user.
Advanced Run works with Windows XP and Vista, but will not work with 64 bit versions of Windows.
Control Running Programs is a free Windows utility that (are you read for this?) controls your running programs. We love it when we find an application that lives up to its name. But what kind of control are we talking about?
CRP has two components. The first controls how many instances of a program are running. For example, if you never want more than two instances of Internet Explorer to run, CRP will automatically close a new window every time it's launched. In other words, you can sort of use CRP as a pop-up blocker. Of course, there are plenty of other applications that do a better job of blocking pop-ups, but we imagine there are a few non-browser applications for CRP as well.
The second component is an instance launcher. When this feature is enabled, CRP will launch any applications you specify. So if there's a raft of programs that you like to run regularly, but don't want to startup when Windows first boots, you can just add them to your CRP list. Then when you're ready for them, just launch CRP and click the start button to launch your programs.
For some reason you can only add programs to the instance controlling list if they're currently running, while you can add any program on your PC to the instance launcher.
You just have to love an online game that knows exactly what it aims to be. And the concept of this game is, well, rather difficult. The Rather Difficult Font Game tests your ability to recognize typefaces by showing you a piece of text and then four font names. Your job is to correctly choose the correct typeface.
As with any multiple-choice test with a limited set of answers, this game becomes rather less difficult as you go, if you're careful to remember what you've already seen. While we're certainly not font experts, by process of elimination we were able to score an 18 out of 30 on our first try.
Like any good time waster, this one can be done relatively quickly, like maybe during your coffee break. And if you are the type of person that feels guilty about the time you spend playing time wasting online games, you can tell yourself that at least with this one you're learning something. Whatever lets you live with yourself, right?
Have a program on your USB flash drive that you want to launch every time you plug that drive in? USB AutoRunner is a little utility that will create an Autorun.inf file on your flash drive to let Windows know you want to run your portable web browser, office application, virus scanner, or any other applications installed on your flash drive.
You can also use USB AutoRunner to select documents that will be opened when you insert your flash drive. Your PC will open those documents using the default viewers. So if you've got a PDF that you want to launch, it will open up in Adobe Reader, FoxIt, or whatever PDF viewer is installed on your system.
You could create Autorun.inf files by hand, but USB AutoRunner makes the process much simpler.
While not every program that posses a threat to your PC will attempt to write changes to your Windows registry, an awful lot will. So one way to keep your computer healthy is to track any changes to your registry. RegRunner is a free utility that hangs out in your system tray until a registry change is made, and then it pops up to let you know that something's going on. In other words, if you install and uninstall software on regular basis, RegRunner could be just as annoying as the user account control pop-up in Windows Vista. But just like the UAC, RegRunner can also prevent you from doing anything too foolish.
RegRunner also has a couple of other useful features. It will show you a list of programs that load when Windows starts. Another tab shows running processes.
The program does not include an uninstaller. If you want to remove RegRunner from your system, you'll have to delete installation directory and the shortcuts from the Startup folder in your Windows start menu.
For years TCPMP was the reigning champ of Windows Mobile video players. The program is light weight, customizable, and can handle practically any video codec you can throw at it. But the developers of TCPMP have moved onto the commercial CorePlayer. So when we saw that there was a new version of the DivX Mobile Player, we figured we'd take it for a spin and see how it stacks up.
The application is pretty. Like really pretty. When you load it up, DivX Mobile Player will automatically detect any videos on your device which it can play. It will then create thumbnail images form the files to make your video list easier to navigate. Unfortunately this can take a while and the program doesn't respond to taps very quickly while your phone or PDA is busy grabbing thumbnails.
The video playback screen is sparse, which is a good thing if all you want to look at is the video. You get a black background, a scrollbar, two menu buttons, and your movie. You can watch your videos in fullscreen mode and get rid of the toolbar buttons. And you can adjust your colors and a few other settings. But there are some important features that are missing, like the ability to adjust your aspect ratio. Seeking also takes an excrutiatingly long time.
We're not quite ready to throw away TCPMP yet, but the DivX Mobile Player is worth keeping an eye on. The latest version features improved power management features, which should help improve battery life while watching videos. The DivX Mobile Player is also available or Symbian devices, but the latest version is 0.89. An update shoul be coming soon. You'll need to register for a free DivX account to download the mobile player.
While we know a lot of folks like to pan Windows Vista's new graphics as useless eye candy, there are a few aspects of the Aero interface that are actually pretty useful. For example, in Windows Vista you can get a real-time thumbnail preview of running applications by scrolling over the Windows taskbar. But you can get this feature without switching operating systems, thanks to Visual ToolTip, a free application from Chris'n'Soft.
In order to run Visual ToolTip, just download and unzip the file and click on VisualToolTip.exe. The settings menu will open up, but you don't have to configure anything if you don't want to. You can just start scrolling your mouse over your taskbar to see previews of your running applications. You can click on the Visual ToolTip icon in your system tray if you do want to adjust the image size or animations.
Because Windows XP lacks some of the under the hood features included in Vista, Visual ToolTip doesn't show you real-time previews, but it will make a new snapshot every time you mouse over an icon. In other words, if you've got a video playing, you won't see a tiny video show up in the thumbnail. But you should see the frame that was playing when you moused over.
Visual ToolTip also packs a program launcher dock which you can use to replace the Windows taskbar. But there are far better dock applications out there, including RocketDock and ObjectDock if you're looking for a program launcher.
Deleting empty subdirectories seems like something Windows ought to do automatically, but for some reason that function just isn't included as part of the OS. Luckily, you don't need to download a utility to do it; instead, you can create a single line batch file that will do exactly what you're looking for:
for /f "usebackq" %%d in ("dir /ad/b/s | sort /R") do rd "%%d"
Raymond Chen, the venerable Microsoft coder, explains how this works. Basically, it uses a trick to enumerate the directories in reverse order. Since you can't delete a directory that contains data (including other directories) the only way to automate deleting directories is to start at the very bottom of the tree and work your way up.
Audio players come in all shapes and sizes, from resource hogging beasts such as iTunes and Windows Media Player, to relatively more lightweight competitors such as Winamp, MediaMonkey. And if you happen to have an iPod or some other sort of portable media player, chances are you are sort of locked in to whatever application works best with your portable device. But let's say you don't care about support for a portable player and just want a capable, lightweight player that has frills but not too many.
Meet AIMP2. AIMP2 weighs in at a mere 2.88MB, has a slightly smaller memory footprint than Winamp and can do just about everything you want except sync with a portable device. It supports anything from AAC to WMA, allows you to record radio streams, has a fully fledged library to organize your music, allows you to manipulate playlists while listening to another, and even supports a number of Winamp plug-ins. And for those who like to wake up and fall asleep to music, AIMP2 also includes a timed start and an auto shutdown timer.
Although lacking some of the features that the bigger media players may have, AIMP2 has an impressive feature set for its size. Additional skins and plug-ins are relatively scarce, but the basic skin works so well other skins are almost unnecessary beyond mere aesthetics. It has also been localized for a number of languages (the default being Russian), which makes this a very international user friendly application.
Overall, AIMP2 just feels right, and is a good alternative for anyone that is looking for something that works the way it should.
XNeat Windows Manager is a nifty little shell utility for WIndows XP and Vista that adds a few extra options to your taskbar, toolbar, and right-click context menus. For example, you can click on the toolbar of any window and set it to always display on top of other windows, minimize the window to the system tray, or hide a window from view entirely. You can also change the window's transparency level and behavior, or alter the priority of the window or the running process.
You can also use XNeat to change the appearance of your Windows taskbar by hiding elements like the start menu or the clock. You can even change the taskbar transparency/opaqueness level so that you can see through the taskbar to your desktop when it's not in focus.
These features are just the tip of the iceberg. There are so many things you can do with XNeat that the developers haven't even bothered to list them all on the product website.
If you have Windows Update configured to automatically download and install hotfixes, security updates, service packs, and other updates, it's not always easy to see exactly what you're installing or what's already been packed onto your PC. WinUpdatesList is a simple application that brings up a list of all the updates that have been applied to your PC.
You can run WinUpdatesList simply by downloading and unpacking a ZIP file and clicking on the executable. There's also a version with an installer/uninstaller available if you'd rather go that route. The program presents a detailed list of each update, what programs it affects, and a brief description, which may or may not be utterly meaningless. But if you double-click an update, you can get a link to the Microsoft knowlede base article, which will (occasionally) make order out of the madness of Microsoft's hotfix naming scheme.
There are plenty of free CD/DVD burners for Windows, and to be honest we haven't often been tempted to look beyond CDBurnerXP and InfraRecorder, which both seem to handle pretty much any tasks you can throw at them. But while reading an article about BurnOn over at Life Rocks 2.0, we noticed a link in the comments to StarBurn. And while we might check out BurnOn later, we were kind of blown away by StarBurn.
The application can handle all of your basic tasks like burning data, audio, and video discs. It supports a wide variety of formats including CD, DVD, Blu-Ray, and HD-DVD. And it has some nifty features like the ability to either rip audio CDs or compress audio already on your computer to MP3, WMA, or OGG formats.
One StarBurn feature that you don't often see bundled with disc burning utilities is a virtual drive mounting application. In other words, you can use StarBurn to create a disc image or ISO file, and then mount that file as a virtual disc so you can see how it performs without actually burning the file to a disc and sticking it in a drive. This can come in handy if you want to see check an image before burning it, or if you want to mount an image you've created or downloaded on a system that doesn't have a working optical drive.
StarBurn is free unless you want the network version, which offers network burning features and costs a whopping $495. The full functionality is included in the free version, but you can only use the network features during a 30 day free trial period.
Z-Cron is a free task scheduling utility for WIndows. But wait, doesn't Windows aready include a task scheduler? Yes, but it's not exactly what we'd call user friendly. And while Z-Cron might look a little intimidating at first glance, it includes a nice long list of activities that you can schedule with just a few clicks. Here are just a few of the tasks included:
Alarm CLock
Cleanfile - delete old files
CopyDir - Copy a directory (great for performing daily, weekly, or monthly automated backups)
Delete files
Download files
Empty trash
Hibernate
Log out
Move a directory
Switch a screensaver on or off
Send an email
Shutdown
Standby
While there are a ton of tasks built into the interface, you can also create your own by selecting programs you want to name and scheduling a time for them to run.
While Windows lets you rename multiple files at once by selecting a group of documents with your mouse and clicking rename, you don't have a lot of control over the process. What if you want each file to keep its original name, but you want to add a prefix. Or what if you want to change all of the characters from upper case to lower case? Windows doesn't give you that option, but the free Windows utility WildRename does.
WildRename comes in a small, executable package, meaning you there's nothing to install on your PC, and you can even run the application from a USB flash drive. Once it's up and running you can navigate to the directory of your choice and select from a list of possible actions to perform, including:
Changing the case
Add or remove characters
Replace strings of characters
Add text counters to a series, such as _001
There's also a handy simulation mode which lets you preview the changes before writing them to your actual documents.
Cyber Bandwidth Monitor does pretty much exactly what you'd expect it to do, and more. This little WIndows utility tracks your upload and download speeds over time and plots your network activity on a little graph. The utility grabs data once per second, but you can adjust the settings so that it refreshes more frequently. You can also tweak a ton of display settings, ranging from the font and window size to the graph scale.
You just have to love an online game that knows exactly what it aims to be. And the concept of this game is, well, rather difficult. 
Deleting empty subdirectories seems like something Windows ought to do automatically, but for some reason that function just isn't included as part of the OS. Luckily, you don't need to download a utility to do it; instead, you can create a single line batch file that will do exactly what you're looking for:
