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Posts with tag Explorer

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Productivity, Freeware

Cubic Explorer is a highly customizable portable file manager

Windowsby Lee Mathews Nov 28th 2008


There are plenty of Windows Explorer replacements out there, and most of you probably have a favorite. While I'm normally content to use what Windows gives me, I'm always looking for a good portable replacement to help ease file management tasks on customer computers.

Cubic Explorer has a number of options that have earned it the job. While it's packed with functionality and can be customized any number of ways, the interface remains mostly uncomplicated. It's a given that when you add tabs, breadcrumbs, bookmarks, previewing, folder trees, and everything else normally found in an Explorer replacement that the interface will become cluttered, but Cubic keeps things under control.

I've added all the folders I normally need to access during a repair to the favorites, like c:\windows, control panel, network connections, and my network app shares. After launching Cubic, hitting the bookmarks menu and open all in tabs quickly displays everything. It's much quicker than using start -> run every time I need to open a folder.

Cubic also supports sessions, allowing you to have several customized sets of tabs, bookmarks, and layouts. It's a handy feature for moving between customer systems, our office machines, and my home computers. Several themes are included, and your choice is saved with the session.

Cubic Explorer is freeware for Windows only, and both an installer and portable version are available.

Tags: explorer, file-management, file-manager, portable

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Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Productivity, Freeware, Open Source

MuCommander is a powerful, cross-platform file manager

WindowsMacLinuxby Lee Mathews Oct 24th 2008


We've covered many, many Explorer replacements here in the past, so I was a little surprised that MuCommander hadn't been written up yet.

What makes MuCommander stand out is that it is free, open source, and cross-platform. The author's web site provides downloads for Windows, Mac, and Linux (.tar.gz) as well as a Debian package, portable version, and a Java Web Start package.

It's actually the first JWS application I've come across since I started reviewing for Download Squad. It loaded fairly quickly on my netbook, and ridiculously fast on my quad-core AMD desktop.

MuCommander presents a skinnable, dual-pane view for file management. There's no tab support, though I don't consider that a major shortcoming - especially considering its other features are numerous, and extremely useful.

For starters, there's built-in support for FTP, SFTP, Samba, HTTP, NFS, and Bonjour. Several types of archives can be explored without extracting: zip, rar, tar, gzip, bzip2, iso, nrg, deb, and lst. MuCommander can create archives (press ctrl+I to pack) and even modify zip files on the fly without having to recompress the entire archive

There's also a command shell window with scrolling output, credential manager, and favorite locations list.

MuCommander is a fantastic file manager, and well worth a test drive for any user - regardless of OS.

Tags: explorer, file management, file manager, FileManagement, FileManager, foss, open source, open-source, opensource

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Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Productivity, Freeware

Folder Guide Speeds Windows Directory Browsing

Windowsby Lee Mathews Aug 23rd 2008



If you spend any amount of time moving files around using Windows Explorer, the repetitive clicking can get tiresome. Folder Guide is a context menu enhancement that speeds your navigation: add a folder to your Guide, and accessing it is a two-click operation from any explorer window or file dialog box.

Adding a folder to Folder Guide can be done two ways. Launch the main program, click the add button, set up an alias, and browse for your path. Oddly, the developers chose to use the explore view which means there's no access to the right-click shortcuts you've already created to make navigating easier.

The easier - and more logical way - is to simply browse for your folder and right-click it. Choose add to folder guide, and you're done. You won't be prompted for an alias, so to edit the default name you'll need to use the application itself.

Snce Folder Guide works with file dialogs it's available just about everywhere you want to make directory browsing faster: attaching files in GMail, selecting a save location for a screen capture, you name it.

Folder Guide is freeware, and Windows only, of course. No mention is made on the site of Vista or 64-bit compatibility.

Tags: directories, directory, explorer, file navigation, FileNavigation, shell enhancement, ShellEnhancement

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Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Freeware

QuizoApps Adds Tabs, Breadcrumbs to Explorer

Windowsby Lee Mathews Aug 18th 2008


While I know there are plenty of good replacements out there for Windows Explorer, I'm not ready to jump ship just yet. I don't really need any really advanced functionality, but there are a few things I'd like to add. Vista-style breadcrumbs and tabbed browsing, for example.

QuizoApps has coded two small extensions that do the job quite well with a minimal impact on resources. Both addons are activated by clicking view -> toolbars in any Explorer window.

The Breadcrumbs addon (QtAddressBar) is extremely responsive and even displays links to subfolders (you can see the arrow off the Adobe folder above).

Brad blogged about using QTTabBar to add an up button in Vista a while back, but it also adds several other tabbed browsing functions. You can create groups to open several tabs at once, clone a tab, merge tabs from another window, undo tab closing, use hotkeys, and it even includes enhanced replacements for Explorer's standard buttons. It even maintains a list of recently closed folders for quick resurrection.

Customization offers tons of enhancements, like grid lines, alternating row colors, minimizing to tray, and a lot more. If you want, QTTabBar will restore your tab previous tab layout on launch - I use it to keep the Control Panel and my Printers close at hand.

These are two great addons for any Windows XP. .NET 2.0 Framework is required.

Tags: addon, enhancement, explorer, extension, shell, tabbed browsing, TabbedBrowsing, windows

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Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Freeware

Kick Windows Explorer to the curb with AccelMan File Manager

Windowsby Brad Linder Jul 20th 2008

AccelMan
Windows Explorer keeps getting a tiny bit better with each new Windows release. But for some reason Microsoft refuses to offer one thing that many other file managers have had for years: a two-pane window. If you want to copy files from one folder to another, you need to open two separate Explorer windows.

There are a whole slew of free replacements for Windows Explorer. But one of the new kids on the freeware block is AccelMan, a utility that you used to have to pay for, but which was recently set free. Make sure to download and install the registry key from the download page or you'll just get a 30 day free trial.

In addition to a two-pane window, AccelMan has a ton of powerful features, including:
  • A built in media player with a playlist manager
  • A file viewer that will show images, PDF, Office, and other documents
  • The image viewer includes basic editing capabilities
  • Install TrueType Fonts without using the Control Panel
  • Compress and extract files in 15 formats including ZIP, RAR, TAR, ACE, and GZIP
  • Built-in file splitter
  • Hexadecimal editor
AccelMan is also extraordinarily customizable. There are about a dozen different schemes to choose from, or you can tweak the interface yourself and save a new scheme.
[via Freeware Genius]

Tags: accelman, explorer

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Filed under: Windows, Freeware

Tired of Manilla Explorer Folders? Get Rainbow Folders!

Windowsby Lee Mathews Jul 7th 2008

The default folder icons in Windows are so dreadfully boring, what with their bland manilla coloring and horizontal orientation. What we want is brightly colored folders that we can choose to stand on their side (like Vista). In the real world, not such a great idea - your paperwork would just slide out constantly and you end up with a bigger mess than before you crammed it into a folder.

In Windows, it's another story. Using Rainbow Folders to change the default icons gives you a quick way to visually distinguish your folders. Color all your image folders orange, documents green, or memos from your boss brown. It's a very simple way to add a bit of sanity to any directory that is overrun with subfolders. You can even add tooltip text to your folder, which displays in Explorer's status bar when you single click it.

As an added bonus you can also switch between old school (Windows 9x), XP, and Vista style icons. Sweet.

(note: publisher's site is not linked as it timed out repeatedly)

Tags: colorize, explorer, folder icons, FolderIcons, folders, windows

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Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Productivity, Search

NexusFile - Putting Windows Explorer out of its misery

Windowsby Drew Olanoff Jun 3rd 2008

What's one of the worst things about Windows? The explorer function to find folders, documents, and pictures of your cat doing funny things.

NexusFile aims to replace Windows Explorer.

Here are some of the cool features that NexusFile sports that the Windows team left out on Explorer:
  • Favorite Folders
  • Tab support - This is a big productivity one
  • Smart bar that remembers the directories that you were in
  • Archive function built in (zip, rar ace, with password support)
  • Disk cleanup tool
  • Built in FTP client
But the best feature here is the commenting tool. Comment on a file or a folder for later reference. That is sheer genius!

If you're moving files from one directory to another a lot, then this is worth a shot.

[via online-tech-tips]

Tags: explorer, file manager, FileManager, microsoft, nexusfile

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Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Productivity, Microsoft, Freeware

Add file type support to Vista's Explorer preview pane with PreviewConfig

Windowsby Danny Mendez Apr 21st 2008

PreviewConfig results
PreviewConfig is a utility that gives Vista users the power to add file type support to the Explorer preview pane, which can be activated via "Organize." Though the preview pane can be an interesting and useful feature of the OS, it really lacks in file support. It's possible to add support for more without a 3rd party program, but that requires some risky and time-consuming registry tweaking.

But fear not lazy and/or less-advanced Vista users! PreviewConfig makes it easy to add support for more file types. Simply open the application, choose the file type on the left and select how to preview it on the right. In the photo above, you can see the results of adding support for a multimedia file -- in this case an MP3 -- which is previewed through Windows Media Player.

Though it was easy to add support for MP3 files, adding more would require the user to go through the process again. This isn't a big deal if you're looking to add a few more, but adding support for 20, 30, or more file types could prove to be extra boring. Then again, it beats doing the registry hack over and over again.

[via the How-To-Geek]

Tags: explorer, preview, preview pane, previewconfig, PreviewPane, vista

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Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Freeware

DMEXBar gives Windows Explorer super powers

Windowsby Brad Linder Feb 7th 2008

DMEXBar
There are plenty of alternatives to the Windows file explorer. But since you can't uninstall the default file explorer, you might as well learn to love it. Or tweak the heck out of it. Whatever floats your boat.

DMEXBar is a Windows Explorer add-on that lets you add a few extra toolbars and dozens of extra features to Explorer. Probably the most notable tweak is the addition of a button that lets you instantly open up a second instance of Windows Explorer next to your current window. This makes it incredibly easy to copy or move files from one folder to another.

You can also add buttons making it easier to launch a command prompt, copy or paste files, or mark them as favorites. The little calculator buttons lets you see how much disk space is used or remaining. There's also a breadcrumb-like toolbar that shows you a list of folders. DMEXBar works with Windows 2000 and XP.

[via Freeware Genius]

Tags: dmexbar, explorer, file-explorers, windows-explorer

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Filed under: Security, Windows, Microsoft, Commercial, Troubleshooting

Kaspersky declares Windows Explorer a Virus

Windowsby Ian Dumych Dec 22nd 2007

Virus

In an amusing move that is sure to have caused a few flushed faces, Kaspersky Antivirus recently declared Windows Explorer malicious code. While we've known Explorer to crash from time to time, this treatment seems a bit excessive.

The gaffe came in the form of a routine virus update this past Wednesday night. Kaspersky mistakenly identified Explorer as an infected file. For those not familiar with Windows' internals, Explorer serves as the core of the Windows interface, handling the Desktop, Start bar, and file management. Without this core component, Windows becomes inoperable.

Realizing their mistake, the company pulled the flawed definition about two hours later. However, untold numbers of customers were already experiencing the quarantine, and in some cases deletion of explorer.exe. While this isn't the first time a virus company has make a false positive, it is none the less a serious mistake that will certainly mean serious downtime for some organizations. Or at least, the organizations that haven't switched to Linux or Mac by now.

Tags: Antivirus, Explorer, Kaspersky, Virus, Windows

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Filed under: Photo, Utilities, Windows, Microsoft, Freeware

Easily access your photo's EXIF data

Windowsby Sheila Ward Feb 7th 2007

With the recent release of Microsoft Photo Info, your photo's EXIF data is just a hover away. This little software add-in allows you to view, add or modify common metadata that is stored in digital photos. Once installed you'll find a new "Photo Info" option when you right-click supported image files in Explorer. Microsoft Photo Info lets you work with individual or groups of images, which is a great time saver if you want to add copyright info to a large batch of photos. But my favorite feature is the ability to hover over an image file and have EXIF data display without launching the app. Great for those times when you just need a quick bit of info.

The software currently supports JPEG, TIFF, WDP, HDP, NEF, CR2 and CRW image files. Check out the FAQ for more details and specs. Microsoft Photo Info is available as a free download for 32-bit Windows XP SP2 and Windows Vista.

[via CodeProject.com Daily Developer News]

Tags: exif, explorer, hover, jpeg, metadata, microsoft, microsoft photo info, MicrosoftPhotoInfo, photos, tiff

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Filed under: Developer, Internet, Security, Utilities, News, Windows, Productivity, Microsoft, Freeware

Run IE 6 and 7 on the same machine

Windowsby Ryan Carter Dec 2nd 2006

IE 7 If you do hard-core web development, which do you use? IE 6 or IE 7? I would rather use Firefox, but I have to develop for IE, since most of the world still uses it. Sure IE7 is new, IE6 is old, and they are similar, yet it is tough to develop for both, especially when you can't really install both together on the same machine. Microsoft is going to help you out with that. On November 30th, Microsoft released the Internet Explorer VPC testing image. This is a virtual PC image that lets you run IE 6 and IE 7 on the same virtual machine. The image is built on a pre-activated copy of Windows XP SP2 underneath so that could be fun for all kinds of other things too. The catch here is that the image expires on April 1, 2007. Still, it isn't a bad idea to download it and is going to help me make and break IE 6 and 7 stuff a lot faster now. You can download Microsoft Virtual PC 2004 for free to run the image (if you don't have it already). The IEblog states that the VPC image will also run on Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 (download it via connect, Windows Live passport sign-in required) if you're running Vista. Mary Jo Foley, (of Microsoft Watch fame) has written a great article on this over at her new home at ZDNet's "Unblinking Eye on Microsoft" blog that you might find interesting. Be aware, the VPC testing image is around 500MB to download, so go get yourself a cookie, a candy cane, some egg-nog or something while you're waiting.

Tags: development, explorer, IE6, IE7, internet, Microsoft

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Filed under: Text, Utilities, Web services

Grazr makes OPML play nice

by Ryan Carter Sep 20th 2006

GrazrMarshall Kirkpatrick of TechCrunch notifies us of Grazr, a quick tool to browse your OPML files, no programming knowledge needed. I guess you could think of Grazr as a hierarchical exploded tree-menu explorer-type interface on some kind of weird custard that makes you say things like "dandy." For an example, check it out over at TechCrunch. Grazr, a sort of OPML browser makes RSS feeds pop and even plays video (like YouTube) and other media right in the browser. I love the slippery feel of the UI and the "folder meets DHTML" menu feeling of it. I give this little diddy a five star-monkey salute!

Tags: explorer, Grazr, OPML, RSS

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Featured Time Waster

Forumwarz - a potentially offensive time waster

I pwn UAfter spending the better part of an hour on Forumwarz I still can't decide if it's just sick or if it's kind of fun. It's a bit like a car wreck on the highway. I know I shouldn't be looking but I can't quite turn away.

It's sick, it's twisted, it's the internet on it's worst level and darn it, it's kind of fun. At least for a little while.

Forumwarz is a parody role-playing game that takes place on the internet - or at least the Forumwarz version of it. Your goal is to complete missions that are given to you through a mock up of GoogleTalk called Sentrillion.

Your first "friend" is ShallowEsophagus who begins giving you missions to pwn various forums by being a troll. Depending on the character type you are assigned at start up, you have tools like drooling on the keyboard or bashing your head on the keyboard that you can use to destroy forum threads and eventually, pwn a forum.

Future missions involve buying illegal software from the Russians, pwning more difficult forums and other internet oddness.

Completing missions gives you cash, called Flezz in game, and items that you can pawn or use in other missions. The game is NOT for those easily offended. It's crass, coarse and there are frequent f-bombs in the fake chat sessions.

This is also a game for a more mature audience as it requires you to shop at the Drugs R Fun store to get various concoctions to improve your playing, engage in certain cyber activities to get more Flezz and just generally use a more adult perspective.

If you can get past that, here are the more enjoyable and time-wasting aspects.

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