clutter posts

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Freeware

USB Drive Fresher automatically tidies your flash drives

by Lee Mathews Aug 19th 2009

On my service bench, we've got a handful of USB flash drives that get cluttered up on a daily basis. By the end of the day, they're often loaded up with drivers, backups, thumbs.db files - you name it.

Yesterday, I found USBDriveFresher. It's a free utility designed to clean up flash drives with minimal fuss. You can create your own cleanup routines. Cleanup can even be done automatically, which is useful if you constantly need a clean drive like I do.

You're not limited to cleaning up flash drives, though. Fresher's custom cleanup option lets you run your tidy-up routines on any folder on your computer.

USBDriveFresher is a free download and runs on everything from Windows 98 forward. It only uses about 6mb when running - well worth it if you need to keep a number of drives clean and ready-to-use.

Tags: cleanup, clutter, erase, format, usb-flash-drive

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Freeware

Deskcretary automatically tidies up cluttered Windows desktops

by Lee Mathews Aug 3rd 2009

My worst Windows habit? Indiscriminantly downloading new files and dumping screen captures onto my desktop. When things start to get too messy, I'll go on a wholesale deleting spree or chuck everything extraneous into a single folder and bury it in the recesses of my d: drive.

Enter Deskcretary, a free app which claims to be the "most advanced Windows desktop cleanup software ever."

When you first launch the program, Deskcretary will step you through some initial setting screens - files that you want to exempt from cleaning, compression level, copy and replace policies. At the end of the process, you'll be asked to set an archiving schedule. Daily, weekly, and monthly jobs are supported, or you can turn off scheduling completely and run things manually.

The most clever feature is the Deskcretary Explorer, which allows you to browse previous archives. Jobs are cataloged by date and there's a built-in search feature which yields quick, accurate results.

I'd love to be able to change the location of the archive folder, but I'm not going to complain about the fact that Deskcretary plops it on the desktop. After all, that's where all my clutter was ending up anyway. Renaming would be a nice option, too - perhaps we'll see that in a future version.

Tags: cleaning, clutter, deskcretary, desktop, organization, organize, tidy

Filed under: OS Updates, Utilities, Windows, Freeware, Windows x64

Stardock Fences adds KDE 4 style desktop organization to Windows

by Lee Mathews Feb 5th 2009

Many of you have probably eschewed the practice of placing files and shortcuts on your Windows desktop. There are definitely more efficient options - Launchy or FARR, for example. If you still prefer having a well-stocked desktop, Stardock's Fences is a nice organizational tool you should try.

Fences add KDE4-style containers to your desktop into which you can drop shortcuts and files. As you would expect from a Stardock app, the aesthetics of Fences are nice out of the box and can be highly customized.

On first launch, you can choose to let Fences attempt to automatically corral your icons or go straight to work manually settings things up. The no-fuss option worked well on my desktop, grouping files, folders, and shortcuts in their own containers.

Once you have things sorted out to your liking, you can take a snapshot of your setup to easily switch between configurations. You can also lock your fences to prevent organizational mishaps. For a clear look at your desktop, a double click will hide everything - unless you have a container excluded from hiding.

Fences is currently free until August as a preview, and runs on both 32 and 64-bit Windows.

To see some more screens, view the gallery after the break!

Tags: clutter, desktop-icons, shell-enhancement, stardock, windows-desktop

Filed under: Business, Features, E-mail, Productivity, Web services, Google, How-Tos

Five simple rules for keeping an empty inbox

by Grant Robertson Nov 15th 2006

If your email volume is anything like mine, it's totally insane. Thousands of messages constantly streaming in and, only a tiny fraction of those are messages you need to see.

Surprising then, that only a few years ago I was literally living inside Microsoft Outlook. Rigid folders, the nightmarish rules "wizard", and that annoying inbox chime that dings regardless of which folder your new ~~distraction~~ message ultimately wound up.

I completely believe that Gmail saved my life. Okay, that's pushing it. Gmail didn't save my life. What Gmail (and a little bit of GTD-inspired respect for my own time) did was save my attention span. Some careful filtering and a bit of common sense returned a half hour or more of uninterrupted concentration per day.

That's 2.5 hours a week, over 10 hours a month and more than one whole day per year.

So, how did I do it?

Tags: clutter, email, empty, filters, gmail, gtd, inbox, labels, organization, productivity

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clutter posts

USB Drive Fresher automatically tidies your flash drives

Deskcretary automatically tidies up cluttered Windows desktops

Stardock Fences adds KDE 4 style desktop organization to Windows

Five simple rules for keeping an empty inbox

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