Minime - Minimize all windows to system tray

Minime is utility that can be used to put any open window into the Windows System Tray. It comes with a feature that might be interesting to users who run many applications and folders. Minime bundles the minimized windows into one System Tray icon. If you are the type of user who usually has dozens of icons in the Windows System Tray then you might want to consider switching from your favorite Tray Minimizer application to Minime. While running Minime in the background users can make use of the keyboard shortcut (Ctrl+Shift+Z) to minimize the active window to the System Tray. Windows can be reactivated by either choosing a single window or by selecting the Show All option.

This utility can be found on http://www.saphua.com/site/minime.html

Free Ultimate Windows Tweaker for Vista

Ultimate Windows Tweaker is a free Tweak UI Utility for optimizing Windows Vista operating system. It can make your system run faster, more stable, and secure with just a few mouse clicks. There is no installation required to run this utility as it is a portable application and has a simple easy-to-use user interface.

Download Link :
http://www.winvistaclub.com/Ultimate_Windows_Tweaker.html

Changing the Firefox Disk cache path

In Windows Operating system, the cache of Firefox is by default located in Documents and Settings folder and on the same drive that Firefox was installed. The cache will be accessed by the browser all the time for reading and writing operations. If you make the browser access the cache faster, you can increase the performance of your browser, so it is a good idea to change the path of cache onto a temporary directory on a faster hard drives. By changing the path of cache, you will not only be increasing the performance of Firefox, but also security, as the cache may contain confidential data that you dealt with while you were browsing.

The location of the the Firefox disk cache cannot be changed in the Firefox settings. The only way is to add a new parameter in the about:config dialog. Follow the below instructions to change it.

Type about:config in the Firefox address bar. Right-click on the page and select New and then String from the menu.

Enter browser.cache.disk.parent_directory as the preference name and the new path as the string value, for example F:\Firefox_Temp (where F Drive is a faster hard drive) and restart Firefox.

Screenshot

Zone Alarm - Free basic firewall for Windows

ZoneAlarm is an easy-to-use firewall that blocks hackers and other unknown threats and has the following features.

• Intrusion Blocking systematically identifies hackers and blocks access attempts.
• Stealth Mode automatically makes your computer invisible to anyone on the Internet.
• Automatic Program Configuration provides safety and simplicity by automatically configuring programs. Automatically decides whether to allow or deny Internet access to individual programs.
• Expert Controls give savvy users precise control over security settings.

Current version available for free and non-commercial use is 8.0.020.0 and can be downloaded from the authors website ZoneAlarm.com

SpeedUp your Computer - StartUp tweak

Removing unwanted programs from start up will increase the start up speed of your windows. If you have complete control over the programs that start when you start windows, below are the steps to disable unwanted programs that are running on start up (when windows starts).

• Click Start
• Click Run
• Type msconfig and wait for a System Configuration Utility window to popup.
• Click on Startup tab
• Uncheck the programs next to the items you do not want to load on startup. Make sure you know what you are doing. If you are not sure what the program does, do not uncheck it. Certain programs need to start on windows startup for windows to function properly, so be careful while disabling programs on startup.
• Once done, close the System Configuration Utility and restart your computer.

Wake your computer on Standby or Hibernate

Did you know that it is possible to wake up your system from a Stand-by mode or Hibernation programmatically? WakeupOnStandBy is a simple utility that will do it for you. Once activated it resides in the system and wakes it up at predefined time, runs a file and if necessary sends it into Stand-by mode, hibernates it or shuts it down. It can also be used to run scheduled operations every day, or on specific day(s).

Special features:

• Can restore almost every Windows-based operating system from a Stand-by mode (and some from hibernation) that support ACPI (Advanced
  Configuration and Power Interface) (For support check computer's BIOS as well as Control Panel -> Power Options)
• Can run a file or open a web page at a predetermined time after a wake-up event, during normal operation, or before performing power operation
• Can send system back to Stand-by mode (hibernate it, shut it down, or log off user) after a certain time interval
• Can detect if Stand-by mode (or hibernation) is supported by your system
• Can turn the monitor on and hold off screen-saver during the waiting time;
  Can repair local area network and high-speed Internet connection upon waking up from a suspended state
• Can send system into Stand-by mode or hibernate it with more options than available through Operating System
• Can be incorporated into an in-car (entertainment) PC system to speed up booting time & save battery [more here]
• Can be run from the Windows Command Line without user interaction
• Can be saved as a batch file for later use.

This utility can be found on www.dennisbabkin.com

Treesize Free - A very cool disk space visualizer

TreeSize Free tells you where your precious space hard disk has gone to. TreeSize Free can be started directly from the start menu or from the context menu of a folder or drive and shows you the size of this folder including its subfolders. You can expand this folder in Explorer-like style and you will see the size of every subfolder. Scanning is done in a thread, so you can already see results while TreeSize Free is working. The space, which is wasted by the file system, can be displayed and the results can be printed in a report. TreeSize Free is freeware for Windows 2000/XP/Vista.

Adobe's new release - CS4 Master Collection

Adobe has released CS4 (Creative Suite 4), the latest update to the its suite of high-end applications for print, Web, and video professionals. This includes Photoshop CS4, SoundBooth CS4, After Effects CS4, Dreamweaver CS4, Indesign CS4, Illustrator CS4 and Premiere Pro CS4. If your internet speed is fast enough, you can download it else it will be a good option to go for a DVD purchase as the size the collection is more than 7GB's.

Memeo Share - Free Photos and Video sharing service

Memeo Share is an easy way to share photos, videos and more with friends and family for free. It allows you to share your high-resolution & high-quality images and videos with anyone around the world. Sharing your photos and videos just got a whole lot easier and simple, as simple as dragging and dropping.

Make a change in appearance of Gmail.

If you are Gmail and Firefox user, you can change the appearance of Gmail with the following add-on for your browser and enjoy the difference.

• Install this add-on at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2108. You have to restart your browser for the add-on to take effect.
  


• Once you have restarted the browser open this link http://www.globexdesigns.com/gmail/gmail.css
  


• Login into your Gmail account and now right-click on the icon named stylish on the
  status bar of Firefox and then click "Add Files to Stylish".

Free online file scanners

Virustotal.com and NoVirusThanks.org are the two well known online file checking websites for free that scans any file that you upload to them. The scanning is performed using more than 20 antivirus programs. These variety of antivirus programs used by the websites allows users to check for viruses that their own antivirus failed to do. This service will be of great help for scanning files that the user received from strangers or as an email attachments.

EchoPic.com - A cool, safe and easy image sharing website

EchoPic is a basic photo sharing website that is really good and safe place for people to share their images online. There is no junk, flashy ads on the site and even signing up is not needed to avail the service. With only a single click you can upload any image and get a link that is not as long as other links provided by other image sharing websites. The provided URL by EchoPic.com can be used for email and IM purpose along with HTML code for blogs, social networks, and any other website purposes. You can also add tags to your images and send them to friends or put them on your blogs. EchoPic.com is a quick and easy place to store your images.

TuneUp Utilities 2008 will optimize your computers lot better

TuneUP Utilities is a well known windows optimization software which has the following powerful features

* Powerful hard drive defragmentation
* Optimum start-up, Internet, and Windows acceleration
* Quick and extensive clean-up for hard drives
* Effective elimination of junk data
* Fully-automatic clean-up and improvement of your PC
* Extensive clean-up of the registry
* Effective help in solving standard Windows problems
* Secure data recovery and data elimination
* Simple custom Windows configuration
* Individual Windows styling

You need not be a computer expert to use this software, this software is for both beginners a experts and will be of great help to you in optimizing your computers.

Shorten your long url with tinyurl.com

Tinyurl.com is a free web service that will provide you a shorter url for any long url, you will redirected the long url when you open this short url. For example the url http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/news/int/story/services/-/1/hi/help/6358397.stm can be shortened to http://tinyurl.com/bbcnewstiny or http://tinyurl.com/33lqgt


If your browser is Mozilla Firefox, you can install this plugin to quickly convert long urls to small
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/126

Convert your pictures into cartoon pictures online

Befunky.com is a cool website that can convert or turn any of your real pictures into cartoon pictures. You don't have to use any software on your computer to do this, you will only have to upload pictures from your computer to the website and do the conversion online.


There are some more cool features on Befunky.com and everything is for free.

Downloading videos from YouTube without using any software

Did you know that you can save the videos that are played on Youtube without using a software?
If not, read this post and you will know how you can do it... This is quiet geeky but will be useful for people who do not want to install additional software's on their computer's for accomplishing simple tasks.

Here is how you can save Youtube videos in Internet Explorer

1. Open Internet Explorer and clear all the temporary internet files.
2. Now open the youtube video link and wait until the the video is played fully. (at this time the video is saved into the cache folder of internet explorer)
3. Now press winkey + r keys and type "%userprofile%\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5" in the run dialog box.
4. Make a search for all files and folders in the Content.IE5 folder and in the search result the file with the maximum size is the video that you played in the youtube.
5. Now copy paste this file and rename it with .flv extension (MyVideo.flv)

If you have difficulties in opening video files with .flv extension, rename the file with .wmv extension


The procedure is same in Mozilla firefox, you will only have to change the cache folder to "%userprofile%\Local Settings\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles"

Hope my first post will be informative and works fine with you.