Life Rocks 2.0 » Freewares

Monitor Activity on a Registry Key with Registry Live Watch

Nirmal — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 18:40:44 +0000

Registry is one of the most important aspect of Windows and if you are doing any change on Registry, make sure that you do a back up of it. Registry Live Watch is a free, lightweight and portable tool to monitor activity on a registry key. You can run this tool from the system tray (notification area in Windows 7) and monitor a registry key for different kind of changes. The application in itself does not change the registry, but just monitors in read only mode.

Registry Live Watch is a portable application, there is no install process, just unzip to any folder and run it. You need to specify the root key from the available drop down list and enter the key value. Once you click monitor, it starts the monitor of the particular key.

You can also save the log of monitoring. You can also specify to run an event in case there is any change in the keys you have selected for monitoring.

Download Registry Live Watch

Reduce Image Sizes with PIXresizer

Nirmal — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 20:15:42 +0000

When we use images in emails or in websites, they need to be of lesser size maintaining the clarity. PIXresizer is a freeware tool for quickly generating screen-friendly versions of your images with reduced file sizes. It is a photo resizing program that enables you to quickly resize one file or a selection of image files for use on the web and in email. The reduced files will be saved in different location, so that your original images are not modified.

The application has 2 tabs, one for single image resizing and second one for bulk image resizing from a folder. You can also select the file format, supported ones are BMP, JPEG, PNG, TIFF and GIF formats. The program offers several different resizing methods to choose from and can automatically recognize image sizes to calculate the best fit. PIXresizer also includes a built-in image viewer.

Features

Simple Four-Step Workflow
Easy ‘Apply recommended’ option to make it even more user friendly
Works with single files as well as with multiple files all at once
Option to convert between graphics formats (.bmp, .gif, .jpg, .png, and .tif)
Can be used to create thumbnails (takes one move on a slider)
Smart Ratio Calculation (image proportions can be overruled by the user)
EXIF support, JPEG compression, TIFF compression, DPI settings

Download PIXresizer

Windows 7 Migration Utility for Windows XP Users

Nirmal — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 18:40:24 +0000

With the release of Windows 7, people can either upgrade or do a fresh install. If you are using Windows Vista, you can directly upgrade to Windows 7. If you are using Windows XP, you will need to do a clean install, but there is a work around to get your files. Windows 7 Migration Utility, is a comprehensive solution for the data migration of Windows XP / Windows Vista based machines to a new Windows 7 environment.

Features of Migration utility;

Windows 7 Basic Migration will assist you in upgrading from Windows XP to Windows 7
Windows 7 compatibility scan to check for hard disk space as well as hardware and software compatibility
Migrate your user and applications settings the new operating system.
Move your important data, including documents, images, video, emails and more.
Manually download and re-install applications from a customized web-page based on your existing installed programs.

The basic migration package which is free will migrate;

User profiles
Desktop Personalization
Application Settings
My Documents

Windows 7 Migration Utility is a very useful utility for all XP users who want to upgrade to Windows 7.

Download Windows 7 Migration Utility (Basic Edition)

Mix and Manipulate your Photos with FotoMix

Nirmal — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 19:15:15 +0000

FotoMix is a freeware tool to mix and manipulate your photo collection with ease. You can add a variety of effects to your photos with this utility like remove, add or alter backgrounds in the current picture, create collages, wallpapers or CD/DVD covers. The result that is so high in quality that it is almost impossible to tell if the photo has been manipulated or not. Once you are done with the editing, you can print them, email them to friends or transfer them to T-shirts, mugs, calendars, etc.

Features;

Design eye-catching photo collages, desktop wallpapers, CD and DVD covers and Web graphics.
Add or remove your loved and not so loved ones from your pictures.
Remove, add or alter backgrounds.
Create photo montages by combining multiple pictures into a unique heirloom depicting retrospectives of a birth, marriage, anniversary, etc.

You can check out some of the sample pictures created using this tool.

Download FotoMix

Get Windows Classic Menu in Windows 7

Nirmal — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 18:40:15 +0000

With the launch of Windows 7, Microsoft had removed the classic menu which had appeared in the popular Windows XP. The classic start menu had altogether different look and use when compared to the Windows 7 start menu. If you are used to having the Windows XP style classic menu, then you can get it now using Classic Windows Start Menu. Once installed this will bring in the features of classic start menu.

Once executed, this tool will launch a Windows XP-style menu that you can call in the same ways you used to do before: Win key, Ctrl+Esc or clicking left mouse button on the Windows logo; if you click right button, the application will ask you to exit.

ClassicWinStartMenu updates menus every time, and shows you the last installed applications. This application does not feature the drag & drop option to add, remove, rename or sort items as of now. You can do these on the original menu, and changes will be reflected into your new menu, except on sorting.

ClassicWinStartMenu is a good option if you are used to then Windows XP style classic menu.

Download ClassicWinStartMenu

Keep Applications Updated with Seven Update

Nirmal — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 05:19:53 +0000

With lots of new versions and features being added to application, it is very difficult to keep track of latest version of each application installed on your PC. Previously we have covered 5 free tools to keep your applications up to date. Seven Update is another free tool which checks for latest versions of your installed applications. The application allows an easy way to keep your software updated. It offers automatic update notification and installation.

Features of Seven Update;

Provides automatic updates for software
Full update history
Application Repository – a list of applications that can be updated with Seven Update
Add an application to Seven Update by clicking a link on a web site
Automatic search and download of updates (depending on settings)
Hide & restore updates
Intuitive user interface
Hash verification, no corrupt files.
Displays download counts and sizes.
Informative progress, know exactly what Seven Update is doing.

Download Seven Update

Local/Remote Task Manager- Nauplius TaskManager

Nirmal — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:00:53 +0000

Although Windows has its own built in task manager to manage processes running, there are many third party tools to do this job. We have covered quite a few third party free task managers for Windows. Nauplius TaskManager is another free task manager for Windows which has the ability to end process from a local computer as well as remote computers connected through network.

This task manager does not show all the process from the computer when opened, but you need to enter the computer name and then query for the processes running under it. By default the current computer name is displayed.

If you want to get processes from a remote machine, enter the machine name connected to the network and click on query. You can end process running on the remote computer using this tool.

Although it has the remote process shutdown option, there aren’t much feature available in this task manager when compared to other task manager reviewed here.

Download Nauplius TaskManager

Password Protect any Program or File with LockThis

Nirmal — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 06:53:06 +0000

We have previously covered a free application, LockBox to lock files and folders. LockThis is another freeware utility for Windows which makes it possible to password protect almost any programs or documents that is currently running/open. This is very useful utility for people who often lend their PC to others, because with this tool they can keep the content of some programs or documents from other people eyes without need to close them first.

Locking an application or document is very easy job. All you have to do is pressing Ctrl button while minimizing the window of the program / document and supply the password in the dialog that follows. Now the content is save because the window can not be restored or maximized without supplying the correct password.

The utility runs from the system tray and the default admin password is ‘LockThis!’, but you can always change to custom password. Even if you try to exit LockThis tool, it will ask for the password.

Download LockThis!

Copy Changed Files from One Directory to Another

Nirmal — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 19:30:28 +0000

Copy Changed Files is a unique freeware tool which helps you to find the changed files in a directory and then copy it to another location. You can actually specify the time on or after which it has changed and the program looks for the time stamp and then copies it to the desired location based on the condition. You can also specify the file types which need to the copied, also you can exclude certain file types.

You can also append the date and time to the directory or the filename. You can view the action log to see which all files are copied. The application does not require any installation and it is completely portable.

Features

Copy changed files only
Save last run time, for incremental backup of changed files only
Multi threaded
Append current date to destination directory or file for easy version maintenance
Set from directory
Set to directory
Set the from date, to scan for files changed after that date
Compare date AND time
Maintain directory structure in destination directory
Exclude files from copying, ex. thumbs.db
Automatically check for new version

NB: The application had some issues running on Windows 7, we used to compatibility checker and made the application to run with Windows XP settings.

Download Copy Changed Files

Sync Breeze Makes File Synchronization Easy

Nirmal — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 18:40:25 +0000

SyncBreeze is a free, easy-to-use and fast file synchronization utility allowing one to synchronize files between directories, disks and networked computers. It provides you with good feature which makes synchronization between folders easy job. SyncBreeze provides multiple one-way and two-way file synchronization modes, user-defined file synchronization commands and customizable GUI layouts. This tool is capable of synchronizing large amounts of files very fast and reliably.

You can add a new synchronization using the add option and here you can specify the source and destination folders. Apart from this, you can also set rules for folder synchronization.

When you click the sync button, it displays the list of files and the total size of files in sync.

Sync Breeze is a very effective and useful tool for file and folder synchronization and definitely worth trying.

Download Sync Breeze