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SHELL EXTENSION CITY
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Configure Your System Wickedly City Gate  Message BoardSearchContact |
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SHELL CITY SAMPLER Here's a little sampling of the programs we have here at Shell Extension City. These aren't necessarily the best; these are just the ones we've found personally useful or interesting. You might find entirely different favorites. Look through these and find what you like, but remember, this is just a small peek at the 2000 programs available here. 2X EXPLORER..........2xExplorer is a great dual-pane (Norton Commander-style) file manager for Win9x/NT. It offers efficient navigation and features such as file filters, folder synchronization, editor and shell context menu support, DriveBar for trick navigation, and Mirror browsing and scrolling for tree synchronisation. It extends the functionality of the standard Windows Explorer by adding an extra folder contents pane, which enables directory comparisons and easy file transfers. Yet the program is designed to look and "feel" like the standard Explorer so as to be straightforward to use .....(free).....GO THERE! BC WIPE...........A power tool for Windows users who need a degree of security. It allows the complete (according to Department of Defense standards) deletion of files and folders from a simple context menu item. It will also wipe virtual memory, and has plenty of options. (freeware).....GO THERE! BEOS PERSONAL EDITION..........You can download BeOS 5 Personal Edition via a Web browser and store it as a file within Windows. No repartitioning is necessary, and launching BeOS 5 is as simple as double-clicking an icon on your desktop. BeOS 5 is an operating system that's designed from the bottom up to unleash the processing power of modern personal computers. This Personal Edition version fits inside a single compressed file that can be downloaded to your Windows 95, 98, 2000, or Windows NT4 computer. By following the instructions included in this document, you can turn your downloaded file into a Windows application that boots and runs BeOS 5......(free).....GO THERE! BLANCH..........Blanch is a simple, yet powerful, drag-n-drop button bar for Window 95 and Windows NT 4.0. Drag executable files or associated documents, folders and shortcuts (links) and drop them on blanch to create a new button. Drag blanch buttons between pages to duplicate the button. Drag a button off the page to delete the button (you can still paste it back to the button bar at this point). Cut/Copy and Paste buttons from the Context menus......(shareware without nags, $20 after 20 day trial)..... GET IT! BOOKMARKLETS...........Each bookmarklet is a tiny program (a JavaScript application) contained in a bookmark which can be saved and used the same way you use normal bookmarks. They allow you to perform a variety of useful functions on any html page you have surfed to, e.g., change the font, read the cookies the site has passed to you, zoom, autoscroll, get the last update time and lots more. (OK, so they're only shell extensions if you buy Bill Gates' assertion that IE4 is now part of the Windows shell, but they're so useful!).....(freeware).....GO THERE! BSOD PROPERTIES..........Are you tired of the same old blue screen of death? Well now you can customize it. Say good-bye blue screen and hello to green screen, or purple screen, or black screen of death! Just download this simple little utility called BSOD Properties and select your favorite color.....(free).....GO THERE! CACHEMAN..........Cacheman is a utility which tweaks the disk cache settings and prevents frequent swapping of the data to disk resulting in an improved performance and stability.....(free).....GO THERE! CARMEN'S HEADLINE VIEWER..........This is a new build of a wonderful program which downloads headlines from 536 built in sites right onto your computer where you can read them at your leisure. It's configurable so you can set it to download only those headlines you're interested in. Just a small sample of the providers available includes Scripting News, Internet Alchemy, Beta News, Camworld, CPU Scorecard, PalmPower, Windows CE Power, CNet News, Hack the Planet, and so on. You can see you'll find something that interests you here. The listing is not limited to techie sites, either. Rugby News is on there, and so is UK Politics, Top Asia News and ... well, a lot of other stuff. What's more, it's possible to configure the program to receive many, many more headlines than those from the built in news sites. Literally thousands of choices are available. I've been testing the program for several months now, and I can't do without it anymore. It's really a killer. This is the best the internet has to offer--the information revolution is arriving.....(beta version is free).....GO THERE! CLOSE ENOUGH CLOCK..........An extremly cool addition to your desktop. Think George Jetson.....(freeware).....GO THERE! COOKIE VIEWER..........Discover the information that web sites store on your computer. This Power Tool automatically scans your computer, looking for "cookies" created by Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Netscape's Navigator. It can then display the data stored in each one. It can also delete Internet Explorer cookies .....(free).....GO THERE! CUSTOMIZING THE RIGHT CLICK MENU.......... This document gives step by step instructions for customizing the options that appear on the right-click menu for various file types. Very useful stuff.....(free).....GO THERE! CYGWIN TOOLS..........The Cygwin tools are ports of the popular GNU development tools for Windows NT, 95, and 98. They run thanks to the Cygwin library which provides the UNIX system calls and environment these programs expect. With these tools installed, it is possible to write Win32 console or GUI applications that make use of the standard Microsoft Win32 API and/or the Cygwin API. As a result, it is possible to easily port many significant Unix programs without the need for extensive changes to the source code. This includes configuring and building most of the available GNU software (including the packages included with the Cygwin development tools themselves). Even if the development tools are of little to no use to you, you may have interest in the many standard Unix utilities provided with the package. They can be used both from the bash shell (provided) or from the standard Windows command shell.....(free).....GO THERE! CYOTTOMI..........(Means "Take a glance" in Japanese) This software is a shell extension which shows a preview of a graphic file in the context menu when you right-click the name of the file in Explorer. The preview size can be set freely, as can the file types which can be previewed. This works great---right click that cryptically titled .jpg and immediately see what it is. Very handy and useful. Program is in Japanese, as is the site, but I seemed to get there all right, get it installed, and get it working. (Note--doesn't support GIF, and is LZH compressed.).....(free).....GO THERE! DAILY ROTATION..........Here at Shell City we think very well of this program. It puts an icon in your systray, and when you click on the icon, it takes your browser immediately to the next URL on the list of URL's you set up (i.e., your "daily rotation" list of URLS you hit each day). Extremely easy to add URL's, and to configure. According to the developer, "We all have a zillion bookmarks; however, we only have a few web sites that we visit everyday. If you are tired of sorting through your bookmarks to find those sites, this program is for you. DailyRotation is a tray-based program that puts all your favorite sites just one click away. Left-clicking the DailyRotation icon loads your next favorite web site onto your screen. One click is all that it takes to advance through your "daily rotation" of web sites. Quick and easy! Right-clicking the DailyRotation icon pulls up the menu structure that allows you to add or delete sites from your daily rotation list. All your DailyRotation sites are displayed in the menu in case you just want to jump to one particular site".....(free).....GO THERE! DEEP LINKER..........According to the developer, "It's a small registry tweaking program that allows you to make a new system folder, like Documents, or a new system linked program. For example, with this you can have a new icon in the My Computer system folder called My Stuff. When you double-click on it you open your own folder; if you right click then you can launch your Internet Browser or anything else!" In other words, what it does is create a namespace extension. If you use the default settings, you create a namespace extension called "Windows Folder," which you can then use to access (under the default settings) your desktop, your Windows system directory, your Temp directory, or Notepad. The defaults are fairly easy to change, but the documentation could be better developed......(free).....GO THERE! DESKTOP ARCHITECT..........Theme management program for Windows 95/98 and Windows NT/2000.....(free).....GO THERE! DISABLEPOL.......... Disables PolEdit policies on your computer. Gets rid of all those damn policies.....(free).....GO THERE! DISPLAY SET..........We love this substitute for the original Windows' Display Properties control panel applet. Use it and you'll suddenly have more options and an easier interface to use. What added options? One example is the ability to set the width of your minimize-restore-close buttons. We understand it works on XP too. (You've got to register with PC Mag to get the prog, but it's free) (We thank Virtual Plastic for pointing this out to us).....(free).....GO THERE! DOOM SYSTEM ADMINISTRATION TOOL..........This developer has created a build of Doom that System Administrators can use to control their systems. In the developer's own words, "I am proposing a new mapping for managing system loads. As mentioned above, people frequently talk about "blowing processes away", and the Unix command to destroy a process is "kill". This suggests a metaphor for process management. Each process can be a monster, and the machines can be represented by a series of rooms. Id Software has generously released the source for Doom, which has been ported to Linux. I downloaded one of the many versions and added a few lines of code that would spawn a new soldier for each process, renice the process when it is wounded, and kill the process when it dies" Of course, it's an apt metaphor, almost obvious in hindsight, and should make for an interesting system utility. (Note, the build available on this site is for the Linux OS; the developer suggests, however, that it would not be difficult to adapt his changes to another port. If I hear of any Win porting, I will make those builds available here).....(free).....GO THERE! DOS 7 COMMANDS..........Syntax of MS-Dos 7 commands (as available in Windows 95 Dos boxes) along with some notes and examples on how they can be used.....(free).....GO THERE! EXPLORER MENU EXTENSION (DMEX)..........Remember DMEX? It was one of the greatest all around shell extensions ever made. It's back, under a new name, Explorer Menu Extensions. The highlights of its functions are: Rename and Change Date of multiple Files at once. Selecting/Deselecting Files by Masks / Wildcards. Creating Subdirectories - only one click away. Open DOS Windows using the current Directory. Expand/Collapse partial tree branches. Substitute Local Directories as Drives (NT only). Creating Hot Paths for simple and extreme fast change to common used Directories - even in standard dialog boxes. Open multiple Explorer Windows Side by Side. Tile all existing Explorer Windows. Copy Path/Filenames to Clipboard. (Author does not have a webpage, so download is direct from Simtel......(free).....GO THERE! FREE ZIP...........A Zip file utility which integrates with Windows Explorer and uses file associations and context menus to zip or unzip files, including long file names and subdirectories. If you know how to use Windows Explorer, then you do not have to learn anything new to use FreeZip. The setup is a single-click process and there are no options or settings involved...... (freeware).....GET IT! GNUTELLA.......... Okay, so you've got Napster, and you've got SpinFrenzy, and you've got CuteMX. And you've got FTP sites, web pages, and all kinds of other stuff. And you still can't find what you want. Enter Gnutella. Gnutella is the answer to your prayers. Searching for that recipe for strawberry-rhubarb pie? Can't find the latest version of Linux on a T3 or better link? It's probably out there on the GnutellaNet. What's great about Gnutella is that it isn't focused on trading MPEG music the way the other guys are. There is all kinds of stuff on the GnutellaNet, and when you get a search hit, it's virtually guaranteed to be there. No stale links. No irrelevant hits. And if you don't want to download your recipes from someone in Belize with a 2400 bps link, you just set that in your query. The other half of Gnutella is giving back. Almost everyone on GnutellaNet shares their stuff. Every client on the GnutellaNet is also a server, so you not only can find stuff, but you can also make things available for the benefit of others. So if you've got a good recipe for blueberry cobbler, you could answer someone's prayers by sharing it with the rest of the GnutellaNet.....(free).....GO THERE! GXEXPLORER..........GXExplorer is a replacement for the Windows File Manager/Explorer. It offers some useability improvements and new features over what is offered in Windows Explorer. It features full support for dragging and dropping, Explorer context menus, and creating new files. Support for handling zip archives is included and additional ActiveX viewers for BMP, WMF, ICO, JPG, GIF, RTF, TXT, and DBF are included with more to follow shortly. GXExplorer is an Open Source project. This means that the full source code (requires Delphi 4) is available for this project. Developers are welcome to contribute to this project......(free--beta).....GO THERE! HIDDEN TOOLS ..........A munu which puts all of Windows 98 useful and hidden tools right at your fingertips with a right mouse click on the icon in the system tray. Hidden Tools 2.0 is a utility for Windows 98 exclusively. It will run on NT and 95 but it will not have its full functionality.....(free).....GO THERE! INTERNET EXPLORER 5 POWER TWEAKS...........Fresh from Microsoft--adds an Offline/Online button to your toolbar that's especially useful for notebook computer users. Restrictions and commands right in the tools menu help you set sites as trusted or restricted without having to wade through the control panel to find the controls. Finally, with a right click of the mouse you can copy a URL right into the clipboard so you can paste locations in e-mail or any document. Not supported by Microsoft.....(freeware).....GET IT! INTERNET EXPLORER POWER TOYS...........Yes, Internet Explorer can be empowered by Shell Extensions too! This one, from Microsoft, adds functions that allow you to zoom in on pictures in your browser, or to open a frame in a whole new window..... (freeware).....GET IT! JAVA RUNNER.......... Java Runner is a handy small program that lets you run java applications (.class files) as if they were .EXE files on your Windows computer. All you have to do is double click on a class file in Windows Explorer to run it......(free).....GO THERE! KERNEL TOYS..........A number of classic Microsoft tools: Configuration Wizard Customization Tool--configure your Windows system without having to write CONFIG.SYS or AUTOEXEC.BAT files. Keyboard Remap--reassign functions to keys on your keyboard. Logo Key Control--configure your MS-DOS game so that Windows will ignore the Windows logo key while the game is running. Conventional Memory Tracker--unwrap the memory used by the "vmm32" program. Windows Process Watcher--watch how much of your CPU resources are taken by individual programs. Time Zone Editor--creates and edits time zone entries for the Date/Time icon in the Control Panel.(For Windows 95 only, not for 98)....(free).....GO THERE! LITESTEP..........The best known and most used replacement shell. According to Tin Omen, "Litestep isn't the oldest replacement shell out, but it is definitely the most popular. In practical terms, it clears off your desktop, gives you substantially more control over your interface layout, is exceedingly cool to look at, and is also an excellent way to somewhat minimize the Win9X/NT look & feel of your desktop if you are a Linux refugee forced to use 95 at work. It excels at giving you a graphicly rich desktop environment".....(free).....GO THERE! MADOTATE..........UPDATE---An English translation's available of the new version of this interesting tweak to the Win GUI. This is a program which will add another function button to each window, right next to the minimize button, but instead of minimizing the window, when pressed, the button will cause the window to flip up, its lower half receding into the distance. Thus, it'll store your windows "flattened" near the top of your screen, like so many stacked panes of glass. Each one has a tab to tell you which it is. This is a very original and clever graphic hack. The program's author is Takayuki Shinohara, and here's the program's home site. The English translation was done by Mr. Gerald Caulfield, and is available from his Gprofile site, which is the link we've used for the program. Also, credit goes to Takayuki Kawamoto, of Interface Workshop who originally obtained Mr. Shinoharo's permission for the first English translation.......(free).....GO THERE! MORE PROPERTIES...........Allows you to customize a barrel full of features of the Windows 95/NT Shell that aren't accessible from the standard interface.....(freeware).....GO THERE! NANOSKIN..........A sweet little hack to change the look of your Windows GUI, overhead-free .....(free).....GO THERE! NAPIGATOR..........Got Napster? Then you'd better get Napigator too. Napigator is a navigator to napster servers. That is, it lets you chose which Napster server you log into. Can't find what you want on the current server? Hit Napigator and move onto the next.....(free).....GO THERE! NAPSTER SERVER..........Napster is a protocol for sharing mp3 files between users. With napster, the mp3 files stay on the client machine, never passing through the server. The server provides the ability to search for particular files and initiate a direct transfer between the clients. In addition, chat forums similar to IRC are available. (Note: the Napster client is available here) .....(free).....GO THERE! NAPSTER..........Though it's not a shell extension, it's such a great internet utility, I've got to bring your attention to it. It's for downloading MP3's. And it seems to be hassle free--no porn ads, no ratios, no ftp. Instead, the program makes your computer part of the "Napster Community" and makes your MP3's available to others in the community at the same time as it makes theirs available to you. I've just spent the afternoon downloading music. Try it out.....(free--beta).....GO THERE! OPEN TRAP.......... When you try to launch an application and get a message such as "Can't find foo.bar or one of its components," you can't tell what file is missing. OpenTrap solves this problem. It logs which files were successfully accessed and which were not. It also can eavesdrop on file close functions to help you track the time spent working on particular files. From PC Magazine.....(free).....GO THERE! OPT OUT..........Spyware detection and removal tool. Spyware collects information about you and your computer habits and transmits it to those who collect such information. Recently, such software has been found to be planted by various popular shareware and freeware programs. Run OptOut for an instant analysis of any 32-bit Windows system to determine whether spyware of any kind is sending information from your computer.....(free).....GO THERE! OUT OF CONTEXT.......... One of the first Win shell extensions just keeps growing and getting better. More than 75 new items for your context-menu. Out Of Context is an unobtrusive and highly configurable context-menu extension that offers useful productivity/filemanagement functions you can selectively add to your Win9x and NT shell menu. Most can be individually customized to fit your style of working. You can also construct up to 3 different cascading menus of your own preference in the flexible configuration program......(shareware, $30 after trial).....http://www.hace.us-inc.com/index.shtml">GO THERE! PE ANALYZER...........Right click on any executable or dynamic link library in Windows Explorer and it will create a new page under "properties" which tells you exactly what other files the exe or dll depends on to operate. Very great for searching out those "hidden" files install programs put into your Windows system directories..... (shareware, with limited functionality--50 free uses, then it costs $10).....GET IT! POCKET LINUX.......... Pocket Linux is an almost minimal, one floppy linux system designed to quickly convert a PC workstation into a secure linux-based workstation using ssh to connect to remote host (other networking clients are also supported). It supports bootp for determining host IP and other network parameters (there's also manual configuration possible, but bootp is recommended). In addition to workstations equipped with a network card (ethernet or arcnet), you can also use Pocket Linux on a PC equipped with a modem. Modem is automatically detected and then PPP connection is made......(free).....GO THERE! POWER TOYS FOR WINDOWS.....Microsoft agrees, the Windows shell can be improved--that's why they put together this package of shell extensions, including one to quickly change your screen resolution on the fly, another to show you the contents of a folder with a simple right click, and many others, including the must-have TweakUI, which allows you to adjust global settings in Windows. (Not for Windows 98, which integrates most of the features contained in the Power Toys.)..... (freeware).....GO THERE! PRETTY GOOD PRIVACY.......... PGP® or Pretty Good Privacy® is a powerful cryptographic product family that enables people to securely exchange messages, and to secure files, disk volumes and network connections with both privacy and strong authentication. Privacy means that only the intended recipient of a message can read it. By providing the ability to encrypt messages, PGP provides protection against anyone eavesdropping on the network. Even if the information is intercepted, it is completely unreadable to the snooper. Authentication identifies the origin of the information, certainty that it is authentic, and that it has not been altered. Authentication also provides an extremely valuable tool in network security: verification of the identity of an individual. In addition to secure messaging, PGP also provides secure data storage, enabling you to encrypt files stored on your computer. Version 6.5.2 also includes PGPnet - a powerful VPN client which enables secure peer-to-peer IP-based network connections - and Self-Decrypting Archives (SDAs) which allow you to exchange information securely even with those who do not have PGP.....(free).....GO THERE! PROCESS VIEWER 2000..........View and kill processes. You can view all active processes (not only those listed in the "ctrl-alt-del-menu"). You can terminate ("kill") each of the active processes, you can copy their paths to the clipboard, you can view and change their priority, and you can register and unregister a process as a service (services are processes that are not listed in the "ctrl-alt-del-menu" and do not quit when you log out). If you have to terminate the same process(es) often, you can create a script. When you double-click this script in Explorer, PV2K will automatically kill that process.....(free).....GO THERE! PROPERTY PAGE AND CONTEXT MENU SHELL EXTENSION WIZARDS.......... These custom wizards allow you to create Property Page and Context Menu shell extensions. The objects that are created have all the interfaces that are necessary for either the Property Page or Context Menu shell extensions. Some default functionality has been added; however, it is recommended that the developer familiarize his or herself with the articles indicated in the references before editing the default auto generated code.....(free).....GO THERE! PROXOMITRON..........Have you ever wished you could turn off some of those fancy new HTML features your web browser supports? Are you tired of pages filled to the brim with blinking banners, pop-up windows, and other such aggravations? Enter The Proxomitron, Re-Writing the web Your way... Using special HTML filters, the Proxomitron can transform web pages on the fly - changing most anything you wish. Speed your browsing by saying goodbye to slow loading cyber spam and other web-gimmickry. Customize pages to suit your tastes. Take control of your web viewing, and don't be slave to some web-master's whims.....(free).....GO THERE! REGISTRY EDITOR EXTENSIONS...........As the name says, enhances the Registry Editor in Windows 95, 98 and NT 4.0. If you edit the same keys repeatedly, this is for you! A new combo box maintains the history of visited keys and allows quick navigation back to them. The keys are saved across sessions and available the next time you use the Registry Editor.....(freeware).....GO THERE! RESOURCE HACKER..........New version 3 available. This program has long been in the Shell City top ten. Resource Hacker is a freeware utility to view, modify, add, delete, extract and customize resources in 32bit Windows executables. It incorporates an internal resource script compiler and decompiler and works on Win95, Win98, WinME, WinNT, and Win2000 operating systems. Viewing Resources: Cursor, Icon, Bitmap, GIF, AVI, and JPG resource images can be viewed. WAV and MIDI audio resources can be played. Menus, Dialogs, MessageTables, StringTables, Accelerators, Delphi Forms, and VersionInfo resources can be viewed as decompiled resource scripts. Menus and Dialogs can also be viewed as they would appear in a running application. Saving Resources: Resources can be saved as image files (*.ico, *.bmp etc), as script files (*.rc), as binary resource files (*.res), or as untyped binary files (*.bin). Modifying Resources: Resources can be modified by replacing the resource with a resource located in another file (*.ico, *.bmp, *.res etc) or by using the internal resource script compiler (for menus, dialogs etc). Dialog controls can also be visually moved and/or resized by clicking and dragging the respective dialog controls prior to recompiling with the internal compiler. Adding Resources: Resources can be added to an application by copying them from external resource files (*.res). Deleting Resources: Most compilers add resources into applications which are never used by the application. Removing unused resources can reduce an application's size......(free).....GO THERE! SASH..........This looks to be a revolutionary app and methodology, making programming for the Windows platform far more accessible to the end user and possibly spawning a whole tidal wave of new and useful applets which EXTEND THE SHELL. Although it still seems a little buggy, it looks very easy to work. Here's the skinny, according to IBM's alphaWorks webpage, "Researchers at IBM have developed a prototype technology called Sash Weblications for Windows. Sash enables web developers to rapidly create network based applications that integrate seamlessly into the common desktop environment using standard web development tools such as JavaScript, XML, and HTML without requiring expertise in C++ or other Microsoft Windows based programming languages. IBM calls this new class of applications weblications because these applications marry the best features of the web environment with those popular features of today's desktop applications. Sash gives you the ability to create both single document interface (SDI) and multiple document interface (MDI) Windows applications using DHTML, in contrast to the simple SDI applications supported by Internet Explorer 5 HTML Applications (HTA) feature." Sash not only allows you to build windows using web development tools, but also various SHELL EXTENDING FACILITIES. According to IBM, for example, you can create namespace extensions: "Normally this is a pretty difficult task requiring the implementation of a number of COM interfaces, but with Sash it is very easy to do in DHTML. You can create a new hierarchy rooted underneath Desktop or another object, as well as render the right pane of Explorer when traversing this tree as a DHTML application. Additionally you can modify the Explorer menu bar and toolbars while a user is navigating your namespace." Further, "Sash provides a simple way for you to create additional objects in the Windows Control Panel. Basically you specify a name, icon, and application to invoke (like a Sash based Windows application), and the appropriate object will be added to the Windows Control Panel." What's more, you can create property sheets, and "Sash allows you not only to create these property sheets in DHTML, but also register their use by object type and position using the Sash Weblication Publisher. These dialogs can have multiple pages (each a separate DHTML page) managed by the tabbed interface that users are accustomed to." These developers have a first class concept here, and the initial implementation is right where it should be, though it needs further development. There's also a hint on the webpage that the Sash methodology will be applied to other operating systems as well. It's just going to be fun to watch where this goes, and I suspect it'll go big......(free--beta).....GO THERE! SENDTO SENDTO..........Sendtosendto is not really a program, just a tweak that allows you to very easily create new items in your send-to context menu, thus allowing you to send further items to the new send-to entry.....(freeware).....GO THERE! SHAKEIT!..........A very cool Windows hack which allows you to reorder the elements of the taskbar. You want your start-button placed at the lower right corner of your screen? Well, ShakeIt! solves the problem. Place the start-button, the notify and the tasks wherever you want them on your taskbar. ShakeIt! supports not only horizontal taskbars, it also works fine with vertical bars. ShakeIt! is a program to manipulate the taskbar, so it needs MS Windows 95/98 or MS Windows NT 4 to run properly. It coexists with IE 4/5, too.....(free).....GO THERE! SHELL GEM.......... ShellGEM adds a very neat productivity item to your current Win95/98 shell-menu. Through this single item you have access to the complete directory tree of your computer. Open any file or folder - they are only a click away. Move, Copy and Extract easily There are also file-management functions built in. Through the slick interface of ShellGEM you can move and copy files and folders. You can extract ZIP, RAR, ARJ and JAR archives. And you can create shortcuts. All this by dragging and dropping the files onto a drive or folder. This drive/folder then becomes the root item of the menu tree. Start here and browse your way to your target folder and select it. The files are then moved/copied/extracted/shortcuted without cluttering up your screen with dozens of explorer windows. Simple! Elegant! Quick!.....(free).....GO THERE! SHIELDS UP..........Can anyone crawl into your computer while you're connected to the Internet? You may be VERY surprised to find out! Go to this site to test your computer's vulnerability to intruders......(free).....GO THERE! SLOWDOWN ..........Slows down a fast computer so you can run older programs that require a PC/XT or PC/AT. Plus, a whole lot of other utilities.....(free).....GO THERE! SPINNER.......... Music--hundreds of types--streaming straight to you.....(freeware).....GO THERE! TASKBAR EXECUTIVE..........Wouldn't you prefer if all the buttons on your Taskbar were categorized and organized under easily recognizable groups? And when you click the group button, all open windows in that group are revealed? This is exactly what Taskbar Executive lets you do......(free version available).....GO THERE! TASKBAR ICONS..........Here is another beautiful "no overhead" hack to improve Windows look and functionality. Seems that when Bill released the IE4 shell integration,, many "windows metrics" features were added but not implemented. without the appropriate registry keys, these new features default to preset values and we're none the wiser. This transforms the Icons on the task bar to a tiny fixed width. No longer do you see snippets of text which are entirely useless, giving the appearance of being crammed together. Now you task bar has lots of room! From the maker of Nanoskin.....(free).....GO THERE! TASKMAN..........This is a powerful task killer. TaskMan is better that Windows' TaskManager because it has two killing methods, one based on the executables which are running and the other on the windows (visible and invisible) that are active.....(free).....GO THERE! TRAY MANAGER2 ..........TrayManager lets you control the explosion of icons in your system tray by creating a submenu for the icons you use less frequently. The original TrayManager worked only under Windows 95 and Windows 98. Version 2.0 adds support for Windows ME, Windows NT 4, and Windows 2000. A new feature restores the icons in your system tray after an Explorer crash. A simple configuration window lets you choose which icons to place on the TrayManager submenu. Double-click on TrayManager's tray icon to bring up the configuration dialog. Place the icons you use less often into a submenu to make it quicker and easier to find the ones you frequently need. To access the icons in the submenu, right-click on TrayManager's tray icon, and then select the item you want from the list. Right- and left-clicks on a submenu item work just as if the item were still in the system tray. TrayManager was written by Steven E. Sipe, and first appeared in PC Magazine November 21, 2000 (v19n20). Source code is included.....(free).....GO THERE! TRAY MENU..........Visitors to our Message Board suggested this app--some people truly love it. So we suggest you might want to try it. It place your Windows menu items (including start menu and desktop) into a single menu in your system tray; it organizes the shortcuts into pop up menus; and then when called upon, expands the shortcuts into cascaded menus. It also allows you to hide your desktop icons and more. This is a very compact utility to explore your computer from the system tray. Once you install this, you can almost do without the start menu. This verbal description doesn't do it justice. You really have to try it.....(free).....GO THERE! TRAY SAVER.........TraySaver is an advanced system tray management utility for Windows 95/98/NT. It gives you a more compact & manageable taskbar by allowing you to hide system tray icons. Tray icons can be moved into a separate floating window, which can then be moved around or hidden as you please. In addition, TraySaver rescues tray icons lost after an Explorer crash, and enables any window to be minimized to the system tray.....(free).....GO THERE! UFO SCREENSAVER..........This one'll knock your socks off. My vote for greatest graphics.....(freeware)..... GO THERE! ULTIMATE BOOT DISK..........Laziness pays off. You've put off creating a real boot disk so long now that you don't have to create it anymore--you can just download it. This single disk offers: Virus Scan Option, Restoration of System Files, Rapid Windows Installs, Identification of PC Hardware, Extraction of Windows CD files, Year 2000 Readiness Check, Full Hard Drive Test, PC Memory Optimization.....(free).....GO THERE! VNC..........VNC stands for Virtual Network Computing. It is, in essence, a remote display system which allows you to view a computing 'desktop' environment not only on the machine where it is running, but from anywhere on the Internet and from a wide variety of machine architectures. The VNC system allows you to access the same desktop from a wide variety of platforms. Many of us, for example, use a VNC viewer running on a PC on our desks to display our Unix environments which are running on a large server in the machine room downstairs. What makes it different from other systems? For this simple mode of operation, you could achieve a similar effect by installing an X server on your PC. The important factors which distinguish VNC from other remote display systems such as X are as follows: No state is stored at the viewer. This means you can leave your desk, go to another machine, whether next door or several hundred miles away, reconnect to your desktop from there and finish the sentence you were typing. Even the cursor will be in the same place. With a PC X server, if your PC crashes or is restarted, all the remote applications will die. With VNC they go on running. It is small and simple. The Win32 viewer, for example, is about 150K in size and can be run directly from a floppy. There is no installation needed. It is truly platform-independent. A desktop running on a Linux machine may be displayed on a PC. Or a Solaris machine. Or any number of other architectures. The simplicity of the protocol makes it easy to port to new platforms. We have a Java viewer, which will run in any Java-capable browser. We have a Windows NT server, allowing you to view the desktop of a remote NT machine on any of these platforms using exactly the same viewer. (The NT server is not multi-user - see the documentation). And other people have ported VNC to a wide variety of other platforms. Click the 'Contributed' button on the left for details. It is sharable. One desktop can be displayed and used by several viewers at once, allowing CSCW-style applications. It is free! You can download it, use it, and redistribute it under the terms of the GNU Public Licence. Both binaries and source code are available from the download page, along with a complete copy of the documentation. Versions are available for Unix, Win, and Mac.....(free).....GO THERE! VOICE RECOGNITION SCREENSAVER..........Windows screensaver, with a big difference: this application is an ordinary program with an ".scr" extension copied into the system directory. The application, which is activated by the OS as in the case of every other screensaver, runs till the first interruption is sent from the mouse or the keyboard. However, one additional event must occur as well--this screensaver will not let you back into the system until the computer verifies the identity of the user via his voice password .....(free).....GO THERE! WATCH CAT..........WatchCat is a small system tray applet for hiding application windows. Windows hidden by WatchCat also will disappear from taskbar and Alt+Tab chain. It's extremely convenient if you need to keep applications such as MS Outlook open all the time but don't check them often.....(free).....GO THERE! WEB ACCESSORIES FOR INTERNET EXPLORER 5..........From Microsoft--pretty much the same as the IE4 Powertools, but with a different name, and geared for IE5. Use the context menu for the following features: Open Frame in New Window, Quick Search, Zoom In/Zoom Out, Image Toggler, Text Highlighter, Web Search, Links List, Image List.....(free).....GO THERE! WIN SCROLL..........Now in English. This program places a scrollbar down the right side of your screen so you can scroll up to portions of the screen you've never been able to use before. Right now I've got about 1280 x 8000(!) scrollable pixels of monitor space to use (compared to my usual 1280 x 1024). It's a virtual desktop, but of a type I've never seen before, and a whole lot handier than any other such program I've seen. OK, now the credits: First, the program was written by Mr.Tomoaki Nakashima, and you can find the original Japanese version at his site. Second, our Japanese friend, Takayuki Kawamoto, of Interface Workshop (which is currently being reconstructed) translated the program's Read Me file to English for our benefit a few months ago. And the English version program is hosted at Takayuki's site. Third, and finally, Angus Johnson, the author of Resource Hacker is the one we have to thank for translating the WinScroll program to English.....(free).....GO THERE! WINDOW CATCHER..........Puts all open windows into one big window (sort of like Program Manager in Win 3.1). It works by catching windows in its main window and when you minimize the main window, all the caught windows are minimized with it. It also prevent caught windows from showing in the taskbar. When it's minimized it goes into the sys tray and always sits left to the tray clock with an invisible icon, thus making it hard to detect....(free).....GO THERE! WINDOWS FOR TELEPATHS.......... This is an interesting new Windows shell.....(free).....GO THERE! WINDOWS STARTUP EDITOR.......... Compatible with Windows 2000. The intent of this application is to allow you, the user, to see everything that loads at the start of your operating system, from the Windows 'Startup' folder or the Registry. If you no longer want or need something to load as Windows starts, simply click the checkbox and then click the delete button. This will keep the item from loading each time Windows loads.....(free).....GO THERE! WINLINUX 2000 ..........WinLinux 2000 was designed and built to be the easiest to use Linux system. Its install and configuration tasks are performed directly from inside Windows and with graphical tools Windows users are used to.....(May be temporarily unavailable--I've had reports that visitors have been unable to download, but some mirrors have been added since then. The download is 141 megs, so forget it unless you either want to tie up your phone line for 48 hours, or you've got fat pipes, and even if you do, better use a resuming utility. Also, use the Metalabs download mirrors--these are far faster than the others.).....(free--beta).....GO THERE! X-SETUP..........One of the most far reaching Windows global tweaking programs: From simple boot options up to server settings, X-Setup allows you to change more than 400 hidden functions with some simple button clicks. Some topics X-Setup covers: Windows, Internet Explorer, Instant Messaging, Office, Explorer apperance, Server options, Network settings and Security. Works for Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000. And it is everywhere you need it: either in Start - Programs or as a symbol in Settings - Control Panel. Although it offer lots of features, X-Setup is extremely easy to use. X-Setup offers wizards that allow you to change your system in a step-by-step process. Also, it has an Explorer-like layout and the back and next buttons you already know from your Internet browser so navigation can't be easier. Beside this, X-Setup has a technique that is especially useful for Network Administrators: Record Mode. If this feature is activated, X-Setup will record nearly all changes from a plug-in or wizard to a REG file. This file can then be easily applied to thousands of machines without installing X-Setup there.....(free).....GO THERE! ZONE ALARM..........Like a personal firewall for your computer, providing essential protection for DSL and Cable users (telephone modem users too), Zone Alarm combines the safety of a dynamic firewall with total control over applications' Internet use. What's more, it's easy to configure and use. ZoneAlarm includes five interlocking security services that deliver protection. Unlike any other security utility, ZoneAlarm incorporates a firewall, Application Control, an Internet Lock, dynamically assigned Security Levels and Zones. Combined, these elements yield the strongest security possible. The firewall controls the door to your computer. Because you tell ZoneAlarm how you use your computer, the firewall only allows traffic that you understand and initiate. With Stealth Mode enabled, your computer becomes invisible to the Internet and potential intruders. If you can't be seen, you can't be hacked. ZoneAlarm's firewall provides the ultimate intrusion security for your personal computer. Application Control lets you decide which applications can and cannot use the Internet. ZoneAlarm monitors all activity on your computer and alerts you when a new application attempts to access the Internet. Application Control ensures that rogue applications like Spyware cannot send your valuable data to criminals and vandals. ZoneAlarms intuitive interface makes Internet security easy! Spyware: A tool used by hackers. It can be used to steal your valuable data and send it back to the hacker or elsewhere over the Internet without your knowledge. Trojan horses like Back Orifice and BackDoor-G are examples of Spyware. The Internet Lock blocks Internet traffic while your computer is unattended or while you are not using the Internet. The Internet Lock can engage automatically with your computer's screen saver or after a set period of inactivity. With the Internet Lock you have absolute control over your always-on connection. Security Levels make ZoneAlarm easy to set up. In contrast to other security solutions, ZoneAlarm does not require you to learn about ports, protocols and hierarchical rules. ZoneAlarm comes configured to deliver out-of the-box safety and security. Security Levels automatically configure the Firewall and eliminate the risk of improper configuration common to other products. With ZoneAlarm's Security Levels, you get peace of mind, not confusion. Always-on connections provide the fastest way of sharing important data with people you trust. Zones allow you to grant that privilege to your friends and associates and deny it to everyone else. Through the two zones - Local and Internet - users can easily share their important files on the local network or across the world while keeping them safe from access by strangers. ZoneAlarm gives rock-solid protection against thieves and vandals, and makes ironclad Internet security easy-to-use......(free).....GO THERE! City Gate  ...Back To TopAll original material on this site is Copyright ©2002 by R. Helmer. No material from this site is to be mirrored, redistributed, archived or transmitted without the author's or copyright holder's express written consent. |