Make 7-Zip Yours

It's great free utility day here on My Net Gems! Here is another kick-bootie tool that is très useful!

The main features of 7-Zip:

* High compression ratio in new 7z format with LZMA compression
* Supported formats:
o Packing / unpacking: 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2 and TAR
o Unpacking only: RAR, CAB, ISO, ARJ, LZH, CHM, Z, CPIO, RPM, DEB and NSIS
* For ZIP and GZIP formats 7-Zip provides compression ratio that is 2-10 % better than ratio provided by PKZip and WinZip
* Self-extracting capability for 7z format
* Integration with Windows Shell
* Powerful File Manager
* Powerful command line version
* Plugin for FAR Manager
* Localizations for 63 languages

Did I mention it's FREE?!!

Awesome screen capture freebie

I'm on a cool free tools kick today. Here's another gem that everyone should load onto their PC immediately!!

PrintKey is activated when you press the PrintScreen Key and allows you to capture the entire screen or any portion of it. You can then make changes to the screen capture and save in a variety of formats including .gif, .bmp, .jpeg, .jpg, .emf and .wmf. You can also swap colors, convert to grayscale or black and white, change picture size and send to the printer all from this little freeware program. Tested and works fine with Windows 9x/Me/2000/XP

This description comes from a great PC fan website called New Life Windows 98. Thanks, Harry O!

PageDefrag - Free Windows defrag tool from Microsoft

The words "Microsoft" and "free" are not often used together. So, it's worth noting this software --which I just heard about--which provides some system performance enhancement benefits gratis.

PageDefrag v.32: "One of the limitations of the Windows NT/2000 defragmentation interface is that it is not possible to defragment files that are open for exclusive access. Thus, standard defragmentation programs can neither show you how fragmented your paging files or Registry hives are, nor defragment them. Paging and Registry file fragmentation can be one of the leading causes of performance degradation related to file fragmentation in a system.

PageDefrag uses advanced techniques to provide you what commercial defragmenters cannot: the ability for you to see how fragmented your paging files and Registry hives are, and to defragment them. In addition, it defragments event log files and Windows 2000/XP hibernation files (where system memory is saved when you hibernate a laptop).

PageDefrag works on Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Server 2003."

Geeky but old Windows Info

I found this page with some old but interesting info. A lot of it is still applicable. (I was searching for info on hacking Windows Explorer.)

Computer Viruses and Parasites - How they work and how to remove them
Windows Explorer configuration - How to make it friendlier
Computer Language Comparisions - C++, Delphi/Pascal, VisualBasic 6.0
Notes on Database Development - MS Access | Delphi | Visual Basic | Java | Firebird
Problems with System Upgrades - Includes a list of suggested debug tools.
Browser Wars - Some children just don't know how to play together
Internet Explorer - Various notes and comments related to Internet Explorer
HTML Examples - Learn by example
Various notes - Just a collection of unrelated technical data

Thanks to Robert Clemenzi for publishing this info!

Cool Windows Search Tool!

Agent Ransack - home: "Agent Ransack is a free tool for finding files and information on your hard drive fast and efficiently. When searching the contents of files Agent Ransack displays the text found so you can quickly browse the results without having to separately open each file!

Agent Ransack provides compelling advantages over similar search tools:

* Regular expressions that allow complex rule based searches.
* Immediate contents results view.
* Various wizards to walk the user through the searching process.

Agent Ransack is provided FREE of charge for the benefit of the Windows community."

Just Say No to the VC

SmartBiz.com: Small Business Resources - Bootstrapping 2.0: Smart, Marketable Ideas Trump Outside Capital: "One of the first lessons an avid outdoorsman taught me is that when you’re facing the unforeseen elements of nature, it isn’t smart to rely on outside help for survival. We sometimes forget that the same is true for business, particularly in light of the venture capital-fueled dot-com boom and rise of advanced Web-based (or Web 2.0) tools that are helping to redefine the concept of “bootstrapping,” or building a business without outside capital."

This is a great article that highlights what I think is an important principle that many entrepreneurs miss. Sometimes, big success starts with prudent but smart investment.

Dump file and directory listing to text file (DOS batch)

Ahh, the magical world of ".bat"! Having always used a GUI, I feel like some kid who missed out on years of television. Here's a gem I found that lets you get a directory listing from anywhere on your hard drive, using the "SendTo" directory. That's an invisible folder, kids, so make sure to turn that on in your Windows Explorer--at least for this. (Tools > Folder Options, under the "View" tab)