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Essential Windows Utilities

I wanted to share with you a list of some Windows utilities I install as soon as I finish installing Windows.

• Unlocker: Windows has an annoying tendency to block file handles, which lead to situations like not being able to delete a file or remove a USB drive because “It is in use by another person or program.” The most annoying part of it is that it doesn’t tell what file is in use, and worst of all WHO is still using it. Well, Unlocker can help you in those situations, by allowing you to either release the handle or kill the process that is stopping you.
• Cygwin: For all us UNIX types, Cygwin is a MUST. it gives you a full UNIX environment for you to write and run your scripts, complete with a bash shell and all the utilities you expect in UNIX (yes, even vi).
• Windows Powertoys: These small Windows apps allow you bypass common Windows annoyances. The two I always install are “Open Command Window Here” and “Tweak UI”.
• Robocopy: Well, actually you need to install the full Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit Tools to get this gem. If you copy large files across a network, Robocopy is a must. It can resume a copy after brief network outages, retries a copy indefinitely every 30 seconds, and, at least in my experience, is faster than copying using Windows Explorer (and doesn’t hang your computer if the network goes down). Robocopy is now a standard feature of both Vista and Windows Server 2008, BTW, so you don’t need to do an additional installation if you are using those systems (hey, they had to get SOMETHING right with Vista ;))
• Paint.NET: A very powerful image editing tool. Free, open source, and developed entirely in .NET. Cualifies as an entry-level Photoshop replacement, with many advanced functions. And very lightweight as well.
• MWSnap: Freeware utility to do screen captures. There are more sophisticated tools out there, but none of them are free. There is a limitation on this tool that annoys me every once in a while, which is that it only captures images on the first monitor if you have a multi-monitor setup. Other than that, it works as expected.
• Foxit Reader and CutePDF Writer: these two utilities work as a replacement to Adobe Acrobat. Foxit is a lightning-fast PDF reader, that opens instantly on your PC. CutePDF Writer allows you to generate PDF files, and presents itself another printer. These two utilities are very lightweight, do what they are supposed to do, and don’t annoy you with constant update notices.

Dropbox

From this thread over at Macrumors I found out about this new file synchronization service called Dropbox. They give you 2GB of space for you to store files, and whatever you upload is replicated automagically to all the computers associated with your account that have the client installed. And, the most important thing, it works!!

Check out the video at their site. I’m already using to backup some files from my Mac at home, to sync the university assignments between my work laptop and the Mac when I am on the road, and to share files with a couple of friends (the shared folders feature is a killer). And so far, so good. Let me know if you need an invite for the Beta program, I still have a couple left.

On Picasa and working with pictures

Why the hell hasn’t Google released a version of Picasa for the Mac? I know, we have iPhoto, but Picasa leaves iPhoto in the dust in terms of managing pictures, in its performance, and its image enhancement capabilities - 90% of the time a “I’m feeling lucky” will improve my pictures to a level that I could never reach with iPhoto.

Picasa is one of the few apps I have installed on Virtual PC for the Mac (the others are mostly .NET-development related). Today I imported several pictures from a trip to the Tapanti National Park here in Costa Rica. I enhanced my pictures to my liking, and exported them to a web page, as I have done several times before. Well, the @#!@# program created a bunch of thumbnails that look something like this:

Yes, that is the output of the Folder->Export as Web Page command. This is incredibly frustrating, as now I will have to re-import the pictures on a physical (non-virtual) machine, probably redo the changes (I’ll try Export to folder first…), and THEN create the web-pages. All of this could be avoided if I could use Picasa natively (hell, there’s even a linux version out now!), but no, I’m stuck with iPhoto and its stupid iWeb integration.

And you know what the irony is?? This is pretty much the only software from Google that is NOT BETA, and it is the one giving me a big headache today!!