10 free tools to manage your files on Windows

[Sachin=GOD]

10 free tools to manage your files on Windows

1-Instant Search: Everything With huge hard drives being the norm, searching for any document on your PC can be a painstakingly slow exercise. This is because every time you search using the default tool in Windows, it has to scan each and every folder till it finds the file. Everything, on the other hand, helps you locate any document almost instantly. The first time you install the software, it indexes the contents on your hard drive. The program then sits unobtrusively in your system tray till you double-click its icon. To search, simply type the name of the file you are looking for, and the software will serve it up to you - no wait whatsoever. You can also search by file extension and add strings for custom searches. For example, use 'office\invoice' to search for filenames with the word 'invoice' in your 'office' folder, or 'Beatles! Love' to exclude the term 'Love' from your search. www.voidtools.com 2-Better File Copy: TeraCopy The default copy tool in Windows is bothersome if you deal with huge files. If there's an error while copying multiple files, it'll abort the whole job. Also, there's no way to pause and resume a transfer. And did you know that Windows doesn't actually copy files at the fastest rate possible? TeraCopy to the rescue. The software features full shell integration, which means that it replaces the default Explorer copy tool so you don't have to start the program each time you are copying files. While transferring, if there is an error, TeraCopy will try multiple times to copy that file - and if that doesn't happen, the file is skipped and the rest of the data is copied. At the end of the process, you can see which files posed a problem and try copying them again. What's more, you can even pause and resume the process if you need to run a more resource intensive program alongside. And yes, the software is optimized to get the fastest possible transfer speed on your computer. codesector.com/teracopy 3-Tag Files: Elyse Sometimes, the same file can fit in different folders. For example, a photo can find place in a folder for profile pics, the party it was clicked in, or by date. Instead of keeping multiple copies of the file, Elyse brings a smart 'tagging' system. The idea is to store your files anywhere, but classify them with tags to find them easily. Just point Elyse to a folder and then you can start creating as many tags as you want. After that, just drag-and-drop files to the tag. It's handy for office use (different projects that use the same documents) as well as personal data (tagging photos or videos). It's not easy to use initially, but once you get accustomed to it, Elyse works splendidly. silkwoodsoftware.com 4-Folder Lists: Filelist Creator When a friend asks you to send him a list of the MP3 songs you have, it would be downright ridiculous to sit and type the name of each file. If only there was a way to make a list of all the files in your folder. Well, meet Filelist Creator. Point the program to the folder to start. You can choose to search all sub-folders if you want. Next, select which parameters of the files you want to be included: name, format, file size, path, date, etc - all of which can be seen live in the preview window. Filelist Creator lets you choose formatting options too, such as the header, spacing, grouping and the order of the columns as well. Once you've had your pick, choose whether you want a text file, CSV, HTML or image and save it. www.sttmedia.com/filelistcreator 5-Delete Forever: File Shredder When you "delete" a file in Windows, it's not entirely erased from your hard drive. The Delete function simply hides the file till the space it occupies is overwritten with new data. Still, specialized file recovery software can retrieve these files easily (see Recuva). So how do you get rid of a sensitive file permanently? File Shredder is a simple tool that gets the job done by 'writing' over the files multiple times with random binary data. Start the program, select the files and shred them with a button. Simple. In the Settings tab, you can choose the type of encryption you want to use to shred the file. There's also an option to Shred Free Disk Space. As we said, a file isn't completely gone when you delete it; which means it's still occupying some space. File Shredder purges this data by rewriting over it as well. www.fileshredder.org 6-Smart Backup: Copy Changed Files If you routinely back-up your files to an external hard disk, then you might want to install Copy Changed Files. The tool allows you to compare the contents of similar folders in two different locations - and then, only copies the files that have been modified. First, select the 'From' and 'To' folders. Then, choose the method to compare files: Date-time and file size is faster, but can have errors, while the binary compare method is slower, but more accurate. You can choose to filter what to copy by file type or size. And that's it. Hit the copy button. www.copychangedfiles.com 7-Discover Duplicates: Anti-Twin Sometimes, you have the same file stored in different folders or hard drives. So how do you find these and delete the duplicates? Say hello to Anti-Twin. It's a super-simple interface. First, select a folder as the basic comparison point - you can either search within this folder for duplicate files, or compare this folder with another. For the comparison criteria, you can go by the filename, minimum or maximum file size, extensions, and even the content (by bytes or pixels). Once Anti-Twin finds multiple copies, you can choose to let the duplicate remain where it is, move it, or delete it and, in that folder, leave a link to the original. www.anti-twin .com 8-Batch Rename: Metamorphose If you are constantly required to rename large groups of files on your computer, then you must install Metamorphose. The tool is fairly simple to use: First, select the files you want to rename by browsing to them in the 'Picker' tab. Then, in the 'Main' tab, you can pick whether the operation acts on the name, the extension or both. You can add a prefix or a suffix to each filename; and even search for text in the name and replace it with something else. You can also modify the length of the filename, add date, time or numbers, and even insert characters in any place in it. The best part is that every change you make is instantly previewed in a pane at the bottom, along with the original filename next to it, so you know exactly what changes you've carried out. Metamorphose is a fantastic tool to have with you when you are organising your music or media collections, or sorting your photos. File-folder-ren .sourceforge.net 9-Secure Files: Encrypt On Click Want to keep a file or a folder protected from snooping eyes? Encrypt On Click is here to help. Start the program, select the file or the folder that you want to protect, key in a password and you're done - the file is now inaccessible to anyone without the password. Encrypt On Click is tightly integrated with the Windows OS, so you don't need to run the program again to access the file. Double-click a protected file and the software auto-starts, prompting for a password. Also, you can right-click any file or folder and choose to 'Open With Encrypt On Click' to immediately lock it with a password. www.2brightsparks.com/freeware/ freeware-hub .html 10-Undelete Data: Recuva Deleted a file by mistake? Unfortunately, there's no 'undo' button for that. But don't worry, it's not completely gone. Unless you used a shredding tool (see File Shredder), the file can be recovered with a nifty program called Recuva. When you run the program, you are prompted by a pop-up to choose the type of file you're looking to 'undelete', whether pictures, music, documents, etc. Next, choose the drive where it was located or the whole PC itself. Before finishing, you will be asked whether you want to perform a 'deep scan' - check this option only if Recuva is unable to find your file in the first try. Files found in the scan are marked either green (easy to recover), yellow (difficult to recover) or red (permanently deleted). Sometimes, the file's name might not be identifiable, but you can try the thumbnail preview or use your own judgment to figure out whether that's the file you were looking for. Once you locate your file, click 'Recuva' and save it to your hard drive. www.piriform.com/recuva

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[ViratTendulkar]

The everything search tool is great. Very quick indexing. Thanks for sharing and making my life easier. :two_thumbs_up:

[ganeshran]

I find Cygwin the easiest. Bash command line tools like find and grep are the easiest and most powerful when it comes to file searching.

[Sachin=GOD]

Back up & Sync Your Phone Contacts & Data You shouldn't have to lose data just because you lost your phone. And switching to a new device should be a lot easier than it is now. Karan Bajaj & Hitesh Raj Bhagat highlight the tools you need to keep all your data safe

TWO APPROACHES CLOUD OneMediaHub: With 500MB of cloud storage, this free service offers cross platform mobile and desktop apps. You can back up all the information you want, including your address book, multimedia and other supported files on to the cloud and sync it back across all your devices. You can also set the mobile app to automatically sync data to the cloud over a Wi-Fi connection. PhoneCopy: Another cross platform service, PhoneCopy allows you to back up phone contacts, messages & calendar entries and then sync them across devices. They offer apps for all smartphones but it also works with feature phones that support synchronization over a data connection. Synced contacts can be accessed and edited on the PhoneCopy website (www.phonecopy.com) SanDisk Memory Zone: This multi-faceted free app (Android only) lets you back up any file to your phone's memory card, move files from phone memory to memory card, sync data with your cloud service of choice (just sign in to Dropbox, Box, Google Docs, SugarSync or SkyDrive from within the app). You can also use the password protection feature to keep your data safe. inDefend Mobile Backup: inDefend (Android only) works even if you have an older device (it works with Android 2.0.1 and up). It can quickly back up your text messages, phonebook, call logs, calendar entries, internet history & settings to their online servers. Download the desktop agent from http://indefend. appspot.com to access all the data backed up by your phone. PC/MAC Desktop Software: Most phone manufacturers offer their own software to sync their phone to a computer. Usually, this software includes an option to sync phone contacts with Microsoft Outlook or Windows Contacts/Address book. Synced contacts can then easily be exported to various formats such as CSV (comma separated values) or vCards and saved as back up. MobileGo: This one offers an easy, one-click, data backup solution for Android phones (with merge duplicates feature). However, the contact manager also lets you transfer contacts between Symbian, iOS and Android phones. You can also import or export contacts from Outlook, Windows Address Book or Windows Mail. Get it from www.wondershare.com CopyTrans Contacts: Available only for Windows computers, this free software allows you to quickly backup contacts from your iPhone/iPod Touch or iPad. You can then export the backed up contacts to Gmail, Outlook or iCloud. The desktop client lets you easily view and organise your contacts (remove duplicates) on the computer. Get it from www.copytrans.net Xilisoft Mobile Phone Manager: For Windows Phone only, Xilisoft offers easy contacts backup and restoration over a data cable or Bluetooth. It can back up your text messages, email, calendar entries, favourites and exchange data. You can even view/edit and organise your contacts, call logs and text messages on the PC. Get it from www.xilisoft.com DEVICE SPECIFIC SERVICES Apple iCloud: If you have an existing ecosystem of Apple devices (both iOS and MACs), iCloud is the easiest way to keep your content synced between them. You can also access all your data from any device by just signing in with your ID on www.icloud.com. BlackBerry Protect: Available free from www.blackberry.com/protect, this free app keeps a backup of all your data, helps you locate a lost device, remotely wipe it and effortlessly transfers all your data (including email settings) when you switch devices. Google Sync: Google easily takes a backup of all the data on your Android device just head to Accounts and Sync and make sure the device is set to sync with your Gmail account. On other devices, open the browser & go to http://m.google.com/ sync. Samsung Account: If you have a Samsung smartphone (likely, considering that Samsung now has roughly 35% of the global smartphone market, according to Strategy Analytics), just creating a Samsung Account in Accounts & Sync will keep all data backed up.

http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Default/Scripting/ArticleWin.asp?From=Archive&Source=Page&Skin=ETNEW&BaseHref=ETD/2012/10/17&PageLabel=6&EntityId=Ar00600&ViewMode=HTML

[Sachin=GOD]

Easy ways to customise and dress up the operating system of your PC You don't need to spend money or waste time by upgrading the entire operating system of your PC. If you like a few features in a new OS, you can get them quite easily. ET show you how:

Make Windows XP/7 Look Like Windows 8 or MAC OS X Windows 8 has a number of visual enhancements compared to older versions of Windows. You get a new login screen, revamped start screen, refined windows explorer and various new menus. And you can now experience all these new changes without even purchasing the operating system. You can also transform your existing Windows PC to resemble the user interface from Apple's OS X Lion using free transformation packs. How To: Head to www.thememypc.com - Select the Windows 8 (47.5MB) or OS X Lion transformation pack (58MB). The idea of a transformation pack is that everything is included in one install. The downloaded file for either packs will have the ".zip_" extension. To open it, right click on the file and select Rename. Now remove the "_" from the file name and save the file with the new extension. It can now be opened in any zip program (like 7-zip). Before installing, create a Windows Restore Point (Run >All programs > Accessories > System Tools > System Restore). This will ensure that you can revert to the original state of your Windows install in case something goes wrong during the transformation. Start the installation, choose the settings that you would like to apply and let the setup finish. It will take a few minutes to complete and after that you will have to restart the computer for all the appearance changes to take effect. Deep Customisation Using Skins and Widgets Samurize Samurize (Windows XP/Vista/7) lets you add various meters and widgets to monitor your PC or enhance your desktop. You can configure widgets, easily change how it looks with add-on skins or even monitor your PC remotely over a network. Download it for free from www.samurize.com (just 5.5MB). Launch Samurize and a system tray icon will appear. Right click on the system tray icon, go to Select Config File and click on sample.ini to launch the default widget it will appear on the top left of your desktop and can be placed anywhere you like. To customise the default skin, right click on the system tray icon and click Edit Config File. This will launch the Config editor where you can select and customise various aspects of each meter including its name, appearance, source and so on. You can also download pre-configured skins and configs from the Samurize website. You will need to import and save these third party files using the Config editor. To apply the new config, right click on the Samurize system tray icon to select it. Rainmeter Rainmeter is similar to Samurize, but offers slightly more functionality and is simpler to use. The documentation is extensive and there is quick help available on the forums. And unlike Samurize, Rainmeter also works with Windows 8. It's free to download from www.rainmeter.net (just 1.2MB). After installation, launch Rainmeter and it will load up the default theme (complete with widgets) on your desktop. You can choose to keep the widgets you want and rearrange them on the screen using simple drag-and-drop. You can download more skins for Rainmeter, developed by different users just follow the links in the Discover section on the website. Installing a skin is easy just paste the downloaded files into the respective Rainmeter folders on your computer. You can also choose to have individual components from various skins on your desktop. Open the Rainmeter Manager box, right click on the component you want from a particular theme and select load to have it displayed on your desktop. Power-packed Desktop Productivity Tools Launchy (www.launchy.net) Launchy is an open-source, cross-platform application launcher that can save you a lot of time. It indexes the applications on your computer (or folders/files specified by you) you launch the item by just typing the first few letters of its name & pressing enter. Rocket Dock (www.rocketdock.com) RocketDock is a completely customisable application launcher 'dock' similar to what you get on OS X by default. Not only can you add whatever applications you like to it, you can change skins, animation or use it as a Windows taskbar replacement. Dexpot (www.dexpot.de) Dexpot is free for private use it quickly and easily adds additional, virtual desktops to your Windows PC. You can switch between the additional desktops with keyboard shortcuts, view them all on one screen and easily organise multiple windows and icons.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/hardware/easy-ways-to-customise-and-dress-up-the-operating-system-of-your-pc/articleshow/17484715.cms?curpg=2

[Sachin=GOD]

5 Stupid Tricks of Windows 7 you don’t use often

[Sachin=GOD]

Easy ways to manage Android from your PC

As any Android power user will tell you, those thousands of contacts, messages & files can be quite hard to manage from the device itself. ET rounds up some of the free tools that make Android management a breeze. Airdroid 2 www.airdroid.com Airdroid is our favourite app when it comes to managing your Android device from the PC. You get access to your entire phone from a browser window, even if your phone and PC are not on the same WiFi network. You can read & send SMS, reject incoming calls, manage contacts, transfer files, push URL links to the phone, install and remove apps, create ringtones and even locate your phone. What's more, you can remotely view a live feed from your phone's front/rear camera. We love it because you don't need to install drivers on your PC or hunt for a cable for the phone. Mobogenie www.mobogenie.com Available only for Windows, Mobogenie has a clean user interface with large icons. You can access your phone's storage to manage media and files, manage contacts and SMS. You can even send messages to multiple recipients from your PC via your phone. The app manager uses your desktop's internet connection to download apps from Google Play and then installs them on your phone — saving you data charges. You can also backup your entire Android phone to the PC and restore it in case of software issues or when switching to a new device Moborobo www.moborobo.com One of the most powerful desktop managers, Moborobo works with both Android & iOS devices. You can view the number of contacts, SMS, apps as well as multimedia files on your device through the main window along with details on battery level, firmware and available storage. You can easily take a screenshot of the connected device's screen and save it on your desktop too. Using the software you can send and reply to SMS, install and remove apps as well as easily switch data between multiple devices. There's also a backup feature (iPhone needs to be jailbroken). MOBILedit! Lite www.mobiledit.com The free (Lite)version of this tool is limited and only allows access to basic functions. You can connect your phone via cable, WiFi or Bluetooth and it works with almost all smartphones as well as a few feature phones. You can view details about your device, send text messages, install updates on your device from the PC and transfer files between the PC and smartphone. The paid version (`1,619) lets you remove duplicate contacts, take automatic backups. SnapPea www.snappea.com One of the few Android desktop managment tools that is available for both Windows and MAC, SnapPea also has a browser based version that works very much like AirDroid. You install the free app on the phone and then access the phone over WiFi in your browser window. You can install and remove apps, view and edit phone contacts, send and receive SMS as well as transfer files between the smartphone and PC. Additionally, SnapPea can also import music from your ITunes library and sync it with the Android smartphone seamlessly QtADB www.qtadb.com This open source Android management software is available for Windows, MAC and Linux. It has a very basic interface but it provides similar features to the other desktop managers. You can manage contacts, read/send messages, take a screenshot of your device's display, transfer data and even install or remove apps on your phone from the PC. What makes this one stand out is that it offers the option to flash custom roms to your device. You can wipe, root, load a custom rom and boot into recovery mode on any connected Android device. pocket.do http://pocket.do If you feel AirDroid is a bit too complicated, check out pocket.do. It works in a similar way (using a browser window) and does not require the phone and PC to be on the same WiFi network. There are options to connect the device using Google or Facebook accounts or by scanning the QR code in the browser (a separate barcode scanner app has to be installed). Once connected, you can manage contacts, read/send SMS and transfer photos. Additionally, it also lets you locate your device on a map, lock it and view a live feed from your phone's rear camera.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/hardware/easy-ways-to-manage-android-from-your-pc/articleshow/21497873.cms?flstry=1

[kumar713]

:two_thumbs_up:

[Sachin=GOD]

How to speed up & clean your computer using free apps

Over time, any computer tends to slow down a bit or get bogged down with unwanted files. Karan Bajaj shows you how you can use free apps to restore much of the lost storage & performance. Find and Remove Duplicates You may inadvertently end up copying the same files to different locations on the computer. This leads to clogging of precious hard drive space. Both Windows and MAC users can use the free Easy Duplicate Finder (www.easyduplicatefinder.com) — a lightweight and feature-rich program that does the job fast. It lets you search various drives (including external storage such as flash drives and portable HDD) and generates reports of each scan. For photographers who want to find and remove duplicate photographs, a free program called Duplicate Photo Cleaner (www.duplicatephotocleaner.com) finds duplicates even if they were resized or edited. Remove Temporary Files Temporary files usually refer to browser files or those that get leftover when you install new applications. Ideally, they should be removed automatically by the respective program, but it doesn't always happen. As more and more temporary files clog up your computer, they eat up hard drive space and slow it down. Get the free CCleaner (www.piriform.com/ccleaner) which is available for both Windows and MAC. It makes short work of cleaning up your system's temporary files. MAC users can also use OnyX (www.titanium.free.fr) which offers advanced cleaning options. Remove Unwanted Shortcuts Most of us like having shortcuts to often used programs and files — this saves time and improves productivity. However, too many shortcuts can build up over time and make your desktop a mess. Several programs also automatically place a shortcut on the desktop during installation. Windows XP comes with a desktop cleanup wizard that scans your desktop for unused icons and removes them. Windows Vista, 7 and 8 users can use Bad Shortcut Killer (http://goo.gl/ l2VYbf) to remove unwanted shortcuts from the desktop and start menu. Defrag to Speed Things Up Defragmentation organises the contents of your hard drive in a way which minimizes the time taken by the drive to access the stored files. The robust Defraggler (www.piriform.com/defraggler) is a great tool that offers the option to defrag the entire hard drive or just specific folder. It displays a drive map that shows how the space of your hard drive is utilised. MAC users usually do not need to defrag their drives because the OS automatically defrags files that are less than 20MB in size. (Note that if your computer uses flash-based storage, there is no need to defragment it) Make it Boot Faster As you install more programs, you might notice that your PC takes longer to boot up. This happens because many applications and services automatically initialise during the boot process. Soluto (www.soluto.com) is a free Windows utility that analyses your PC's boot up time and removes unnecessary startup programs. It even lets you individually select the programs you want to remove from startup. MAC users can do the same by going to System Preferences > Accounts > Login Items and removing applications that you do not want to open automatically when you log in. Sort Out The Registry Unknown to many, but one of the main causes of a slow Windows PC is a corrupted registry. The Windows registry configures and handles every hardware and software operation on your computer and tends to get corrupted by obsolete/invalid entries. Get the free Registry Repair from www.glarysoft. com/registry-repair. It scans your system registry for a number of common issues and fixes them instantly. It also makes a backup of any registry change so that if your system becomes unstable, it can be restored back to its original state. ALL IN ONE SOLUTION If you need a single solution to take care of everything, try TuneUp Utilities (www.tune-up. com). The software will set you back Rs 2,900 but is well worth the price. Once you create a profile of your usage, it recommends various steps to improve performance. All the tools you need to scan and fix issues with your system are built in. You can also improve your PC's boot up and shutdown time, delete files safely as well as uninstall programs. The 'one click' system maintenance mode is particularly useful — it scans various areas of your PC and fixes everything in the background without disturbing you. ASK FOR HELP If you're not too confident of meddling with advanced settings, ask a a tech-savvy friend for remote assistance. LogMeIn, TeamViewer & CrossLoop are some free tools available using which a remote user can easily log into and take over control of your PC (with your permission, of course). Problems can be identified and fixed remotely by your friend and all you need is the software & a reliable broadband connection on both ends.

http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-08-07/news/41167752_1_mac-users-windows-xp-desktop

[Lord]

:two_thumbs_up:

[CG]

Most are myths.Do not use any registry cleaners even cleaner,The performance gained is zilch and you scan corrupt ur registry easily.Regarding defray windows defray is enough no need to get malware and shareware.Just use cleaner to remove browsing data and u are good on most window systems.Also u can change startup items in windows itself.