Binary Fortress Software is best known for their wallpaper software Display Fusion but also home to some other interesting software products. One that has been added today is called Shockdraw and its more of a proof of concept application. The concept of accelerometer in notebooks is pretty new to me I have to admit, not even sure if my Toshiba notebook has one build in or not. Can’t remember seeing it in the product’s description.

The demonstration video at the Shockdraw website looks pretty interesting though especially if you consider that the application has a size of 48 Kilobytes which includes the source code.

Basically what needs to be done is to start the application and paint on the screen by tilting the notebook in a direction. Tilting it up for example would draw the line to the top while tilting it to the lower right corner would make it draw in that direction.

continue reading "Paint With Shockdraw By Tilting Your Notebook"

Smart Data Recovery Enterprise is despite the Enterprise part of the name a free product that can recover data remotely over a network. Enterprise hints at the primary application for the data recovery software although I’m a little bit unsure if large companies would rely on free software to recover sensible data.

The software can scan remote drives for deleted files, preview those deleted files and eventually recover them. There is obviously the need for a direct connection between the client’s computer and the admin which is utilized by a TCP/IP network connection. A software is running on the client computer that initiates the connection to the admin computer. That connection can be initiated manually or automatically.

Once the connection is established the administrator can use a graphical user interface to scan the local hard drives. A filter can be configured to find only files that match the pattern.

continue reading "Smart Data Recovery Enterprise"

You might probably like the software Quick Res for Windows XP if you regularly have to change the resolution of the operating system. If you change the resolution manually you have to navigate through a series of menus to finally come to the point where you can select the new resolution for the system.

Once you want to change it again you have to go into that menu again to do so unless you keep it open all the time which is probably not such a handy solution.

QuickRes comes to the rescue. It adds an icon to the Windows System Tray that provides right-click access to all compatible monitor resolutions that can be changed with just another click.

continue reading "Quick Resolution Changer"

Lets talk about inefficiency. Microsoft just released an update that adds five words to the English dictionary file that has an impressive size of 56 Megabytes. The five words that are added by this update that is available through a Knowledge Base article and Windows Update are “Friendster”, “Klum”, “Nazr”, “Obama” and “Racicot”.

The update applies to all editions of Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008. Probably even better than having to download a 56 Megabyte file for five additional words is the fact that the computer has to be restarted after updating the operating system.

The explanation on the other hand is quite boring. The update replaces the dictionary files with the updated versions meaning the user is actually downloading the full dictionary files and not just a patch that adds the five words to them.

continue reading "Adding 5 Words With A 56 Megabyte Windows Update"

Lets talk about a highly specialized application for a while, shall we ? Visual Studio is a suite of development tools for software developers while Skype is a VOIP client with chat and video functions. We all know that software developers are a lazy bunch which is probably the main reason why Keng created the Skype for Visual Studio add-in which adds the Skype chat into the Visual Studio.

The first release is compatible with Visual Studio 2005 and Visual Studio 2008. The main benefit is that one does not have to switch between Visual Studio and Skype (Chat) all the time when developing an application and chatting at the same time. Please note that chatting could also be project related which would make sense in my opinion.

This would provide an excellent way to copy and paste code comfortably to another user who is working on the same project. Selected code can be send to another use with the Send button of the add-in.

continue reading "Skype for Visual Studio"