Environment variables are divided into system and user variables. They contain information about the path and its directories for instance. Those are the location that Windows looks for when it can’t find a file in the same directory that an application was launched. Default system path variables are for instance the windows and system32 directory. While it normally poses no problem that a url is not found in one of the environment variables it could become one under certain circumstances.

Take for instance the location of the Java Runtime Environment on your system. If the path points to an old directory where it can’t be found anymore it will mean that the Java application cannot be launched. Other problems could arise with the temp directory in Windows or other applications that depend on a correct variable.

Rapid Environment Editor displays all environment variables and especially marks those with invalid path entries red. Every entry in the two panes (system and user variables) can be expanded which is really nice because it displays every entry of that variable in its own row.

continue reading "Edit Environment Variables and find invalid ones"

The Explorer Preview Pane in Windows Vista is only displaying the contents of several file types that have been added by Microsoft as the default file types. The contents of the file extension .txt are displayed but a file extension like .php, .css or .reg are not displayed at all because they are not registered.

Preview Config was developed to offer a comfortable way to add new file extensions to the list of supported file extensions. Before I explain the software I’m going to show you how you can enable the Preview Pane in Windows Vista. To enable it you need to click on Organize | Layout | Preview Pane in the folder’s menu.

Once you start Preview Config you notice a large list of file extensions on the left side. Selecting a file extension from the left menu will display information about it in the right pane. It will display if there if the file is currently set for previews and if that is the case if it is a text file, multimedia file or Other. Adding new file extensions to the preview pane is therefor done in a matter of seconds.

continue reading "Register file types for Explorer Preview Pane in Vista"

I have to admit that I’m not much of a designer and that I have to rely on friends and people I pay to deliver designs for my websites. I mainly use image editors to reduce the size of images or merge them but that’s it. I discovered Pixelformer a few days ago, it’s an icon editor and I have used some icon editors in the past. This one looks amazing, that’s the first thought that I had.

I know that design is not everything that counts and that functionality should be more important - are you listening Microsoft ? - but it really blows every other icon editor away when it comes to looks. Pixelformer can load high resolution images without difficulties, I remember some icon editors that would only accept images of a certain dimension. The memory footprint of Pixelformer is tiny, it uses less than 3 Megabytes after startup.

What I really like is the fact that it is possible to import icons from the computer. If you pick a file that contains more than one icon, explorer.exe, for instance then you get to choose the icon that you want to load. While the icons can be loaded from executables, system files and images they can only be imported as image files with the ico file type as the obvious choice here. Three other file types are available.

continue reading "Pixelformer Advanced Icon Editor"

The MSN Messenger seems to be highly popular in Italy because this is already the second tool, the first was MSN Repair, that I’m reviewing that is fixing MSN Messenger errors that was developed in Italy. Which leads to the conclusion that the MSN Messenger could be popular in Italy, or that the Italian version of MSN could be buggy or that Italian users are causing those bugs, hehe. Whatever it is MSN E-Fix fixes several error messages that MSN users can encounter while using the instant messenger.

MSN E-Fix can be run from any location and it actually comes in four different language versions which is surely an improvement over the other program that I reviewed some days ago which was only available in Italian. It was not hard to use though but I still prefer a program in a language that I understand to avoid errors. The supported languages are English, Italian, French and Spanish with Dutch scheduled to be included in one of the future releases.

Once started the program displays a list of error codes on the left side that can be checked and a Go button that should be pressed once all errors that should be fixed have been checked. The author send me a message where he compares his software to MSN Repair. I have no way of checking those claims because as you might know I do not use an Instant Messenger which is one reason why I will not publish them here.

continue reading "MSN E-Fix another tool to fix MSN Errors"

If you ask an Internet user to name a Voice over IP software (VOIP) they will most likely mention Skype and fall silent after this. Skype is a well known brand, even not so tech savvy Internet users do know Skype. But have you heard of Gizmo5 or other VOIP applications ? Gizmo5 was previously known as the Gizmo Project, it provides clients for desktop PCs and mobile phones. Windows, Macintosh and Linux are supported.

The major problem of those contenders is actually to convince a group of users to use it. If I liked Gizmo5 I still had to convince my contacts to make the switch as well, otherwise it would not make much sense to use it at all unless you only wanted it to make (international) phone calls. There are basically four major functions of Gizmo5: VOIP calls, Instant Messenger, File Sharing and Video Calls.

Like in Skype Voice over IP calls are free to other Gizmo5 users and cheap when you make outbound calls. A feature that is unique to Gizmo5 when compared to Skype is the Instant Messenger support. Gizmo5 supports MSN, Jabber, AIM, Yahoo and some other networks.

continue reading "Gizmo5 Voip Software"