It happened to me more than once that I was not able to unpack a zipped archive and recover the files within because the zip file was broken. Reasons for this can be numerous: Read errors, scratches on CDs or a system crash. Object Fix Zip is a zip tool that tries to repair corrupt and partially damaged zip files. It is possible to extract files from zip archives that have CRC errors or have only been partially downloaded. The free software creates a new zip archive while trying to recover the contents of the damaged zip archive

.

continue reading "Zip File Recovery with Object Fix Zip"

I always thought that the Windows Vista sidebar was nice to look at but not very useful. It uses system resources to display a clock or some other gadgets that have pretty much no value at all in my daily routine. I did not want to just remove the sidebar without researching if there were gadgets that were actually that useful that I decided to keep the sidebar and use at least some of the gadgets all the time. Space is limited and I run some all of the time and some only if I need that information.

While browsing the Windows Live Gallery website I noticed that the best rated gadgets hat only a rating of 3 stars out of 5 possilbe which is a little bit strange to say the least. I’m using the Ebay sidebar tool, the Gmail gadget, the run gadget and the app launcher all the time while I use the battery monitor only if I’m using the notebook on the road.

continue reading "6 Vista Sidebar Gadgets that are useful"

It is really painful to copy files using the Windows explorer. It only displays one folder at a time and it is often inevitable to open two explorer windows to copy files from one folder to another. This takes lots of time and is not very ergonomic. The software Folder Box is a windows explorer upgrade which adds another window to the windows explorer. This makes it very easy to transfer files from one folder to the other or perform other file operations that require two folders.

continue reading "Enhance Windows Explorer"

We all know that Microsoft decided to add the search function to the Vista startmenu and get rid of the run box by default. You can add the run dialog again but there is a much better way to add functionality to the search box using a little great application called Start++. It adds new commands to the search box which define actions that are then executed. Typing “g search term” for instance opens the default browser with Google search results for the search term that you have entered. Eight default commands are already defined and you can add new ones with ease.

The default commands open Word, let you search Google, Yahoo, Live Search and IMDB, use Sudo application to start the application with admin rights and search Wikipedia and Dictionary.com. Using the command “y spyware spam fighting” would open search results from the Yahoo search for that query in your default browser. Everything described until now have been so called Command Startlets. Start++ has another feature which is called Search Startlets. The commands play, playartist and playalbum followed by the name of an artist search your hard drives for that name and play the songs, videos or albums automatically. Play Who by Fire for instance would search for the Song Who by Fire from Leonard Cohen and play it if found on the system.

continue reading "Pimp up the Vista startmenu"

A new beta version of the famous bittorrent client uTorrent has been released to the public yesterday. The biggest change should be full Windows Vista support but the changelog reports dozens of new features, changes and fixes for the new beta. I don’t want to list all of the changes that have been made, just take a look for yourself if you are interested. I do know that some of you will not use uTorrent anymore because of its affiliation with Bittorent, this is understandable and this post is mainly for those users who simply do not care about it or think it is not a big deal (yet).

I would like to know if the affiliation is a concern to you ? Do you refuse to use uTorrent because of it or is it fine for now ? Every use who is downloading the beta client now should be aware that this is a beta version which could lead to some nasty problems. If you are inexperienced I suggest you keep on using the stable client for now and switch to the new version once a stable version will be released.

continue reading "uTorrent 1.7 beta"