Sarasota PC Monitor

Review Chairmans Industry Comments (10/06)

The Computer Buffet

by Herb Goldstein, Review Editor

E-mail comments, suggestions, etc. to Herb Goldstein at: revieweditor@spcug.org

BAD HYPERLINK?? Occasionally for reasons beyond our control, a hyperlink provided here will not work. After carefully checking your typing (needs to be 100% accurate), the only suggestion we can offer is that you go to Google and enter the name of the software. If a more current hyperlink is available, this is the best place to look for it.

Please also note: Most of the software mentioned below is freeware. It is gathered through researching usually reliable sources. I do not personally try most references, time being the obvious factor.

INTERNET EXPLORER RELEASE CANDIDATE1. There are still many reasons why Internet Explorer remains the most popular browser in spite of inroads made by the more feature-rich Firefox. One of the most important of these is IE's compatibility with web sites that other browsers choke on. If you are still an IE fan, you may want to download the latest free upgrade, IE7 Release Candidate1. IE7 is the version of Internet Explorer that will accompany the upcoming Windows Vista. RC1 is a more stable and reliable product than its beta release version and is in the format that will largely be what you will find in the final IE7. It contains tabbed browsing, a new and nicer interface and many other improvements you will enjoy. Get it at microsoft.com.

VISUALZONE. This free add-in performs a backtrace that attempts to locate the would-be intruder's IP address, physical location (more or less), and Internet service provider. With a single click, you can report the incursion to DShield, which tracks threats as part of the SANS Internet Storm Center. www.visualizesoftware.com

DIGITAL PRINT IMPROVEMENT. One of the keys to high quality digital image processing is to have your monitor properly calibrated. At this site they explain what's involved and give you a detailed guide how to do it. You'll find lots of other digital tips on this site including a good tutorial on color calibrating your printer. www.normankoren.com/makingfineprints1A.html

A NEW WAY TO SAVE WEB PAGES. Ever been browsing at work and found a site you'd like to check out when you get home? Toread.cc is a free web service that takes a snap of the web page and emails it to any address you nominate. http://toread.cc/

FLASHGET has always been an excellent download accelerator. It performs well, has good browser integration, is reliable and highly configurable. Now it has another attribute: it's free. www.flashget.com/index_en.htm

THE BEST FREE PAINT PROGRAM . Although they overlap in function, paint programs are really a different class of product from digital editors such as Photoshop and The Gimp. Paint programs are specifically designed to facilitate freehand drawing. They are ideal for sketching, painting, creating animations and special effects. Most folks have dabbled with Microsoft Paint (aka Paintbrush for Windows), which comes free with most versions of the operating system. In fact MS Paint is probably responsible for the generally bad reputation of paint programs. Early versions could only produce crude two dimensional drawings with jagged edges and no color gradients. Its free availability also encouraged untalented amateurs to produce works that could only be described as abysmal. Past reputation aside, the latest XP version of Microsoft Paint is actually a very capable and resource efficient product and deserves to be more widely used. In the hands of a good pixel artist it can give excellent results. My favorite free paint program is however, not Microsoft Paint but Project DogWaffle. This is a commercial product but the developer offers an older version (1.2) as freeware. The free version is surprisingly full featured. It has a comprehensive set of tools including fully customizable brushes, lots of filters and effects, multiple color selection options, a good set of color gradients, animation aids and more. On the downside the program runs slowly on older PCs, has limited layer support, has a clunky cut and paste mechanism and only handles .BMP and Targa files. Like all graphics editors, you'll need to invest a bit of time to learn how best to use DogWaffle but those with artistic skills will find the effort well rewarded. Freeware, all Windows versions, 4.5MB. www.thebest3d.com/dogwaffle/free/index.html

BLACKJACK. the recently released Blackjack International 1.1 is a lighthearted and very well-done freeware game with excellent graphics and a very good set of options and features ... it's definitely a keeper." Freeware, Windows 2000 and later plus Mac OS X, 4.2MB www.candywriter.com/

DZSOFT FAVORITES SEARCH. Sick of scrolling through Internet Explorer's clunky Favorites list? Save your sanity by installing this freebie. Once the app is ensconced on IE's toolbar, a click summons a quick search box. Enter a keyword, and a list of clickable bookmarks appears. You can search a bookmark's name and/or the URL itself, automatically create a handy Last Items Found folder, and more.

Note: Your antispyware program may alert you to the presence of a browser helper object, but in this case it's not a security risk. www.dzsoft.com

EASYREAD. Other browsers let you view Web pages at custom sizes-why not Internet Explorer? EasyRead installs two buttons in your IE toolbar. One looks like a plus sign, the other like a minus sign. One lets you zoom in to make your Web pages look bigger, the other zooms out to make them smaller. Version 1.5 introduces the ability to do this with right-clicks as well. Whether you need things bigger for easy reading or smaller to pack in more information, EasyRead can make your Web reading, well, easier. www.iconico.com/easyRead

PHONE REMINDERS. Have you ever wished you could schedule a telephone call for the future? Well, now you can! You can set up a reminder and receive a notification over your phone. This is handy for forgetful people. Or, maybe you're going on a blind date. Schedule a call in case you need an easy way out of a bad situation. Of course, there are other things you can do with this. You may want to play a prank on your friend. Since you can spoof caller ID, you can have the President call your best friend. This is a helpful tool for remembering something. It can also be fun to use with friends. http://www.voicent.com/howto_apptreminder.php

AT AVOID DELAYS, you'll see a list of the airports with the worst departure records. You'll also find the worst times to fly into or out of these airports. And, you can even see the specific flights that are most delayed. This will cause you to think twice next time you book a flight. I guarantee it. There's also information to help you become proactive. Find out where to complain, how to avoid delays and why flights are delayed. It makes travel much more bearable! www.avoiddelays.com

TAB MIX PLUS. This free add-on provides a raft of useful tab controls for Firefox users. It lets you duplicate tabs, control clicking options, and undo closed tabs and windows. Tab Mix Plus also includes a full-featured session manager with crash recovery that can save and restore combinations of opened tabs and windows. http://tmp.garyr.net

REMOVE MICROSOFT WGA. There is growing concern that the anti-piracy feature in Windows XP called Windows Genuine Advantage presents a security and privacy risk because it "phones home" at regular 14-day intervals. Others call WGA a "nuisance." RemoveWGA blocks Windows Genuine Advantage from reporting back to Microsoft. The tool alerts you if the WGA notification is active on your system, stops WGA from activating when you turn your PC on, and removes it. For the record, Microsoft says Windows Genuine Advantage is designed to check whether you are running a licensed copy of Windows XP. www.firewallleaktester.com

ICOLORFOLDER this great freebie enables you to easily customize the color of each WindowsXP folder icons, using one of the standard color choices, or a custom folder skin (Aqua, Mac OS X, Vista and others). To color-code a folder icon, simply right click on it and select the color choice from the menu. You can remove the coloring just as easily by simply reverting it. The program also adds a right-click option to change the icon for a selected hard drive. www.snapfiles.com/get/iColorFolder.html

FIREFOX EXTENSION BACKUP. This free combo pack of the Firefox Extension Backup Extension (FEBE) and CLEO (Compact Library Extension Organizer) enables you to back up your Firefox extensions as well as bookmarks, preferences, cookies, passwords, and more.

CLEO allows you to combine your extensions into a single, installable .xpi file so you can store or distribute them easily. You can maintain multiple backup sets in folders named after the date of the backup, and easily restore any of the backup files. www.snapfilespro.com/gnomeapp.php?id=110165

EXPSTUDIO AUDIO EDITOR V3.98. Is there any free audio tool out there that can give Audacity some real competition? Well, EXPStudio Audio Editor might be able to do just that. It makes editing audio files simple, easy and even a little fun. Here is what the developers of EXPStudio Audio Editor write: "With this free tool, you can edit your audio files like editing text files, display a waveform window of an audio file and apply zooming; Record new audio file from a microphone or another input device; Visually edit an audio file (Cut, Copy, DeleteSilence, PasteFromFile, Mix, MixFrom File); Apply different effects (Amplify, Delay, Equalizer, Fade, Flanger, Invert, Normalize, Reverse, MultiTapDelay, Silence) and more. "EXPStudio Audio Editor is a visual multifunctional audio files editor which allow you to perform various operations with audio data such as displaying a waveform image of an audio file, filtering, applying various audio effects, format conversion and more." So does it blow Audacity out of the water? Well, I would not say that just yet. It is a nice addition or alternative if you are looking for a new freeware program to do some audio editing. www.expstudio.com/downloads.htm

QUINTURA V1.5. When you search, you type in a word or phrase into a box and hit "Go!" right? Not too many folks have tried to expand the world of searching into something more. It seems like searching is just stuck in a rut. Well, that was the case 'til I checked out Quintura. It offers a new view for your searching habits. Here is what the folks behind Quintura have to say about this freeware download: "Quintura Search offers a visual map of tags or hints contextually related to your search query. You can add or subtract tags from the query with a click of the mouse, this One-Click-Search function lets you specify the context or meaning of the query. "With Quintura you can create a personalized search scope using tags related to a search query. You can also make search scope more specific and personalize the scope by adding or subtracting tags using a visual map." Some of the other features include: Refine search results removing search links or Web sites from the result list, Save the search scope as a file and share it with others, Monitor new information becoming available on the Web related to your personal interest and more. www.quintura.com/download/

CYBERHAWK V1.1.1.3. Cyberhawk provides behavior-based security monitoring to protect you from malicious programs such as Trojans, viruses, malware, and other threats without relying on any signature updates. It can (and should) be used along with your regular anti-virus program or firewall, adding an additional level of security to your system. The program works by continuously analyzing the behavior of processes and programs on your system and immediately alerts you if it detects any suspicious actions - you can then decide whether to allow or block the activity. Cyberhawk comes ready-to-use and does not require any difficult configuration, however, it also offers flexible rule settings that allow advanced users to customize its protection. www.snapfilespro.com/gnomeapp.php?id=110170

USERSMANUALGUIDE.COM. It has hundreds of product manuals from major manufacturers. They cover electric toothbrushes to television sets. Handy! The manuals are in PDF format, so you'll need the free Acrobat Reader www.usersmanualguide.com.

POWERTOYS FOR WINDOWS XP: This freebie from Microsoft is noted for Tweak UI, but it also has the useful Alt-Tab Replacement and Open Command Window Here utilities. www.pcworld.com/downloads/file/fid,18220;order,1;page,1;c, All20Downloads/description.html?tk=nl_urxdwn

PROCESS EXPLORER: Part security tool and part performance enhancer, I use this utility to kill programs to gain performance more than to enhance security. Be sure to click Options, Replace Task Manager. http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file/fid,23780;order,1;page,1;c,All%20Downloads/description.html?tk=nl_urxdwn

ADBLOCK: The plug-in for the Firefox and Mozilla browsers selectively disables specific graphics or scripts from loading on a page, making it a perfect companion to the NoScript plug-in. http://adblock.mozdev.org

PURETEXT: This program strips formatting and other extraneous content from any text you place in the Clipboard, so it pastes into your document as plain text. www.pcworld.com/downloads/file/fid,22948;order,1;page,1;c, All%20Downloads/description.html?tk=nl_urxdwn

SHELLEXVIEW: Use this applet to toggle on or off Context Menu items that appear when you right-click objects in Windows Explorer. www.nirsoft.net/utils/shexview.html

AUTORUNS: Find and disable programs that start up when you boot Windows. www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/Autoruns.html

ANTIPHISHING TOOLBAR: This IE add-on lets you see whether a site really belongs to the company that it purports to come from. http://toolbar.netcraft.com

PASSWORD AGENT LITE: Let this handy-dandy password manager keep your sign-ons secure. www.pcworld.com/downloads/file/fid,30161;order,1;page,1;c, All%20Downloads/description.html?tk=nl_urxdwn

TCPVIEW: See exactly what programs are connecting to precisely which computers over the Internet. The program also shows you what ports your computer has left open. www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/TcpView.html

HIJACKTHIS: The essential security tool for home analysis, it lets you see everything that is set to run automatically on your system. www.pcworld.com/downloads/file/fid,23258;order,1;page,1;c, All%20Downloads/description.html?tk=nl_urxdwn

USE DISK CLEANUP. Disk Cleanup is a standard Windows tool that scans your hard drive for files you probably don't need, such as temporary Internet files and files sitting in your Recycle Bin. It typically reclaims disk space in modest amounts. Disk Cleanup has a "More Options" tab that lets you easily remove optional Windows components and old system restore files. Before it goes to work, the utility tells you how much disk space you can reclaim by deleting the suggested list of file types. To activate Disk Cleanup, go to Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Disk Cleanup.

SIMPLEBEAN HEALTH GUIDE. The free Simplebean Health Guide quickly calculates your health statistics and targets. To plan a healthy diet, you get important health information such as your BMI, Basal Energy Expenditure, personalized daily calorie requirements and targets, and the target weight for your frame size. The health guide even breaks down your daily calorie target into carbohydrate, protein, and fat needs. It is excellent for weight loss or maintenance. www.simplebean.com/Download.aspx CACHEMAN. Speed up your PC by optimizing your system's memory. Your PC uses a number of memory caches, where data that is likely to be needed next is kept at the ready-because it's most efficient to read from or to write to memory. There are caches for the hard drive and for your CD-ROM drive that are different from the drives' built-in buffers. In addition, there's a cache that holds the names and locations of files. Cacheman aims to help to optimize these caches, make the most efficient use of them, and control how big they are. For the hard drive cache, for instance, you can choose what type of system it is (a file server or one that runs applications), and the program claims to manage the hard drive cache appropriately for the fastest access. It can also try and free up memory in a way similar to FreeRAM, minimizing the amount of memory that programs grab and unloading memory-hogging DLLs that aren?t needed anymore to keep your PC running as speedily as possible. The program is fully functional, but the developer asks for a $10 registration fee if you like it or are a commercial user. www.outertech.com/

FASTSTONE IMAGE VIEWER. For a freeware program, this software has just about everything you would ever need to help manage your digital photo collection on your computer. Need to know more? Here is how the folks at FastStone describe the image viewer: "FastStone Image Viewer is a fast, stable, user-friendly image browser, converter, and editor. It has a nice array of features that include image viewing, management, comparison, red-eye removal, emailing, resizing, cropping, and color adjustments. Its innovative but intuitive full-screen mode provides quick access to EXIF information, thumbnail browser, and major functionalities via hidden toolbars that pop up when your mouse touch the four edges of the screen. "Other features include a high quality magnifier and a musical slideshow with 150+ transitional effects, as well as lossless JPEG transitions, drop shadow effects, image annotation, scanner support, histogram, and much more." This freeware program has just about every image managing tool you would ever need. Some of the new features in this beta 5 release are:

K-3D. Here is what the author of K-3D has to say about it: "K-3D is the free-as-in-freedom 3D modeling, animation, and rendering system. K-3D features a robust, object-oriented plugin architecture, designed to scale to the needs of professional artists, and is designed from-the-ground-up to generate motion-picture-quality animation using RenderMan-compliant render engines. We strongly recommend the Aqsis render engine for use with K-3D.

"K-3D's innovative interactive tutorial system will introduce you to basic use of the program. New tutorials can easily be recorded and shared with the rest of the community." With so many people just kind of interested in 3D modeling, this is a program that has been needed for a long time. This could be used as a great stepping stone as well for folks who want to try out such a program but don't have the money to put down on one of the big boys in this industry. www.k-3d.org

TONETHIS. Free ToneThis enables you to create ringtones and wallpapers for your cellphone, using your own audio files and images from your PC. To create a ringtone, simply select the audio file, select a portion to extract, and click a button to upload the file to your cellphone - no cables required as the ringtone is sent over-the-air as an SMS message directly to your phone. Creating and uploading a wallpaper is just as easy. ToneThis supports many carriers, 30+ countries, and 300+ phones. There are no hidden charges for the service. www.snapfilespro.com/gnomeapp.php?id=110188

AUDACITY. Looking for a good all-purpose audio editor? Audacity is an open-source, free audio editor that lets you record, play, convert, and edit audio files. You can convert file formats, edit sounds, mix tracks, and apply effects to your recordings.

The program also features a built-in amplitude envelope editor, a customizable spectrogram mode, and a frequency analysis window. Built-in effects include Bass Boost, Wahwah, and Noise Removal, and the app also supports VST plug-in effects.

The 1.3.0b beta version offers improved performance for larger projects and has several new features such as the ability to expand and collapse tracks. However, we recommend using 1.2.4b for maximum stability.

Note: Some antispyware packages detect Audacity as containing Buddy Spy 2.2 spyware. This is a known false positive. According to the developer, the compressed Audacity executable happens to have some of the same byte-sequences as Buddy Spy 2.2, but it's just a coincidence. See the developer's Web site for details. http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/

GOOGLE BROWSER SYNC. Have you ever bookmarked an interesting Web site at work, only to forget the URL when you're at your home PC? Google Browser Sync makes your Firefox browser settings available on any two or more Firefox-equipped, Internet-connected PCs. This Firefox extension can remember bookmarks, cookies, and passwords for those Web sites.

Whenever you open Firefox, Google Browser Sync asks if you want to restore any pages from your last session.

The pages you select automatically open, each in its own tab. The program requires a few minutes to set up, and it takes a few seconds each time you start Firefox.

Note: Google Browser Sync is free, but it does require a free Google account. It also requires that you create and remember a PIN that you'll use the first time you sync your bookmarks on another computer. www.google.com/tools/firefox/browsersync/index.html

KURLO is a free, portable contact manager designed for personal and business use. Kurlo can easily be installed and run on a Windows computer and/or a portable device such as a USB flash drive or mp3 player. Features include multiple user capability, individual and organization contact management, address lists, email lists, event tracking, address label and envelope printing, import and export, data backup and email. www.kurlo.com/

REPLICATOR automatically backs up files, directories, or hard drives. Backup specific files from one drive or folder to another. Source and destination folders can reside anywhere on your network. Make copies on a schedule, only copy changed files and replicate file deletion. Set specific files not to copy and add skip days to the schedule. www.karenware.com/powertools/ptreplicator.asp

SIMPLEOCR. Convert your scanned images to text files or Word documents with SimpleOCR-the only OCR (Optical Character Recognition) application that is completely free. SimpleOCR is also a royalty-free developer toolkit (aka SDK or API) that you may use to add OCR to your custom software application. A 15-day demo of Charactell's Softwriting handprint recognition engine is also included. Machine print recognition has no limitations or advertisements. www.simpleocr.com/?kSite=SW

STICKIES DESKTOP NOTES application offers all the advantages of peel-and-stick paper notes on your computer desktop. When you need to remember something, instead of sticking paper on your monitor, open Stickies and paste a note to your PC desktop. Notes remain after reboot. Customize color, font, background, links, send between computers and more. Maintain Stickies between friends. Hide until a specific date and play warning sounds when due. www.zhornsoftware.co.uk/stickies/index.html

WINMERGE is a tool for visual difference display and merging, for both files and directories. WinMerge has Unicode support, Flexible syntax coloring editor, and Windows Shell integration. Regexp filtering for filenames and lines. Side-by-side line difference and highlights differences inside lines. A file map shows the overall file differences in a location pane. The user interface is translated into several languages. http://winmerge.org/2.4/

WINDOWPAPER XP - With this, you can change the background of any folder on your system. Make it a solid color or set your favorite photo as the background. It's a snap to use, and helps making navigation easier (when you set certain folders to certain colors). www.sodabush.com/products/windowpaperxp/index.php

TASKSWITCHXP - A colossally improved task switcher, tweakable to your satisfaction. It takes virtually no resources when it's not being used - and seamlessly becomes your alternative Alt+Tab utility when you need it. Displays screen shots, extended process information, navigatable by mouse, etc. www.ntwind.com/software/taskswitchxp.html?

MINIMIZE - When you normally minimize a window, it shows up in the Taskbar and is relatively information-neutral (other than the program's title and/or icon). miniMIZE maximizes your minimizes by shrinking the minimized program to a tiny screen shot on your desktop. Compelling, clever. http://aquaria.za.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=133

VISUAL TOOLTIP - Can't wait until 2009 when Windows Vista ships, but you want the enhanced Taskbar tooltip functionality today? Don't pirate a buggy copy of Vista - just use Visual Tooltip. Hovering over a program in your Taskbar will now produce a live interactive window for you to see and use. http://chsalmon.club.fr/index.html

UNLOCKER - What do you mean I can't delete the file or folder because it's being used? No, it's not - and I can prove it. Windows won't listen to you, so when some random process has locked a file, you can smack it around with Unlocker. No need to reboot in most cases! http://ccollomb.free.fr/unlocker/

CLEARTWEAK - While sub-pixel font rendering (ClearType) is an amazing experience to be cherished, No LCD screen is created equal. Even if you have the feature enabled for your monitor, it may not be optimized for the way your hardware was built. Tweak it clear - your eyes will thank you. www.ioisland.com/cleartweak/

FILESORT. PC World's Steve Bass says, "Need to regularly move a hodgepodge of files from hither to yon (or maybe to another folder)? I use FileSort, a utility that's definitely misnamed-it should be free FileMover. I have a folder that holds my daily incoming e-mail attachments-Word docs, video, and image files. I've created rules in FileSort to move specific files from one folder to another. For instance, it moves video files over 15MB to one folder; JPGs go to another. I've set the program to run every 30 minutes. Some rules can use wildcards. For instance, the expression *.jpg moves every file that ends in jpg. " http://mwynwood.com/blog/?p=231

REPLACEEM is search and replace utility for modifying text across one or many files. If you need to quickly make changes to dozens of files, simply select the files using ReplaceEm, select the text to be replaced and add the replacement text. Save changes to a new file, so the original is retained. Match case, insert strings before or after a specific text string or use regular expressions for maximum flexibility in replacing text across files. www.orbit.org/replace/

BEWARE OF THE FREE AOL 9.0. AOL's free Internet client software has earned the company a slap on the wrist from StopBadware.org,  a consortium set up to combat malicious software. In a report recently released, the group advises users to steer clear of the software because of its "badware behavior." The report blasts the free version of AOL 9.0 because it "interferes with computer use," and because of the way it meddles with components such as the Internet Explorer browser and the Windows taskbar. The suite is also criticized for engaging in "deceptive installation" and faulted because some components fail to uninstall.

COMMON PROBLEM! Our SPCUG Treasurer, Bob Harris, calls our attention to a common computer problem in his message: "I was having trouble with my computer. So, I called Forrest, the computer guy, to come over. Forrest clicked a couple of buttons and solved the problem. He gave me a bill for a minimum service call. As he was walking away, I called after him, "So, what was wrong?"

He replied, "It was an ID ten T error." I didn't want to appear stupid, but nonetheless inquired, "An ID ten T error? What's that, in case I need to fix it again?" Forrest grinned.... "Haven't you ever heard of an ID ten T error before?"

"No," I replied. "Write it down," he said, "and I think you'll figure it out." So I wrote down. I D 1 0 T I used to like Forrest.

PARTITION COMMANDER 10 Partition Commander is one of those utilities that you won't be using often, but when you have need, it's worth every penny you paid for it. It will readily do a variety of vital jobs that are essential to properly setting up your computer. The most prominent although not exclusive use starts any time you buy a new computer or install a new hard drive. To begin with, you will need to decide whether to format it as either FAT 32 or NTFS, the latter being the far more common choice today. There are also times when you may wish to change from one format to another. With one button click, Partition Commander will do the job in a few seconds. Further along, Partition Commander can perform a variety of other very essential jobs in the performance of which it is very close to singularly unique.

Most users prefer to partition their hard drive for better organization of software, data, and the basic operating system, using their partitions as separate depositories of each. It makes for more efficient backups, restores, searches and separation of hard drive contents into logical areas. Not too long ago, setting up and partitioning a hard drive was a job that only your experienced computer vendor or a geek DOS expert could properly handle. Using Partition Commander it has become a simple chore that even a novice can accomplish with ease.

With the massive size of today's hard drives, space is no longer the issue it used to be. Regardless, resizing partitions to more efficiently handle disk space is another chore that Partition Commander can easily handle. Another of yesterday's common partitioning worries was correcting partitioning errors which were not at all difficult to make. Partition Commander offers an undo feature that provides for instant recovery.

Understanding the unique performance of Partition Commander requires some indulgence in computer history. Before the advent of Windows, computer chores from simple copying and deleting to more complex disk searching and partitioning required very complex manipulation of the original operation system, DOS. You needed to be a learned manipulator of the command line with the exact instructions, syntaxes, etc. to deal with it. Today's simple chores were yesterday's complex, time-consuming challenges. Computers were anything but the child's play they largely are today.

When you bought a computer, your vendor was usually theonly one with the knowledge and experience to set up and partition your hard drive. With the advent of Windows, computer life slowly became less frustrating and more bearable. Powerquest, a software publisher that tackled the more exotic of tasks like disk partitioning, developed and gradually improved a program entitled "Partition Magic." Although a step up from the DOS command line, it basically used DOS but presented it in an interface that was somewhat easier to employ.

Partition Magic performed well but was not at all intuitive or easy to use. With each successive version it improved until in its final version, 8.0, it had gotten to where at least intermediate use could handle it without difficulty. Just when it reached its zenith, Powerquest died and was buried by falling into the reverse alchemist Symantec whose specialty appears to be its ability to turn diamonds into coal.

Fortunately, V-Com Software (an Avanquest company) was able to fill the void with Partition Commander which has with its latest version, 10, brought disk partitioning software to the most state of the art and easiest to use software of its kind imaginable. It provides a simple, colorful, completely intuitive and easy to use interface, complete with step-by-step wizards that make disk partitioning and structural manipulation child's-play even in the hands of novices. It is completely amazing how such formerly difficult tasks have been reduced to utter simplicity.

Here's what Partition Commander will do for you at the click of a button:

Partition Commander is available as a download or boxed copy at www.v-com.com for $49.95 Go to their site for more info and to peruse their other software. Some of their utilities are the most outstanding and incomparable available in the software industry. :

Return to Herb Goldstein's Index

Return to Columnist's Index

Copyright 2006. This article is from the October 2006 issue of the Sarasota PC Monitor, the official monthly publication of the Sarasota Personal Computer Users Group, Inc., P.O. Box 15889, Sarasota, FL 34277-1889. Permission to reprint is granted only to other non-profit computer user groups, provided proper credit is given to the author and our publication. We would appreciate receiving a copy of the publication the reprint appears in, please send to above address, Attn: Editor. For further information about our group, email: admin@spcug.org/ Web: http://www.spcug.org/ 

The Sarasota Personal Computer Users Group, Inc. has 1,100+ members and was established in 1982. We are members of the Assoc. of PC User Groups (APCUG), the Florida Assoc. of PC Users Groups, Inc., and we are members of the America Online Ambassador Program.

See http://www.spcug.org for all reviews from the Sarasota PC Monitor, go to the Newsletter Section.