Handy PC/Mac utilities you have - let us know. • Non-Gaming • Apple, Mac, and iPod • Eurogamer.net

rare_uk 25 May 2004 09:25:50 3,634 posts
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I just installed this handy piece of software called sync2it. I have loads of Favourites in IE (1000+) and it is real awkward trying to keep them in sync with my home PC. So this utilty uploads your faves to a site where it can be accessible by your home PC or any PC with this software on it. It also keeps it in sync with Mozilla. AND IT'S FREE!!! The way the net used to be!

Just thought I would let you know. As the title suggests let us know if you know of any other good utilties

Shivoa 25 May 2004 09:39:19 6,314 posts
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Keeping it to system/low level app tools to keep this list short:

PC:

Textpad as my plain text/code editor (colorises most types of code to help reading) which I haven't lived without for years

Quite a few powertools (MS download site) like the power calculator (graphical); cmd here (open a cmd prompt at a selected directory); and tweakUI.

WinXP is just about where I'd want it to be with the inbuilt customisation for most things so I don't really tweak it much anymore after all these years of use.

Mac (versiontrack.com or macupdate.com will tell you where to find them):

SideTrack for my trackpad (why isn't this a standard feature?)

Konfabulator:
-MicroAirPort for a small button on the backdrop giving the signal strength percentage
-mini Weather for local weather reports without looking out the window or goinng outside to find the temperature
-mini What To Do? as postits on the laptop
-Sun just so I can quickly look at the Sun's elevation without using the window with a quick tap of F11

HimmelBar. Tried other things like QuickSilver and dumping the apps forder on the dock but Himmel is what I prefer.

Angel_Treats 30 May 2004 11:35:47 11,070 posts
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I just found a nice little free Mac utility for expanding .rar archives, here it is.

st3ph3n 30 May 2004 16:24:33 2,833 posts
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Shivoa wrote:
Textpad as my plain text/code editor (colorises most types of code to help reading) which I haven't lived without for years

I was thinking to myself "I'll mention textpad, everyone needs to use that", my work here is already done.

On another note - Songwriter. Little plugin for WMP that dumps details of whats playing to a text file, or XML file.

And also for WMP - Media library exporter which lets you dump your entire WMP library to an access database, which then lets you query it and get results out, which lets you make things like this. (Might not work if you have a shit browser that doesn't support XML)

Necropolis 31 May 2004 09:25:21 896 posts
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The main one that I find really good that isn't too well known is Mike Lin's Startup Control Panel.

A great "upgraded" MSConfig tool for any Windows operating system incorporating tabbed browsing of the different startup sections on your machine. Definately good for keeping an eye on programs that start when your machine does.

Also BHO Demon. A great little program that you can run that will tell you all the programs that have been loaded as Browser Helper Objects in IE (if you use that). It can mention things like the Acrobat Reader installer and most importantly any hijack or spyware programs.

Speaking of Spyware, [link=http://www.safer-networking.org/">Spybot: Search & Destroy and

Retroid Moderator 31 May 2004 11:58:17 45,464 posts
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Irfanview. SImply the best image viewer I've found so far on the PC. Handles all the formats, editing, batch conversions, Photoshop plugins, various viewing methods, slideshows, thumbnails view of directories (plus generating the HTML & thumbnail pictures themselves for use on websites), and even a simple email client for sending whatever you're viewing to a mate.

It's one of the first things I install on any new install of Windoze.

unwashed 31 May 2004 16:30:25 60 posts
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Someone (?) recently posted that they used a download manager with IE and were very happy with it. The only thing is, it was off-topic and I can't find the baldy thread or who posted it!!! Please post!

Angel_Treats 31 May 2004 20:24:59 11,070 posts
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Unwashed - I'm not sure what the download manager you mean was, but the one I use for the PC is [link=http://sourceforge.net/projects/filezilla/">Filezilla, it's really very good and I only wish it was available for the Mac. It's actually an FTP client but very handy for any sort of downloads. Another one you might want to try is

colinmac 31 May 2004 21:09:55 774 posts
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A pretty good download manager for PC is GetRight - I've been using it for (literally) years, and each upgrade has been free.

Nice integration with IE - and you can still download in the normal fashion if you want to.

It's spyware free, and well worth a spin, I'd say.

On the mac, there seems little point, since Safari appears to have one built in ?

unwashed 1 Jun 2004 09:46:20 1,857 posts
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thanks at and colin, those are the two I was after...

Deleted user 25 November 2010 10:54:52

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