You are probably very familiar with the hard drive activity LED that seems to constantly be blinking on either your desktop or laptop case. As a better alternative to this simple indicator, FloatLED puts this information directly on your desktop.

Something FloatLED does that your case light cannot is it can tell you want drive is actually working. If you have multiple disks in your system, this can be very useful as you can actually see the source of the ‘grinding’. Additionally, if you are working on a remote system (via Terminal Services, Log Me In, etc.), by firing up this application you instantly have access to this information on the system you are connected to.

While this is probably not for everyone (i.e. you have a laptop with one disk), for those of you who do have a use for it, FloatLED is a great utility.

First off, I don’t use a Mac so I don’t really know what the uninstall process is, however a utility I came across which looks like something our Mac readers might like is AppTrap.

Moving an application to the trash is simple and easy. Shouldn’t true uninstallation on the Mac be the same way?

With AppTrap, when you move an application to the trash, you’re automatically asked if you want to move the associated preference files as well. Now that’s uninstallation, the Mac way.

From the description, this seems like a pretty useful program as I imagine having to separately remove preference files would be rather annoying (if that type of thing bothers you). The program automatically detects any associated system files left over after you remove a program and lets you decide what to do. Simple enough.

AppTrap is free/open source and it may be a nice utility to have.

Have you ever changed the priority of a process in the Task Manager?
Do you have to do it often?
Do you want your database server or media player to know the priority it should work with?

If so, you have two choices: do it manually every time or automate/manage the process. If you prefer the latter then a tool you should check out is Prio Process Priority Saver.

Once installed, you just set the priority preferences of the processes you want to modify and then make sure the option to save is checked. Then the next time the program starts your saved settings will be applied automatically. This utility is ideal for power users or system admins who are looking to get more control over their server processes.

Optical media for computers is a form of technology that everybody uses at the present time, be it for storing data, playing games and so on.

Data on optical media can be a pain to work with at times, especially if the disc starts to wear down with age, or gets accidentally pitted or scratched. That being said, here are 5 utilities you should have.

1. nrg2iso

Site: http://www.roland-illig.de/lang.delphi.nrg2iso.html (there is an English version on that page, just scroll down)

NRG is Nero’s version of an ISO. Although the vast majority of optical disc images are ISO these days, you may run into an NRG periodically. Some disc image mounting/burning utilities will “understand” NRG but most don’t. In that case you need convert it to an ISO. nrg2iso does this easily and quickly. Works in nearly all versions of Windows, including Windows 7. Once you convert the NRG to an ISO you can easily burn it to a disc.

2. bin2iso

Site: http://www.weethet.nl/english/download.php (scroll down and the download link is there)

This is another disc image format you may run into that you can’t burn or mount – especially if the CUE file is missing from it. Bin2iso will take care of this in short order (even without the CUE file) and convert the BIN to an ISO file. This software is really old and 32-bit only, but it does work.

3. Daemon Tools / Virtual CloneDrive

Site (Daemon Tools): http://www.daemon-tools.cc/eng/home
Site (Virtual CloneDrive): http://www.slysoft.com/en/virtual-clonedrive.html

When working with ISO disc images that you want data access to without burning them to disc, you mount them virtually as a drive letter.

If using Windows XP, the best tool for this is Daemon Tools. If using Vista or Windows 7, the best tool is Virtual CloneDrive.

Both are easy to use. With Daemon Tools you right-click its taskbar icon to mount ISOs as a drive letter. With Virtual CloneDrive you can right-click an ISO and mount, or simply double-click and ISO to do the same thing.

4. ImgBurn

Site: http://www.imgburn.com/

ImgBurn works on any Windows (from 95 all the way to 7) including all 64-bit editions! It also works under Linux in WINE easily as well. When you want to burn a disc image, you need not look any further than this. It always works, never fails, is light and additionally will build images as well.

5. Nero 9

Site: http://www.nero.com/enu/nero9-introduction.html

This is a paid title but worth it if you’re desperate to retrieve data off a damaged disc.

Let’s say you have a disc but it is very scratched and pitted. The disc on insert does spin up but on any attempt to read the data, it won’t work. You’ve tried over and over again copy the data off the disc but your optical drive absolutely won’t do it. You know your optical drive is fine, but the disc isn’t “playing nice” with you.

Nero Burning ROM (included with Nero 9) may be able to help.

What most optical software utilities do is try a set number of times to retrieve data off a disc at the fastest speed possible. After a few attempts it will give up, citing the disc as unreadable. Nero Burning ROM on the other hand will slow down the disc reading speed – even to below 1x if it has to – and copy any bits of data it can retrieve even if it can’t finish a full copy. During the process you will see Nero spit out a bunch of read errors, but that’s okay because it will keep going until it finds the next readable part of the disc, copy and continue as best it can.

For example, if there’s a document file on a disc that has a section of the data that’s completely corrupted from physical damage, Nero Burning ROM will copy it anyway. We’ll say the document is 50 pages long. The copy Nero creates may have corrupted data between pages 18 and 25, but at least you got something. And that’s better than nothing. That alone makes the software worth its price.

Nero 9 carries a hefty price tag of $70, and while the suite of apps you get is large, it’s the Burning ROM program that saves the day because it can mean the difference between getting data back or having it lost forever.

Windows Explorer does just about anything you would need it to with respect to file management, however one complaint you may see people have is that it lacks speed when doing file copies. If this is something you have noticed, a utility you should try is TeraCopy. TeraCopy is a program optimized for doing one thing- copying files fast.

Personally, I do a lot of work with virtual machines (copying, moving, etc.) which have a file size of at least 8 GB so this looks like something I am going to give a try. Does anyone already use TeraCopy or another similar program? If so, what is your experience?

In the past I have posted several tips about tricks and utilities which allow you to copy text and paste it without any formatting. Typically this involves either a specific setting or plugin which is unique for the respective application. Now you can do this globally with the free program, PureText.

Have you ever copied some text from a web page or a document and then wanted to paste it as simple text into another application without getting all the formatting from the original source? PureText makes this simple by adding a new Windows hot-key (default is WINDOWS+V) that allows you to paste text to any application without formatting.

This utility is small and runs seamlessly in the background. Since I now have this, I no longer need my browser plugins and do not have to go through notepad to paste the text. To me, this is a must have.

A handy utility to have on your flash drive is a screen capture program. This can be especially useful if you are troubleshooting an issue and want to get a snapshot of the data or error messages you are working with. A program which offers this functionality is FastStone Screen Capture.

FastStone Capture  is a powerful, lightweight, yet full-featured screen capture tool that allows you to easily capture and annotate anything on the screen including windows, objects, menus, full screen, rectangular/freehand regions and even scrolling windows/web pages. You can choose to send captures to editor, file, clipboard, printer, email, Word/PowerPoint document or upload them to your website.

FastStone Screen Captures boasts a pretty impressive list of features as well which would make it ideal for use as your primary screenshot utility as well. This utility is shareware which means if you like it and continue to use it, you should pay the author the one-time fee.

Often times I run across system utilities which I will post a tip about. Many of these utilities are portable and ideal for a flash drive because they do not require an installer and are “zero footprint”.

So for those of you who care a utility flash drive, what do you have on it?

On mine, I currently have:

• Process Explorer
• Process Monitor
• WinPatrolToGo
• Notepad++ (portable)
• 7-Zip (portable)

I have mentioned in previous posts, the only security program I use on my computers is WinPatrol. I do this because it is lightweight, non-intrusive and provides all the protection I (personally) need. So when I found WinPatrolToGo, I immediately added this to my flash drive:

This single exe portable version of WinPatrol is designed to run from a USB flash drive or other portable device without leaving any left over files or registry entries on the computer being optimized.

It basically is a PC security clean-up utility which leaves no footprint on the target computer. This is ideal for techs who clean or maintain other people’s systems as it can do all of the following:

• Remove Un-Wanted Auto Start crapware.
• Disable Un-Needed Automatic Windows Services
• Remove Annoying Toolbars and BHO’s
• Create Reports that provide a snapshot of potential problems
• Disable ActiveX Controls & MORE!
  Compatible with Windows 95 – Windows 7

This is definitely something you want to have handy.

The title for this tip is the tagline of the open source application, Rainmeter. This application is capable of monitoring just about any system information you might want to view in just about any format.

There is plenty of documentation available which details how to customize the data you want to monitor as well as how you want to see it. You can also extend functionality to, for example, dynamically change your desktop background or have your to do list displayed on your desktop.

This program offers some pretty powerful stuff (just google “rainmeter” and look at the results) and well worth looking into if you like to streamline your desktop.

With today’s tip I am going to do something a bit different. I am going to pose a question and see what you think. By protection / clean-up utility, I am referring to software such as anti-virus programs, registry cleaners, defraggers, etc.

Personally, I tend to avoid these types of applications. I don’t use anti-virus programs, don’t mess with my registry and perform simple clean-up tasks either manually or with a simple script.

So I am deferring this to you readers. How do you know if an application is trustworthy or provides the protection/performance you are expecting? Do you base it on reviews, message board posts, personal experience or something else?

If you use Crap Cleaner (CCleaner) to help keep your Windows installation tidy, a useful trick to know is it offers the ability to run automatically via a scheduled task. To do this, you simply need to take advantage of the built in command line parameters (the /AUTO switch is what you want).

For example, to have CCleaner run using your saved preferences, just set up a Windows Scheduled Task using the following command:

“C:\Program Files\Crap Cleaner\CCleaner.exe” /AUTO

Of course, this assumes you installed the program to’ C:\Program Files\Crap Cleaner’.

One important note:

When you run CCleaner.exe using the /AUTO parameter, CCleaner does not run the Registry cleaner. You cannot currently run the Registry cleaner through a command-line parameter.

If you make use of Outlook’s contact management functionality, over time you may accumulate duplicate entries as you sync with your mobile device, contacts move companies, additional data is imported or [insert reason here]. If this is the case and you are looking for a tool to help remove the duplicates then check out Contacts Scrubber for Outlook.

Scrubber works by comparing all of your Outlook Contacts, looking for possible duplicate items. As it finds these potential duplicates, it presents them to you one at a time via an intuitive interface, displaying field-by-field comparisons of the contact data, and proposing a logical way to merge this data into a single contact item. You may then merge the contacts by either accepting Scrubber’s proposed merge, or you can select which values to used on a field-by-field basis in the merged contact item. Great for eliminating duplicate Outlook Contacts created by your BlackBerry or iPhone.

Contacts Scrubber works on Outlook (not Express though) 2000 and later. The free version of this program processes up to 1,000 entries so if you have more contacts or need additional features, taking a look at the pro version might be worth the time.

You have probably seen several posts on this site covering popular and alternative file archiving tools, such as WinZip or 7-Zip. If you are a Mac user looking for a better tool, check out The Unarchiver.

The Unarchiver is a much more capable replacement for “BOMArchiveHelper.app”, the built-in archive unpacker program in Mac OS X. The Unarchiver is designed to handle many more formats than BOMArchiveHelper, and to better fit in with the design of the Finder.

Supported file formats include Zip, Tar-GZip, Tar-BZip2, Rar, 7-zip, LhA, StuffIt and many other more or less obscure formats.

The Unarchiver is a free download and supports just about every common compression format.

If you have problems with your Windows computer freezing due to the system being overloaded, then a utility which might help is AntiFreeze.

This free utility offers a way to shutdown processes which consume so many resources that the system becomes completely unresponsive. The scenarios where this utility will help are listed under the “When Will It Work?” section.

Understand, however, this program will not be able to unlock your system in the event of a hardware crash or OS level crash (i.e. blue screen). Still, if it saves you just one time, it is worth it.