Technospot.Net » Softwares

Would you like to Pause running Windows Processes

Ashish Mohta — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 08:20:29 +0000

Nirmal today pointed out an interesting software, Process Freezer, which lets you pause any running process and resume it again later any time. This is pretty useful when you find any of the process taking too much of memory consumption and disrupts you from doing anything else.

However In my opinion I dont think this will work effectively in all scenarios like Hardware input output operation. In case process is trying to save something on your physical media and you pause it, it might result in locking of that area and might not work right again later.

But what I would suggest is to try to pause it for may be max of 30 seconds and resume it again to see if the process stops consuming too much of resources.

I am creating a poll to see how many of you would really like to pause it. Just answer yes or no.

Download Process Freezer from here

Would you like to Pause running Windows Processes by Ashish Mohta originally appeared on Technospot.Net on November 23, 2009, 1:50 pm. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Chalkboard: Draw/Write using your mouse and save as an image file

Manav Mishra — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 22:16:50 +0000

Everybody has used those Black or Green colored Chalkboards at some point of time in his/her life. The application we are going to talk about is the Chalkboard, the digital avatar of the traditional chalkboard.

Chalkboard is an Adobe AIR application, which allows you to write or draw using your mouse, the look and feel is exactly like the Chalkboard which you have seen in classrooms, seminar halls etc.

At the bottom of the Chalkboard you get the options, which allow you to change the chalk colors, change the width of lines drawn by chalk, change the shades, eraser, clear chalkboard, and save the work.

Chalkboard could be a nice toy for your kids, and also if you are fine with writing using mouse, it can eb used for lectures and seminars etc.

Go ahead and try it, do share your views about it with us.

Install Chalkboard

Chalkboard: Draw/Write using your mouse and save as an image file by Manav Mishra originally appeared on Technospot.Net on November 22, 2009, 3:46 am. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Skip locking Windows, Lock applications now!!

Ashish Mohta — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 09:59:32 +0000

Many a times reasoning that computer is locked is not just enough for your mom or dad to keep away unwanted visitors who want to use your computer for doing something just for 2 minutes which ultimately leads to total sneak peek of your computer. How about locking the application itself ?

Lock it is simple windows application which locks any of the running applications and also can give unwanted visitors that “you should not be using my computer for internet” signal to many people without hurting them.

Once you have installed the application to lock any window just keep the CTRL key pressed when minimizing the application and it will get locked. Anybody trying to open that window will be prompted for it. The default admin password is (without quotes): “LockThis!”. ( That took me a while to figure duh!) Download Lock this Via Nirmal TV

Skip locking Windows, Lock applications now!! by Ashish Mohta originally appeared on Technospot.Net on November 21, 2009, 3:29 pm. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Find open ports on your computer : My Ports

Ashish Mohta — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 02:41:40 +0000

If you are already using CurrPort to analyze which programs are accessing which ports, My Ports can scan which ports are open. This is useful if you know that ports is not supposed to be open. I will suggest advance level skills for using My ports.

2 more advantages you would get using my port is that it lists out the commonly exploited ports by trojans and ports used by services on your computer. This makes sure you dont close any of the ports accidentally.

You can read more about Software Ports here. Download My Ports (Via Ghacks)

Find open ports on your computer : My Ports by Ashish Mohta originally appeared on Technospot.Net on November 18, 2009, 8:11 am. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Sync Toy performs better and backs up configurations in 2.1

Ashish Mohta — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 12:33:25 +0000

Sync Toy is free windows application which lets you synchronize 2 folders i.e. If you change something in folder X it will get updated in folder Y. This is useful when you want to keep in sync devices like your digital camera, videos and documents. Sync Toy is based on the rules of Microsoft Sync Framework 2.0.

Microsoft announced an update to Sync Toy with version updated to 2.1. Some of the major improvements are better performance when it comes to copying files. It’s faster now. Second improvement is that you can not only backup files now but also take backup of the configurations. This is useful if you lose all your settings for some reason.

Just to make it clear that Sync Toy is very different from the Sync Center which we had seen in Windows 7 and Vista. Sync Center is for Network folders while Sync Toy works with any folder. You can read about different modes of Sync Toy here.

Configuration Backup in Sync Toy doesnt have user interface which is pretty lame. The overview says

Folder pair configuration backup: Folder pair configuration is automatically backed up under %localappdata%\microsoft\synctoy\2.0. User can replace SyncToyDirPairs.bin with the backup copy to resolve last saved configuration.

When I first saw it I assumed I will be able to back from here and based on per folder basis. Looks like we might have to wait for next update. Download Sync Toy 2.1 from here

Sync Toy performs better and backs up configurations in 2.1 by Ashish Mohta originally appeared on Technospot.Net on November 17, 2009, 6:03 pm. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Adobe Air 2 is on Steroids : Whats new ?

Ashish Mohta — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 09:11:29 +0000

Adobe has released their brand new version of AIR which has seriously good features and will make desktop applications to work closer to the Operating system.

It can detect Mass Storage Devices.
Support UDP, Listen on Sockets,
Multi Touch : I can see this getting soon on Mobile devices too.
Support for HTML 5 and CSS 3. Its time others should roll out too.
Lighter on CPU which would make air applications work even faster and smoother.
Reduce Memory usage
Better Printing with vector printing support.
High-resolution screens to 4095 X 4095

Click on the image below to watch the video.

You can read out more details here and download AIR 2 from here

Adobe Air 2 is on Steroids : Whats new ? by Ashish Mohta originally appeared on Technospot.Net on November 17, 2009, 2:41 pm. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Panopreter: Text to Speech app, also generates audio files

Manav Mishra — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 01:13:25 +0000

Panopreter is an awesome app, which can read and speak text for you and if required it can also create audio files of the same text.

In order to install it on your system you will have to download the setup file which is smaller than 4MBs in size, once launched you come across a window as shown below.

The interface is pretty simple to use, you can choose either to paste the text in instant speech section or feed the files in order to read it.

Speak, pause, stop, and volume and speech speed can be controlled, using the respective buttons as shown in the snapshot above.

When clicked on the ‘Save to Audio’ button, it saves the WAV and MP3 file for the given text in the same folder by default, which can be changed using the ‘Options’ under the Tools tab.

Panopreter works fine and definitely is an awesome piece of software; it can help you create podcasts of any text, so that instead of reading you can listen.

It supports multiple languages as well, provided the text to speech engine for particular language is installed on your computer.

There are several online tools which can do the text to speech conversions, some of them also allow you to download the MP3 files as well, but I have never seen any application doing these things offline.

So, go ahead and give it a try, do share with us if you too like this software.

Download Panopreter

Panopreter: Text to Speech app, also generates audio files by Manav Mishra originally appeared on Technospot.Net on November 15, 2009, 6:43 am. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Track & Block Unwanted Internet connection using PeerBlock

Ashish Mohta — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 10:23:52 +0000

Many of us user Firewall, Internet security etc to safeguard our computer from external threat. PeerBlock is a similar application to safeguard unwanted internet connection specially P2P connections which many a times results in computer hacking when a security hole is left.

It gives you power to block governments, corporations, machines flagged for anti-p2p activities, even entire countries. Like I said about p2p it even blocks bad guys by checking the Bad IP by using lists provided by iblocklist.com

You can download PeerBlock from here and read more about it on their FAQ

Track & Block Unwanted Internet connection using PeerBlock by Ashish Mohta originally appeared on Technospot.Net on November 13, 2009, 3:53 pm. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Quickly and Easily access your Favorite links, files, folders with JumpTo

Manav Mishra — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 07:18:14 +0000

Jump To is a small application, which helps you to instantly access your favorite links (URLs), files and folders in one click. It can be downloaded as a zip file which is around 800KBs to download, later unzip and run the executable file.

Once installed, this program sits in the system tray. Now you can either right-click the Jump To icon in system tray or any of the key combination given below –

Right Click + Left Click
Control + Right Click
Control + Middle Mouse Click
Alt + ` (”Accent Key”, Next to the number 1 key)

And the menu appears as shown below.

Here you can add a new favorite, like folders, programs, links, or files or you can launch any of the items which are already in list.

Jump To also allow you to add memos, so it also works as an scheduler for you. In order to get a better insight about this app, you can view the help file which can be accessed under the settings tab. Go ahead and try Jump To and make yourself more productive by saving time. Download Jump To

Quickly and Easily access your Favorite links, files, folders with JumpTo by Manav Mishra originally appeared on Technospot.Net on November 12, 2009, 12:48 pm. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Windows : How to find identify missing security updates and common security misconfiguration

Ashish Mohta — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 13:33:51 +0000

In case you or your IT head are always worried about missing windows security updates and messed up common configurations, Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer is just the tool made for you. This is very useful tool in a scenario like home network or in corporate where a system admin wants to make a check on multiple computers.

Once you select any of the options you can use

Domain Name.
IP Range
Report name format.
and what kind of vulnerabilities you would like to check i.e. administrative, weak passwords, IIS, SQL, security updates and more advanced options.

Download Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer

Windows : How to find identify missing security updates and common security misconfiguration by Ashish Mohta originally appeared on Technospot.Net on November 11, 2009, 7:03 pm. Please see our terms for use of feeds.