I’m often looking and coming across great feature-laden, time-saving tweaks for the many computers I use on a day-to-day basis (i.e. home, work, laptop, media center, etc).  Here’s a small collection of what I consider to be some of the best free little system-tweaking apps I’ve come across thus far.  Some I may have already mentioned in my earlier Windows Must-Have Apps posts but I’m including them here because they fit the bill, and well, they’re really worth mentioning again.
Clicking on the titles or images will open the app’s homepages and allow you to download the apps.

Media Tab

If you’re a regular media-hound like me, this little gem will help access your media file’s embedded information in a jiffy.  It quickly provides access to information including but not limited to bitrates, resolution, metatags, encoding options, languages, etc.  Moreover, all this information is easily accessible from your right-click (or Alt + double-click) Windows File Properties dialog, and easily copied to your clipboard or exported to HTML.

Best of all, it’s free, quick and easy to install, and weighs in at 3.14MB in filesize so you can be set up and ogling your files’ stats in no time.

WizMouse

From the “Why Didn’t They Think of This?” department, this little app has become one of the most crucial and useful tweaks I’ve come across and as such, I make sure to install it on all my systems.

Simply put, it allows you to use your mouse-wheel to scroll through content on active and inactive windows alike, without having to click to activate a window first.  It’s such a logical thing that after using it you’ll wonder how the hell Windows developers missed this, and how you used a computer without it.

This app can be set up to run at start-up and weighs in at under 1MB in filesize.

ThumbView

Windows does an OK job of natively handling image files to provide preview in Windows Explorer, but for people who often deal with images in different formats, it leaves a lot to be desired.  Support for some of the more exotic filetypes is sorely lacking, but this tool seeks to address that.

ThumbView adds native Windows Explorer preview support for over 15 image filetypes, including PCX, PIC, PNG, PSD, TGA, TIFF and many more!  Searching for pics becomes a lot easier when you can visually scan for the image you want, regardless of format.

Also weighing in at the sub-1MB filesize, this tweak will definitely improve your Windows experience.

Image Resizer

Originally spawned as a Windows PowerToy for Windows XP, the Image Resizer tweak adds an entry in your Windows right-click context menu for image files which allows you to quickly resize an image to a specified preset or custom resolution, and save it to the same location.  The resized output file will be in the same format as the original and the filename will be labelled with the option you selected so as not to overwrite the original (unless you specified otherwise).  It’s another one of those tweaks that make you wonder why it wasn’t included to begin with.

The 32bit version checks in at just over the 1MB mark, while the 64bit version barely touches 400KB.

Texter

Last but not least for this selection, Texter is a text substitution tool for the Windows system.  What this means is that it will replace abbreviations with ‘canned text” you define.  For example, you can define a rule that will actively wait for the letters ttys to be typed and Texter will replace it with the longer Talk to you soon.  You can do the same for email addresses, passwords, in fact any text snippet you choose.

It also has options that allow it to correct spelling throughout Windows, play a sound when a correction is made, print a list of rules you’ve defined, and act only upon specific keystroke (Enter, Tab, Space) or simply replace instantly.

It’s a great time-saving app, especially if you find yourself entering the same text repeatedly throughout the day.  This tweak app is also under the 1MB filesize and can also be set to run at start-up.

A brief word of warning for gamers using this tweak:  Enabling the Universal Spell-check option may interfere with certain games, i.e. as you enter keystrokes it may try to correct you.  I’ve found it’s best to either turn off the spell-check option or quit out of Texter altogether.

Windows Snipping Tool

An honourable mention goes out to this one because although it’s not exactly a downloadable tweak but in fact included for use on Tablet-PCs and stylus-enabled computers, this often-overlooked native tool found in the Windows 7 operating system may just become one of your most used Windows 7 feature.

The Snipping Tool allows you to quickly capture screenshots of the entire screen, a window, or a particular region with your mouse.  It’s quick and easy to use and the resulting image is immediately inserted into an editor for editing and/or annotation.

Although I’ve mentioned other similar tools in the past, the beauty of this tool is that it’s available right now on your Windows 7 system; simply bring up your Start menu, begin typing the word Snipping and it should show up in your applications panel.  For quicker access, after the previous step be sure to right-click the shortcut and add a keyboard shortcut combination from the Properties dialog (I suggest WinKey+S).

If you know of any other great tweaks or apps let me know in the comments.  I’ll be sure to check them out and include them in future posts in this series.

As a follow-up to my previous article highlighting some extremely useful Windows tools, Windows Must-have Apps, I give you another selection of apps you should not be without:

ObjectDock 2 or RocketDock

For a great solution to snappy and efficient application launchpad, check out either of these applications. Both function in similar fashion, by giving you access to a Mac-like dock anywhere on your screen (usually at the bottom) from which you can launch and access your favourite and current applications, and can potentially completely replace the Windows taskbar without the loss of function or productivity.

Although both applications boast similar features and configurability, as a long-term ObjectDesktop subscriber I’m partial to ObjectDock 2 (Plus) simply because I find it a breeze to set up and use, and support from Stardock is great. But my limited experience leads me to believe that RocketDock is just as good, especially considering you get the full-featured app for free.
Put simply, if I wasn’t using OD2+, I’d be using RocketDock.

Picasa

This is definitely the single, most useful photo management tool that every man, woman, child, and their computer literate dogs, cats, or robotic guinea-pigs should own. It is also by far the easiest tool you will probably ever use to manage your photo libraries, and make quick alterations to your photos.

Xoomer

As a graphic designer, this is probably one of the simplest but most useful tools I’ve ever encountered online.
When working on-screen, you often need pixel perfect accuracy to view or target specific areas, or select specific colours; this tool helps by magnifying the surroundings of your windows pointer in order to give you greater control. The application not only allows you to specify the level of magnification from 0.5 to 30x, but also pause the display by the use of the spacebar, and also copy colour codes directly from the application by using the CTRL+C shortcut.

Mozilla Firefox or Chrome

Now I could literally (and may yet ) spend entire articles extolling the virtues of both these magnificent browsers, their benefits, and virtues, but I won’t right now. I will simply settle for saying that these are probably the best, most extensible, and user friendly web browsers available on the market today.
Their ability to allow plug-ins, extensions, skins and scripts make these browsers probably the most configurable web applications I’ve ever had the pleasure to use. Use either browser with complete confidence that you’ll get a speedy and easy-to-use experience, with the ability to further personalise your experience, and keep an eye out for future articles on both of these.

ThumbView

As someone who deals with all kinds of images day in and day out as part of my job, I find it’s imperative to be able to quickly identify the image files I’m after in order to get jobs done quickly. This Windows tweak helps by allowing you to preview a large number of image filetypes not normally viewable, directly from Windows Explorer. Thumbnails and tooltips are enabled for up to 19 different image types, from PNG, to TGA, to DDS, and more. Definitely a keeper!

Launchy

Although some people might try to tell you otherwise, I’m a great fan of productivity and efficiency. I dislike doing things or getting to places by going the long way around and where possible, always look for those little-known shortcuts that yield the best results. This application addresses just that need for the Windows interface.

Windows has come a long way from it’s humble beginnings and its navigation has gotten a lot easier, but it can still be improved a great deal. Launchy aims to make this as quick a process as humanly possible. The simple act of applying a shortcut key combination followed by typing the first few letters of the application or task you want to begin is all it takes.
It sounds more complicated than it is, but believe me, it’s the most efficient and productive way to navigate Windows.

Let me know what you think of this article’s selection. What do you think of them, even if you’ve used them in the past? Also, let me know if there are there any lesser known Windows apps you can’t live without that I should know about.

The Windows (2000/XP/Vista/7) interface is well established and pretty much usable, for the most part.  It offers a good platform upon which to accomplish tasks quickly and easily without too much time wasted, but that isn’t to say that it can’t be improved upon.  There are certain areas that, for some reason or another, leave the user wanting more.
Thankfully, there are individuals and companies out there that are clever and willing enough to extend the functionality of the Windows interface to make things even better for the rest of us.

Below are just a few of the applications I simply would hate to do without…  in fact, I wonder how I lived without them in the first place. 

WizMouse

WizMouse empowers your mouse cursor with the functionality it should always have had —It gives you the ability to use your scroll wheel on unfocused, or background windows, so you don’t have to click on a window to be able to scroll through its contents.

MaxTo

MaxTo allows  you to split your screen into different regions so that windows are constrained to appear in these regions only.  It enables you to use your screen-space as efficiently as possible and, dare i say, improves productivity by letting you have all the apps you need open and on-screen at once.

The application was originally freeware, but is now available for purchase on their site.  If you can live with an earlier version, you can download it here.  Just disable the “Check for updates” option.

Taskbar Shuffle

Taskbar Shuffle is a small utility that allows you organise your application taskbar buttons in any order that you like.  You can drag and drop buttons and rearrange them to your heart’s content.  It’s not exactly an essential, but if you like your windows and buttons displayed in a certain order, or are a little OCD about those things, it’s definitely the app to have.

FastStone Capture or PrtScr

FastStone Capture is another app that is great, but is unfortunately now made available as shareware.  However, having said that, I dare say it’s worth buying if you really have a need for it.  It is simply one of the best and most fully featured screen capture applications I’ve ever had the pleasure to use.

It allows you to capture images of windows, objects, rectangular or polygonal regions, or the entire screen and output them to your graphics editor, the clipboard, directly save to a file, email, printer, Word, PowerPoint, or the web via FTP!!
It also gives you the option of captioning, watermarking, and include or leave out the mouse cursor.  On top of that, it comes with a screen magnifier, a screen colour picker, and ruler.  (Funnily enough, I couldn’t capture a screenshot of it’s own menu as shown above.  I had to use the next app.)

If that doesn’t fill your screen capturing needs, perhaps the simpler, yet flashier PrtScr will.

This nifty and beautiful little app allows you to draw on the screen before you capture windows, mouse-drawn regions or the entire screen to the output of your choice.  The beauty of this app isn’t in the number of features that it provides, but how it looks when it does it.  It is simply one of the best looking capture apps I’ve seen.

Vista/XP Virtual Desktop Manager

\The Vista/XP Virtual Desktop Manager —or VVDM for short— allows you to have as many virtual desktops as you require (or as your system can safely handle ) and sports a nice quick and effective visual interface from which to swap from one to the other.
VVDM’s features include an on-screen preview/manager interface with full drag & drop, keyboard hotkeys that allow you to swap from one desktop to another quickly and easily, multiple monitor support, per-desktop wallpaper backgrounds, .  On Vista, the interface displays live preview thumbnails of the desktops.

I have some others in mind and have already begun composing a Part II to this post but in the meantime, try these out and let me know what you think.  I’m sure you’ll find them just as useful as I do.

Enjoy.