Techiy

Tried: GIMP, Paint.NET. I admit, I am not in the graphics design business, and my needs for editing images are minimal.  Even though Paint in Windows 7 has improved tremendously from the previous versions, but it still does not fully support transparency. If you are looking for more advanced features such as handling of layers and transparency, but hate the rather long start-up and bulkiness of graphics manipulation softwares, you should try Paint.NET . You will be amazed by the small installer size (<4 MB) and the speed of starting up the software. Hint: I made Paint.NET my default program for editing images. Of course, this is based on my needs. I could not differentiate between Paint.NET and GIMP ; GIMP is another graphics manipulation software similar to Adobe Photoshop. (GIMP is free, of course.) Do tell me the difference if you are in the graphics business.

Last edited 2 Oct 2011.  Tried: Adobe Reader, Foxit Reader, PDF-XChange Viewer, SumatraPDF Portable. As mentioned in my previous post , I discovered some problems with Foxit Reader and PDF-XChange Viewer. More precisely, Foxit Reader had been criticized heavily because it forces installation of a browser toolbar . However, this was changed in the latest version. On the other hand, the rendering in PDF-XChange is not as good as I previously thought. In summary, you can look at the table below. For the installation part, both Foxit and XChange allow users to download the complete installers, but Adobe requires users to use a web installer. During installation of Foxit and XChange, you would need to select shell extensions and PDF display in browser for maximum functionality. As you can see from the table, the setup file of Adobe is huge compared to Foxit and XChange. Functionality wise, all three PDF readers support preview handler in Microsoft Outlook 2011 (you need...

Adding a Google Adsense banner on the right of blog title might sound easy, but getting the right code is especially hard for me. Thanks to the almighty Google, I found a relatively easy instruction in Blogger Sentral . Basically, the code add an extra right section in the default blog header. You can add any additional gadget to the new header section. Simple but neat. View the screen shots after the break.

I recently found out a rather good freewares review website, Gizmodo's freeware (a community site). Although I do not agree with some of the choices, this website is a good starting point if you have no idea at all about which software to be used.

Tried: Endnote, Wizfolio, Zotero; Also Known: Mendeley, Refworks. I never really try Endnote to the extend that I am comfortable to it. Having to figure out how to use it turned me away in a couple of minutes. However, I still need a bibliography software to manage citations and references for my thesis. Luckily, my senior pointed me to this wonderful and simple software, Zotero.

Last edited 22 Jan 2011. Tried: K-Lite, Shark007; Also Known: Storm. This post has received more attention than I expected. Therefore, I decided to reinstall and retry Windows 7 Codecs, K-Lite Mega Codec Pack, and QT Lite. I follow the default steps during the installation to keep customization to a minimum. Feel free to share this post if you find it helpful. The main reason I use codec pack is to play rmvb files and I despised installation of a separate RealPlayer. K-Lite Mega Codec Pack was once my favourite codec pack. However, since I switched from Windows Vista 32-bit to Windows 7 64-bit, K-Lite does not work well anymore. I am using Windows 7 Codecs from Shark007 now ( Vista alternative ). It does not associate to any specific player, and thus allowing Windows Media Player to play rmvb files smoothly. (Remember to run Windows 7 Codecs as administrator, and select "windows filetype associations" to associate video files with Windows Media Player.) ...

Sometimes I need to merge, split or extract my pdf files, and even rotate some of the pages for a better viewing experience. I do not like Adobe Acrobat. Well, it is not free and bulky. Pdfsam , will just do all the above-mentioned tasks for free and it allows the tasks to be done visually. Another great tool for documents processing, love it.

Tried: CCleaner, Comodo System Cleaner. Yes, everyone knows unused files and registry entries are increasing as you use Windows for a longer time. In fact, CCleaner is actually Crap Cleaner. There are many system cleaners/optimizers around in the net; the reason I chose these two softwares is they are almost fool-proof. It means you can just follow the instructions and clean the system without causing system errors. CCleaner removes unwanted files and registry entries in Windows system in a safe way. I have been using CCleaner for quite a while now and it is not causing me any problem.

Windows XP has a PowerToy that is very useful to those who want to resize their pictures by just a right click. However, Vista miss it (again). Luckily, there is some one named Prish make a substitute with even more functions. Miss the right click and resize? The official link is gone since Windows Live Space is no longer available, you can download it at download.com now. (If you need the 64-bit version, just leave a comment here and I will post it up for you.) I also found out that there is a Vista clone for Image Resizer XP (usable for Windows 7 too.) Note: Prish Image Resizer offers more functionality than the vista clone, such as jpg quality selection and saves resized pictures into custom folder, and makes resizing job quicker with its  pre-defined jobs in the context menu. For the reasons stated in the note, I chose Prish Image Resizer. Edited 27 Apr 2011.