The Weaver Family

Normally when I have to do hard disk work, such as backups, cloning or partitioning, I yank out a Linux Boot CD and get to work.  The main reason is because Windows, doesn’t have adequate built-in utilities, and when it comes to partitioning, at least in WinXP, non-existent.  In Linux, you can do partitioning, and resizing etc, on Linux and Windows formatted partitions, it’s just a heck of a lot easier,  ONCE, you get out that boot CD.  Running off a boot CD can be a bit slow, but still better than dealing with MS Windows.

Until Paragon Hard Disk Manager 8.5 SE.  This program does quite a lot.

• Partitioning -  Maintenance, Creation, Deletion, Resizing,  Undelete a Partition,  supports Windows and Linux formatted partitions.  (You can do this from with the program or from a Boot CD that the program creates.)
• Backups – Full backups and differential backups, scheduled backups, backup restoration.
• HD Maintenance – built-in defragmenter (including Master File Table defragmentation),  NTFS to FAT32 conversions, surface scan, direct edit of HD sectors, and more.

The program has a clean easy to use  understandable interface.

It’s available for Windows 98/ME, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP (32-bit & 64-bit), Windows Vista  (32-bit).  Vista users may want to check if it works in the 64-bit environment, I’m honestly not sure.  This is an older version of Hard Disk Manager, but it is free with registration.  You can register  when you go to install, or you can go to Paragon HD Manager 8.5 SE registration page, and register ahead of time.   Download it and try it out.

Popularity: 3% [?]

If your any type of geek, and you’ve installed Vista on a computer, you know that it’s bootloader doesn’t play well with other OSes.  To put it mildly, it’s a migraine headache in the making to try and work with it.

Well, unless you use something like EasyBCD.  This program allows you to work with Vista’s bootloader to boot as many OSes as you want on one machine.  And it’s easy, real easy.  All the work is done from within Vista and the EasyBCD program.  No command line here, people.  You can go to the  step by step directions guides for whatever OS you want to appear in the Vista bootloader.  Now you can have Vista and XP reside side-by-side on the same machine.  It’s just that simple.  Best of all, it’s free.  After manually multibooting  several Vista machines using the Vista bootloader, I’m glad I found this.

EasyBCD can also repair the bootloader.  So if it ever becomes corrupted, all your hard work won’t necessarily go down the drain.

Download EasyBCD 1.7.2.  If the Windows Vista Bootloader is the problem, EasyBCD is the solution.  Check it out.  Let me know what you think.

Popularity: 1% [?]

I’ve been using Spybot S&D for a while now.  To keep a computer clean from spyware and malware, it ranks as second-to-none in my book.  It provides for protection in a number of ways including IE protection, active system protection, and Host File protection.  Then it also does scanning for spyware and malware.  It’s just a great easy to use product. Plus the fact that it’s a full fledge, full-featured product that’s freeware.  Unlike something like Lavasoft’s Ad-aware Free, which is a stripped down version of Lavasoft’s Pro Version.

Well yesterday I was using it and I was trying to shut a bunch of windows, while I was running a Spybot S&D scan, and I clicked the little binoculars by the text “Search & Destroy”.  Up popped a little square window with a “1″ in the upper left corner.  I’m a fan of chess, I like playing every chance I get.  I figured out it was a knights tour puzzle.   Knight’s tours are where you move over the field touching each square only once.  The goal is to hit every square.  As you can see I got 99/100.

I thought I was clever, but I figured if I found it, it was probably already documented, so I searched Google.  Sure enough it’s out there as a known “Easter Egg“.  Yes, well.  I could probably look up the solution to a Knight’s Tour on a 10×10 board, but that would take the fun out of it now wouldn’t it.

If you’re looking for a good anti-spyware, anti-malware utility, download Spybot S&D, and try it out.  Plus get an interesting puzzle to work on while you run your scan.  Play your way to a clean spyware, malware free computer.

Popularity: 1% [?]

In Windows, when you maximize a program’s window it takes over your monitor’s complete screen size.  It can be a pain.  Yes there is a tiling option, but what if you don’t want to tile all your open windows.

Maxto is a small Windows program that divides your monitor into regions. So the next time you maximize a program window, it maximizes to the region, not the whole screen.

Maxto is compatible with Windows XP and Vista, both 32- and 64-bit environments, and includes multi-monitor support. The .Net framework 2.0 or higher is required.

Check out their website at Maxto or  download Maxto.

Installation is a straightforward type Windows Installation.  And the basic usage is dead simple.  When the program loads, if a profile hasn’t been selected or regions defined, it presents a layover with simple controls.

The layover shown is “Main with Two Way Right’.  But the controls are self explanatory.  You can remove any division, or divide any region using the appropriate button.  The screen in the upper right hand corner shows you which monitor you are working with, and the menu in the upper left hand side let’s you save your layout (the DONE button), cancel any changes (the CANCEL button), use pre-configured layouts (the LOAD PROFILE button), or reset the screen back to one region, so you can start from scratch.  Easy.

There are keyboard shortcuts.  The main one to remember is to hold down shift when maximizing a window if you want to override the region settings.  The rest are included in the program instructions.

Try it out.  It’s an interesting little program.

UPDATE:  The version I have linked here is freeware.  If you allow it to update the newer version is shareware.

Popularity: 2% [?]