AIMP3 is probably the best freeware audio player. It easily outsmarts Winamp. It is lightweight, not resource-hungry, supports over 40 audio formats, can record internet streams and do much more. I would like to share my personal collection of great skins I have for AIMP3.
Category: Software
A secret hidden option of Windows 7 USB DVD tool to prevent it from formatting the USB drive
When you are making a bootable USB stick using the Windows 7 USB DVD Download tool, it erases all data from your USB drive by formatting it. However, your USB flash drive may include some important data or may already be properly formatted. In this case, you may want to avoid formatting of your USB stick, but Windows 7 DVD tool does not have the appropriate option in its UI. In such a case, you can use a secret hidden registry tweak which will prevent Windows 7 DVD tool from formatting the USB drive.
How to disable and remove ads in uTorrent
When uTorrent (or µTorrent to be more accurate) introduced its ad-supported version, I decided to use qBittorent as the ad-free alternative. But lots of users decided to not switch to any alternative BitTorent clients and still use uTorrent. What many people don't seem to know is that it is possible to disable ads using native uTorrent options. Let's see how.
How to create a portable Microsoft Fix it
Fix It from Microsoft is a PC troubleshooting solution which allows you to find and fix your Windows issues quickly with a single click. It is a set of automated troubleshooters based on Microsoft Automated Troubleshooting Services (MATS) engine. It provides the option to run these troubleshooters directly from the browser. This is very useful. Almost all Fix It solutions are available for download to be used offline and have 'Let me fix it myself' instructions too. Another good thing about Fix It solutions is that you can make any of them portable. The solutions database and engine can be placed on a USB flash drive. Just follow the simple instructions below.
How to disable auto arrange and full row select in Explorer and get narrow spacing in file pane
In versions of Windows after XP, there have been some changes made to Explorer which are quite different from the behavior in XP. One of them is full row selection in Details view. The other change is that items in the right pane are spaded wider apart vertically from one another than there were in Windows XP. Let us see how to revert both changes if you need them to.
[Review] VistaSwitcher: Best Alt+Tab replacement that also works with Modern apps
In an earlier article, we saw that Windows Alt+Tab has bugs that make it not suitable for reliable switching. It also has issues like the icon and the text of the app not being placed next to each other to instantly identify the app. The thumbnail of the app is often smaller and isn't enough to identify exactly which window you are switching to, especially if there are multiple windows of the same app open. A free, third party Alt+Tab replacement, VistaSwitcher solves all these problems.
StExBar: Explorer addon to let you filter files, copy paths, copy file names, open command prompt and much more
Windows Explorer is a very powerful file manager but it still lacks some important tools. In Windows 8, the Ribbon has added some of these essential commands to Explorer which were missing but the Ribbon takes a lot of space and does not let you add your own custom commands in Explorer. An extremely useful toolbar for Windows Explorer called StExBar provides killer features that should have been included in Windows.
Get thumbnails for all possible image and video formats in Explorer folders
Windows supports viewing commonly used picture and video formats as thumbnails in Explorer folders. But for less common formats, it does not generate thumbnails. Also, in modern versions of Windows, the programming interface for generating thumbnails has changed compared to older versions such as Windows XP, so the old shell extensions to show thumbnails no longer work. Let's look at some modern ones that do work and generate thumbnails for all possible formats you might need.
Get Windows 8.1-like Lock screen Slideshow feature for Windows 8, Windows 7 and XP
Windows 8 introduced a lock screen, separate from the logon screen and Windows 8.1 further improved it by adding a slideshow feature to the Lockscreen. If you are running Windows 7 however, you can still get a similar experience by downloading a simple app.
Review: Able2Extract PDF Converter 8
People who frequently send and share electronic files with others praise the day the Portable Document Format was invented. Thanks to this compact, universal format, many important documents such as legal contracts, annual company budget projections and academic essays are delivered in their proper formatting to any computing device and operating system.
The benefits of PDF are obvious. However, there are some disadvantages to using this format. Sometimes it is necessary to edit PDF files. For example, create new tabs in the budget projection spreadsheet, add new articles in the contract, correct some glaring error or outdated info in a PDF presentation, etc. PDF itself doesn’t make this possible.
There are tools, such as Able2Extract PDF Converter, that translate PDFs into editable formats and enable document modification. PDF converters can be lightweight, featuring only one conversion option, or powerful and comprehensive, like the tool we’ll take a look at today.
