Good… Now let’s live that ugly command line aside and move to the little program I discovered earlier today, namely Dir Print, shall we?

I know this program is ridiculously simple, but maybe you just don’t need any flexibility for your folder listing tasks, and maybe you even hate the command line, so using this little piece of code could be the best solution for you. There’s nothing to install, nothing to setup, everything is located in the main window of the program, so even my grandma could use it without breaking a sweat!

Anyway, if we draw the line, I am sure Dir Print can get a lot better, but even the way things are looking now, we have a useful tool for those who need to list folder contents just like that, without displaying the whole structure of subfolders and advanced file/folder data like attributes, creation date or size.

Oh, one more thing – this is not freeware, but donationware, so if you really think Dir Print is worth your attention, spare a few bucks and donate, will you?

To me, for a long time, the arcade genre was almost dead, but seeing games with ancient graphics and sound like Spheres Of Chaos that still manage to look great over a decade after their release makes me wonder if the gaming industry doesn’t need to return to its roots. Anyway, leaving these thoughts aside, I think that Zuma and Solitaire players should try and taste Spheres Of Chaos – this one leaves any thinking and planning aside and turns it all into a battle for survival!

I know, I know, if you go ahead and click for a Spheres Of Chaos download, this may not improve your productivity at all, but weekend is coming, and this freeware game works like a charm even on computers built before Windows 95 came along, not to mention that there are also versions for Linux, PS2 running Linux, or even the obscure Risc OS. Sure, you may face some problems on modern computers (I think movement was a bit strange on mine, for example), but if you really want to enjoy a psychedelic visual feast, hang on in there and destroy asteroids for a few minutes… Good luck!

If there’s something to say about Auslogics’ Disk Defrag really quick, I think three words should be enough: fast, free, and fast again, but it goes much deeper than that, believe me!

… but if you really want to hear more, here’s a little hint: while Disk Defrag’s interface make it look like a very simple on-demand defragmenting tool for Windows, the serious stuff is located in the Settings window (just open the Settings menu and click on Program Settings… to access it).

Auslogics Disk Defrag may not be the best free disk defragmenter for Windows, but it’s a damn good piece of code, and you shouldn’t skip trying it, no matter if you already use a commercial or free alternative to it. Give it a try, and you will be amazed, believe me. Good luck!

A few weeks ago, I read an article about the quantity and value of food thrown away all over the United Kingdom. I don’t remember where I read it, I don’t remember the figures, but I surely remember I was absolutely shocked!

Last week, I managed to ruin two salads because I had some old cucumbers, especially since after finding about their bitter taste the hard way in first place, I peeled them nicely for the second salad, but didn’t get a much better result that time, either. In the end, I had to throw away the remaining cucumbers, fortunately there were only a few around…

… and since you already saw the screenshot and probably imagined what is this all about, the piece of code that could help you stop wasting food is here, suggestively called Waste Not. Finding your way around this Windows app is really easy, I think, especially because you only get one window and a few options to mess with, and if you find that the Help contents is missing, try visiting the About window… and then jump to the forum dedicated to this program!

Since using it is trivial, let me tell you what this program is: freeware, portable application, very easy to use, with the purpose of helping you track what’s inside your fridge, what’s not, and what you should eat as soon as possible, because expiration date is drawing near…

On the other hand, Waste Not is not a recipe manager, a complicated food stock management tool for restaurants, and not even a diet tool. Its purpose is to help people track stuff they have around and expiration dates to avoid wasting good products, that’s all!

Some may consider this program useless, but before putting it that way, ask yourself about the impact on the environment of any little piece of biological waste or not, and leave the monetary issues out of question. After all, you don’t want to leave your children a nice house and a fat bank account in a rotting world, am I right?

Simply described as “a lightweight web browser” on its homepage, Midori comes with all the features most Internet users need and – everyone pay attention here, please! – offers fast WebKit-based rendering and pretty smart resource management, making it an ideal choice to those who are tired already of looking for a browser that won’t expand to chew all available memory as soon as two-three tabs have been opened!

Speaking about problems, let me tell you about a strange one – while it obtains 88/100 when running the Acid 3 Test, Midori fails in displaying Wikipedia’s home page properly! Even more, while I have the Adobe Flash Player installed and working properly, Midori won’t display Flash content, either. I am talking about the browser out of the box here, without touching any settings or adding any modules yet, so if you feel like playing with some early code, don’t be afraid and jump right in!

If you like to tune your browser, let me tell you that Midori currently supports user script, user styles, and it also has theme support, next to the things you’d expect from a decent browser anyway, like tabbed browsing and session management.

Obviously, this is a free Internet browser, and while it may be still far from being a very good one, I think Midori is one of those piece of code we should check on a regular basis, since you never know where the best Internet browser could be hiding! Oh, yeah – here’s one more thing you should know – this interesting piece of code is also available for Linux, so if you’re one of those using it, be sure to give it a try, I am sure your PC will love it, especially if it’s low on resources!

If you decide to follow my suggestion from the article I just mentioned, I think you really don’t need to play with Deskcretary, but since I know that most Windows users have some items on their desktops, this program will surely make their lives easier and – as I was saying in the beginning – it could even save somebody’s life one day!

How’s that possible? Once you archive those items (a scheduling feature is present, don’t worry, as well as quick archiving via the menu showing up when you right click the system tray icon of the program), you can open the Deskcretary Explorer and go through your stuff, nicely ordered by date, type, or other criterion (you can even create an exclusion list so various items won’t be archived). Pretty cool, don’t you think?

Now, considering all the above, wouldn’t be great to have an AIO file with those “must have” Windows updates? As long as it gets the job done, I don’t mind if it has a Chinese interface… but, fortunately, All in One Runtimes only seems to come in German. Trust me – you don’t have to know a single German word to use this updates package successfully – all you need is about 500 MB of free space on your Windows drive (or the temporary drive, if you messed with the Windows settings and set some folder on another partition to be used for storing temporary files) and 7-Zip to unpack the downloadable package you have chosen.

To make the last phrase of the previous paragraph clear as Bora Bora’s water, let me tell you there are two All in One Runtimes packages available, one for Windows 2000, XP and Server 2003 x86, and one for Windows x64, including Windows 7.

The thing that makes All in One Runtimes worth downloading is the .NET Framework and all those countless hotfixes I was telling you about earlier, but there’s even more to this AIO package, since you’ll also get the latest DirectX 9.0c, Adobe Flash Player 10, Shockwave Player 11.5.0.596, Java Runtime Environment 6, Visual C++ Runtimes, an even Microsoft Silverlight 3.0! Installing them is as easy as possible; in fact, you can only unpack the executable package, and then do nothing! Go out and have a beer, then get back to your updated Windows OS – how cool’s that?

Finally, I should thank Raymond for discovering this software treasure. I really enjoy discovering things on my own, but this time I must give credits to the man, so… Thank you very much, Raymond!

Basically, a file splitter allows you take a large file and obtain a lot of smaller pieces, depending on the settings you have chosen. Sure, programs like Total Commander have this feature built in, but once you download and install GSplit, you can forget about those primitive tools after the first encounter!

These being said, I leave you to fully enjoy another tasty piece of code, one that enforces once again one of those things I’ll always keep in mind: “Software is like sex: it’s better when it’s free!”

Once you download the 1.6 MB setup package and install the program, everything works as natural as having a beer (or two-three-four-and-so-on… I hope you’re not one of those against beer, and if you are, just think about anything else that’s natural to you, like breathing)! These being said, let’s go quickly through a duplicate files check session, shall we?

Next, you should choose the program settings for the scan you’ll soon fire up, and my suggestion is to avoid selecting “Match contents(slower),” and the reason should be obvious.

I don’t know what else there can be said about Duplicate File Finder, since this program is extremely straightforward, as you can see in the short walkthrough above. Since even my mother could easily use it, and it comes free from any charge, I think this piece of code will remain installed on my computer for a long time since now… and this is exactly what I suggest to those of you who have same duplicate files problem as I do.

Why not? The answer is very simple – it’s natural to always look for a better job, a better house, and even better software tools, in this case. Some may say it’s good to settle down, but I say it’s just human nature, and nothing more. If it wouldn’t have been this way, we would probably still live in caves… but let’s get back to our PDF reader now, shall we?

For a pretty long time, I used Adobe Reader without even trying to find a replacement. After all, why replace it? It’s free, it has all the features I need… but with some of the latest versions, I also noticed that this tool starts to “eat” more and more system resources, so discovering Foxit Reader was simply a natural step forward. Now, the time has come for PDF-XChange Viewer, a PDF reader that seems to be at the next level…

… but let me tell you only this: PDF-XChange Viewer is available for all popular Windows platforms, including the 64 bit ones, you can even get a portable version (exactly the one I currently play with), and if you really need features like extract/delete pages or document signing, then you will have to purchase a license. Other than that, this program is an excellent PDF reader with all the features one needs to enjoy some PDF files.

I know the last phrase above may be strange, so let me explain – I didn’t sign any NDA with the company behind this product, it’s only the fact that I really have to play with PDF-XChange Viewer some more, maybe I’ll take another step forward and leave Foxit Reader behind. My final advice is to go ahead and try it for yourselves, it never hurts to have a good PDF reader around!