Monday, May 28, 2001		Downloads of the week

These are three small freeware, which are extremely useful utilities for any system. The first PowerDefrag Lite is available as freeware at www.powerdefrag.com. This program enhances the Windows 9X Disk Defragmenter by rebooting the computer and running the defragmenter at a point during reboot when nothing but Windows itself has kicked in —instantly solving all problems with interference from anti-virus programs and screen-savers. In addition defragmentation goes on quickly in that mode. The second is TrayKiller, available as freeware for Windows 95/98/NT/2000/Me at http://www.students.uiuc.edu/~reichler/TrayKiller/index.html. This program shuts down or restarts all running programs (or any you select) so that you can install programs or do maintenance chores. It takes a little tinkering to get it to do just what you want but it is very well documented and extremely useful. The third is Eraser, available for free at http://www.tolvanen.com/eraser. This program removes the sensitive data completely from the hard drive by overwriting it not just deleting it. You can choose from among several methods of erasure.

TagCheck tests your HTML or XML code to ensure that all tags are properly nested and closed. It does not validate anything else. It adds a context menu item to the HTML and XML files, but does not change any file associations. If you select the "Check with TagCheck" menu item when TagCheck is already running the file is checked by the existing instance. If you check one file at a time, the text is displayed in the main window with the errors marked in red. You can use TagCheck to correct the errors, save it and check it again. Alternatively, you can check a batch of files. In that case a list of the files is shown, annotated with the number of errors found in each. You can modify the lists of tags for which a closing tag is forbidden (such as META and BR) and those for which a closing tag is optional (such as P and LI). All other tags must be closed. Editing the lists allows you to check tags, which you habitually close even though it’s not required. If you downloaded tcksetup.zip, unzip the files and run the program Set up to install TagCheck on your computer. You can uninstall either from the Control Panel or by selecting uninstall item in the program group. Alternatively, if you have download tagcheck.zip containing only the files, unpack them to any location. To uninstall, delete all files. Whichever way you uninstall, the Explorer context menu item will remain. It is updated to reflect the location of the TagCheck executable so cannot be removed automatically. You can use the free File Association Editor from the Web site or the Explorer "File Types" dialog to remove the "Check with TagCheck" item. TagCheck is freeware. You can download the file from: http://www.rhaminisys.com

Most of us delete files in haste and repent at leisure. But this software eliminates the repentance part. Here is how. It’s common knowledge that Windows doesn’t actually delete files when you flush them through the Recycle Bin. To many persons, this is a security concern. However, sometimes it’s a good thing especially when you’ve accidentally deleted an important file. Fast File Undelete is a simple data recovery application that allows you to restore recycled files. It doesn’t work all the time but is worth trying and gives you a good fighting chance. Based on your parameters, Fast File Undelete performs two kinds of scans. The Quick Scan should be able to find and recover most deleted files. For more thorough searches, there’s the Slow Scan that combs through every sector of a drive. To recover files, you must first select a source drive to scan, then a destination drive. This dialog lists the number of clusters, sectors and file system of each drive, and displays a directory tree for choosing the folder for your restored data. Once you execute a scan, the program displays all matching files on its central interface. Complete file information is displayed for each item, including its size, access date and update date. The program’s functionality depends on the version of Windows you’re running. While Fast File Undelete tries to rebuild long file names, the included documentation tells you how to identify files when renaming isn’t possible. You can browse the list and quickly save multiple restored files to your selected directory. Fast File Undelete is small, requires no set up and may be run from a floppy diskette. This shareware version only lets you recover files less than 15kb in size. But even that is good enough in most cases. Download it from: www.rocketdownload.com

Nobody likes the magic blue smoke that occurs when system components suddenly fail due to heat. Many of today’s motherboards have facilities for measuring fan speeds and system/CPU temperatures to keep you posted on the weather inside your case, but some of the utilities that are included are buggy or don’t provide the information in a useful manner. The MBM is both capable and stable, providing you with a dashboard that’s easy to understand and a wealth of configuration options that can be tailored to your specific system. The MBM is compatible with a wide range of motherboards, but even if your board isn’t on the list, it may still work with a little tinkering. The developers also have a little write-up on the site that shows how to make the MBM work as a service, along with their shutdown utility to keep your system protected even when you’re not logged on. Download this freeware from: http://mbm.livewiredev.com

— Raman Mohan