Monday, August 12, 2002		Downloads

IF you have lots of photographs or graphics files on your PC’s hard drive, you can be lost in the maze looking for a particular picture. You can simply not keep opening different files to find the one you need. What about a freeware that instantly gives you a thumbnail view of a graphic file by just right clicking on the file in Explorer? This fortnight we feature such a utility. Along side, there is a similar program that gives ID3 tags info in text form when you hover the mouse pointer over an MP3 file. The third one deletes selected files on next reboot. These combined should make your computing easier.

Context ThumbView

This is a Windows Explorer context menu extension that provides a pop-up menu containing thumbnail of selected image file. It supports most of popular image file formats, including BMP, GIF, JPEG, Kodak PhotoCD, PCX, PNG, TARGA, TIFF, WMF, etc. Context ThumbView is invoked by right clicking on an image file and is handy for quick image viewing. Compared to other graphics utilities like Thumbs Plus, this is the simplest program to use. To install download the Context ThumbView installation package. If you download the ZIP-archive, extract all files from the package into a temporary directory using your archiver, such as WinZip. Then run ThumbViewSetup.exe and follow the instructions. Once installed it is safe to delete installation files. To use Context ThumbView right-click on an image file in Windows Explorer, and then select ‘View Thumbnail’ in the pop-up menu. To view full image, just click on the thumbnail image. Its main known limitations are that it requires Windows ’98/ME/2000/XP (or Windows ’95/NT with Internet Explorer 4.0 or later). Should you not like it, uninstallation is easy. Double-click the add/remove programs icon in the Windows Control Panel, select Context ThumbView in the list of installed programs and click the ‘Add/Remove’ button. This small freeware is available from www.ContextMagic.com

ID3Tag InfoTip

This freeware too is a gift for freeware lovers from ContextMagic. It is a Windows Explorer infotip shell extension that provides pop-up text containing ID3 tags information including the title, artist, album, duration and more, when the mouse pointer is hovered over an MP3 file. To install follow the same instructions as for ContextThumbView above. To use ID3Tag InfoTip just hover the mouse pointer over an MP3 file in Windows Explorer. The ID3Tag InfoTip displays the title, artist, album, year and other information stored in the ID3 tags in a tooltip control. Like its sister program ContextThumbView it requires Windows ’98/ME/2000/XP (or Windows ’95/NT with Internet Explorer 4.0 or later). It can also be uninstalled from the Control Panel’s Add Remove Programs icon. The download site too is the same www.ContextMagic.com

GiPo@MoveOnBoot Utility

This small freeware is another useful program. What it essentially does is to let you remove or delete files from your system that you no longer need. When you run the program a dialog box appears in which you can name the files that you want removed. It remembers these names and whenever you reboot, these files will be safely and automatically removed. Why should you need this program? Well, there are hundreds of files you no longer need. Besides, there are files that are left over from installation of different programs. Removing these frees space and also speeds up the system. The program is available here at www.gibinsoft.net/gipoutils