A FREE Screen Dimmer Windows utility

Today’s post does not require a whole lot of explaining and to put it simply it is about a screen dimmer utility called PangoBright that will work with a multi-monitor setup.  It has one job and one job only: to manually dim your screens!

I know myself, with a LED monitor, there are times I have to tone down the brightness to keep my eyes from tiring. With, PangoBright installed (small 112 KB .exe file) and residing in the system tray, adjusting the brightness is two mouse clicks away – [ DOWNLOAD HERE ] .

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An Easy-To-Use Program To Fix, Speed Up, Maintain And Protect Your PC

One of the biggest complaints I often hear from people who use a computer at home is that over time their computer gets slower and slower. This often occurs as result of installing numerous software programs and failing to perform routine system maintenance.

When I hear this complaint, I will often help them clean up their PC and then refer them to Glary Utilities which features a 1-Click Maintenance feature that will help keep their PC clean, help protect their privacy, and even acts as a layer of protection from spyware and adware.

Glary Utilities provides an always-on, automated, all-in-one PC care service just by one click, including quick and thorough scan for issues like invalid registry keys, dangling shortcuts, unnecessary startup items, junk of temporary files, Internet history and spyware. Then a second click on “Repair Problems” and you can speed up system performance a great deal. One-click Maintenance makes it easy to optimize system immediately and doesn’t bother you with multiple steps.

Glary Utilities does not stop there. Glary Utilities features numerous other maintenance tools, referred to as modules, where you can individually select tasks that you desire to perform.

Clean Up & Repair Module – Disk Cleaner, Registry Cleaner,
Shortcuts Fixer,  and Uninstall Manager.

Optimize & Improve Module – Startup Manager, Memory Optimizer,
Context Menu Manager, and Registry Defrag.

Privacy & Security Module – Tracks Eraser, File Shredder, File Undelete, and File Encrypter – Decrypter.

Files & Folders Module – Disk Analysis, Duplicate Files Finder, Empty Folders Finder,  and File Splitter – Joiner.

System Tools Module – Process Manager, Internet Explorer Assistant,
System Information, and Windows Standard Tools..

If you are concerned that a change is made to your PC and you wish you could revert the change, it is possible with Glary Utilites through its’ built-in restore Center.

So, instead of putting out big bucks for some the PC maintenance utilities out there, you may want to consider the FREE version of Glary Utilities.  It is very easy to understand, is low on system resources, is also available as a portable app and will run on Windows 8, 7, 2000, XP, Vista. (32/64bit version).

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A FREE Registry Backup Tool For Windows 8

Just talking about the Windows Registry can make the hair stand up on one’s neck; however, if you work in IT there is a high probability, at some point, you will need to dissect the registry to make a system configuration change or to repair a registry setting that has been targeted by malware.

To those who have no idea of what I am talking about; the best and simplest definition I could find to describe the Windows Registry, for those at home, was at WikipediA.

The Windows Registry is a hierarchical database that stores configuration settings and options on Microsoft Windows operating systems.

Most folks at home are unaware of the registry and the method to edit the registry; which should only be performed by the skilled hands of a computer tech. To put the registry into perspective; ”mess up the registry and you mess up the operation of your computer”.

This is why backing up the registry should be part of your backup strategy. A program, that is FREE, I recently started to use for registry backups is called Registry Backup (go figure) by Tweaking.com .

Screenshot

When I upgraded to Windows 8 I wanted to make sure I had a compatible registry backup program and Registry Backup was the surefire solution.  Note:  Registry Backup is compatible with Windows XP, 2003, Vista, 2008, 7 & 8 (32 & 64 Bit).

I recently started using this program for several primary reasons:

Registry Backup uses the Windows Volume Shadow Copy Service to backup your system registry, which allows for perfect backups of the registry files and profiles on your computer.

Registry Backup is a full scale backup and restore program that has the ability to restore a backup from safe mode.

Registry Backup has a built-in scheduling option that can perform unattended backups.

I particularly keep registry backups around in the event of a malware infection, which in today’s world of computer, the registry becomes a prime target.  Also, during those rare occasions where I do make registry edits, I feel more comfortable making the edits knowing my bacon is covered with Registry Backup.

 Registry Backup – Features List:

• The program is 100% free.
• One click backup and restore.
• Can restore from Windows Safe Mode.
• Portable version can be ran from a thumb drive and keep backups of multiple systems.
• Automatic cleanup of older backups.
• Set and control scheduling options.
• Can backup & restore all user profiles on the system, not just the ones that are currently loaded.
• Control which registry files are backed up or restored.
• Detailed logs are saved with each backup.
• Multiple easy restore options.
• Online videos showing how to use the program and how to use the different restore options.

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Eliminate On Screen Information Overload With The NEW CinemaDrape

I had the developer(s) of CinemaDrape contact me to let me know that a NEW version of CinemaDrape has been released. It is a new major release, with many important improvements and changes.

If you do not know what CinemaDrape is, let me explain:

CinemaDrape helps you focus on your current task on screen, by instantly blanking or dimming the other less important areas in a web page or in the background windows.

For example, let’s say you are working on an important document, that is requiring your complete attention and focus. With CinemaDrape you can block out the external areas on the screen, leaving only your document visible, for your full attention. In other words, it blocks out the external screen noise.

I personally use this application to block out the background areas on the screen when I am watching the TV on my computer or a movie. It really makes a difference, and actually makes it easier on the eyes, especially when watching a movie.

CinemaDrape is available as a full install program or as a portable app. I personally like the portable app, where you download and run.

Also, to get you going using this program, after you get it up and running:

Just remember to use the CTRL + F11 keys to toggle CinemaDrape on an off. When you have CinemaDrape active, click the right mouse button, long tap, or press Escape to open the main CinemaDrape menu (see below). The menu, tells it all…  Great job to the developer(s) of CinemaDrape.

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Quickly Find the Space Hogs On Your Computer With WizTree

I have featured other programs here at What’s On My PC that will scan your drive(s) and identify which files and folders are using the most disk space. They all are good, but the scanning process often can take some time to complete. Also, I have found that one of the most difficult concepts to grasp, when it comes to managing space on a computer (or tablet, or smartphone), is understanding how the disk space is gauged in terms of kilobytes, megabytes, gigabytes, terabytes, petabytes, etc…

Recently I came across another disk space analyzer, called WizTree, that I found to be very impressive and fast.

Where WizTree excels is in its’ scanning speed; and, what makes it so fast is that WizTree does not scan the physical drive, but scans the hard drive’s Master File Table (MFT) directly from the disk.

Please Note:  When using programs such as this to identify the space hogs on your computer (or device) make sure you do not delete a spacehog (file or folder) that is needed for the operation of the computer (or other programs).  Typically, I use programs, such as WizTree, to determine what personal files I have saved (such as documents, pictures, movies, etc…) are consuming the most space. Programs such as this are also great for troubleshooting problems, as well.

The MFT is a special hidden file used by the NTFS file system to keep track of all files and folders on a hard drive. Scanning for files this way completely bypasses the operating system (Windows) and provides a huge performance boost.

Features:

• Finds the files and folders using the most space on your hard drive
• Work VERY Fast! We think it’s the fastest application of this type in the world!
• Finds the top 1000 largest files on your hard drive
• Sort the contents of your entire hard drive by folder size and optionally delete files and folders

WizTree, is a portable app that works on 32 and 64 bit versions of Windows 2000, XP, Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8 with drives that are formatted in the NTFS format (which most modern drives are formatted).

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A Program To Create and Customize Your Own Windows 8 Start Screen Tiles

One of the downfalls to Windows 8, especially from the Start Screen level, is the ability to create your own tiles. You will find that when you install a Windows 8 app, the tile is automatically created for you has that metro look; whereas, if you create a tile from a normal Windows program, the tile that is generated is nothing close to being metro in appearance. As a matter of fact, if you pin a normal Windows program to the Start Screen, Windows 8 will create the tile using the built in icon of the program (which I have found in most cases to be not attractive at all).

Solution to this problem is an up and coming program that is in the early beta stages of development, called OblyTile.

 

OblyTile, is sort of a techie type of a program, where you need to have a good understanding of file and folder paths; however, I think once you get a handle on this program you will find it to be just what the doctor ordered. On top of it all, it is a portable app.

The cool thing about OblyTile is that you can use your own images and icons to create your own tiles using a selectable background color. OblyTile also has a built in quick list of programs and icons already built-in. For example, OblyTile gives you the ability to create a shutdown tile, a task manager tile, a control manager tile, etc…

To give you an example of some tiles I created, reflected is a partial screenshot of my Windows 8 Start Screen. If you notice, one of the tiles is a tile that will launch me directly to What’s On My PC…  In a since OblyTile makes your Start Screen become a Windows 8 program launcher.

Again, I emphasize this program is in beta; however, I can see OblyTile becoming a mainstay, highly sought after, program.

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FREE Software To Customize Windows 8 Start Screen Background

You are very limited when it comes to changing the background on the Windows 8 Start Screen; however, today I want to show you a third party utility, called Windows 8 Start Customizer, that will give you the ability to jazz up that background screen and use the images that you want.

A couple of things to point out here is that the Windows 8 Start Customizer is in beta and can be downloaded with an installer or as a portable app. Even though this is in beta, I found it to work flawlessly on my desktop PC. If you download the portable (zipped version), you will have to rename the executable file in order for it to run (not as difficult as it sounds). Also, Windows 8 Start Customizer runs on startup and does not appear to change any registry settings that could cripple the actual Windows 8 Start Screen. Super job from the developer on this!

What you can do with this utility is this:

You can set your desktop wallpaper as background picture (not support for multimonitor, it just uses the main monitor’s desktop wallpaper)

You can select your pictures from any folder and set it as a sequence of background pictures.

There is a blur effect available, it is slow and slower on bigger resolutions, but it might work for you.

Tiles opacity can now be changed (not perfect though)

You can revert to default background

You can choose a picture and select the area to be shown as background picture.

You can set the Start Screen transparency

You can set the rows of you tiles (limited by your screen resolution)

You can run it on startup hidden, so you can see your custom background as soon as this tool starts

Save configuration to ini file.

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