A little program that lets you shuffle your taskbar icons AND your system tray icons in any order you like, anytime you like. Think of this tip as bonus Freeware Pick and tip combined. This is a really cool little application - for sure! It's called Taskbar Shuffle - and that reminded me of the Curly Shuffle and well you see how my mind works.
Once you download, install, and run Taskbar Shuffle, left-click and drag the programs/buttons on your Windows taskbar to rearrange them. That's really all there is to it...you can shuffle your tray icons as well, but that requires you to hold a hotkey (CTRL by default)."
If you download this little application you'll be doing the Taskbar Shuffle in no time. A really useful, fun, and free program that you'll find easy to use too! You won't need to read the help files at all - if you can drag and drop you can use Taskbar Shuffle.
Taskbar Shuffle is for Windows XP and Windows Vista (all versions of both). It's a 636KB Windows executable (exe) file. No adware, no spyware, no badware and no additional downloads foisted on you. Taskbar Shuffle gets our Goodware Award! Go get it by visiting this page.
It's Freezing!
Windows 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP, Windows Vista
The biggest cause of a computer "freezing" is not enough available memory. We cannot stress this enough. It does not matter whether you have 1 GB of memory, 2 GB of memory or 512 MB of memory. If you allow all kinds of programs to start with Windows, you're going to eventually reach the point where some program you install will become the one that breaks your computer's back and once this happens and you've reached the computer's point-of-no-return, crashes, freezes and programs that won't open correctly or at all becomes too common and your computer becomes frustrating to use.
And the second biggest cause of computer and program freezes and crashes has recently has become known to us. It appears that some third-party firewalls are becoming too over-zealous and trying to prevent safe, non-threatening programs, from opening which causes the program and sometimes the operating system to "freeze" or crash. This is particularly true where the program that's being opened is one that requires access to the Internet in order to work correctly.
First, let's discuss the biggest cause of computer/program freeze-ups - Low system resources (not enough available memory). The two most important thing you can do to ensure your computer will perform adequately are:
1. Make sure you have far more than the minimum amount of RAM for your operating system.
a. If you're using Windows XP Home, we suggest no less than 512MB of RAM. 1 GB is highly suggested
b. If you're using Windows XP Media or Professional, you should have at least 1 GB of RAM installed.
c. If you're using Windows Vista Basic we suggest you have 1 GB of RAM installed
d. If you're using Windows Vista Home Premium, Business, or Ultimate, the minimum RAM to ensure adequate performance is 2 GB.
2. Control your start up programs. Every program you install these days most likely will set itself to start with Windows. When a program starts with Windows it does two bad things:
a. It uses memory
b. It continues to use memory because programs that start with Windows run in the background and may or may not show an icon in your System Tray.
The only way to see what programs are running in the background without using a 3rd party program is to use Windows Task Manager (right-click on your taskbar - in an empty area of it, please, and choose "Task Manager") and click the "Processes" tab at the top. You may be very surprised see how many things are running on your computer. Some are necessary and some are not.
If you don't recognize some of these programs running in the background, that does not mean they are necessarily bad. It does not necessarily mean they are spyware or adware. It does mean that you need to do your homework to learn what each of these programs is and if you need them running in the background or not. You can use Google to search for each item you see running in the background or you can use a program like WinPatrol to assist you. In any case it's imperative that you learn what these processes (programs) are and whether you need them to be running in the background all the time. Remember, most of these processes are also programs that start with Windows. Once you determine if you need them running all the time or not, you can use MSCONFIG (click start/run and type in MSCONFIG then click the Startup tab) to prevent unnecessary programs from starting with Windows. If you don't take control of your own computer, and you continue to install new programs, you will eventually reach a point where you're using up most of your RAM just starting Windows and then you'll reach that point when the next program you install will cause your computer to freeze or programs to "crash". Most people naturally blame the most recent program they installed for "freezing" their computer or causing programs to crash, when in fact their computer was on the brink of crashing from low memory and the last program installed was the one that pushed their computer over the brink.
The second biggest cause of computer crashes and particularly program freezes and crashes are 3rd-party firewalls that are attempting to block a particular program from opening. This is becoming all-too-common recently. The symptoms of these kinds of program crashes and freezes are easy to spot - you click in the start menu to start the program, the program opens momentarily and then closes for no reason - or you get a Windows error message that "This program has caused and error and needs to close". It may be that the program encountered an error and needs to close, but more likely than not, a firewall installed on your computer is trying to close the program and causing a Windows software conflict. Third-party firewalls are not evolving the way one would hope. They are becoming more and more intrusive and cause more aggravation than security. Regardless of what you've read or heard, there just isn't any solid evidence that any home user has suffered identity theft or privacy issues because they were only using the built-in firewall that comes with Windows XP or Windows Vista. These firewalls are sufficient for almost all home users. We continue to stand by that statement until we see real proof of something gone terribly wrong because someone chose to use only the Windows firewall and not some 3rd party program. If you're using Windows 98 or Windows ME, and your using a broadband connection, you should think about upgrading to Windows XP rather than installing a resource-intensive 3rd party firewall. If you are that concerned with security you shouldn't be using Windows 98 or ME since Microsoft no longer even provides updates or patches for these operating systems.
Do you have enough available memory? Do you have an over-zealous 3rd-party firewall installed? If your computer starts freezing or programs start crashing, don't be so quick to blame the last program you installed. It was a problem just waiting to happen - months and months of installing programs and not monitoring and/or controlling your startup programs combined with not enough RAM to handle the overload of startup programs, is a far more likely cause than it being the last program that you installed. If you're sure you have plenty of available resources, and have your startup programs well under control, we'll bet that you have a 3rd-party firewall installed - and that could be causing some problems with system crashes and freezing programs. Norton and McAfee security suites both have firewalls built-in - and Zone Alarm has long been a pesky troublemaker for many home users. Keep that in mind if you're having problems with programs not running correctly, freezing or crashing.
An Uninstall Tip
Windows XP and Windows Vista
Most of you know that the correct way to uninstall a program is via Control Panel - Add/Remove Programs (XP) or Control Panel, Programs, Uninstall A Program (Vista). But digiknow there's another way, sometimes better way, to uninstall a program? There is and it's better because - well, we will tell you.
Normally, every program you install creates a folder into which it installs itself. In this folder, will be the program file, associated files and an uninstallation file. If use My Computer or Windows Explorer to browse to the folder in which the program that you want to remove was installed and double-click the uninstaller file (normally named uninstall.exe, unwise.exe, 00000.exe or similar) it is exactly the same as going to Control Panel and removing it from there. The advantage of doing it this way is that when the uninstallation routine is finished running and the program and its associated files are removed, you can immediately delete the folder that the installer created. It may seem odd that many uninstallers to do not remove the program folder that was created when the program was first installed. But, if you navigate to the folder using Computer or Windows Explorer you're already at the folder location. After the uninstaller file has been run and the program removed you can simply right-click on the folder itself and choose "Delete".
What's the big idea of this? Well, if you install and subsequently remove a lot of programs you might eventually end up with a lot of unnecessary folders that were created when you initially installed those programs. While most uninstallers will remove the folder that was created when you installed the program, some do not, especially programs we're you've made configuration changes or created documents or files with the program. After a time, your hard drive may contain a lot of folders with nothing useful in them. This causes unnecessary clutter. While it won't necessarily hurt anything to leave these folders on your hard drive - and they really don't take up much hard drive real estate - keeping your computer organized and free from unnecessary folders is just plain-old good maintenance If you're the organized type and don't want a bunch of superfluous junk on your computer, you might want to consider using this method of uninstalling programs rather than using the Control Panel. One caution though. If you're planning on reinstalling a program or think you might, don't delete the folder it was installed into. It probably will contain configuration settings and other customization files that took you time and effort to create. If you think you might reinstall the program at some point in the future, then it's best to leave the folder there - don't delete it. When you reinstall the program, make sure you reinstall it to the same folder that you installed it to the first time. That way all your configuration changes and modifications should still be intact saving you time and trouble.Our freeware pick of the week is "StudioLine Photo Classic". You'll want to read more about it before you download it, we're sure. If you're interested in organization and compilation and working with all those digital photos collecting magnetic detritus on your hard drive then you'll want to visit this Web site where you can learn all you ever wanted to know about our Freeware Pick Of The Week this week
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