Switch between applications quickly with Apple’s Expose function

             When you flick the cursor to a specific corner of  the  monitor, Expose  shows thumbnails of all active programs minimized on the desktop.You can then  uickly  switch to another application – but only on Mac OS X.
              The  tool  SmallWindows  equips Windows with the practical Expose functionality of Mac OS X. Small Windows has two functions: It either minimizes all  windows  so  that  it  is  easy  to  toggle between applications, or it moves all windows  to  the  screen  border  so  that  you get a free view of the desktop. You can download it from http://smallwindows.sourceforge.net.  A  wizard  guides  you through the setup. Under Vista and Windows 7, you need to authorize the installation by selecting a user account with administrator rights and entering the relevant password if needed.

           At the time of the fi rst start, configure the program asks whether Windows should automatically load it during startup  so  that  it  is  at  your  disposal immediately, so confirm the query with ‘Yes’. After the start, a new icon is displayed in the system notifi cation area. Right click it and select the context command ‘Settings’ to open the dialog box for configuring the application. Here you can also deactivate the automatic start during system start by removing the checkmark on ‘Start when Windows starts’.
            The hot zones are the four corners of the desktop via which you can activate SmallWindows. For every hot zone, define a reaction using the relevant field. In  case  of  all  ‘All’,  Windows  displays  all the open programs in one minimized view. You can select a program with just a click and bring it into foreground. You can deactivate the function with ‘None’. ‘Desktop’ moves all windows to the screen border and gives a free view of the desktop. ‘Related’ minimizes the current program. This function is however of  no  use  otherwise.  In  addition  to  flicking the mouse, you can also defi ne key combinations for individual functions via ‘Hotkey Activation’.

Read More...

Get a constant overview of several time zones

                     When  making  a  call  to  another  country such  as  the  USA,  you  don’t  want  to inadvertently wake someone up in the middle of the night. But this can actually happen if you do not pay attention to the time difference.

              Windows provides help in displaying  several  time  zones.  Click the clock to the right of the taskbar.
A window with an analog clock and a calendar is displayed. Use the ‘Change Date and Time Settings’ link in this window. The ‘Date and Time’ dialog box
opens. Activate the ‘Additional times’ tab in it. This tab can be opened via the control panel as well as via the ‘Time, Language and Region’ and ‘Add times for different time zones’.
              Alternatively, in the classic view of the Control Panel, double click ‘Date and Time’ and activate the ‘Additional Times’ tab. You can define  up  to  two more time zones that Windows then displays near the analog clock with the local time. For this, there are two ‘Display this time’ fi elds in the ‘Additional Times’ tab. Checkmark the heading to activate the field. You can then select ‘Select time zone’ and ‘Enter display name’ with the help of which you can later identify the time zone. The country name would be an ideal entry. Repeat these settings for the third time if required and confirm with ‘OK’.
               Now after clicking the taskbar clock,Windows will show both additional time zones. If you simply hover the cursor over the time, a small tooltip with the current date and the various times is displayed.

Read More...

Defragment several disks automatically without monitoring

                 Regular defragmentation keeps the system performance consistent. But you cannot sit at your PC through this entire  process.  What  is  also irritating is that defragmentation needs to be manually activated if there are several hard disks.
                 The graphical interface of Windows’ defragmenter does not provide the option to process several drives one

after the other, at least under XP. What a lot  of  people  don’t  know  is  that  Windows has an additional command line tool called  ‘defrag.exe’  that  is  suitable  for batch processing as well. You can use it to automate the defragmentation of several drives. If you operate a system with the drives C, D and E for instance, enter the following in Notepad:
@echo off
defrag.exe -f c
defrag.exe -f d
defrag.exe -f e
Save the fi le as ‘defrag.cmd’. If you are using other drive names or more drives, change the file accordingly. Double click this fi le to defragment all hard disk partitions one after the other automatically without a break. However you need to be logged in with administrator rights for running the file. The used parameter ‘-f’ carries out the defragmentation even if the hard disk hasless than 10 percent free space, without pausing for an error message. But the process takes too long in that case. What you can do is delete the large fi les that are no longer required.
                  Vista and Windows 7 regulate defragmentation automatically on the basis of a schedule. Irrespective of that, you can either use the batch processing operation via ‘defrag.exe’ or even select several drives simultaneously with the graphical interface.
                  For this, right click a drive entry (e.g.in Explorer) for both the versions, select
the context command ‘Properties’, activate the tab ‘Tools’ and then click the ‘Defragment now’ button. Under Vista, click the ‘Select Volumes’ button and you can then activate several drives for defragmentation or select ‘Select all data carriers’. Under Win7, keep the [Ctrl] key pressed and then select the desired drives by clicking the entries one after the other.

Read More...