There are so many expected and unexpected features in it, and many of them are relatively well hidden within the program. This is great as the hard to find features such as cross-fading or SRS WOW effects won’t need to be changed often. This has allowed the interface to show us the features we want to use all the time. The way the software is laid out lets us use the full screen to organise our media with a very simple drag and drop layout.

Windows Media Player makes it very easy to make playlists that can be used with Windows Media Center. The interface also makes it very easy to add information to files, such as producing your own star ratings. It even makes burning a CD simple. It is a comprehensive package that has now become my tool for managing my media.

This is by no means a review, or an encouragement to use this as your main media player, but it is worth having another look at it to see what it can do. It is a great resource to pull out when it is needed. If there is something you want to do with your media, where your normal media player doesn’t have the facility, it is likely Windows Media Player will. It is very likely to serve your needs. Because it has been tested on every Windows machine, it has become very stable and the chances of it crashing are very low.

After giving it another run, I have found it to be an outstanding media player.

Windows Media Player is available for free from your start menu. 

FTP clients are a great tool for people who spend a lot of time uploading and downloading files from websites or online storage space, but they can be complicated to use if you are not familiar with them. There is an easier way to access this storage space.

Netdrive is a utility that will allow you to show this storage space as a mapped network drive on your computer. This means that you can drag and drop straight into it using the standard Windows File Explorer, bypassing the need for any fancy FTP programs.

Netdrive sits in the system tray, but should only need to be accessed if you would like to add a new site, or change settings.

NetDrive is easy to setup. Once it is installed, create a new site and add in your FTP server settings. You may want to enable load on startup as that will make Netdrive very hands-off in the future. Once the machine is on the storage space will be mapped automatically.

You can then proceed copying and pasting to and from it just like you would with any of your other files or folders.

I have recommended this to a couple of friends, and they have experienced their internet occasionally dropping out while this software is running in the background. Because of this, you may want to load up Netdrive as you require it, rather than loading it at startup.

NetDrive is available from Netdrive.net and is free for home use. Novell also offers a program called Netdrive that does exactly the same thing, with a few less bells and whistles. This is available from Peter’s Useful Crap.

For many years I have been using Partition Magic as it was the only program that I could find that would resize partitions without losing data. This feature is very important when adding a partition to a computer that is running well. It could save you from needing to resinstall the whole system. Partition Magic is a commercial program which is hard to justify a purchase of, as you may only use it once or twice each year.

EaseUs Partition Manager Home Edition has been labelled a “free replacement for Partition Magic”, and rightly so. The interface is very similar to the popular Partition Magic, and it contains many of the same features.

Features include:

• Disk resizing without data loss
• Disk and partition copying
• Setting partitions active or hidden
• Disk Labeling
• Easy to use interface
• Everything else most people could ever want

This tool is a long saught after tool for those who do a lot of partitioning. Now the job of trying out Linux, or installing XP on a factory installed Vista machine is a lot less daunting, and dare I say it – even enjoyable.

Important Update: Ensure you turn off hibernation and sleep modes before running this program. If it enters these modes while the program is running, you may find your computer is unbootable. Most other tools of this nature run in DOS mode where sleep or hibernate is not a feature, hence not a problem.

Partition Manager has a commercial version available for people who would like a few extra features, but the home version is free and does everything reported in this article. Grab your copy from Partition-Tool.

There are a number of Magic Packet senders that will wake a computer up over a LAN connection, but these are usually stand alone programs that need to be opened up and have data entered into them before they work. I wanted a more customizable solution.

Mc-wol is a command line utility that enables you to wake up a machine on your local area network. Being a command line utility, it is easy to utilize in a shortcut on your desktop, place into a batch file, or use it in a scheduled task.

Don’t let the command line scare you. The syntax is really simple. To launch a computer, type mc-wol followed by the mac/ethernet address. i.e.:

mc-wol 91:34:eb:de:45:32

Wake on LAN software only works on computers which are in standby or hibernate modes.

Mc-wol is free and available from Matcode.com. You will also find a bunch of useful information on the page about simple settings you will need to check before WOL will work.

BCDedit is configured through the command line. I played around with it for around 5 minutes before deciding that it was too complicated for me with a Christmas hangover. I knew that if I made an error, I may make my machine unbootable. There had to be an easier way.

I came across a utility called EasyBCD. EasyBCD let me change all the settings of my boot menu in a matter of minutes. I was able to add a Windows partition to the boot list, rename the operating systems as they are shown in the menu, and change the wait time.

EasyBCD made this job completely simple. The interface doesn’t allow for much user error as it fills in many of the blanks. EasyBCD can even help you add non Windows operating systems into the mix.

If anything does go wrong with the changes you make, and you find your machine unbootable, put your Vista disk in your computer and boot to it. A quick repair job will bring back the default boot menu.

Grab your free copy from NeoSmart.net.

JoytoKey is a small program that allows you to setup the movement controls and buttons of a game controller, into emulated keystrokes and mouse movements. You can setup different profiles for different programs and games, as well as separate configurations for different controllers. You can even configure a button on the controller represent a key combination.

This program is useful in the case where games don’t offer any game controller support, or where some newer games don’t offer support for older controllers, especially where drivers haven’t been updated over the years. JoytoKey allows you to split the axis controls into two separate buttons.

For example; if you have a first person shooter game that does not currently support a game controller, you can setup a profile for your controller to work with the game. Each button will represent a key from from your keyboard. Once all the buttons are configured, you have effectively added game controller support for your game.

Read more and download your free copy from electracode.

If you would like to control your mouse cursor only with your controller, check out this article for a simple alternative.

I wanted to find a program that would make this job a piece of cake. I think I have succeeded, oddly enough with a program called Photocopier.

When I first loaded up Photocopier, I searched for the options to see what functions were available. However, there weren’t any fancy options, but this proved to be a good thing.

This program is so simple to use, it detects your scanner and your default printer and automatically uses those devices. These default settings will work very nicely for most simple home computer setups.

All the basic options available are on the main window, and they are kept to a minimum. We can choose the number of copies, brightness, basic scaling, and if we want to print in black and white or colour. This program has all the basic functions I have ever wanted to use on a photocopier.

Photocopier 3.03 is available for free (inoffensive popup on exit) from Nico Cuppon Software. There is also a commercial version available.

Both Outlook 2003 and 2007 have a feature, where you can attempt to recall a message, effectively unsending the email message. This has got me out of trouble in the past. It is nice to be able to add in that after thought, or to remove that risky remark.

A recalled message is invisible on the recipients computer, as long as the recall takes place before the email has been downloaded onto their computer.

This recall feature is not totally reliable. Much depends on how quickly you send the recall message. However, there is no harm in giving this a try when it is needed.

To try it out, open up your sent items folder and double click on an email message. The email will open up in a new window. In Outlook 2003, Click on the actions menu. In Outlook 2007, click Other Actions. Finally, select Recall this message. It’s that simple.

These preview handlers (which tell Outlook how to preview the file) can save a lot of time, as there is no need to load up an entire program to view a document. So, we are covered for the standard Office documents and PDFs, but what about other types of files like audio or video files?

I came across a site jam packed with with these preview handlers ready to download, and a few links to other sites on the topic. The site features a preview handler that uses Windows Media Players ActiveX. This means that a wide range of media files can be previewed from within Outlook 2007. There is no need for external media players to be tampered with anymore, nor playlists altered.

Also on this site are handlers for previewing zip files, html files and various other source code files. After installing these packs, I can’t think of any file I would would want to preview that is not supported.

These handlers work in both XP and Vista, but they do require MS Outlook 2007.

For a lot more information, and the downloads, check out the Azar Family Site.

Windows lets you change the device that audio is sent out of, in the Sounds and Audio options within the control panel. While this method works, it can be tedious to navigate to, especially if you want to change your playback device regularly. Many individual programs also let you choose which audio device will be used for playback, but then changing the playback device within the program requires a separate set of preferences to navigate through.

I came across a couple of tools that make switching the default playback device much easier, and that offer much more control over your audio devices. These tools are System Tray Audio Device Switcher (STADS), and Quick Sound Switch (QSS). Both are great utilities, but they do things slightly differently, and both offer slightly different features.

In this article, I will run through what they both do so that you can decide which one is best for your needs.

System Tray Audio Device Switcher (STADS):

STADS sits in the task tray. It lets you change both the default recording and output devices quickly from its extremely easy to use interface.

When launched, it shows you the playback devices available on your system, but you can change to recording devices by clicking on Show Recording Devices.

There is not much extra to this program. It is just very simple to use.

STADS is 2MB in size, and it requires installation.

Quick Sound Switch (QSS):

QSS can be used the same as STADS, but it also offers a whole bunch of extra options that I can see as being very handy.

QSS offers a tool to make shortcuts to change the default playback device. You can even make shortcuts to individual programs, which will select the playback device that the program will use. Using this method, you can easily have one programs sound come out of one playback device, and have another programs audio use a different playback device.

Another feature that may interest you is hot keys. You can setup hot keys that will change the default device. These use the ctrl+? format.

It is tiny at only 108kb, and it does not require installation.

Which tool is right for you?:

As you can see, QSS has a lot more features than STADS, but some of these extra options may get in the way with day to day use. There is no reason why both of them can’t be used side by side.

I am going to use STADS to change the default device for Windows, and then use QSS to change the output of particular programs, through shortcuts.

Finishing up:

The only thing that these programs can’t do is switch the audio output while sound is coming out. It will not crash the system, but the audio will remain coming out from the same device. This is because most programs decide which default device will be used on launch. Because of this, most programs will need to be restarted for the selected device to take effect. This is the same for the inbuilt Windows options.

System Tray Audio Device Switcher is available for free from here.

Quick Sound Switch is available for free (donations welcome) from here.

I hope you have found this article useful. Please stick around and check out some other useful utilities at Inspect My Gadget.