Organizing my music collection seems to be a never-ending task.  I have literally worked on it off and on for a couple of years, although I admit it’s much more off than on.  That’s mostly because there just isn’t any easy way to do it, despite trying many different software programs.  Recently I stumbled across another program that I wanted to try out.  This one is called MP3 Rename, but it’s a lot more powerful than the simple name implies.

MP3 Rename is an absolutely free program and it doesn’t come with any little extras like browser toolbars.  It’s also a very small, lightweight program, as evidenced by its 130 KB download size.

The main interface isn’t necessarily simple, but most experienced users shouldn’t have any problem finding their way around.  You can drag and drop files and folders straight to the top pane of the app, or browse your network for the music files you want to fix.

Once you have added your files you will need to figure out how you would like to structure the renaming.  This is where the program gets a bit complicated.  This will come down to the file information you have and what you prefer.  In most cases I prefer to use the ID3 Tag info.  The Rename files tab lets you use ID3 info from the file.  You can also enable Force extension to .mp3 on the renamed file option, and unpack and rename compressed files in music folder.

There are other tabs to choose from that give you many features, some of them very advanced.  I could spend a long time going through them and still not be able to explain everything.  This app is definitely for more advanced users, but those users will reslish the control they can get with it.  Even better, it’s completely free.  MP3 Rename is available for Windows XP, Vista, and 7.  You can download it from Nodesoft.

Alan

Alan is the owner and editor of Making Windows Easy. In addition to writing about technology he is also an avid distance runner and hiker. Read More

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One thing that drives Windows users nuts is the constant changing of the lettering when a USB drive is plugged in.  It can cause problems, especially when multiple drives are plugged into a computer, making it difficult t to distinguish what USB device is under what drive letter.  USB Drive Letter Manager can help out Windows users with all of that.  You can use it to change the drive letter of any USB device that is plugged into your PC.

You can save a preferred choice for all of your different devices in an INI file and it will then  be assigned every time that particular device is plugged in.  You can also have the app intelligently assign drive letters from a list, depending on such criteria as the active user, volume label, drive size, and more.  So you might have small USB keys always assigned to K, L or M, while a larger external USB drive gets X, Y or Z.  There is even an option to hide card reader drive letters unless they contain media and customize your own autorun options for any USB drive or device.

It all sounds great, but it isn’t that easy to use.  there isn’t a GUI interface – all options are changed by editing an INI file.  However that’s not particularly difficult to do for any Windows user who qualifies as above a beginner.  Before you install this app you may want to check the online documentation.  If you feel you are ready to use the app then head over to USBDLM to download and install the app.

Alan

Alan is the owner and editor of Making Windows Easy. In addition to writing about technology he is also an avid distance runner and hiker. Read More

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One of the great mysteries of Windows computers can be the hard drive, especially when it appears to suddenly fill up with data for an “unknown” reason.  That’s perhaps one of the most frustrating problems of all because it’s not always obvious where that data is is actually at.  You can spend a lot of time looking through every file on your hard drive to find the data and then determine where it’s coming from, but you can save a lot time by letting a utility do this job for you.

One of the simplest ways to solve these issues is with an app like WinDirStat which can easily and quickly search through your hard drive and find out what is using up all of your disk space.  It’s a free utility that can easily be downloaded and installed to any PC.  Once you have the utility downloaded and installed you can open it and choose the drive you would like to search.  You can search just one hard drive or multiple drives.

When you start the app you will notice the little “Pac Man” figures moving back and forth on each folder in your drive searching for the files that are eating up your precious disk space.

Once the process completes, and it’s surprisingly fast, you can begin to quickly analyze your hard drive.  You will see each folder on your hard drive and, like using Windows Explorer you can click each one to drill down into sub-folders.  Each folder has a bar, size, and percentage to the right so you can quickly see which ones are taking up the most space.

Now that you know where your space is going you can begin to decide what to do to fix the problem.  If these are files you don’t need you can simply delete them, but if they are relevant then you may want to move them to a USB drive or some other external source.

WinDirStat is a free download available from WinDirStat.info.  The program and is open-source and is based on an earlier KDE app.

Alan

Alan is the owner and editor of Making Windows Easy. In addition to writing about technology he is also an avid distance runner and hiker. Read More

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One of the apps we are always looking for in my house is one that can clean up our music library, which is shared across all household member’s computers.  Over the years we have looked at many music apps, both free and paid, and one of the best we have found is TuneUp Media.  It’s unfortunately one that falls in the paid category, but it works so well we shelled out the money for it last year.  Today the folks at TuneUp announced a twelve hour sale that runs through midnight tonight (March 31st) Pacific Time.

TuneUp Media features the ability to clean up your library, fix cover art, get rid of duplicate files and a whole lot more.  You can do all of that manually, but if you have a large library then you don’t really want to undertake that task.

• Clean — Accurately fixes mislabeled or missing song information (like “Track 01″ or “Unknown Artist”) using cutting-edge waveform recognition.
• Cover Art — Scans your entire music collection in seconds and automagically™ fills in missing album artwork.
• DeDuper — Intelligently finds and removes duplicate music files from your music library using waveform recognition.
• Tuniverse — Delivers music videos, artist bios, concert alerts, social network integration and more.

TuneUp Media runs for $39.95 annually or $49.95 for a lifetime membership.  If you grab it before midnight tonight then you can take 40% off of that price by entering the coupon code “SURPRISE12“.  A paid version will give you unlimited access to the TuneUp Media library.  Visit TuneUp Media to check it out.

Alan

Alan is the owner and editor of Making Windows Easy. In addition to writing about technology he is also an avid distance runner and hiker. Read More

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The clipboard is one the most frequently used parts of Windows, but most users probably don’t really understand how it works.  That’s fine because most people have no need to know.  The clipboard is small part of the computer’s memory that holds the information you copy thereby allowing you to paste that information somewhere else.  The clipboard, though, is not a very powerful tool.  For one thing it only holds the most-recently copied piece of data.

Over the years a number of apps have surfaced to help beef to the Windows Clipboard.  One free, open source solution is called Ditto.  It’s a small 3.4 MB file that will bring a lot more functionality to clipboard users.  It’s just as useful to average users as it is for power users.

During the setup process you will have the option to run Ditto every time Windows starts up.  By default this option is turned on and there’s no reason to change that unless you have a pressing need.

You may receive a message telling you that Windows Firewall would like to block access to Ditto unless you click the “Allow Access” button.  If you don’t allow this then your new extension will be pretty useless.  Ditto is an open source program so we can be sure that’s it’s safe.

After setup you may not see anything because Ditto automatically runs in your system tray.  You can right-click the icon to see a list of options or double-click the icon to open the app.

For such a small, simple app, Ditto has an extensive list of options which you will want to look through to make sure all of the defaults are to your liking or if you need to do a  little customization.

With Ditto running you will now have access to a list of previously copied items that you can choose from.  You can also sync your clipboard items across multiple computers on a network.  Synced data is even encrypted to keep it safe.  To select an item from the clipboard you can just double-click it or drag and drop.  For more information a Help file comes with the app.

You can download Ditto from Sourceforge.

Alan

Alan is the owner and editor of Making Windows Easy. In addition to writing about technology he is also an avid distance runner and hiker. Read More

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Windows has built-in partition management, but it’s a very basic version.  In the past, many users have paid for more fully functional partition tools, but now there are good free versions on the market.  One of those great free utilities is EasUS Partition Master, and it has recently been updated to version 9.1.1, which adds support for Windows 8.

Many of you out there are probably already testing out Windows 8, which was released a couple of weeks ago at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain.  Version 9.1.1 of EaseUS Partition Master adds one single new feature, which is support for both the Consumer Preview and Server Beta editions of Windows 8, way ahead of their official release later in the year.

EaseUS offers the ability to merge two adjacent partitions together without any loss of data (it’s also possible to split a single partition into two, choosing what files go where), or the option to securely wipe unallocated space after removing a partition containing sensitive data.  Those are both features that you won’t find in the built-in partition tool in Windows 7 or Windows 8.

If you are planning too dual-boot Windows 8 with Windows 7 then you definitely should consider a good third-party partition tool instead of using what Windows offers.  EaseUS is free, which should make it one of the top ones on that consideration list.  You can get it by visiting EaseUS.

Alan

Alan is the owner and editor of Making Windows Easy. In addition to writing about technology he is also an avid distance runner and hiker. Read More

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Last week Microsoft unleashed the “Consumer Preview” version of Windows 8, and it has seen an incredible response from the general public.  Since then, we have seen a wave of utilities hitting the market for the new operating system – you can bring back the Start button, customize the Charms menu, and even change the Metro Start Screen.  Now we have the new Windows 8 Manager, which does even more than the previously mentioned tools, although these are different tweaks, so you may still want or need those other apps as well.

The first time you launch Windows 8 Manager you will be prompted to set a “Restore Point”, which I would recommend doing, just in case you do something regrettable.

One thing you will notice immediately is how clean and polished the interface is – quite a feat for a utility built for an OS that has been out for less than two weeks.  The left side of the screen contains a series of tabs, each of which which unveils a subset of menus.  There are a total of 7 tabs, namely Information, Optimizer, Cleaner, Customization, Security, Network and Misc. Utilities.

From this menu, you can check or tweak almost anything in Windows 8.  You can get in-depth information on your system internals, manage what programs start with Windows, handle network settings, check your system security, and many more things.

There is no limit to the tweaks and customization that this utility allows.  It’s definitely what every power user wants for complete PC control.  It’s still early in the development so perhaps they will add more features and give the ability to change interface items like colors and background images, but it’s already the most full-featured Windows 8 utility that we have seen so far.

Download Windows 8 Manager

Alan

Alan is the owner and editor of Making Windows Easy. In addition to writing about technology he is also an avid distance runner and hiker. Read More

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Microsoft released the Consumer Preview version of Windows 8 a little over a week ago to largely good reviews.  However, there have been a couple sore spots with some users.  One is the lack of the old Start button, which can be fixed, although I advise you to deal with the new way of doing things.  The other has been the lack of personalization options for the new Metro Start screen.  Like with bringing back the Start button, we have already seen third-party software for changing the look of the Charms bar, and now there is another utility to address the Start screen look.

My WCP Start Screen Customizer was recently released and it allows users to change the color of the Start screen background, or even use a picture for the background.  Yes, Microsoft has built in a way of changing this color (you can find it in Settings menu), but the amount of changes you can make are extremely limited – slight variations in the color.  There are no extended options to customize elements, such as text, border color, icon background, group name, number of tiles and rows, etc.

The simple interface of the application allows the user to specify different color settings for Common Color, Tiles, Start Screen, Command Bar and Search, Share, Devices and the Settings pane.  You can also set a custom background image by clicking on the preview pane on the left side.  The Number of tiles rows slides to let you set anywhere from 0 to 6 tiles in each row.

Download from My7Apps

Alan

Alan is the owner and editor of Making Windows Easy. In addition to writing about technology he is also an avid distance runner and hiker. Read More

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If you have used the Home Server version of Windows that Microsoft released a couple of years ago, and updated last year, then you may be familiar with WindowSMART, which is a disc monitor utility.  However, you may not realize that WindowSMART is also available for other Microsoft platforms like Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows Server 2008 (and R2).  The software doesn’t actually come from Microsoft though, but is an open source app.

Recently, they released WindowSMART 2012 Beta, which is the latest edition.  WindowSMART 2012 is a SMART disk monitoring utility for Windows that works with the latest versions of Windows and Windows Server.  WindowSMART 2012 consists of two main components – a user interface and a service.  The user interface is where you will see the health of your disks, view detailed analysis, and configure your settings.  The service runs continuously, monitoring your disks at pre-determined intervals (the default is 10 minutes, but you can change that).  The service can send email notifications when problems are detected.  You do not need to be logged in to your computer for the it to run.  Perhaps, Microsoft will build a similar utility into their OS in the future

New Feature List in WindowSMART 2012

• NEW Instant notification on iOS devices using Prowl
• NEW Instant notification on Android devices using Notify My Android
• Solid State Disk support – HSS can report correct SMART data for the following SSD controller manufacturers (note this is being tested by the community)
  • Indilinx (seen in Crucial and Corsair)
  • Indilinx Everest (seen in OCZ Octane)
  • Intel
  • SandForce (seen in Kingston, OCZ, Patriot)
  • STEC
• Works with disk pooling software Drive Bender and StableBit DrivePool.
  • Default setting not only ignores virtual disks, but hides them from the UI (since they have no SMART data anyway).
• You can ignore individual problems on disks and also un-ignore (resume) them, either on an individual basis or for all problems on all disks.
• You can ignore entire disks (and resume them as well) – useful for hiding flash drives and media card readers, as well as disks that you know are showing incorrect information (rare, but it’s been reported).
• Improved the ability to stop, start and restart the service.
• Shut down or reboot your computer from within the UI.
• Send alerts via email.
• Bug Report Helper – runs a small self-test to detect installation problems and provide details to help in troubleshooting.
• Continuous disk health monitoring by an always-on service.
  • Monitors health of attributes and will generate alerts when a failure condition (threshold is met or exceeded) is detected.
  • Monitors disk temperature and airflow temperature, and generates alerts when unacceptable temperatures are detected (airflow temperature is flagged in HSS 2012 only).
• Customizeable temperature thresholds for Warm, Hot, Overheated and Critical.
• Temperature display can be shown in Celsius (default), Fahrenheit and Kelvin.
• Proactive alerting when changes occur on certain “super critical” attributes such as bad sectors, spin retries and end-to-end errors, even if they have not actually “failed.”
• List of physical disks shows status icons for an “at-a-glance” view of disk health.
• Each attribute shows a colored icon in addition to a status message relative to its health.
• Double-click any SMART attribute to learn more about that attribute on the selected disk.
• Supports most IDE/PATA and SATA controllers that expose SMART data via standard Win32 IOCTL calls or WMI.
• Supports most USB and FireWire enclosures that expose SMART data via standard Win32 IOCTL calls.
• Allows you to clean up data from “stale” disks — disks you’ve removed from the server.
• Allows you to perform a manual polling of the disks for the latest data, rather than waiting for the service to poll them again.

You can download this for free (if you are running any of the previously mentioned Microsoft OS’s) from here.

Alan

Alan is the owner and editor of Making Windows Easy. In addition to writing about technology he is also an avid distance runner and hiker. Read More

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One thing thing that is in huge demand today is WiFi connectivity.  We all have countless devices from laptops, to smartphones, to tablets that are all hungry for a connection.  Fortunately there is a way to turn a PC into a WiFi hotspot, which is called, appropriately enough, Wi-Fi HotSpot Creator.  You can then share this connection with as many users as you choose.  I took it for a spin and here’s what I found.

To get started you will need to download the 1.6 MB file and then install the software.  The app comes with the Yahoo Toolbar and NetAssistant and there is no way to prevent the toolbar from being installed, which was strike one.  You can, however, remove it from the Firefox Add-on menu, so it isn’t a deal-breaker.  You will want to do a “custom install”, which will allow you to prevent your homepage from being set to Yahoo, NetAssistant from being installed, and Yahoo being set as your default search.

From this point on I can continue to explain the steps for setting up a WiFi hotspot, but Wi-Fi HotSpot Creator has a simple, easy to follow guide right on the their website, which you can find here.  I would recommend following their guide, but I wanted to point out what you needed to watch out for during the installation.  They have also created a video, which you can find below.

As long as you do a custom install to prevent the third-party software and then remove the Yahoo Toolbar (unless you want it) then the app is certainly a good deal, seeing as it’s free.  It also worked quite well in my quick tests with both an Android phone and tablet.  It’s compatible with Windows 7, Vista, and XP.

Download: WiFi Hotspot Creator

Alan

Alan is the owner and editor of Making Windows Easy. In addition to writing about technology he is also an avid distance runner and hiker. Read More

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