Get Enhanced Context Menu With Shell Tools

Shell extensions brings additional functionality to Windows Explorer by allowing you to perform simple tasks with even greater ease. Shell Tools offers a bundle of such shell utilities and extensions that would add to the functionality that is being offered by Windows. Although the additions are small, they are useful all the same.

You can download and install Shell Tools from here. Once you have done so, have a look at the Shell Tools control center. Enable and disable the various shell extensions from here. Let’s have a look at a number of tools that are included:

Any File Shell Extension
This extension includes two utilities: Filenote and CopyFilename. The CopyFileName Utility allows you to copy the filenames. Just right-click on the file and choose the option. You can select multiple files as well and copy all of the names.

Filenote, on the other hand, allows you to add notes to your files. These notes can contain additional information about the file, something you want to add to the file in future or just about anything. Right-clicking on a file and choosing Filenote will create an invisible text file and open the newly-created text file for editing. Anything you type is saved as a note for the original file. The next time you choose Filenote on the same file you will open the previously created note. You can also choose to hide the text file via the Shell Tools Control Panel.

Folder Background Extension
Enable this and you can quickly toggle Window’s “Show Hidden Files” option. After enabling this extension, right-click on the empty space within an open folder and you will see an option to “Show Hidden Files” which you click to toggle the setting quickly.

UrlFile Extension
Allows you to click and select one or more of your internet shortcuts (or favorites) and then copy the link, URL or name to the clipboard. You can double-click the commands within the Shell Tools Control Panel and edit them to your liking.

FontFile Extension
This allows you to load and unload fonts quickly without having to go to the Windows Control Panel to perform all the customary rituals! (Although Windows Vista and Windows 7 simplify the process)

RegisterServer Shell Extension
Another handy addition to DLL and OCX files’ context menus. This would allow you to quickly register and unregister the DLL, OCX and EXE files with ease without having to visit the command line or the Run dialog.

Shell Tools is a handy collection of nice utilities that add some extra functionality to your context menus allowing you to do certain tasks quickly. The ability to edit the commands from within Shell Tools Control Panel is an added benefit, letting you customize the editor that is launched to create notes or the command that is run while copying links.

Download: Shell Tools

Download Flash Files using from sites your Browser

Flash animation files are embedded as SWF (Small Web Format) files in webpages. Rather than depending on any software or a third-party website, downloading Flash content is dead simple. The only tool required is a browser and a bit of patience to do the rummaging around.

Just one note: As we will be heading into the internet cache folders of the respective browsers, it pays to clear it of all old files before navigating to the desired page. It makes the Flash file search a lot easier.

So, here’s how to do it in three of our popular browsers.

Download SWF files using Firefox
Fire up Firefox and browse to the page which contains the embedded SWF Flash file that you are eyeing to download. Let the SWF file stream through once completely.
On any empty part of the page, right-click and select the Page Info context menu option. Or alternatively, go to Tools – Page Info.
Select the Media tab. The Media tab lists all image formats, icons, style sheets and flash files that were rendered by the webpage.
Look amongst the items to find the particular file with the SWF extension. The type column will show up with an Embed filetype. Highlight the file and click Save as to save the file on your hard drive.

Download SWF files using Internet Explorer
In IE8, we have to head to the Temporary Internet Files folder which stores all rendered files during a browsing session. (It can be directly accessed from here in Windows XP – C:\Documents and Settings\Username\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files.)

Go to the IE Menu bar. Click on Tools – Internet Options.
On the General tab, click on Settings under Browsing History.
The Temporary Internet Files and Browsing History box opens up.

Click on View Files. You will get all the rendered webpage elements in this folder.
To rummage about effectively amidst the mass of files, choose View – Arrange by Type from the menu. Also go to Tools – Folder Options, and uncheck the Hide extensions for known file types option.
Seek out your SWF files, copy and then paste it to your preferred location.

Download SWF files using Opera
In Opera, downloaded SWF files can be accessed in two simple ways –

Type opera:cache in the address bar.
Go to Tools – Advanced – Cache from the toolbar.

Either way, a huge list of downloaded page elements opens up with their URLs. Search for a file with the .swf extension. Alternatively, you could search (Ctrl+F ) and hunt it down, with swf as the search query.

Right-click on the particular file and choose either Saved Linked Content As or Save to Download Folder to save the SWF file on the hard disk.

After downloading the SWF file, one can use the Adobe Flash Player to view the Flash file or a supported media player like Media Player Classic. Or, an easier way would be to just open it in a browser by right-clicking it and selecting the browser of choice.

Prevent a USB Drive from running Automatically

USB flash drives are our personal data carriers, but the way we use it to exchange files also makes them open to viruses.

The Achilles heel which viruses exploit is the autorun.inf file. Autorun.inf file is a simple instruction file present in removable media like CDs, DVDs and USB drives. This file contains a series of commands that triggers the operating system to start an executable, tells it which icon to use, and which additional actions to make available. A basic autorun.inf file looks like this –
[autorun]
open=autorun.exe
icon=autorun.ico

Special Note: Autoplay is the Windows action which asks you to specify the application to use to open a particular file. The autoplay dialog box asks you to select from the options when you insert a media. Autorun on the other hand, is the Windows action which automatically launches applications depending on the commands given in the autorun.inf file when we double click the removable drive icon.

The keyword is automatic. We have to find ways to short circuit the automatic execution of programs (good or bad), so that a hidden malware does not penetrate our system. The idea then is to change the way Windows handles the autorun.inf file. The methods expressed here are majorly for Windows XP.

Use the SHIFT key
Suppress autorun by pressing the SHIFT key when inserting a USB drive. Then, right click on the icon in Explorer and select Explore to access the contents of the drive. This is a one-time action and you have to keep that in mind every time you insert an USB drive. And you have to be ever mindful of never double-clicking your USB drive icon in Explorer.

Go to the Group Policy Editor
Group Policy Editor is used to define user and computer configurations for groups of users and computers.

Open GPEditor via Start – Run. Enter gpedit.msc in the Run box.
Navigate to Computer Configuration – Administrative Templates – System.
Highlight System on the left hand pane. On the right hand pane, go down to the entry – Turn off Autoplay and double click on it.
Select the Enabled radio button, then for the Turn off Autoplay on dropdown, select All drives.
This will disable the autorun feature and let you explore the drive contents for all drives instead of directly opening it.

Hack the registry
We can also disable the autorun feature by making a change in the registry. Be forewarned that if you are not at ease with the registry, it is advisable to skip this step.

Launch the Registry Editor by typing regedit in the Run box (Start -> Run)
On the left hand pane, keep expanding the entries by clicking on the + sign. Search for this entry – HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

For this registry entry, go to the right panel and double click the NoDriveTypeAutoRun registry key.
Change the Value data to FF for Hexadecimal or 255 for Decimal value.
Click OK to close the registry editor and restart the computer.
Fall back on software
If you are the type who hates going into the guts of the operating system, there are of course handy pieces of software available. Here are two examples of such applications.

USB 1.3
This 7KB USB anti-virus tool works by detecting the removable drive and renaming the autorun.inf file to autorun.inf_current date_time thus preventing its running by the system. The program loads in the system tray and with just one click, you can turn Autorun on or off. Another option informs the user about all actions on autorun.inf files.

The program works from the system tray and is compatible with Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows 98 and Windows 95.

TweakUI
TweakUI, Microsoft’s Power toy for Windows XP gives a user access to system settings that are below the visible interface of the OS.

To disable autoplay using TweakUI, go to the My Computer – Autoplay – Drives setting. Deselect the drive you wish to disable the autoplay for. Also, go to My Computer – AutoPlay – Types. Uncheck Enable Autoplay for removable drives. Click OK and you are done.

The 126KB download is compatible with Windows XP and Windows Server 2003.

Clean Broken Uninstalls

Most uninstallers on Windows don’t remove everything, and often times they leave behind orphaned registry keys, file type associations, icons or even entire folders.
Here are two software that will help you remove those unnecessary left overs.

Piriform CCleaner
Piriform CCleaner, available as freeware, scores high points all around with a simple interface and a complete set of features. CCleaner will:
Search the computer and remove obsolete system files.
Delete browser history, cookies and cache for all the major browsers.
Search the registry for problems, back it up and fix it.
Uninstall applications, rename and remove entries from ‘Add/Remove Applications’.
Remove or disable start-up items.
Automatically update itself if you allow it.

Revo Uninstaller
Revo Uninstaller, although it has a more advanced uninstaller routine, comes in second because the interface is slightly clunky when compared to CCleaner. In addition to removing applications and cleaning the registry, Revo Uninstaller also has:
‘Browser Cleaner’ that removes traces of web surfing.
‘Microsoft Office Cleaner’ that clears the recent documents history.
‘Windows Cleaner’ that removes cache and history files from Explorer, such as Recent Documents.
‘Evidence Remover’ that overwrites free space to clean tracks of already deleted files and an ‘Unrecoverable Delete’.
The ‘Hunter Mode’, specific to Revo Uninstaller, enables you to choose the application you want to remove with the mouse – which is useful if the program you’re trying to remove doesn’t show up in the Add/Remove Programs list.

Creates Disposable Multimedia Chat Rooms with Tinychat

Tinychat is a powerful service that offers a lot of web meet-up power from one link you share with participants. Once they arrive, participants can stream webcam video and audio, display desktop portions, share files, and talk in plain old text.

It’s an impressive amount of multimedia for the free portion of a web service, and, in two tests, most of it actually worked. Lifehacker editors could hear audio from each others’ microphones, video streaming worked when it was available, and desktop sharing worked, at least for those with Java plug-ins installed. Web site owners can also embed an ongoing Tinychat room into their blogs or sites, with most of the same features.

There’s no way to password-protect the rooms without a paid ($9.95/month) Pro account, and it should be made more apparent that “signing in” with your Twitter username actually broadcasts your chat room location on your Twitter feed. But given the hop in, hop out nature of a Tinychat room, it’s relatively safe to hand out a URL to just those folks you want chatting and use the room for what you need. A Pro account also allows for the naming and preserving of five rooms, saving of chat transcripts and streams, and HD-quality video.

Tinychat is a free service, no sign-up required to use it.

Visit: Tinychat