We’ve got some big ol’ updates for the Cool Tools section.  The folks at Piriform have been cranking out some cool stuff, and they just keep making them better and better.  Best of all they are all free.  They have several tools that help keep Windows happy, a system cleaning and fixing tool, a defrag tool and a system information too.  Check out a brief description of each one below, and be sure to follow the links to the sites for each tool to get all the details.  Be sure to check all of the Cool Tools that we have posted as well as all the good articles in the Library.

Cool tools from Piriform:

• CCleaner – This is a great tool for finding files that can be safely removed in order free up space on your hard drive.  It also has a great registry cleaner, a tool for managing program startup when your machine starts, an interface to uninstalling software and more.  This is a great system maintenance tool.
• Defraggler – This tool is one of, if not the best defrag tool for Windows.  This tool is not the fastest, but that’s OK because it’s very thorough.  It takes time to do it right, and do it right it does from my experience.
• Speccy – I superb system info tool.  No install necessary, just run and collect data.

In all, these free tools rival the commercial alternatives and any tech should add them to his or her kit.  Check ‘em out.

I thought I would post some info and updates about my journey with Windows 7. Recently my primary/system hard drive in my Alienware box died. When I got the box it came with Vista and I hated it, it looked pretty but functioned awful, I had nothing but problems with it. After a while I couldn’t take it anymore and wiped that puppy slick and “upgraded” to Windows XP. Staring at a dead hard drive and a looming fresh install, I decided to give Windows 7 a shot. I had played with it some in a virtual machine and it seemed to do OK enough in the small amounts I had gotten to test it, so I figured what the heck I’d try it out for real.

I gotta say … and I never thought I’d be saying this … I am liking it so far. Don’t get me wrong, it has it’s quirks, and it still has that dreaded UAC stuff to deal with, plus older software that I can’t run anymore, but all in all it has been pretty stable and I am pleased. I hate to admit it, but I really do believe I have seen a performance improvement since installing it the Mothership. I am going to stick with it and see if I can get everything dialed in just like I like it, and I’ll make sure I keep you posted along the way and share any good tricks and tidbits I come across. Stay tuned! Thanks.

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UPDATE: By now, if you have been reading much of what I write, you most likely have picked up that I put a lot of stock into the Customer Service that I receive from a company, I mean that speaks volumes as to the core of that company as far as I am concerned. I also strive to deliver the utmost in customer service as I go about my day to day travels, so maybe that is why it means so much to me when I am a customer. That being said, when I purchased this piece of software and received my registration information (Name and Key) to unlock it, something was amiss. I believe it was generated and mailed from an automated system, and I don’t know what went wrong, but something did and it didn’t work when I tried to register my software purchase. I emailed tech support and explained the situation, even including relevant details from my purchase receipt. I was hoping for a quick response, but I didn’t expect a reply within mere minutes, and not just some automated “Yeah, we gotcha” message, but a fix for the problem that worked. Oh yeah, that’s good customer service. Maybe I just got lucky this time, maybe not, I prefer to think of it as someone who shares my same vision and passion for kickass customer support! I was so impressed, I had to update my review, and share the good experience. Thanks.

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Great stuff ahead! I came across something that I have to share with everyone.  This is a Cool Tool pick from all of us here at Solarum, and it’s a top notch pick if I say so myself.  Let me start by saying that I love databases!  I love to build ‘em, tune ‘em, tinker with ‘em, you name it.  Heck, sometimes I create databases just for fun, even if I don’t need one that instant for an app I am working on.  Speaking of creating and using databases, I do a lot of web development and therefore I use a lot of databases to get done what I want to get done.

About now, you are probably asking yourself why in the world is this crazy nut telling me about his database fetish?  Well, I am glad you asked!  For years now I have been on the lookout for a really good design tool that would let me graphically draw, create, brainstorm, edit … well, whatever the heck I want to do with databases.  Being a visual person, the graphical part of this desire was pretty important to me.  It was also what seemed to be the hardest to find, a good graphical tool.  I tried MySQL workbench, Visio and DBDesigner to name a few, but none of them really stood up to even basic requirements either functionally or visually.  It seems that I could find one or the other, but not both.  Maybe I am just too picky.  Or at least that is what I thought until I ran across this awesome little tool called DbSchema.  Oh yeah!

Not only does this tool perform great for many database operations (reverse engineer a database, design a database, sync project to database, generate SQL files, grouping and more), but I have to tell you that this tool is a work of art, I mean it’s beautiful.  So when you combine beauty, form and function, you get a very nice tool that actually makes me want to work.  Well, maybe …

You can even download a free version of the tool at http://www.dbschema.com/download.html, so go check it out.

*Note: No compensation or consideration of any kind was received by Solarum for this post/review.

OK folks, here is a tidbit for you, if anyone has been checking out Windows 7 and thought that an upgrade might be in their future, well they would have been dismayed to find out that there is no direct upgrade path from XP to 7.  That means you can’t insert you good ol’ Windows 7 disk and upgrade your XP machine.  The only upgrade path is from Vista to 7.  At least that is the story from Microsoft.  I have read a few people who have posted hacks and workarounds, but I haven’t tried any, maybe they work maybe not but it seems like a lot of trouble nonetheless.  So, what’s the point of this post?  Glad you asked!  A colleague passed on this link to a tool that is supposed to support the allusive in place upgrade of Windows XP to Windows 7.  Now, I haven’t tested it yet since it’s a commercial app, but I am going to see if I can get a demo in order to do a proper review.  If anyone has tried it, or does try it please drop a line and let me know how it works out for you.  Enjoy!

http://solarum.com/v.php?l=0949Ka29

Here you go folks!  There is an interesting program called USB Safely Remove, a self proclaimed must have if you frequently use such hotplug devices as: flash drives, USB\SATA drives, card readers and the like. Read more about it at:

http://safelyremove.com/

Download the program here:

http://safelyremove.com/usbsafelyremovesetup.exe

If you hurry, you can get a free license for version 4.1 of this software. Go to:

http://safelyremove.com/giveaway10K.htm

They are giving away 10,000 license keys and as of 10/2/2009 at 1740 hours, they still had some to give away, so get on over there and check it out.  I haven’t use it yet, but I just now downloaded it and got my key.  I’ll put up a review when I have played with it some.  Enjoy!

Bad as in good, as in one bad motha’SHUT YO MOUTH!  Jus’ talkin’ ’bout Revo.

Sorry, I digress.  Anyway, this cool tool is called Revo Uninstaller as if you didn’t catch that already, and it’s one of the most useful Windows tools I have come across in a long time.  Don’t get me wrong, all the Cool Tools are great, but this one is a real gem.  What does it do?  The short version is that it uninstalls software.  In reality it does far more than that.  Yes, it interfaces to the standard Windows uninstaller, but it also can find stuff the uninstaller left behind (both registry items and files/directories) and remove them.  It can even monitor an application that doesn’t have an installer and figure out how to go in and remove it.  Now that’s cool.  All in all this has been superb at helping me keep my hard drive clean when I remove applications, and it keeps me from having to do all of that searching by hand like I used to do.  Best of all, it’s FREE!  Yep, you heard me, it’s free.  So go give it a test drive today, I am certain you will love it as much as I do.

http://www.revouninstaller.com/

Be sure to check out the rest of the Cool Tools that we have listed, you never know, you might find that perfect utility that you have been looking for!