I reviewed the QT Tab Bar back in May.  Recently, I installed the QT Address Bar by the same author.  QT Address Bar adds an Address Bar onto Explorer windows.  Unlike the normal Explorer Address bar, however, the QT Address Bar displays your folder in a breadcrumb format.  Each directory level can be clicked to go up to that level.  Little arrows next to the name of each level can be clicked to browse the folder structure from that level on down.  This, combined with QT Tab Bar, has allowed me to hide the normal Explorer Address and Standard Buttons bars.  The only feature I’m missing with this arrangement is a Views button to allow me to toggle between Details and Thumbnails modes.  I can easily go to the View menu for this functionality, but it is taking a little getting used to.  Otherwise, QT Address Bar is a very good accompaniment to QT Tab Bar.

I had my choice for the June freeware review all set.  Then another program leapt to the top of the Must Review pile.  First some backstory:

At my day job for Northeast Health, we have a website for WebBabies.  The nurses in the maternity ward take photos of the new babies (provided the parents grant consent) and I upload the photos to the website.  Recently, the camera we use exhibited a glitch where it thought the card was empty when there were photos there.  Previously, I was able to retrieve the photos by using my USB card reader.  This time, however, my card reader insisted that the card needed to be formatted.  Disaster!  The photos of 4 babies were gone and all but one of them had already left the hospital.

I used two of my favorite freeware data retrieval tools, but they couldn’t see the drive unless I formatted it.  I did a Quick Format and searched with my usual tools.  No photos to retrieve.  I did some searching for new tools and came upon some for-pay utilities.  These could see the photos but wouldn’t let me retrieve them unless I paid for the full version.  I was about to give up when I stumbled upon MJM Free Photo Recovery.  Not only did this application see the photos on the formatted memory card, but it let me save them back to my computer.  In the end, I recovered every lost photo from the card.  A new camera is on order to prevent future mishaps, but MJM Free Photo Recovery will stay on my system as a good way to recover lost photos.

Now on to the bonus.  Before MJM Free Photo Recovery stole it’s thunder, I was going to review Taskbar Shuffle.  Since I already know what program(s) I’m going to review in July, I see no reason not to review Taskbar Shuffle now.

Taskbar Shuffle is a very simple program, yet very powerful.  It allows you to drag items on your Taskbar and System Tray to reorder them.  It can also automatically group similar items next to each other either with without combining them into a single button.  You don’t even need to install Taskbar Shuffle.  While there is an installer available, there is also a stand-alone version.  It’s one of those utilities that you look at and then wonder “Why didn’t they put this in Windows to begin with?”

Tabs have really taken off.  Whether it be in an web browser (e.g. Firefox) or in a web site itself, using tabs seems to be the wave of the future (even if the tabs UI has been around for awhile now).  A plugin I’ve recently found adds tabbing capabilities (plus a whole lot more) to Windows Explorer.  (Not to be confused with Internet Explorer, the browser from Microsoft that gained tabs in the recently released version 7.)  The program’s name is, appropriately, QT TabBar (419KB, requires Windows 2K/XP and .Net 2.0).

Primary among the features that it adds to Windows Explorer are tabs, of course.  Tabs appear as little buttons on a newly created toolbar.  As with any toolbar, you can customize the location by moving it anywhere you like.  You can combine it with another toolbar line or move it up or down to suit your tastes.  Personally, I like it on it’s own line.  A second toolbar adds some additional tab functionality like the ability to open closed tabs, open tab groups, open a new window, clone an existing tab, or close a set of tabs.  This alone makes the download worthwhile, but QT TabBar doesn’t stop there.

QT TabBar can also shade the lines in your Explorer window for you in the Details view (using your choice of colors).  This makes it much easier to see which file data matches up with which file name.  For example, was P1030147.JPG created on May 5th or May 6th.

QT TabBar can also filter your results for you.  Using a text area field in the “tab functions” toolbar, you enter some text and the files listed will automatically change.  It’s a simple file name search, but it can be very powerful.  This can be particularly useful when trying to find one DLL in the Windows/System32 folder or finding a single document in a folder with thousands of documents.

QT TabBar can also let you automatically drill down a folder structure.  When you hover over a folder, a blue down arrow will appear.  Clicking it gives a subfolder listing (with fly-out menus for folders beneath the subfolders).  This means you can quickly navigate to the folder you want without a lot of unnecessary clicking.

QT TabBar can also show you previews of images as you hover over them.

Finally, QT TabBar is very configurable.  Features can be turned on or off depending on the user’s preference.  (For example, I’ve turned off the image previews as I found them annoying, but another user might really like them.)  All in all, this plug-in is very good.  Well worth the download.  Apparently, Microsoft has improved the searching/filtering capabilities in Vista but as I don’t plan on upgrading my OS anytime soon, this is a welcome addition.

Hey all,

It’s been awhile since I’ve written.  I’ve been busy preparing for our new arrival (little over 50 days to go) so I haven’t had much time to work on new scripts.  What I have had time to do, though, is find cool new sites/programs online.  So I’ve decided to turn my “Freeware Reviews” category into a general “Reviews” category.  I’ll try to post a weekly review of a website, program, or FireFox extension that I like.

Let’s kick the weekly review experiment off with a few tunes.  Like a lot of people, I’ve come to hate the recording industry.  They sue the defenseless, force them to settle (since it’s cheaper than defending your innocence in a courtroom), and then institute measure that serve to annoy fans and not stop pirates (e.g. DRM, Sony rootkits on CDs, etc).  I’ve long thought of looking into the independent music scene, but never found a site that gave me a good way of filtering the wheat from the chaff.

Then I stumbled upon Amie Street.  The concept is pretty simple.  Artists upload their music as MP3s (no DRM in sight).  The music starts off as free.  As people “buy” the free songs, the price increases.  The more people who buy the songs, the higher the price goes (to a maximum of 98 cents).  This encourages users to seek out new music inexpensively while allowing for the good music to earn the artists more money.

Of course, there is more to it than just an adjusting price.  For example, you can preview songs.  Instead of the typical 30 second clip, though, you get over a minute and a half of music.  Unlike a 30 second clip, the Amie Street clips let you really get into the song before the clip ends.

There’s also a recommendation system with “benefits.”  You get a certain number of recommendations to use as you put money into your account.  (You can earn more by referring friends to Amie Street.)  If you recommend a song and that song’s price rises, you can earn money back into your account.  For example, I recommended the song Perfect Day by Hoku when it was at 23 cents.  It’s now up to 47 cents.  I could cash out now and get 10 cents back.  This system encourages users to find good new songs and promote them.

It also allows you to find other songs to buy.  Once you find a song you like, you can look at who recommended it.  Then you can see what other songs that person has bought or recommended.  I’ve already used this system to buy music.

In my short time registered with Amie Street (about 2 weeks), I’ve bought 10 songs and spent 89 cents.  I’ve also been exposed to artists that I otherwise would have never known existed.

Curious as to what songs I’ve bought?  Well, Amie Street lets you share out your songs (or at least the sample clips of them) to whomever you want.  Here are the songs that I’ve bought as of this writing.

Oh, and if you’re wary of jumping in and spending your money right away, I found a promotional code online that gives you $2 in credit and 4 free Recommendations.  Just type instrumental into the promotion code area of the sign up page.  At the rate that I’ve been buying songs, it’s like getting 22 songs for free!

Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s time to rock out to some tunes.

This is a combination post. In some ways, it will be the first of many freeware reviews. In other ways, it will be a tutorial on how to create images like this:

Bet you didn’t know that I had triplets, did you? Well, I don’t. (And given how much of a handful one Noah is, thank goodness!) So how come there are three distinct Noah’s in that photo? Microsoft Group Shot is why.

Microsoft Group Shot is a freeware application that Microsoft has released that enables you to take multiple photos and combine elements of them to make one overall composite photo. The most common use for this would be group photos (hence the “Group Shot” name). Whenever you do this, someone invariably blinks or looks away just as the camera takes the shot. With Group Shot, you would take a series of photos of the group and select which faces you wanted to use in the composite photo. Nothing that can’t be done with a copy of Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro, mind you, but it is much simpler (and cheaper) with Group Shot. In fact, my only gripe with Group Shot is that you can’t resize the window.

To make a composite photo, you obviously need to start with the source photos. For this, I would recommend getting a good tripod so the overall scene doesn’t change from photo to photo. Once you are set up, take your photos as you normally would. After uploading your photos to your computer, load up Group Shot. Drag the series of photos into Group Shot and it will load them up, one photo per tab. Now, for each photo, you simply drag a rectangle around the area that you want to use in the composite photo and click “Add to Composite.” Group Shot will display an in-progress composite image for you. When you are finished, simply export the final image. Viola! No more blinked eyes!

Now onto Part II. Creating triplets where only one kid really exists. Start off with your tripod/camera setup. Place your subject in the first position and take the photo. Now change positions and take another photo. Repeat this as many times as necessary.

Now load up Group Shot and drag the images onto it. Carefully select the subject in each photo and click the add to composite button. Export the final result and you have a quick and easy photo with multiples of the same person or object.