Tiny Stuff

Said with a nod to TinyApps Blog

Here are some links on some free tiny tools, tricks, and techniques that might be just darn fun or useful to play with.

Your mileage may vary.

• Download 99 Ready-to-use Windows 7 desktop shortcuts - The Windows Club.  This is cool.  No, this isn’t an icon collection of Windows 7 things, this is a portable utility that when ran, will allow you to select and create a shortcut on your desktop to a specific embedded feature of Windows 7. If you have a lot of systems to set up for family or friends, or just plain hate drilling down into the depths of system screens and windows to create a shortcut, this is the tool for you.
• Create Desktop Shortcuts easily in Windows 7 & Vista with Handy Shortcuts - The Windows Club.  OK, maybe 99 different things was too much.  This is a different app that breaks things down into a more chewable tool for you non-sysadmins.  All the basics are here.
• Windows Access Panel - The Windows Club.  This one is spot #1 on my QuickLaunch tray.  A mini-tool that allows you to access critical Windows 7 settings and controls for rapid action.  Must have.
• Ultimate Windows Tweaker, a TweakUI for Windows 7 & Vista - The Windows Club.  Nice utility to run when setting up a fresh Windows 7 OS.  Not that you will need to make many changes, but it is a handy and well designed tool for basic-to-mid-level system tweaking.
• CleanDesktop : Desktop Cleanup Wizard for Windows 7 & Vista - The Windows Club. Not that I ever have a problem with this issue, but for those that do…
• USB Flash Tools – Sarah Dean – nice and tight tool to back up, restore, or secure erase your memory card/USB drive.  Also it can verify the capacity of a memory card to make sure you were scammed.  Sarah’s actually got a bevy of interesting tool and utilities ( see this Projects / Security Related link ), including many related to the FreeOTFE disk encryption software and led by a On-The-Fly Encryption: A Comparison matrix.
• TinyApps.Org Blog : Installing CHDK on a Canon PowerShot A540.  Because it’s cool and you can. 
• CardTricks - CHDK Wiki.  A neat utility to manage your SD cards.  As TinyApps blogger pointed out to me, it actually demonstrates that the “physical write-block” switch on these cards can be bypassed by the correct software.  For more coolness see the larger Canon Hack Development Kit (CHDK) project which is a firmware “add-on” to bring mega-additional features and capabilities to a wide range of supported Canon digital cameras.
• FAT32Format-GUI – Ridgecrop Consultants.  What? It’s just a simple GUI wrapper for the fat32format CLI utility that allows you to go beyond the Windows formatting limit of FAT32 in not making volumes in that format greater than 32 Gigs. “FAT32 itselft [sic] should be OK to 2TB, limited by a 32 bit sector count in the boot sector.”  See the bottom of the 2nd link page for updated information.  See also TinyApps.Org Blog : Formatting partitions over 32GB as FAT32 in Windows XP
•  Diet Chromium – A Slimmer Chrome OS That Supports More Hardware – Guided tour from Varun Kashyap on MakeUseOf blog.
• Download Google Chrome OS and Run it from a USB Drive. – As tutorialed by Jorge Sierra at MakeUseOf blog.
• The Moblin Netbook OS – Giving Chrome OS A Run For Its Money – MakeUseOf strikes again with this introduction to a micro-OS that I had never heard of; Moblin.  It is an open source project based on Linux geared for mobile devices like netbooks and other micro-computer system deployments.  Want to give it a try? Then see….
• Installing Moblin For A Test Drive - Jason Slater Technology Blog. Jason’s done all the hard math calculations for us! Woot! Optimized tips for Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 deployment.  See also Using the Moblin Live Image FAQ from moblin.org directly.  For you hard-core Moblin fans, you probably already know they also provide a Moblin Image Creator 2 to roll your own hand-mixed blends of Moblin.  Sweet.

I knows what I’s likely be doin over the holiday weekend!

Not a bad tiny post, I must say!

--Claus V.