Steve Bass's Home Office
August 25th, 2004
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PC World columnist Steve Bass writes weekly commentary on the
technology products he loves, the strategies for getting the most out
of them, and the gotchas that can cause computing misery.
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August 25th, 2004
* This week: Drive Clogged? Dump the Duplicates
It's late summer--heck, it's practically fall. Many of you are back
from vacation, and work is still the farthest thing from your mind.
(Well, good for you; I'm still going full steam.) So I thought it
might be a good time to do some dusting and cleaning, and maybe a
little maintenance on your PC.
Help, My Drive's Cluttered
I'm not running out of room on my system; each of my two drives has
about 25 percent free space. Yet I feel compelled to keep them free of
debris. I can only blame my obsessive compulsive nature, a behavior
that doesn't seem to apply to the garage or my office. Click the link
below for a view of my office:
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/202818/21421678/722452/0/
My main production drive, the one I keep all my important stuff on, is
80GB--not extraordinarily big. My second drive is even smaller, a mere
50GB. (I use this one as a spot to immediately back up critical data
and to temporarily store files like the videos I examine for "Dig
This.") It's remarkable how many duplicate and unnecessary files I've
accumulated on these drives, and I need to get rid of them to free up
room. If you're still cooking on a 20GB drive--or like my
brother-in-law, even smaller--your collection of duplicates really
needs to be pared down.
BTW, the kind of files I'm talking about are copies of copies. For
instance, I'm forever squirreling away videos for user group
presentations. But because I'm absentminded (my wife says I don't pay
attention), I'll stick a copy of the same video in more than one
folder. For example, take "405: the Movie," a 10MB file. I've found
this file in four different directories on my hard drive: \upcoming
user groups, \Pasadena UG, \hold for later, and \PIBMUG\Movies.
If you're curious, you can view the movie here:
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/202818/21421678/722453/0/
Dig This: Have you ever thought about putting a diaper on a parrot?
How about using a body squeegee instead of a towel? You'll find these,
and other remarkable feats of imagination, in Delphion's Gallery of
Obscure Patents. [Thanks, Carl.]
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/202818/21421678/722454/0/
Dig This, Too: Wait, you thought the patents in Delphion's Gallery
were silly? Check this out: Microsoft's received a patent for a
"method and apparatus for transmitting power and data using the human
body. See "Microsoft Patents Body-As-Network":
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/202818/21421678/722455/0/
The folks at Microsoft have also been busy patenting the double-click:
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/202818/21421678/722456/0/
Dump the Dupes
To date, there are at least 40,000 programs to find duplicates on your
PC. I rounded up a few and Max Green, our downloads guy, popped them
all into one convenient location on the PC World site:
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/202818/21421678/722457/0/
Unfortunately, while they all have trial versions, all of them will
cost you.
I think free, while a little more work, is better. Here's a method
that won't cost you a dime: Rod Ream, a super computer consultant and
drinking buddy of mine, suggests the cheapest way to find duplicates
on your hard drive is with Windows' built-in Find feature.
Start by opening Windows Explorer and using the F3 key to launch the
Search window. The trick, Rod says, is to use wild cards to enter the
type of files you want to check for.
What, you don't know about wild cards? Briefly, an asterisk takes the
place of all the characters before or after the period in a file name.
To understand wild cards, here's a simple example. (In all of these
examples, remove the quotation marks when you type the text.) If you
type "dizzyvideo.mpg" in the search field, the results will show all
files with the name "dizzyvideo.mpg." But try searching on "*.mpg" and
you'll end up with every file on your drive that ends in ".mpg". Make
sense?
Conversely, a search on "dizzy*.*" will get you "dizzydean.jpg,"
dizzyeditors.doc," and "dizzyvideo.mpg." Get the idea? This works on
lots of dialog boxes too.
You can also search on "mpg" without an asterisk. You'll see the files
on your drive ending in "mpg"--but you'll also see files such as
"MSHTMPGR.DEP" because it contains "mpg," something you might not
want.
Rod also said you can search on multiple file types by inserting a
semicolon between the file names, for example: "*.mov; *.avi; *.mpg."
When your search is complete, click on "Name" at the top of the File
Name column to sort the list by name; alternatively, click on "Size."
If you're not happy with the selection of Menu bars--the titles at the
top of the column--or their order, you can change them. Hold your left
mouse button down while pressing the Shift key and sliding the Title
to the left or right. Cool, no? You can also add or remove Titles with
a right-click, then select or deselect items.
One Other Cool Tool
While digging around our site for utilities that'd handle duplicates,
I found Picasa--a free and sophisticated yet easy-to-use program to
organize digital photos. After scanning my drive, I used Picasa to
easily find and delete duplicate photos. The program also has limited,
but useful, photo editing tools; there's also a no-brainer feature for
e-mailing photos.
If you're running Windows XP, you don't need to worry as much about
system resources as you do in Windows ME and 98. So there's no harm in
allowing Picasa to reside in the Systray to help you detect and
download photos from your digital camera.
BTW, the program used to cost $30. Since it was purchased by Google,
though, it's a spyware-free freebie. Read about it in "Google Gives
Away Digital Photo App":
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/202818/21421678/722458/0/
You can download a copy from PC World:
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/202818/21421678/722459/0/
And yes, Picasa's become a permanent resident on my PC.
Dig This: The story is, this truck was overloaded with fourteen
workers and traveling too fast on a gravel road. The driver lost
control after almost being hit by a logging truck, went between the
concrete deflector and the guard rail, and came to a skidding stop in
this death-defying position:
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/202818/21421678/722460/0/
Here's another view:
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/202818/21421678/722461/0/
Hey, Guess What I Found?
Right, the boilerplate nag that I stick at the bottom of every
newsletter. The one where I plead, bargain, hassle, cajole, and pester
you to send the next link you see to a soul mate, comrade, or
ex-spouse. That way they'll be able to sign up for their own
newsletter and start eliminating duplicates on their PC. Here's the
link:
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/202818/21421678/183/0/
Steve Bass writes the Home Office column in PC World's print edition
and is the author of "PC Annoyances: How to Fix the Most Annoying
Things About Your Personal Computer," available from O'Reilly:
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/202818/21421678/516251/0/
You can reach him at:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
* See Steve Bass's previous Home Office Features at:
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/202818/21421678/237822/0/
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Top News From PC World
* Symantec Upgrades Norton Security Products
Revamped Norton AntiVirus, Personal Firewall, and AntiSpam tools fight
pests and dangers online.
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/202818/21421678/722447/0/
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* Check out all of today's news...
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Editors' Picks
Free Utilities: Shrink DVDs, Boost Windows Media Player
Improve Windows Media Player, convert WMA files and rip MP3s with
latest release of iTunes.
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/202818/21421678/722412/0/
GDivX Zenith Player v1.1
Video skipping on Windows Media Player? Try this alternative, which
supports multiple formats.
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/202818/21421678/238773/0/
DVD Shrink v3.1.7
Make a back up of your DVD disks, saving the output to your hard
drive.
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/202818/21421678/238772/0/
Mp3Trim v1.90a
Shave the dead space from your MP3s to leave more room for the music.
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/202818/21421678/722413/0/
iTunes for Windows v4.6
Apple's media player is a joy to use even if you never buy a 99-cent
song.
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/202818/21421678/722414/0/
Quintessential Player v4.5.1
Player offers extensive features in a simple design, and lets you rip
files from your CD.
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/202818/21421678/722415/0/
For a full list of this week's Editors' Picks, go to:
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/202818/21421678/722412/0/
=====================================================================
* Reviews *
* Epson's Hands-Free Scanner
New flatbed is a great choice for home shutterbugs with an undigitized
film archive.
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/202818/21421678/722416/0/
Check the latest prices on Scanners:
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/202818/21421678/829/0/
* New Nero Does Photos
Image editing application is best for newbies.
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/202818/21421678/722417/0/
Check the latest prices on Utilities:
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/202818/21421678/722246/0/
* IBM ThinkVision L170m
IBM's first speaker-equipped LCD monitor skimps on more-important
features.
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/202818/21421678/722418/0/
Check the latest prices on Flat Panels/LCD:
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/202818/21421678/85/0/
See all Reviews:
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/202818/21421678/86/0/
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