Clear space on your hard drive by deleting old Windows uninstall folders

Posted by Dennis O'Reilly

I had occasion to open the C:Windows folder on my old XP machine, and was immediately struck by the number of folders whose names began "$NtUninstall". They were from several hundred kilobytes to 10 megabytes in size, and there were more than 150 of these bad boys just taking up space on my hard drive. There were also a few multi-megabyte files whose names began with "$MSI31Uninstall" or "$NtServicePackUninstall". Some of these folders dated back to when I bought the machine in 2003.

If Explorer won't show you the contents of the C:Windows folder, click Tools > Folder Options > View, select Show hidden files and folders in the Advanced settings window, and click OK.

These uninstall folders are intended to roll back the system in the event of a Windows patch gone bad. Obviously, the OS updates they refer to had done no harm to the machine, which is working just fine. The PC's 30GB hard drive has 5GB of free space, which is slightly less than the 20 percent margin many experts recommend to ensure a smooth-running drive. Clearly getting rid of these unnecessary patch fixers would do my system good. To play it safe, I retained the few uninstall folders that were less than a month or two old.

Make room on your hard drive by deleting old Windows update uninstall folders, but play it safe by retaining the most recent ones.

Unfortunately, the files aren't listed by date, and if you click Date Modified in Explorer's Details view, the uninstall folders get mixed up with other folders in C:Windows. Rather than selecting the uninstall folders one by one, I clicked the first one I wanted to delete, then Shift-clicked the last one, and finally Ctrl-clicked the few recent ones I wanted to keep to deselect them.

The fixes will still be listed in XP's Add or Remove Programs Control Panel applet. To remove their entries, open the program, check Show updates at the top of the window, scroll to Windows XP - Software Updates, select each one at a time, and click Remove. You'll get an error message telling you the file has already been deleted. Click Yes and move on to the next one. Just be sure not to accidentally uninstall an update that you haven't already deleted. If the Software Update Removal Wizard opens rather than the "already deleted" error message, click Cancel.

Play it safe by keeping the folders in the Recycle Bin for a week or so. If you experience problems with a Windows patch for which you've deleted the uninstall folder, simply locate it in the Recycle Bin, right-click it, and choose Restore to return it to the C:Windows folder.

I found only two of these patch-uninstall folders in the C:Windows folder on my Vista PC, both of which were empty. I don't know if that means Microsoft figured out a way to safeguard its Vista fixes without cluttering up your hard drive, or if the update-uninstall folders are now stashed somewhere else.

Clear space on your hard drive by deleting old Windows uninstall folders | Workers' Edge - a productivity blog from Dennis O'Reilly - CNET Blogs

How to Add Music to Your iPod Without iTunes

How to Add Music to Your iPod Without iTunes

Not everybody who owns an iPod is a fan of everything that comes out of Apple, including iTunes. Thankfully there are many alternatives to manage your iPod should you not want to use iTunes. Today we’re going to take a look at some of the programs available for adding music to your iPod without iTunes.Some of the options listed below are only compatible with Windows. If by chance you are using Linux, you’ll want to reference our article that offers six tools to manage your iPod on Linux systems.

Before you dive into exploring with the options below, you’ll want to enable your iPod as a portable hard drive.  Apple has created a tutorial that explains how to do this, and it’s very simple. You can find that tutorial here, and once you’ve got that set-up, you can start playing around with the four different iTunes alternatives below.

–Anapod Explorer–

Created by Red Chair Software, Anapod Explorer is great for managing the content on your iPod through Windows Explorer. Your iPod will show up as a device in “My Computer” and from there you can drag and drop your media content! You also have right-click menus with the option to copy and paste, and “send to” menus.

Unfortunately this isn’t a free option.  Anapod is currently offered as Shareware and will cost about $30 to buy. It is compatible with Windows 98, ME, 200, XP, and Vista.
Purchase Link

–Floola–

Unlike Anapod, Floola is a freeware option. You can manage your iPod using the software, and it’s compatible with Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows (including Vista). Using Floola you can copy both music and videos to your iPod and from your iPod on just about any computer. Aside from offering the basic iPod management, Floola is capable of helping you manage your music and play lists, and it also checks for duplicate songs. If it finds a duplicate, it will remove it.

Once you download the application, you’ll drag it onto your iPod, and then you’ll be able to use Floola wherever you go!

Download Link

–Winamp iPod Plugin–

Winamp is a popular media player that can also be used to manage your iPod.  If you’re using an older version of Winamp, you’ll be required to download the iPod plug-in if you’d like it to work. If you’re using a recent version, you’re all set to go.  Getting your music on your iPod is as simple as adding your music to Winamp and right-clicking to choose the option to send your music to your iPod.

Download Link

–XPlay–

Xplay is yet another option for managing your iPod.  It’s a drag and drop application which makes it easy for you to get your music on your iPod. You can also automatically synchronize your iPod with your music selection on your computer Unfortunately this is another manager that will cost you money, but they do have a free trial version available for you to play with.

Download Link

How to Add Music to Your iPod Without iTunes

Ensuring that your Comments and Stamps print

by Lori DeFurio, Adobe Systems

I’m often asked about how to ensure that Comments or Stamps I’ve added to a PDF document can be made permanent so that they can’t be moved or deleted, and will print on another user’s computer. This tip outlines how to “flatten” the comments before distribution.

This tip is also available as a video.
Watch [SWF: 0:33 Sec]

When you add comments or stamps to a PDF document, they are added on top of the original PDF in a separate “layer.”  However, since they are separate from the original PDF document, if you have your printing options set to “Document Only,” then only the original PDF document will print and not any of the comments (Figure 1). Of course, you could instruct your customer on how to set printing for “Document and Markups” or “Document and Stamps,” but here’s a way to prepare the file ahead of time.

Figure 1
See larger image

Note: Document and Markups will print both comments and stamps; Document and Stamps will only print stamps.

To ensure your comments become part of the document and not a separate layer, you can “flatten” the comments and stamps to incorporate them into the original PDF file.  This ensures that the comments will print on any system, using any tool.

I suggest you create an Acrobat menu item (or tool button) that will allow you to “flatten” one or all of the pages before distributing the PDF document.

I’ve attached a simple version that will work in both Acrobat Professional and Acrobat Standard. Just drop it in the JavaScripts folder on your system:

For Windows:
C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 8.0\Acrobat\Javascripts

For Intel-based Mac:
/Users/<username>/Library/Acrobat User Data/8.0_x86/JavaScripts

For PowerPC Mac:
/Users/<username>/Library/Acrobat User Data/8.0_ppc/JavaScripts

This script will add menu items under the Document menu (Figure 2) in either program.

If you prefer to have a tool button (vs. Menu item), I discovered that WindJack Solutions has posted a free sample JavaScript to accomplish this (link below). After you place the JavaScript in the JavaScripts folder on your system, you’ll see a new toolbar (Figure 3).

Lori's JavaScript
Download the JavaScript demonstrated by Lori in this tutorial
Download [JavaScript: 4 KB]

JavaScript Form Field and Annotation Flattener
Download a page flattening script from Thom PArker of WindJack Solutions
Download [ZIP: 2.2 KB]

Acrobat User Community - Ensuring that your Comments and Stamps print

Get ready for Valentine's Day - best "non-annoying" e-card sites

Sending an e-card for special occasions like the one coming up, Valentine's Day, doesn't have to mean a) you couldn't get to the store on time, b) you're too cheap to spend $1.99+ on some sappy, uninspired, cheesy greeting, or c) you never update your snail mail address book list and have lost all those return envelopes. No, it could mean that you care about the earth and don't want to add to the paper in landfills, and that you're all about creating "custom" messages when store bought won't do. Yeah, that's it.
Well, if you haven't noticed, the inspiration is lacking in 99% of the e-card sites out there. We've weeded through all the junk to help you create some of the best e-cards around.

Rattlebox - Rattlebox is really very good. They have great designs, the interface is nicely designed and the themes themselves are actually decent. You can can change all or some of the text to customize the card, and embed video cards on social networking sites, blogs, etc.
Hipster cards - another witty, well designed e-card site that you would actually want to use. Please note there are some off color options so we're going to note it as - NSFW.

Someecards - their tag line is "when you care enough to hit send." These cards are pen and ink and have funny one liners.

MushyGushy - card site where you can upload you head shot into different animated themes (think JibJab) customize, and send.

Smilebox - site where you choose from various multimedia designs and personalize with photos, video, music, words, and style and share via email, blog, or print.

delivr - send a personalized postcard from photos from your Flickr account or select from the 3 million or so Dlivr offers using the Flickr API to pull back the most interesting photos with an appropriate creative commons license.
meish.org - for the anti-valentine crowd. If you hate satin bears and VD makes you want to hurl, these non-sentimental e-cards will fit the bill for you. Oh and are they funny.

Get ready for Valentine's Day - best "non-annoying" e-card sites - Download Squad

Soppiest and Geekiest T-Shirts, Ever!

 Most Soppiest and Geekiest T-Shirts, Ever!

These have got to be the craziest T-shirts I’ve ever seen (even more zany than the wi-fi detecting shirt), the Proximity Based Geek Lovin’ 8-Bit Dynamic Life Shirt, the hearts on your chest indicate how close you are to your loved one.

Buy one of these glowing shirts for yourself, and gift one to your significant other (boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, fembot 2000…). During your normal activities two and a half pixelated hearts will light up on your shirt. Hey… you’re depressed and in need of a recharge. But get within hugging distance of your significant other wearing the matching shirt and suddenly the hearts on both of your shirts start to light up until you’re fully powered up. Go too far astray from the source of your affections and you’ll drop back down to two and a half hearts again. Got it?

Just in time for Valentines (Think Geek has a marketing department then) you can buy the t-shirts for $24.99 each, show someone you love them.

Most Soppiest and Geekiest T-Shirts, Ever! » Coolest Gadgets