Diskeeper 9.0 Pro
Hard-drive defragmentation utility
$49.50, Executive Software
www.executive.com/defrag/defrag.asp
For Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP
If you’ve had your computer for many months or years, get ready to howl with delight at being able to restore much of the original zip and zoom the machine had when it first came out of the box.
Adding to the good news is that this inexpensive software doesn’t have the hugely annoying problem of hanging up in the middle of an operation, which is a blight well known to Windows XP users trying to use the defragmentation utility built into the Microsoft operating system.
A user can load Diskeeper 9 onto a machine and run it the first time without even bothering to reboot first. The whole operation will be over in maybe an hour; maybe less. By contrast, most users of Windows’ own defrag routine find themselves forced to boot their machines into Safe Mode with nothing running in the background to keep the utility from continually stopping well short of completion.
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Defragmenting amounts to seeking out each and every file on a computer by collecting the various pieces that get scattered about the disk during saving operations. Each file is rewritten with its pieces in consecutive order, making it load far faster. When a file is fragmented, the reading arm on the hard drive must move back and forth across the drive collecting each piece.
The worse fragmentation gets, the longer it takes to save or open files and the more the computer slows down. Furthermore, the scattering of file bits is extremely wasteful of hard-drive space, and people with large amounts of files will regain many gigabytes of disk room.
Diskeeper 9 can be run every few weeks or months, or one can use one of several automatic features such as “set and forget” daily at a selected time.
FREEHAND SYSTEMS
Scores of fun on MusicPad Pro
Called the iPod for sheet music, MusicPad Pro lets users scan their own music scores or buy prepackaged tunes for display on a high-resolution 12-inch color screen.
Serious musicians can carry a truckload of paper music on a few memory cards and then prop up this notepadlike tool just like any other music book. Notes can be zoomed large and annotated with a stylus.
At a serious $1,199, it’s compatible with PC and Mac. www.freehandsystems.com.
SANDISK
A player with plenty of drive
Flash-memory powerhouse SanDisk offers a tiny MP3 music player that gets its tunes when a user plugs one of the company’s tiny Cruzer Micro USB flash drives into it.
At $69.99, this cupcake-size docking station can hold varying amounts of music depending upon the size of one’s Micro–those range from 128 megabytes for $39.99 to 512 mb for $89.99.
The drive can hold work files, photos and other stuff as well as MP3 tunes, making the combo a commuter’s delight. www.sandisk.com