folder

Fresh is a small, low-cost, file-management utility that essentially offers an amped-up version of the Finder's "Recent Items" lists, along with a quasi-replacement for your Desktop called "The Cooler."

The app's streamlined interface consists of two simple "zones," or panes, which display your "Fresh Files" (basically, anything that's new to your computer or recently changed) and "The Cooler" (a user-defined collection of files that you want to have quick access to). "Fresh Files" is particularly great for tracking downloads and Mail attachments, and the Cooler … Read more

In OS X the view options for a specific window instance are inherited from the first opened folder, which usually is the user's home folder. This means that if you have the home folder in a specific view such as icon or list, then regardless of what you have set the subfolders to be, as long as they are opened in the same window frame you will see them displayed in the current icon or list view.… Read more

Online storage and collaboration service Box.net is finally getting around to offering its users a feature that was long-overdue: desktop synchronization.

The feature, which rolls out to business users Thursday morning, takes whatever files you've added to your online storage account and ferries them over to a local machine. It also does the same thing going the other way.

In order to use it, users must be subscribers of Box's business and enterprise tiers, leaving those with the free and individual plans out in the cold. It's also Windows only to start with, though Box's … Read more

Anyone who owns a digital camera knows how quickly thousands of digital images can accumulate. It's no small task to keep all those photos organized and easy to access, especially with meaningless camera-assigned file names like IMG_0169.jpg. Fast Photo Renamer is a simple tool that can help you give meaningful file names to entire folders full of images, making files easy to identify at a glance.

The program's interface is plain and won't win any beauty contests, but that's OK. One pane displays the computer's contents in a tree hierarchy, making it easy to … Read more

If you depend on Microsoft's Outlook, a good recovery tool can save the day if things go wrong. DataNumen's Advanced Outlook Repair 3.0 can recover email, folders, appointments, tasks, and anything else that holds your critical data in Outlook's Personal files (PST). AOR supports recovery of attachments, embedded objects, encrypted and password-protected PST files, and deleted Outlook items. It can handle immense files, which protects against obsolescence.

To use AOR, you must have Outlook installed as your default e-mail client. AOR's dialog-based interface is so intuitive that the fully indexed Help file seems almost superfluous. … Read more

Acumen Business Systems' Multiple Image Resizer .NET, or MIR .NET, is a free tool designed to help digital camera owners manage their saved pictures. It can resize single images or automatically resize whole folders full of huge digital snapshots at once. It's compatible with a wide range of image file formats and includes useful features, such as the ability to select image output resolution in dots per inch. Different methods of resizing images allow for different levels of image quality, which we like for the ability to resize a lot of different images to fit, say, a Web page, … Read more

Ever wish you could use your iPhone or iPod Touch as mobile storage? Older iPods let you do exactly that by running in "disk mode," but that option doesn't exist for the new guys.

Enter iPhone Explorer, a free utility that effectively turns your iPhone or Touch into a flash drive--no jailbreaking required.

In other words, it provides a drag-and-drop interface for the contents of your device. And it's available for both Windows and Mac.

Before you download it, a word of warning: This is not a tool for novices. The first time you run iPhone … Read more

Most of us are familiar with peer-to-peer file-sharing programs like Limewire, which allow users to connect directly with other people on the network to share music, movies, and other types of media. This type of file sharing can be fun and useful, but it also has its drawbacks; you never know if you're downloading what you actually think you are, and sometimes what you end up with is downright malicious. GigaTribe takes the concept of P2P file sharing and makes it more intimate; this ingenious program allows you to set up a private P2P network with your friends.

If … Read more

Nearly everyone with a computer has files on it that they want to keep secure and private, for whatever reason. There are any number of utilities designed to hide folders from view, protect them with passwords, and otherwise prevent malicious damage, accidental deletion, and unauthorized access. Some do a better job than others, and it's doubtful that any are truly secure, given the pace of technological change, but you have a wide range of methods and features to choose from. LinSaSoft's Easy Folder Hider is one that promises user-friendliness and overall ease of use instead of enterprise-level security.… Read more