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There are many times that people would send me a mockup of a screenshot and telling me that they want the DataGrid to be highlighted in that particular color. Instead of having to pull it into Paint.NET, GIMP, or Photoshop, I fire up Color Cop. It allows me to take a sample of anything on my screen. Just grab the Pipette and drag it to where you want it to sample the screen and it will display the RGB of the color. If you right-click on the Pipette then you can also set the sampling size. I think it saves me a lot of time and wanted to share it with all of you.

http://download.cnet.com/Color-Cop/3000-2383_4-10047009.html

I followed the following instructions from http://www.iphone-hacks.com/2008/09/23/how-to-use-quickpwn-21-to-unlock-and-jailbreak-iphone-21-on-windows/ except I had to make sure I installed the SIM that I want to work with in the iPhone before doing anything.  The following is all written by Alias420 found on the above link.

How To Use QuickPwn 2.1 To Unlock And Jailbreak iPhone 2.1 On Windows

Posted by Alias420

These are step by step instructions on how to use QuickPwn 2.1 for Microsoft Windows to unlock & jailbreak your first generation iPhone 2.1 2G/EDGE.

REQUIRED:

• iTunes 8 installed (make sure to reboot). – Download iTunes

Note: If you have already upgraded your iPhone to firmware 2.1 skip step 2.

Step One
Create a folder on your desktop called Pwnage.

Download the following files and place them in this Pwnage folder you just created on your desktop:

• QuickPwn 2.1
• iPhone 2.1 ipsw Download
• bl39.bin 3.9 BootLoader Download
• bl46.bin 4.6 BootLoader Download

Unzip the QuickPwn21-1.zip file inside the Pwnage folder.

 

Step Two
Launch iTunes and connect your iPhone to the computer via USB cable.

 

Select your iPhone from the list of devices on the left side navigation bar. Now hold down shift while clicking the Restore button.

 

Navigate to the Pwnage folder you created on your desktop and select the 2.1 firmware ipsw file. Double click the ipsw file or select it and click the Open button to proceed.

 

Step Three
Once iTunes has finished upgrading your iPhone to the 2.1 firmware you may launch QuickPwn 2.1 from the Pwnage folder you created on your desktop.

 

Step Four
Make sure you iPhone is still connected to the computer via USB cable then click the blue arrow to proceed.

 

Step Five
Click the Browse button to locate your iPhone firmware.

 

Step Six
Select the 2.1 firmware ipsw file from the Pwnage folder you created on your desktop then double click the ipsw file or select it then click the Open button.

 

Step Seven
QuickPwn will check to verify that the ipsw file is valid. After completetion of the verification, click the blue arrow button to proceed.

 

Step Eight
You can now select whether to Add Cydia, Add Installer, or Replace Boot Logos. Select the ones you would like to perform then click the clue arrow button.  Installing Cydia and Installer is highly recommended to enjoy the full jailbreak experience.

 

Step Nine
You will now be prompted to select your bootloader files. Click on the Browse button and select the 3.9 bootloader from the Pwnage folder you created on your desktop. Repeat this for the 4.6 bootloader file. Then click the blue arrow button to proceed.

 

 

 

Step Ten
QuickPwn will now ask you to confirm your iPhone is still connected via USB cable before it continues. Click the blue arrow button to proceed.

 

Step Eleven
QuickPwn will now automatically put your iPhone into recovery mode. Once its in recovery mode you will be prompted to: Hold the Home button for 5 seconds, Hold the Home and Power buttons for 10 seconds, then release the Power button and continuing holding the Home button until your iPhone is in DFU mode.

 

Note: Pay attention and do exactly as it says

Step Twelve
Once QuickPwn detects your iPhone in DFU mode it will begin the jailbreaking process.

 

Step Thirteen
Once jailbreaking is complete QuickPwn will inform you that it haz Pwned! Your iPhone will then reboot and run BootNeuter. Let BootNeuter do it’s thing, do not interupt it. This process will take about 5 minutes. Remember patience is a virtue. Your iPhone will reboot when it has completed.

After I found this nifty screen capture tool, I can hardly put it down.  Not only does it capture the screen, it also takes video and record audio.  If you do a lot of communication with other people and find yourself saying “go click here and check this and make sure that is set”, then this is the tool for you.  I can create a quick and easy video on the fly and send it to the other person to see exactly what they need to do. 

A bright half sun sits on the top part of your desktop and gives you quick access to the capture tool.  Once in the capture tool, you can set the area you want to capture by either clicking on the window or dragging the pointer on the area you want to capture.  Once that is done, then you can choose either image or video.  The tool will then act accordingly and allow you to save an image or begin a recording.  When you are finished with the capture, the tool gives you the option of saving it to disk, copy it to clipboard, upload to FTP site, or upload to screencast.com.

If you do a lot of screen capture or screencast, then this is a tool for you.

Platform: Windows
Price: Free
Website: http://www.jingproject.com/

Found a site that offered free small web icons.  Might come in handy for internal uses.  It is offered by FamFamFam at http://www.famfamfam.com/lab/icons/.  The work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.

Yes, I know there’s a lot of screen capture software out there but is it Easy to use and is it Free?  Well, EasyCapture is just that, easy and free.  Which happens to be very good combination for most things in life.    The application have options to take a screen shot of a window, region, or all of the desktop.  It also presents the screen shots into multiple tabs when dealing with more than one screen shot at a time.

Platform: Windows
Price: Free
Website: http://www.xydownload.com/easycapture/

Update: I ran into a minor problem with this free tool.  If you try to print straight from EasyCapture, the image tend to be incredibly small on the Print Preview Page as seen below. 

I was able to get around this by zooming in on the picture at 400% for it to print correctly.

So I have been reading a couple of computer magazines and it seems like their editors like the program alot.  So I decided I should give it a try.  I have to say, the program definitely does a fine and good job of auditing your PC.  Frankly, I think it does too good of a job.  So well in fact that I’m kinda scared to keep the report file the program generated anywhere on my computer in case it falls into the wrong hands.  So why was I scared.  Well, the report it generated had every software that I have ever installed on my pC.  Not only that, it was also good enough to show you all the Keys and Serial numbers associated with the software.  It also shows all the hardware that I have on my PC including model numbers and types.  So, I would probably not use this program on a normal routine basis.  What I would use Belarc Advisor for is to generate a report before I format and reinstall my operating system.  I would print out the report and delete the HTML report file it generates so you will have a paper printout to keep handy when installing your OS back.  And once the OS is back up, then you have the Serial Keys and the list of programs that you had installed on the previous OS.  Now you can see all the programs you need to install to get the PC to where it was before.  Of course, this doesn’t mean you should install all the program again because some of those may have led you to the problems that you have and caused you to reinstall the OS in the first place.

Platform: Windows Vista, 2003, XP, 2000, NT 4, Me, 98, and 95.
Price: Free
Website: http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html

If you have never gone to Microsoft’s Sysinternals page and you own a PC then you need to at least stop by.  This site holds enough utility to keep a geek happy for a good couple of days.  Really, if you want to virtually disect your PC, then this will be a good place to browse for the tools.  Just under the File and Disk Utilities section, there are over 20 different utilities you can use.  For example, there’s a utility called Movefile that will allow you to schedule a file rename or delete command the next time you boot your system.  Then there’s a Pendmove program that shows you which files are scheduled to be renamed or deleted.  Some are so low level that it probably won’t do you any good unless you are Neo.  Diskmon gives me a lot of info, unfortunately I couldn’t decipher it.  Other topics on this site is Networking Utilities, Process Utilities, Security Utilities, , System Information, and Miscellaneous Utilities.  And of course, all this is free.

Platform: Windows
Price: Free
Website: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/default.mspx

It’s a big freaking pain sometimes when I want to make a report of the result of my Windows XP Search.  You know when you go and right click on a Drive or Folder and choose “Search…”.  It takes a while for the search result to come back and you can’t even save it.  Once you close it, it’s gone.  Now that I have SysExporter, I don’t have to worry about that problem.  For example, I want to find all the PDF files I have on my PC, I can just do a search for “*.pdf” on my local drives and wait for it to finish.  Then I lauch SysExporter and choose the correct type in the list.  SysExporter shows you more than just your search result.  It shows you just about every window you have opened so you need to choose the “Search Results” with a type of “ListView”.  Once selected, it shows all the search result in the bottom pane of the application.  Highlight all of it and right click and choose “Copy Selected Items (Tab Delimited)”.  Now you are able to paste into Excel to save the search result.  Windows should have this built in.

Platform: Windows NT, Windows 2000, and Windows XP
Price: Free
Website: http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/sysexp.html

Just found this one recently but have not given it a try yet.  However, I heard some good things about it.  It is pretty much on the same level as AntiVir and AVG Anti-Virus.  Once I give it a try, I’ll give an update on my findings.

Platform: Windows
Price: Free (for the Home Edition)
Website: http://www.avast.com/