Archive for September, 2009
Clean Up Font Clutter with Font Frenzy
September 27, 2009 by InF, under Software, Tech Posts.
I’m the kind of dude that install fonts by the buckets. I like fonts, and I like variety in my creations. Also, some programs that I install tend to place their own fonts on my machine on their own. After a while, this creates a huge mess and your fonts list in your applications grows excessively long. If ever the applications you use have font preview, this makes the matters worse! I’ve had Wordpad and some other programs crashing on me due to some corrupt font, or some font they didn’t like while I was browsing the font list.
Also, apparently, having a ton of fonts installed can bring down the performance of your machine, so before installing that font pack with a zillion fancy fonts in it, you might re-consider. Though I have to say, I never noticed the performance hit myself, despite the 1067 fonts I had installed.
Thus, there comes a time in the life of every font freak, where they must clean up their fonts folder. The problem is that Windows has a set of fonts that it likes and cannot work without. I’ll call these system-critical fonts. If you delete those, you will have a brick of a machine on your hands, and a re-install of the OS could save it, but lot of pains involved. Thus you would want a way to clean up that font folder of yours while keeping the essential fonts, correct?
Here comes Font Frenzy! Font Frenzy is a free software that will allow you to preview what fonts you have installed, but also manage them. By manage, I mean, install new fonts, back up existing fonts and uninstall those you don’t want. All this in a very simple interface.
But the most interesting feature of Font Frenzy, something that I have not seen in other font managers, is the ability to “DeFrenzy” your font folder. What this does is uninstall all those non system-critical fonts that you have installed. Before doing that, it’ll prompt you to create a snapshot of your current fonts. I’ll explain what this does later. After that, it’ll “uninstall” all those unnecessary fonts by removing them from the OS’ font folder, and place them somewhere of your own liking. Thus, you have a backup of the fonts, but at the same time, they do not clutter. You can then pick and choose which ones to re-install at a later time.
Now about those snapshots. They are in fact saved states of your font folders. Using snapshots, you can easily add or remove sets of fonts. For example, I have a snapshot where I have “DeFrenzied” my whole font folder, returning my system to its default state. Then, when I need all my fonts back, I just “ReFrenzy” using that snapshot, and get all my fonts back. Likewise, you can have different snapshots for different installed font-sets. E.g. A set with only default+graffiti fonts for example.
Oh, if you still want to clean up the your font mess manually, this list should be helpful to know what NOT to delete.
Summarizing, the good points of Font Frenzy are:
- Simple interface
- Ability to remove non-essential or non-default fonts from a system automatically
- Can restore all removed fonts via snapshots
- Can manage fonts (install, delete)
- Can backup fonts to a folder you like (Unload and Store) in FrenzyMan
The cons are:
- ReFrenzy, DeFrenzy, FrenzyMan… these terms can be confusing to the new user, but you get used to them after a while.
- DeFrenzy (remove all non-essential fonts) does not remove all non-essentials apparently. It does leave some fonts behind. I don’t know if they can be considered essential, but nevertheless, Font Frenzy does a decent job at cleaning up things.
- If you check the Fonts folder in Windows, you will see that not all the removed fonts are gone from that folder. I think Font Frenzy just removes some entries from the registry for some fonts, so they look as if they are un-installed.
So I’d say, if you need a simple, but good font manager, give Font Frenzy a try.
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Phased Upgrade of Windows Live Messenger 8.x
September 16, 2009 by InF, under Software, Tech News, Tech Posts.
Hello folks, been a while, ain’t it?
This post will be about Windows Live Messenger – WLM. Call me oldstyle, but I liked the lightness of WLM 8.1. Hadn’t even bothered moving to 8.5.
What do I see today? I cannot connect to WLM because of a forced phased phorsed upgrade instruction from Microsoft to correct a security flaw that had cropped up. Now, I’ve finally decided to upgrade to WLM 2009 and I’ll give you my first impressions.
I think Microsoft has gone haywire. I want to download WLM and what I get is a bloated package of 135MB something with tons of apps that I don’t want. What the hell is that strategy? I refused to comply and searched for a Standalone Installer. Softpedia came to the rescue. The installer there is just WLM in a 24MB package. Much better.
Update: Note you may also need to install other files to get the standalone working, most notably contacts.msi to solve a 80x error message. These, and some info, are available at this MyDigitalLife post.
The installation goes smoothly. Nothing to complain here.
There are some issues with the new WLM 2009 which I don’t particularly like:
- It’s bloated! 8.1 used to take 15MBish of RAM. 2009 takes 36MB! It’s not terribly bad, but I still like my applications slim.
- The interface is weird. I’ve been taught that the eye reads from left to right. What the display pictures are doing in the left instead of the right is beyond my understanding. I’d think that the chat text is more important than the display pictures. That’s not what MS thinks apparently. Good thing is, you can hide the display pics like before.
- Whenever I open any menu, there’s a lag where my PC freezes for a bit. I don’t know if it’s just me, or for everyone else too.
The good points are:
- Probably more secured.
- More customizable, specially for the layout and contact list. E.g. The size of the display pictures can be changed in the list.
- Reworked color schemes. The color frames around the display pictures indicating status is a good idea.
- Generally more organized and pleasing to the eye.
- The interface, despite some weird points, is better. Moving the emoticons and other icons down the conversation box and removal of the send button, etc… saves space.
- You can now display “What you are listening” and your “personal message” at the same time.
- You can sign in from multiple computers at the same time, and sign off them remotely.
Most things are already updated to work with WLM 2009, like for those of you who use MessengerPlus, it’s already up to date.
That’s about it. I’m not terribly satisfied with the WLM 2009. I liked the 8.1 interface best, but I am forced to use 2009. Let’s hope it’s as good as 8.1.
Your views on this, if you use WLM?
