Gizmos Week: PowerDesk

This week I am sharing some of my favorite software gizmos from my Web-marketing toolbox.

Today’s gizmo: PowerDesk from VCOM.com

Tasks: Manage your files
Cost: $39 (free shareware version, too)
Get it here: Power Desk Pro (aff)



I LOVE POWERDESK! There are a gazillion Windows shareware utilities, but they often do jobs that only need to be done once in a while, and that you can do yourself. You download them once and then forget it.

PowerDesk I use everyday. It is 'Windows Explorer' for the power user. I am constantly browsing for files and would be very frustrated if I didn't have it.

Explorer sucks because:

• It decides what 'view' each folder you open should be.
• It's favorites list is integrated with the IE bookmark list, making it useless.
• Copying from one folder to another means opening two different windows.
• You can't quickly navigate to a different drive or folder, you have to go 'up up up'.
• You always start at the same place, usually My Documents.
• You can't print!!!!

Powerdesk, of course, solves all the above problems. Specifically, I like these features:

• I have set it to show folders in 'detail' style and it remembers that. I usually have it also sorted by 'last modified' so my most recent files float to the top.
• By pressing ctrl-3, I can bring up a second folder to browse right next to the current one.
• The header has a short-cut bar, so you can quickly jump to you favorite places. I've changed the icons to help find certain important folders.
• You can 'copy' the path to a file to the clipboard.
• You can print the content of a folder or a directory tree.
• Did I mention is Zips and unZips? And FTPs? And easy search by pressing F3? And has a list of recently opened folders?

Life is so much better with this tool. Get the shareware version and see what I mean!

(Once again, any affiliate commission will be redirected to Coverville.com. I've pondered the fact that I'm not donating to a charity, but my idea is that the internet culture should find a way to support each other. Brian has quit his day job and I believe in what he is doing, so I want to support him.)

Hints for making a little money on the side

Starting a new site to earn money requires time in the beginning. The easiest to start is a home affiliate business site, I think. It will require research to be carried out to see which companies offer good products and nice referral fees. But before you can start, domain registration and website hosting research has to be done. The best web hosting packages can be easily located online. I'd also consider running through companies that are offering reseller hosting so you can have more than one domain, if needed.

If you don't have it already, get a wireless internet service so the site can be uploaded and maintained conveniently wherever you are. Actually creating the site itself will take some work, but there are some neat free tools that make it easier, like WordPress. By learning to constantly manage SEO and search engine submission, the site can do well in search engine ranking and develop enough traffic that proposals will fly in for banner advertising on the site.