by Jonathan Plutchok

Welcome once again to Jonathan’s Tool Bar & Grill, where the hot tips keep coming – now every week! Check this space each Sunday for more insightful reviews of great software and Web sites.

Time-Savers for File Operations

Don’t you get tired of clicking through layer after layer of folders to get to the file you want to open, or to save your current file in the right directory? I sure do. It used to take me five clicks to drill down from the root folder to my favorite country music – but not anymore. Not since I discovered FileBox eXtender.

With FileBox eXtender, you can jump to the deepest folder in just two clicks. FileBox eXtender puts two new buttons at the top of your Open, Save, and Save As dialog boxes and Windows Explorer:

• Click the heart button to drop down a list of your favorite folders. You maintain this list by adding the folders you want to visit with one more click.

• Click the clock button to drop down a list of the folders you have visited most recently. FileBox eXtender maintains this list automatically.

FileBox eXtender offers some other cool aids. For example, it can expand the size of the Open and Save dialog boxes. It also adds two other buttons to application windows. One keeps the window on top of all other windows al the time. The other rolls it up like a window blind, showing only the title bar, and rolls it back down again. I haven’t found a use for these yet, but maybe you will.

Note: FileBox eXtender works on all versions of Windows up to XP, but no Vista update is planned. But if you’re sticking with XP for a while longer, download FileBox eXtender absolutely free from http://www.hyperionics.com.

Windows Update Alert: RTHDCPL.EXE My #$%!

Did you started getting mysterious error messages a couple of weeks ago, each time you booted your computer? Millions of other Windows users did, too. The messages were titled “RTHDCPL.EXE Illegal System DLL Relocation” and began disturbingly with “The system DLL user32.dll was relocated in memory. The application will not run properly.”

Don’t worry. You didn’t do anything wrong. These messages were the result of a bug in a recent Windows security update that conflicted with a Realtek sound card driver. And Microsoft already has fixed it as part of its latest patch download. If you have not updated your computer in the last week, you can download the fix from a link in the Knowledge Base article that describes the problem and its solution at http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=935448.

Thanks for reading me! I’d love to read you too, so please drop me an email to jonathanstoolbar@gmail.com. And set yourself a reminder to check back here every Sunday for new information that might change your life!