8 Best Free Disk Space Analyzer Tools to Streamline Your Hard Drive Management

Managing disk space efficiently is crucial for the optimal performance of any computer. Free disk space analyser tools are essential for identifying and removing unnecessary files, thereby freeing up valuable disk space. This blog presents a comprehensive overview of the top eight free disk space analyser tools that can aid in streamlining and optimizing hard drive management.

1. TreeSize Free: TreeSize Free supports the removal of files within the program, scans individual folders and entire hard drives, and offers a portable option. It operates exclusively on Windows. This is my personal favourite.

2. Disk Savvy: Disk Savvy offers a user-friendly interface with extensive features, including the ability to categorize files in several ways, perform simultaneous scans of multiple locations, and export results to a report file. It supports various Windows operating systems.

3. Windows Directory Statistics (WinDirStat): WinDirStat provides unique visualization methods to analyse disk space and configure custom clean up commands. It can scan entire drives or specific folders and works exclusively on Windows.

4. Disktective: Disktective is a portable tool that allows scanning of large files in specific folders or entire drives. It provides two ways to view disk space usage and is suitable for Windows users.

5. JDiskReport: JDiskReport displays disk space usage in five perspectives and is suitable for users on Windows, macOS, and Linux operating systems.

6. RidNacs: RidNacs features a minimal and simple interface with a portable option. It scans large files in specific folders or entire drives and is exclusive to Windows.

7. SpaceSniffer: SpaceSniffer provides results that can be filtered in multiple ways, backed up, and opened without rescanning. It is only compatible with the Windows operating system.

8. Folder Size: Folder Size integrates with File Explorer, allowing users to sort folders by size. It is extremely user-friendly but is designed only for older versions of Windows.

Conclusion:

Selecting the right disk space analyser tool depends on specific requirements and the operating system used. The featured tools provide a range of functionalities, from user-friendly interfaces to visual representations of disk space usage. By leveraging these free applications, users can efficiently manage their hard drive space, leading to enhanced system performance and productivity. 

Top 20 Developer Tools of 2016

Here are the list of top 20 Developer utilities that are must to have for Developer.

1. GitKraken: The downright luxurious Git GUI client for Windows, Mac, and Linux.
2. Atom: A hackable text editor for the 21st Century.
3. VS Code: A free, lightweight tool for editing and debugging web apps.
4. Git: A free and open source distributed version control system.
5. GitHub: A web-based Git repository hosting service.
6. Visual Studio: Developer tools and services for any platform with any language.
7. Sublime Text: A sophisticated text editor for code, markup, and prose.
8. Chrome DevTools: A set of web authoring and debugging tools built into Google Chrome.
9. Docker :An open platform for developers and system administrators to build, ship, and run distributed applications.
10. GitLab: Git repository management, code reviews, issue tracking, activity feeds, and wikis.
11. IntelliJ IDEA: A Java IDE.
12. PhpStorm : A commercial, cross-platform IDE for PHP.
13. Postman: A powerful GUI platform to make your API development faster & easier.
14. ReSharper : A Visual Studio extension for .NET developers.
15. Slack: Real-time messaging, archiving, and search for modern teams.
16. PyCharm: An IDE used specifically for Python.
17. Android Studio: The official IDE for Android platform development.
18. Notepad++: A free source code editor which supports several programming languages running under the MS Windows environment.
19. Xcode : an IDE for macOS/and iOS development.
20. Stack Overflow: The largest online community for programmers to learn, share their knowledge, and advance their careers.

Useful Visual Studio Extensions

The Visual Studio Gallery is the best place to find tools, controls, extensions and templates to help make your life as a developer easier and more productive.

These extensions are almost always language/platform agnostic and just make Visual Studio better and/or easier to work in. A lot of these owned by Microsoft, Microsoft DevLabs, or Microsoft employees or individuals. These extensions generally fall into language specific or technology specific extensions. That really means they may only b useful to you at certain times.

• Add Empty File
• AutoHistory (Microsoft DevLabs)
• ClipboardHistory
• Code Metrics Viewer 2013
• jQuery Code Snippets
• Commentator
• EditorConfig
• File Nesting
• ItalicComments
• License Header Manager
• Microsoft CodeLens Code Health Indicator (Microsoft DevLabs)
• Move Type To File
• NuGet Package Manager for Visual Studio 2013 (Microsoft)
• Pretty Paste
• CssCop
• Bootstrap Snippet Pack
• Productivity Power Tools 2013 (Microsoft)
• Productivity Power Tools 2015 (Microsoft)
• Visual Studio Spell Checker
• Visual Studio Tools for Git (Microsoft)
• VSCommands for Visual Studio 2013
• Trailing Whitespace Visualizer
• Application Insights for Visual Studio (Microsoft)
• NUnit Test Adapter
• Shared Project Reference Manager
• Snippetizer (Microsoft)
• Web Essentials 2013 for Update 3
• Web Essentials 2015.3
• XAML Regions
• Code Cracker for C#
• .NET Portability Analyzer (Microsoft)
• XAML Formatter
• Refactoring Essentials
• ASP.NET MVC Boilerplate (predefined template pack)
• SideWaffle Template Pack (predefined template pack)

These are only few that I found useful and helpful. But there are lot out there Visual Studio Market Place.

How to Copy Files in Command Prompt using xCopy

The Windows Command Prompt can be very powerful once you understand some of the commands. You can get a lot more control with the Command Prompt than you would by copying and pasting in Windows Explorer. Knowing how to make the most out of the copy commands is essential if you're remotely operating a Windows server. It's also great if you want to be more efficient with your own system.

There are different ways to copy files using the Windows Command Prompt. All the commands can copy files from one place to another, but there are several cases where you may want to choose one command over the others.

• XCOPY - The xcopy command allows you to copy files and directory trees. This makes it much more suitable for copying folders. xcopy also has many modifiers which gives advanced users more control over the copying process. xcopy has been deprecated in favor of robocopy, but still works.

Example: C:\>xcopy c:\webshare\AppData\runtime\bin\admin\*.* c:\_backup\backup_20161208\admin /e /i

XCOPY source [destination] [/A | /M] [/D[:date]] [/P] [/S [/E]] [/V] [/W]
                           [/C] [/I] [/Q] [/F] [/L] [/G] [/H] [/R] [/T] [/U]
                           [/K] [/N] [/O] [/X] [/Y] [/-Y] [/Z] [/B] [/J]
                           [/EXCLUDE:file1[+file2][+file3]...]

  source       Specifies the file(s) to copy.
  destination  Specifies the location and/or name of new files.
  /A           Copies only files with the archive attribute set,
               doesn't change the attribute.
  /M           Copies only files with the archive attribute set,
               turns off the archive attribute.
  /D:m-d-y     Copies files changed on or after the specified date.
               If no date is given, copies only those files whose
               source time is newer than the destination time.
  /EXCLUDE:file1[+file2][+file3]...
               Specifies a list of files containing strings.  Each string
               should be in a separate line in the files.  When any of the
               strings match any part of the absolute path of the file to be
               copied, that file will be excluded from being copied.  For
               example, specifying a string like \obj\ or .obj will exclude
               all files underneath the directory obj or all files with the
               .obj extension respectively.
  /P           Prompts you before creating each destination file.
  /S           Copies directories and subdirectories except empty ones.
  /E           Copies directories and subdirectories, including empty ones.
               Same as /S /E. May be used to modify /T.
  /V           Verifies the size of each new file.
  /W           Prompts you to press a key before copying.
  /C           Continues copying even if errors occur.
  /I           If destination does not exist and copying more than one file,
               assumes that destination must be a directory.
  /Q           Does not display file names while copying.
  /F           Displays full source and destination file names while copying.
  /L           Displays files that would be copied.
  /G           Allows the copying of encrypted files to destination that does
               not support encryption.
  /H           Copies hidden and system files also.
  /R           Overwrites read-only files.
  /T           Creates directory structure, but does not copy files. Does not
               include empty directories or subdirectories. /T /E includes
               empty directories and subdirectories.
  /U           Copies only files that already exist in destination.
  /K           Copies attributes. Normal Xcopy will reset read-only attributes.
  /N           Copies using the generated short names.
  /O           Copies file ownership and ACL information.
  /X           Copies file audit settings (implies /O).
  /Y           Suppresses prompting to confirm you want to overwrite an
               existing destination file.
  /-Y          Causes prompting to confirm you want to overwrite an
               existing destination file.
  /Z           Copies networked files in restartable mode.
  /B           Copies the Symbolic Link itself versus the target of the link.
  /J           Copies using unbuffered I/O. Recommended for very large files.

The switch /Y may be preset in the COPYCMD environment variable.
This may be overridden with /-Y on the command line.

WhatsApp Will No Longer Work On These Phones

It might be bad news for few WhatsApp users! The company is ending support to a number of devices which will no longer be able to run WhatsApp from December 31. That means if you are right now using older smartphones then you need to replace it right before the year 2016 ends.

The devices that will no longer get support from WhatsApp are:

1. BlackBerry OS and BlackBerry 10
2. Nokia S40
3. Nokia Symbian S60
4. Android 2.1 and Android 2.2
5. Windows Phone 7.1
6. iPhone 3GS/iOS 6

So, those who are using older phones need to upgrade to a newer Android, iPhone or Windows Phone to continue using WhatsApp after December 31, 2016.

Top 6 Firefox Extensions for Web Developer

Every one knows that Firefox has tons of plug-ins and add-on’s, but there are a few any web developer must know and use.

FireBug: Firebug integrates with Firefox to put a wealth of development tools at your fingertips while you browse. You can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page.

FireShot: FireShot is a Firefox extension that creates screenshots of web pages. Unlike other extensions, this plugin provides a set of editing and annotation tools, which let users quickly modify captures and insert text and graphical annotations. Such functionality will be especially useful for web designers, testers and content reviewers. It’s possible to choose whether entire web page or only visible part of this page should be captured.
Screenshots can be uploaded to server, saved to disk (PNG, JPEG, BMP), copied to clipboard, e-mailed and sent to external editor for further processing.

CSSMate: Inline CSS Editing Evolved. Originally a port of the fantastic EditCSS tool that I’ve been using for many months. I’ve gutted it, made each stylesheet load into a separate tab. Removed the save load clear functionality as i found it to be useless and added in support for loading stylesheets that have a media type of “all” instead of “screen”.

ViewSourceWith: The main goal consists to view page source with external applications but you can also…
- open page source as DOM document, read faq
- open CSS and JS files present on page
- open images using your preferred image viewer (e.g. GIMP or ACDSee)
- open PDF links with Acrobat Reader or Foxit Reader or what you prefer
- edit textboxes content with your preferred editor and automatically see modified text on browser when you re-switch focus on it, this simplifies wiki pages editing, read faq
- open server side pages that generate the browser content, this simplifies web developer’s debug, read server-faq
- open files listed in Javascript console. When editor open file the cursor can be moved to line number shown on javascript console, read js faq
For desperate cases you can add Microsoft IE to editor list.

Web Developer: Maybe the most succesfull of all, has great reviews. Adds a menu and a toolbar with various web developer tools.

These description are take from the Firefox add-ons site.

Remote Server Administration Tools for Windows 7

Remote Server Administration Tools for Windows 7 with SP1 enables IT administrators to manage roles and features that are installed on remote computers that are running Windows Server 2008 R2 with SP1 or Windows Server 2008 R2 (and, for some roles and features, Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2003) from a remote computer that is running Windows 7 or Windows 7 with SP1. It includes support for remote management of computers that are running either the Server Core or full installation options of Windows Server 2008 R2 with SP1, Windows Server 2008 R2, and for some roles and features, Windows Server 2008. Some roles and features on Windows Server 2003 can be managed remotely by using Remote Server Administration Tools for Windows 7 with SP1, although the Server Core installation option is not available with the Windows Server 2003 operating system.

This feature is comparable in functionality to the Windows Server 2003 Administrative Tools Pack and Remote Server Administration Tools for Windows Vista with Service Pack 1 (SP1).

Remote Server Administration Tools for Windows 7 with SP1 can be installed on computers that are running the Enterprise, Professional, or Ultimate editions of Windows 7 or Windows 7 with SP1. This software can be installed ONLY on computers that are running the Enterprise, Professional, or Ultimate editions of Windows 7 or Windows 7 with SP1; it cannot be installed on target servers that you want to manage.

Both x86- and x64-based versions of Remote Server Administration Tools for Windows 7 with SP1 are available for download on this page. Download and install the version that matches the architecture of the computer on which you plan to install the administration tools.

For more information go to MSDN for help. You can download this for 32 bit and 64 bit in the this URL.

Google SketchUp 8

Here are the features that Google is providing with this SketchUp software. Because almost everything is somewhere. By using this everyone can do 3D Modeling.

Whether you're designing in context, creating a shadow study or photo-modeling existing structures, SketchUp 8 provides easy access to Google's huge collection of geographic resources.

• 

  Model geo-location with Google Maps

  We've built Maps right into SketchUp. Adding a geo-location to your model is now an elegant, one-app process.

• 

  Color imagery and more accurate terrain

  The snapshot you get when you add a geo-location to your model now includes 3D terrain data that's more accurate, and -- for the first time -- aerial imagery in color.

• 

  Match Photo improvements

  Our Match Photo feature lets you trace one or more photographs to build a model; it's an incredibly powerful tool. For SketchUp 8, we've tweaked some things to make using Match Photo easier than ever.

• 

  SketchUp, meet Building Maker

  When it comes to modeling existing buildings, it's hard to beat Google Building Maker for speed and efficiency. We've made it simpler to open and refine Building Maker models in SketchUp. Watch a video

  Watch a video about modeling in context with SketchUp 8

Download Google SketchUp 8

Skype Adds Video Calling to iPhones, iPad, iPod touch

Skype today announced that the new version of its iPhone application adds video call support, allowing users to make video calls over 3G and Wi-Fi networks. This means that users of the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch are now able to make and/or receive free video calls with one another, as well as with anyone else running Skype software that supports video calling.

Help full Tools and Converters

Here are some useful tools and converters which are helpful for conversion and compression

.NET Code converters

You can translate any C# code to VB.NET and VB.NET to C#.

http://converter.telerik.com/

http://www.aspalliance.com/aldotnet/examples/translate.aspx

http://www.developerfusion.com/utilities/convertcsharptovb.aspx

I have used first URL from telerik. Its works just great

Compress your CSS

http://www.developerfusion.com/tools/compresscss/

Compress and obfuscate javascript

http://www.developerfusion.com/tools/compressjavascript/

Utility : Dell Dock

I have been waiting for some thing like this from Microsoft for so long. I have seen this in Mac and Linux system. But Star dock has build it for Dell. The Dell Dock is a task-based organizer for Dell Laptops or Desktops. It is helpful to the users to sort their software applications into friendly categories, which can be accessed easily from a dock. So that the user can leave the desktop free of clutter. Dell Customers don't have to locate and open a program by application name by rather can locate it by task, like "email & chat", "security", "view photos", "play music", etc..

Here is the screen shot how it look like once you install it

Download.

Hope this is useful. I Love it

Date Formatting in C#

Date formatting in C# using string object

Specifier	Description	Output
d	Short Date	20/10/1983
D	Long Date	20 October 1983
t	Short Time	21:20
T	Long Time	21:20:59
f	Full date and time	20 October 1983 21:20
F	Full date and time (long)	20 October 1983 21:20:59
g	Default date and time	20/10/1983 21:20
G	Default date and time (long)	20/10/1983 21:20:59
M	Day / Month	20 October
r	RFC1123 date	Thu, 20 Apr 1983 21:20:59 GMT
s	Sortable date/time	1983-10-20T21:20:59
u	Universal time, local timezone	1983-10-20 21:20:59Z
Y	Month / Year	October 1983
dd	Day	20
ddd	Short Day Name	Thu
dddd	Full Day Name	Thursday
hh	2 digit hour	09
HH	2 digit hour (24 hour)	21
mm	2 digit minute	20
MM	Month	10
MMM	Short Month name	Apr
MMMM	Month name	October
ss	seconds	59
tt	AM/PM	PM
yy	2 digit year	07
yyyy	4 digit year	1983
:	seperator, e.g. {0:hh:mm:ss}	09:20:59
/	seperator, e.g. {0:dd/MM/yyyy}	20/10/1983

Example using the specifier with data object

DateTime now = DateTime.Now;
Console.WriteLine(now.ToString("d"));

TreeSize Free

Every hard disk is too small if you just wait long enough. TreeSize Free tells you where precious space has gone to.
TreeSize Free can be started from the context menu of a folder or drive and shows you the size of this folder, including its subfolders. You can expand this folder in Explorer-like style and you will see the size of every subfolder. Scanning is done in a thread, so you can already see results while TreeSize Free is working. The Explorer context menu is supported within TreeSize, as well as the usual drag & drop operations.

You can Download TreeSize Free from here. TreeSize Free is freeware for Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7.  Users of Windows 9x/ME can download the last compatible version TreeSize Free V2.1.

Supported Operating systems

• Windows 7 (32 Bit / 64 Bit)
• Windows Vista (32 Bit / 64 Bit)
• Windows XP (32 Bit / 64 Bit)
• Windows 2000
• Windows Server 2008 (32 Bit / 64 Bit)
• Windows Server 2003 (32 Bit / 64 Bit)

Utility: 7-Zip Format

7-Zip is the new archive format, providing high compression ratio. 7-Zip is open source software. Most of the source code is under the GNU LGPL license. The unRAR code is under a mixed license: GNU LGPL + unRAR restrictions. Check license information here: 7-Zip license.

Main Features of 7z format:

• High compression ratio in new 7z format with LZMA compression
• Supported formats:
• Packing / unpacking: 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2 and TAR
• Unpacking only: ARJ, CAB, CHM, CPIO, DEB, DMG, HFS, ISO, LZH, LZMA, MSI, NSIS, RAR, RPM, UDF, WIM, XAR and Z.
• For ZIP and GZIP formats, 7-Zip provides a compression ratio that is 2-10 % better than the ratio provided by PKZip and WinZip
• Strong AES-256 encryption in 7z and ZIP formats
• Self-extracting capability for 7z format
• Integration with Windows Shell
• Powerful File Manager
• Powerful command line version
• Plugin for FAR Manager
• Localizations for 74 languages

I personally like it very much. Its really helpful for me. Hope you all like this. You can Download 7-Zip for Windows.

Picasa 3.6 features

Picasa 3.6 has improved name tags, a feature based on the same technology that powers name tags on Picasa Web Albums. With name tags, you can organize your photos based on what matters most: the people in them. In this new version, you can also upload photos to your friends' collaborative albums, more easily geotag photos using Google Maps, and import photos from your camera and upload them to Picasa Web Albums in one step. Get started by downloading Picasa at http://picasa.google.com

Ionic Zip Utility : SaveProgress Event

Save() method in Ionic Zip, this method allows the application to explicitly specify the name of the zip file when saving. Use this when creating a new zip file, or when updating a zip archive.

The ZipFile instance is written to storage, typically a zip file in a filesystem, only when the caller calls Save. The Save operation writes the zip content to a temporary file, and then renames the temporary file to the desired name. If necessary, this method will delete a pre-existing file before the rename.

using (ZipFile zip = ZipFile.Read("Archive.zip"))
{
  zip.AddFile("test.jpg");
  zip.Save("UpdatedArchive.zip");
}

There is an Save Progress event handler which invoked when a Save() starts, before and after each entry has been written to the archive, when a Save() completes, and during other Save events.
Depending on the particular event, different properties on the SaveProgressEventArgs parameter are set.

The following  EventTypes describes under which this event handler is invoked  with the given EventType.
ZipProgressEventType.Saving_Started Fired when ZipFile.Save() begins.
ZipProgressEventType.Saving_BeforeSaveEntry Fired within ZipFile.Save(), just before writing data for each particular entry.
ZipProgressEventType.Saving_AfterSaveEntry Fired within ZipFile.Save(), just after having finished writing data for each particular entry.
ZipProgressEventType.Saving_Completed Fired when ZipFile.Save() has completed.
ZipProgressEventType.Saving_AfterSaveTempArchive Fired after the temporary file has been created. This happens only when saving to a disk file. This event will not be invoked when saving to a stream.
ZipProgressEventType.Saving_BeforeRenameTempArchive Fired just before renaming the temporary file to the permanent location. This happens only when saving to a disk file. This event will not be invoked when saving to a stream.
ZipProgressEventType.Saving_AfterRenameTempArchive Fired just after renaming the temporary file to the permanent location. This happens only when saving to a disk file. This event will not be invoked when saving to a stream.
ZipProgressEventType.Saving_AfterCompileSelfExtractor Fired after a self-extracting archive has finished compiling. This EventType is used only within SaveSelfExtractor().
ZipProgressEventType.Saving_BytesRead Set during the save of a particular entry, to update progress of the Save(). When this EventType is set, the BytesTransferred is the number of bytes that have been read from the source stream. The TotalBytesToTransfer is the number of bytes in the uncompressed file.

In example below to see how it can be used.

static bool justHadByteUpdate= false;

public static void SaveProgress(object sender, SaveProgressEventArgs e)

{

    if (e.EventType == ZipProgressEventType.Saving_Started)

        Console.WriteLine("Saving: {0}", e.ArchiveName);

    else if (e.EventType == ZipProgressEventType.Saving_Completed)

    {

        justHadByteUpdate= false;

        Console.WriteLine();

        Console.WriteLine("Done: {0}", e.ArchiveName);

    }

    else if (e.EventType == ZipProgressEventType.Saving_BeforeWriteEntry)

    {

        if (justHadByteUpdate)

            Console.WriteLine();

        Console.WriteLine("  Writing: {0} ({1}/{2})",

                          e.CurrentEntry.FileName, e.EntriesSaved, e.EntriesTotal);

        justHadByteUpdate= false;

    }

    else if (e.EventType == ZipProgressEventType.Saving_EntryBytesRead)

    {

        if (justHadByteUpdate)

            Console.SetCursorPosition(0, Console.CursorTop);

         Console.Write("     {0}/{1} ({2:N0}%)", e.BytesTransferred, e.TotalBytesToTransfer,

                      e.BytesTransferred / (0.01 * e.TotalBytesToTransfer ));

        justHadByteUpdate= true;

    }

}

public static ZipUp(string targetZip, string directory)

{

  using (var zip = new ZipFile()) {

    zip.SaveProgress += SaveProgress;

    zip.AddDirectory(directory);

    zip.Save(targetZip);

  }

}

I have copied this information from Ionic help file for my future reference.

DotNetZip - Zip and Unzip in C#, VB, any .NET language

DotNetZip is an easy-to-use, FAST, FREE class library and toolset for manipulating zip files or folders. Zip and Unzip is easy: with DotNetZip, .NET applications written in VB, C# - any .NET language - can easily create, read, extract, or update zip files. For Mono or MS .NET.

You can find more information at codeplex. Download from here.