Tagging is commonplace around blogs and websites, MakeUseOf too has its own tagcloud. We all agree that it’s a speedy way to scour out a web resource; nearly single click in its utility. We are so used to it that we perhaps miss it as a feature in Windows.

Windows XP was born much before Web 2.0 came about. So, there’s the easy explanation. Vista of course has file tagging and Vista Quick Search as a feature but with a leaning towards only Office docs and a few limitations for certain file types like TXT, RTF, and PNG etc. Even then with all ifs and buts, Vista’s search is better for it. Windows XP meanwhile lags behind, huffing and puffing in its file search.

To plug the want, there is always one or the other software. You might have tried out the previously mentioned TaggedFrog. Another of its type is Tag2Find.

There was a brief mention of it some time back. So, let’s take a closer look at how Tag2Find saves us XP users (why not Vista’s too?) some grunt work.

Tag2Find (ver. 0.10.2.5) is a 2.23 MB freeware that allows us to tag Windows files and make our search less tedious. According to the site, it’s still in the technical preview stage and the developers are looking to make further improvements.

The First Steps to Tag Windows Files

There are three pre-requisites for installing Tag2Find on your machine –

• Windows XP (Home, Professional) or Vista (32-bit)
• NET Runtime 2.0
• NTFS-formatted file system

For installation, you need administer privileges on your system. The installation runs through a few configuration screens for setting up the location of the internal tag database which stores all the tag info.

Another sequence of steps is for selecting the files/folders and the extensions you want to tag during the initial setup (The Intial Tagging Wizard). That done the installer shows a brief video clip revealing how tag2find should be used. Don’t worry, it’s a cinch.

Tag2find covers all locations that make it easy to tag Windows files – desktop, explorer toolbar, system tray and the right click context menu.

Quickie tagging…

During installation, the Initial Tagging Wizard helps out by letting you select the files, folders and extensions which you want to include in your tags. The wizard can be opened later on too.

You can tag your Windows files by a selection or a drag and drop using three different approaches –

• By a drag and drop on the Tag2Find explorer toolbar icon.
• By right-clicking on the selected file and using the context menu.
• By using the Floating Tag Box manually.

Going for any of these three processes opens up a Tag2Find window. The window displays the entire tag list, some suggested tags and info on the file that is to be tagged. Clicking on Details gives you additional file information and a preview if available.

Tag2Find also makes it simple for new files by actively monitoring selected file locations (watched folders). The New File Monitor pops up like an alert box and gives you a quick way to tag the file.

Find them out using tags

Tags wouldn’t be of much help if we don’t have an equally easy way of using tags to shortlist the files we want. Fill in the tag search term in the Tag2Find field box to display the files labeled by the tag in the Results Preview. Open the files from within the preview window or drag and drop it elsewhere. You can also view related tags by entering a comma after the first one. A plus is the graphical bar which is color coded to indicate the relative usage of the file in terms of the tag.

Get the big picture using the TagBrowser

The TagBrowser is like the centerpiece for all your tags. Browse, sort or filter your tags from the explorer like browser window. TagBrowser is also the tool for mass management of all  tags. Edit tags or set new ones for a bunch of files for rapid organization. One click filters easily set apart documents from other file types like movies and music.

What’s a tag without a tag cloud? The TagBrowser has the option of displaying all your tags either as a tag cloud (with the relative sizes for importance) or as a list.

This is not all there is to it the free software. Some little extras can be found within the settings for TagBrowser. Decide on the color of the tags, set the transparency of the Floating Tag Box, import export tags, auto-play and preview media files in TagBrowser or the tag detail pop-up make it quite a rounded application.

First impressions…

On first install and use, some users might just stop short, just because we are so used to web tags. The initial pause done away with, Tag2Find provides lots of flexible ways to tag all your files. Searching by tag is also snappy. It’s almost like an Explorer replacement… addition of an Explorer-like directory structure might just make it one. The PDF help file provided on the site makes the learning curve less acute. The beginning looks and feels good.

If you are an old XP hand (or even a Vista user), give file tagging with Tag2Find a shot. Who knows it might be the ticket for a better organized computer. Are you familiar with any other tool to tag Windows files? Let us know in comments!

Image Credit: rooneyjohn

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

• TaggedFrog – Cool File Tagging App for Windows (9)
• Top 4 Desktop Search Tools To Find That Elusive File (24)
• The 5 Good Free Windows File Managers (51)
• Split Big Files into Smaller Ones with GSplit (6)
• Simple Ways To Organize Your Files In Mac (10)

The download is a little less than 3MB and the memory footprint on this bad boy uses about 12MB of memory. Can you spare 12MB to make your life easier? I sure can!

Now let’s take a look at how it works and how it can create shortcuts and save you some time. First you need to download and install the application from the above link. You will run through the normal barrage of next, next, and a little more nexting. Finally hit finish and we can get started.

Now you will see a new icon in your system tray. It looks like this:

By clicking on the red starred folder you will bring up this menu:

We do not have any shortcuts listed just yet as we have not added them yet! So click on your only option and Open Medal Folders. That will bring you to a ultra simple interface for adding folders. To create shortcuts, all you need to do is drag a folder into the box below and it will be added to your MedalFolders. How easy is that?

This is what the interface looks like:

So open up Explorer and simply drag your folders, drive letters or mapped drives right into the application and they will be available to you at the click of a button. Once you drag your folder in, you will be asked to give it a display name or as they refer to it a Media Folder Name. Add that and hit the Add button.

Continue adding folders to your hearts content. Here are some of the ones I added.These are the drives I use the hell out of on a daily basis, But feel free to add whatever you want to the list.

Now after you finish adding your items to your interface they will appear at the click of your mouse. I hovered over the Medal Folder icon and clicked. This is what I see:

Now simply clicking on one of those links like my MUO Drive for instance opens a Windows Explorer window to that folder like so:

Once you get your folder straight you can export your settings for use on another machine. Just hit File – Export menu. On the machine you want to import to hit File – Import menu and point it to the file you exported. Easy peasy…

Do you have another favorite launcher or file manager? Do you have some slick tricks that help you navigate your files or folders like a champ? If so please leave a comment in the comment section below. We would love to hear from you about your tricks. Maybe one of them can even become an article on its own!

MedalFolders.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

• Use the Places Utility to Customize Locations in Open File Dialogue Box [Windows] (19)
• How To Make Your Own Windows Run Menu Shortcuts (12)
• Get Assisted By Butler On Your Mac (4)
• FARR – Launch Your Apps & Find Your Files Quickly [Windows] (19)
• Enso Launcher: It Will Make You Feel Like a Hacker (16)

Most often they are used on blogs but they are also used in various ways on social networking sites such as Delicious, news sites like Newsvine or even online stores like Amazon. Any site that generates regular or changing content will usually have some sort of tag system in place. So why just the web? Why can’t we have it on our PCs as well?

TaggedFrog is a simple and free file tagging app for Windows XP or Vista that allows for the easy addition of files to be tagged with as many descriptive keywords (tags) as you can possibly think of. You can then visualize them in a cloud display which looks very similar to your everyday cloud display you see on many websites today.

You first begin tagging the files by adding and managing the keywords you’d like to create for your files.

An easy drag and drop interface allows for the easy addition of any type of file, document or web link from your computer. Once they are added, you can simply add any of your created tags to that file.

So now, instead of renaming and changing files as they are created, you can quickly and easily add tags to them. This allows for easy filtering and searching of your hundreds of thousands of files.

Along with the tag cloud, you can also set up “favorites” for locating some of the more popular files and tags. If you’d prefer not to go through and tag all of your files manually, you can also set up options to go through your entire hard drive with the nice “Auto Scan and Tag” feature.

The simple and clean interface, and fast search capability of tags, makes TaggedFrog a great alternative to the Windows Vista launch bar, and MUCH better search alternative than on Windows XP. Adding tags in Vista can be very tedious and having a separate application to keep them organized can become very handy when files begin to pile up on your PC.

There are plenty of other search alternatives (Windows Desktop Search, Google Desktop, etc…) than a tagging application like this. But if you simply want better organization of files, instead of creating hundreds of directories, and you don’t want to bog down your computer with search indexing, then TaggedFrog is likely the right application for you.

What do you think of tagging files instead of simply searching? Are there any other file tagging applications for Windows that you use?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

• Tag2Find – Tag Files in Windows for Better Organization (4)
• Restore Deleted Files Easily With Recuva (12)
• Vista Switcher – Replace Windows’ Alt-Tab With Something Cooler (9)
• Tweak Your Windows Operating System With Xpy (10)
• Tweak Windows XP/Vista/7 to Your Taste with XdN Tweaker (10)

Which is unfortunate, because Windows Explorer is a terrible application. It’s bad at tracking where you’ve been, it makes it hard to copy, move or even find files, and loves to fail me and close everything on my screen.

Thankfully, there’s no shortage of Explorer replacements that do Explorer’s job much better than Explorer itself. They have better features, better reliability, and better usability as a whole. Out of the many I looked at, here are the best five free windows file managers (alternative to windows explorer).

Xplorer2

Xplorer2 is the program of my choice, and is an awesomely feature-packed free windows file manager. First of all, it opens with two independent panes – great for moving and organizing files. It keeps a trail for you, so you can go back to the last folder (or three folders ago) easily. You can save bookmarks as your favorite spots, see tons of information about all of your files, and customize nearly everything about Xplorer2.

One of my favorite features is the “Preview” ability- Xplorer2 can take files of almost any type (more in the paid version), and preview them for you right in the window – great for making sure you don’t open the wrong file. And that’s all in the free version!

For $20, you can upgrade and get features you never knew you needed, but suddenly won’t be able to live without. The free version’s what I used for a long time, though, and it’s always served me well.

Kyle wrote a more detailed review of Xplorer2 last year here.

ExplorerXP

ExplorerXP’s nicest feature, in my opinion, is the tabbed interface – have as many tabs open as you want, and move things around in them just by dragging a file or folder to a tab. You can also merge or split files in .zip format, a la WinZip or WinRAR.

ExplorerXP can be set to show or not show certain files or file types, has tons of great keyboard shortcuts, and is arguably the easiest to use of the bunch. Not too many bells and whistles can be found in ExplorerXP, but if all you want is an improvement on the Windows Explorer shell, ExplorerXP’s pretty hard to beat.

FreeCommander

I like FreeCommander mostly because it makes me feel like a Jedi leader – The Free Commander. Maybe that’s just me. It’s also, however, a great application – particularly for those with large multimedia libraries.

Built on the same Norton Commander model as Xplorer2 and others, It features a dual-pane interface similar to Xplorer2, and has a similar file previewer as well. FreeCommander can also deal with your .zip, .cab, and .rar files, and even comes with a built-in FTP client.

The standout feature of FreeCommander is the endless customizability, giving you total access to every setting possible. Everything you want and don’t want to see or manage can be edited, and FreeCommander teaches you how with their guide.

A43

A43, as best as I can tell, is Windows 2000/XP only. If you’re using either of those, though, give it a shot. It’s a portable application that’s totally self-contained, and can do a lot more than manage files (though it does that quite well, with the dual-pane and tree views we’ve come to love).

A43 has an integrated text editor, image viewer, powerful search, and a quick launch tab to let you see your most-used applications. It’s almost a replacement for Explorer, the taskbar and a number of your applications all in one.

A43’s not under current support (hence no Vista version), but does what it does incredibly well for XP and 2000 users.

UltraExplorer

UltraExplorer has a customizable interface that can get too complicated if you let it – but can be really useful if you use it right.

One thing I loved about it is the “Drop Stack,” a place to drag files you use the most for quick access. If you don’t want all the tabs in one window, you can pull them out for quick access individually. For command line junkies, there’s access to a built-in command line window.  The Breadcrumb Bar is a great way to navigate through the folder path- a feature glaringly absent from Windows Explorer.

Windows Explorer, I’m convinced, was created to drive you slowly, surely insane – another step into crazy with every lost file and botched cut and paste between windows. With any of these five free apps, you can avoid the irritating, difficult-to-use Windows Explorer, and manage your files in an interface that actually makes sense.

What file-manager do you use? One of these, or something else?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

• Replace Windows Explorer With A More Powerful Alternative (19)
• Windows Registry Tweaks (Part 2) (8)
• Three Active Desktop Replacements for Windows (8)
• The Ultimate Extension for Windows Explorer (9)
• The Essential Keyboard Shortcuts to whip your Windows (18)

D-FileMU is a small, lightweight free software that belies its pocket-size with its punch. The 125 KB size download does not tax even a dial-up connection nor does it take a chunk out of your system resources. It is a relatively uncomplicated piece of software and in the same mold as another batch file renamer called ‘Renamer’ that was covered on MakeUseOf earlier.

The first thing I liked about the software was that it didn’t require any installation. I could run the program from any location and yes, even from my USB drive.

The file renaming operation is divided into three steps.

Step One lists the 17 different ways you can rename a file. Some of the common tasks which the software covers include everrything from renaming files to lowercase to adding ‘n’ characters to file names.

• Changing the case of the filenames.
• Changing file extensions of filenames.
• Adding strings to the beginning and end of the filenames.
• Adding numbers in sequence to the beginning or end of the filenames.
• Changing the file attributes i.e. read only (+r) or hidden (+h) or archive (+a).
• Completely renaming the files.
• Renaming files to lowercase.

…and so on.

Step Two takes you a bit further into the selection of the files you want to rename. You can choose files individually, or by file extension or apply both the choices. Thus, files can be selected from disparate locations spread out on your hard drive or can be worked upon as a collection.

Step Three lists the files that are to be worked upon. A ‘Preview’ function to see the changes that will take place is very helpful. A click of the ‘Perform Changes’ button and the operation is complete.

With the operation complete, a box will prompt you to inform that the program has made the changes to the files. If there were any errors encountered during the process, the program will also display another box notifying you that there were errors and ask if you wish to view them or not.

A button which says ‘View Process File’ opens up a file which contains a detailed step by step account of what changes were made to which files. Similarly, a button that says ‘View Error File’ opens up a file which displays the list of errors (if any) that occurred during the renaming operation.

The user might have to take this file rename tool through a few runs to get the perfect file names with all the correct attributes in place.

Therefore, following a three step process your entire gamut of files gets new names. The program can also be used from the command line, but I guess that would be more for expert hands.

D-FileMU has all the attributes of a good freeware program – fast, light and accurate. What it slightly suffers from is a non-functioning developer website and lack of updates. But the mirror download sites allow us to get the software.

D-FileMU Version 1.7.4 is compatible with WinXP and Win2000.

So, do you have your own favourite file renaming utility? Give us your opinion about this time and type-saving software.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

• The 5 Good Free Windows File Managers (51)
• TaggedFrog – Cool File Tagging App for Windows (9)
• Tag2Find – Tag Files in Windows for Better Organization (4)
• Split Big Files into Smaller Ones with GSplit (6)
• Join MP3 Files Together with Merge MP3 (19)

So obviously it would be cool and productive to some tools that make your work easier. Nautilus actions allow you to add custom functionality to Nautilus. This is achieved via the right click menu. You can inter-convert files in various formats, mount ISO files, merge PDF files all from within Mautilus without launching any other application all from the right click context menu. The possibilities here are only limited by your imagination!

Adding such custom functionality is pretty easy. You don’t need to be a Linux hacker or programmer to get it working. All you need is:

• The ‘nautilus-actions’ package
• The knowledge of an equivalent command to achieve the same objective

The Nautilus-Actions Package

The nautilus-actions package is what provides you with a nice graphical tool where you can create, edit and remove nautilus-actions or the custom functionality we are looking for. It is easily available through your distribution’s package manager.

Knowledge Of The Command

As a Linux user you are no stranger to the fact that most of the tasks that you perform via the mouse and GUI can be accomplished via commands as well. Want to print resume.doc? Just enter ‘oowriter -p resume.doc’ in the terminal. Need to convert a jpeg file to gif? Enter ‘convert logo.jpeg logo.gif’ (requires imagemagick). Want to set an image as wallpaper? Type ‘gconftool-2 -t str –set /desktop/gnome/background/picture_filename ‘.

So you can achieve almost anything from the command line and this is what we will exploit here.

Create An Action

Let me illustrate the steps you need to follow with an example. We will create a nautilus action to convert flv files to mp4 suitable for playback in an iPod Touch/iPhone. I will use ffmpeg for conversion, so make sure you have it installed (mostly available through package managers, ’sudo apt-get install ffmpeg’ on ubuntu) if you plan to use the action or try along.

• Go to System > Preferences > Nautilus Actions



• Click on Add. (Note that you can edit, remove, import/export actions from here on in)



• In the label field, type the text you want to appear in the right click context menu of flv files. You can choose an icon and specify a tooltip which provides information about what this option would do. I will skip both of these as they are not essential for functionality.
• Path and Parameters is where all the action is. In path put in the utility that you will use to perform the action. We will be using ffmpeg so put in /usr/bin/ffmpeg here. If you are not sure where the utility resides use the ‘where is’ command to find out. eg use ‘whereis ffmpeg‘ to know its location.
• The parameter line is going to be scary so hold your breath and copy paste:’ -i %d/%f -f mp4 -vcodec libxvid -maxrate 01000 -qmin 3 -qmax 5 -bufsize 4096 -g 300 -acodec aac -s 480×320 -ab 0128000 -b 400000 %d/%f.mp4 ‘  Don’t blame me, this is what you need to enter on the command line to convert flv to mp4 with ffmpeg (refer man ffmpeg for more details)! What is noteworthy is the %d and %f. These two provide information on which file you right clicked. Click on the legend button for more details. By the way, I am no video expert and I don’t claim the options above to be perfect, it does the job just fine. So if you have some suggestions please feel free to share them in comments.

  

• Next click on the condition tab.  This is where you will limit your options to the context menu’s required file types (flv in our case). You can limit your choices via the filename metacharacters or via the mimetype. Additionally you can specify if your action appears for files only or for files and folders as well. We will type ‘*.flv’ for filename and apply our actions to files only.



• In the advanced condition tab, you can further limit your choice to local files, samba shares, ftp files etc. We will choose local files here.
• Click OK and you are done!

Now go look for an flv file. Right click and presto, there is your very own custom ‘Convert for iPod’ option. Click on it and you will see a new mp4 file in the same folder.

For The Lazier Geeks

If the above seems like too much work for you, check out here for ready made actions!

Some Tips

Experiment on the command line with file names and the options for the utility. When you are pretty sure about a functionality that you require for certain type of files, replace the file name in the command with %d/%f.

If you want to act on more than one files use %M instead.

For performing complicated operations (e.g. to email a file to someone from the context menu) its best to create a script and pass the appropriate arguments within the script. This will help you to debug and allow greater control altogether.

With nautilus actions you can transform any task that you perform often or a cumbersome command line like above into a convenient easy to use context menu option. Here is the ‘Convert for iPod’ Action if you need it. Check out other nautilus addons previously covered on MakeUseOf.

Have you used nautilus-actions before? What actions you are currently using? Have a great idea to turn into an action? Share with us in the comments, who knows you might just get an action! Oh and in case you are puzzled by the topmost image, it is a nautilus!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

• 6 Useful Extensions to Improve Nautilus Functionality [Linux] (15)
• 8 Great Alternative Desktop Managers For Linux (55)
• 4 Open Source Collection Manager Apps (13)
• 15 Great Ubuntu Tips For Linux Power Users (83)
• Windows Registry Tweaks (Part 2) (8)

Sharing files with your friends & family was never this easy, especially since another handy feature is that you can also split several large files at once. Splitting a file with GSplit can be done in 3 easy steps:

• Select the file that you want to split into smaller files by clicking Browse



• Click Destination Folder on the left menu and choose the folder where you want it to place the different pieces of the file. If the folder doesn’t exists, Gsplit automatically creates one.
• Click on Split file, choose thread priority and Internal Buffer size. It also gives you an option to execute a specific command automatically after splitting.

That’s it. After splitting the file, it creates an executable file which unites all the files into it’s original form. The person on the other end doesn’t need to have GSplit in order to run the file and it works like a charm.

You can also create two types of pieces, Spanned and Blocked. Spanned Pieces spans your file into different pieces onto multiple disks and asks you to insert the second disk to complete when the first one is full.

The Blocked Pieces option gives you the ability to build all the pieces in a specific folder with a specific size on each. For example, If you have a 700 MB file, you can enter the size, say 100 MB and it will split the file into 7 pieces so it’s easy for you to upload or share.

You’ll also see a Self-Uniting option, it’s preferred that you keep it at it’s default settings. When GSplit splits your file it automatically creates a Windows Executable file which joins/unites all the files together in order to restore the original file without the end-user having to install anything as mentioned above. If you un-check the Self-Uniting Option, the person who receives your split files needs to have the software in order to unite them back.

The download page also includes a portable version for your USB stick!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

• Files too big? Split them up with JR Split File (4)
• Top Free File Hosts To Store Your Files Online (154)
• The 5 Good Free Windows File Managers (51)
• TaggedFrog – Cool File Tagging App for Windows (9)
• Tag2Find – Tag Files in Windows for Better Organization (4)

So Merge MP3 helps by allowing me to join all MP3 files together into one big MP3 file. This means that they can all play one after another without a break. I don’t have to think about whether the track is about to end or not. I can just hit “play” and enjoy the music / comedy.

The only slight snag with this app is that you can hear a very slight “jump” where the audio files connected with one another. The merging isn’t totally seamless. But this is a very minor thing as far as I’m concerned. Audio quality fanatics on the other hand will have high blood pressure problems and go totally off their heads.

What I particularly like about Merge MP3 is that it is a portable app, no installation required. So just download the app, transfer it to your thumb drive and you can merge mp3 files together on any Windows PC.

When you double-click on the .exe file, it opens up the interface:

Then either navigate to the MP3 files you want to merge, or (even easier), drag and drop the MP3 files onto the Merge MP3 app :

After choosing a target folder, a name for your newly merged file and completing the new ID3 tag, the app gets to work joining all the files together one by one. In my case, it took less than 5 seconds.

Now I have one big file, instead of 14 little ones! So another advantage is that it tidies up your computer folders!

Do you use another free app to merge MP3 files?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

• Normalize MP3 Volume Levels with MP3Gain (10)
• Top 3 Sites For Streaming Your Music Anywhere (16)
• The 5 Good Free Windows File Managers (51)
• TaggedFrog – Cool File Tagging App for Windows (9)
• Tag2Find – Tag Files in Windows for Better Organization (4)

Other than a file browser, Nautilus also comes with a good list of capabilities that you can use right off the context menu. If you are using Ubuntu 8.04, you will find that you can easily encrypt a file, sign a document or even share files/folders with others over the Samba network, with just a simple right-click on the mouse. If that is not enough for you, you can also install additional nautilus extensions to increase its functionality.

Below I have listed 6 useful extensions and scripts that you can use to power up your Nautilus.

1. nautilus- gksu

If you hate the way that Linux restricts your user privileges and access to certain files, then nautilus-gksu is the easiest way to get yourself out of it. “Nautilus-gksu” adds a “Open as administrator” entry in the context menu. When you need to open any files with root permission, you just have to right-click on the file, select “Open as Administrator” and you will be able to read/edit/modify the file.

(In Ubuntu, type sudo apt-get install nautilus-gksu in the terminal to install)

2. nautilus-actions

“Nautilus-action” allows you to define custom actions or commands for certain file types or files with names matching your description. There are plenty of things that you can do with “nautilus-action”, such as adding an audio file to the queue in Rhythmbox music player or send a particular picture to your friends via Evolution.

In one of my tutorials at Make Tech Easier, I make use of “nautilus-actions” to place a ’shred’ command in the context menu. When I want to wipe off a confidential file from my hard disk completely, I can simply right-click and select ’shred’.

You can also check out the Ubuntu forum for more things that you can do with “nautilus-actions”

(In Ubuntu, type sudo apt-get install nautilus-actions in the terminal to install)

3. nautilus-wallpaper

Sometimes you might come across an image that you like so much and decide to make it your wallpaper. Instead of going through all the processes just to change the wallpaper on your desktop, you can quickly change your wallpaper with “nautilus-wallpaper”. All it takes is only a right-click and select “Set as Wallpaper”.

(In Ubuntu, type sudo apt-get install nautilus-wallpaper in the terminal to install)

4. Nautilus-image-converter

When I first checked out this extension, I thought that it would convert an image from one format to another (i.e convert from jpg to png). I was wrong. This extension does not convert the image format. Instead, it allows you to mass resize or rotate images. Though not what I really thought it was, it is still an useful extension. Imagine the time wasted on opening the GIMP image editor, opening the file, selecting the image resize function, then saving the file.

Now you can select a bunch of image files, right-click the mouse, select “Resize image” and that’s it. There are pre-defined image sizes that you can choose from, and if none suits your criteria, you can even set your own image width and height. The same goes for rotate image function.

(In Ubuntu, type sudo apt-get install nautilus-image-converter in the terminal to install)

5. nautilus-dropbox

If you have read our previous review of Dropbox, you will know that the ‘killer’ factor that it has over other competitors is that it provides a desktop client for all platforms and you can easily backup your files with simple drag and drop.

In Linux, the desktop client is actually a Nautilus extension. The “nautilus-dropbox” extension creates a folder in your Home folder. Whenever you drag and drop a file/folder into the Dropbox folder, it will automatically sync with the online server and make sure your files/folders are safely backed up.

I am not sure if the 1GB storage space is enough for you, but I am sure that this “nautilus-dropbox” extension will make your backup a painless process.

(To install nautilus-dropbox, download the deb file from GetDropBox.com)

6. Nautilus-script-audio-convert

This is not a nautilus extension, but a widely used nautilus script. If you frequently work with audio files of mp3, wav or even flac format, then this audio convert script will be useful to you. You can easily convert your audio files from one format to another.

Note: You will need to install the necessary audio codecs before you can convert the audio files to the format you want.

(In Ubuntu, type sudo apt-get install nautilus-script-audio-convert in the terminal to install)

What is your favorite nautilus extensions and scripts?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

• How To Add Custom Functionality To Nautilus [Linux] (10)
• 8 Great Alternative Desktop Managers For Linux (55)
• Ubuntu System Panel Gives Quick Access To Your Applications (20)
• The 5 Good Free Windows File Managers (51)
• 5 Packs to Transform Windows to other OS (171)

JR Split File is a portable program which means that it doesn’t need to be installed on the PC. It can easily be run off a USB stick if you happen to be on the go, using someone else’s computer. When you double-click the program, the following box comes up :

As you can see in the screenshot, you would first choose the large file to be split. You would also specify the folder to put the smaller pieces into. Next, you need to specify how big each piece should be (useful if an email program has a file size limit) and if you want the recipient of the file pieces to be able to put everything back together again, you need to make a “bat” file (the “bat” file is what reconstructs everything). Then press “split”.

The file pieces will be placed in the folder you specified and then you can email them to the intended recipient. You MUST also send them the “bat” file.

The other person then just needs to place all the pieces AND the “bat” file in the same folder (they don’t necessarily need to have this program). They then just double-click the “bat” file and right away, the file is reconstructed in full. But everything has to be in the same folder otherwise the re-construction won’t work.

It worked perfectly on a lot of files on my PC and seems to be a very easy solution for sending those huge files to people by email.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

• Split Big Files into Smaller Ones with GSplit (6)
• Using Keepass to Secure Your Online Accounts (19)
• USB Office Showdown: Tiny USB Office vs. Portable Apps (14)
• Toss Broken Keyboard to side with Portable On-Screen Keyboard (14)
• Put your Life On a USB Stick [Linux] (8)