Over the last couple of weeks I've come across 2 cool tools that make my life a little easier: File Commander (credit: Mark M) and OpenedFilesView (genuis name, right?)

File Commander (shareware) - This utility came in very handy when needing to compare the files on our backup server after users were failed over to it and then failed back to production. This utility will scan 2 directories and come back with a color-coded report of which files are different in the directories and allows you to do one and two-way syncs of that data. There are lots of little features that come along with it as well and it proved to be a powerful and useful little tool.

OpenedFilesView (freeware) - I came across this utility when users were reporting the following error when trying to delete or modify files on a file server:

Cannot delete [filename]: It is being used by another person or program. Close any programs that might be using the file and try again

Using the built-in Windows Computer Management console and viewing open files will only show the files opened by users via shares. The files in question were not showing up as being opened by any user, but a quick run of this utility showed me these files were opened by mcshield.exe, killing the process freed the files for the users. (The problem with McAfee Virus Scan is out of scope for this post, but was another problem that needed to be dealt with)

John Dove posted this the other day and I have already used it several times.

http://media-convert.com/

Multiple inputs and outputs to choose from. Coolest feature is being able to convert a URL to PDF/JPG/etc.