For those users running Mac OS X there is a little known, but very useful utility called the System Profiler. This will show you all kinds of information about the hardware and software on your Mac-based computer. The System Profiler is accessible by going to the “Go” menu in the Finder > “Utilities” and opening “System Profiler”. Alternatively, you can type “System Profiler” into Spotlight.

The Calculator in Windows 7 does not seem at first glance to really showcase anything different. However, there are plenty of new functions in this latest version of Calculator. In particular, in the “View” menu there are two new modes – programmer and statistics, offering new functions for these purposes. There are even custom operations you can perform, such as unit and date conversions (also available on the “View” menu).

If you are attempting to run older software on Windows 7 but it does not work correctly, yet it worked perfectly fine under Windows XP, then a new feature called Windows XP Mode may be quite useful. This is an embedded version of Windows XP which runs on Windows 7 allowing older legacy applications to work. Best of all, Windows XP Mode is a free download from the Microsoft website. However, this will only work with Windows 7 Professional and Ultimate. To download, visit the Windows XP Mode website at www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/default.aspx.

To users of Windows XP the relatively simple operation of copying a large number of files often seems easy, but can be fraught with potential problems. The most common issue is when one of the files in a large batch does not want to copy, for one reason or another, and it halts the entire copy process as a result. Fortunately there is a nice utility called RichCopy which alleviates such issues, and allows you much greater control over the copying process (such as the ability to skip files which will not copy for some reason). RichCopy is an extension and much more user-friendly version of the popular Microsoft utility called RoboCopy. You can download RichCopy for free at technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/2009.04.utilityspotlight.aspx?pr=blog .

In a previous Tip of the Week I mentioned the Image Resizer Power Toy. This is an excellent utility which places an item in the context (right-click) menu for images, allowing you to easily resize such images. Unfortunately the Microsoft released Power Toy only works in Windows XP. However, this utility has been cloned and extended by another developer to work on other versions of Windows, including Windows Vista and 7. Recently the website for the Image Resizer Power Toy Clone has been moved, so I thought it would be a good opportunity to mention this tip again. If you would like to download this excellent utility the new website is located at www.codeplex.com/ImageResizer .