tools - WINDOWS WISDOM

Jim Coe December 9, 2009

Tools we all need – 1

How your Windows software works…

Of course every piece of hardware in your computer must be run by a piece of software (a “Driver”). And you also need software to do the tasks that you bought your computer for in the first place. These are called “Applications”. These applications need the services of your hardware, by way of the “Operating System” which controls the drivers.

The operating system is a set of programs that tie it all together. The operating system (Microsoft’s Windows, in our case) is used to monitor, control, maintain, install or remove, arbitrate between and generally manage your drivers and applications. An it presents them to you in a usefulÂ (maybe even pretty) way – through a GUI (Graphical User Interface).

So much for the basics. But beside the applications you need for your work or play and the drivers to run your hardware devices, there are also “Utility” applications used for maintaining your system and it’s security. Many Windows users don’t have or use the utility programs they need.

So, let’s talk about the best of each of these types of software and what you absolutely must have to keep your computing experience a happy one.

Drivers:
These come from the various manufacturers of your different hardware devices. For example, your CD/ROM driver is operated by its drivers. Hopefully engineers of each of these hardware device companies worked with the engineers at Microsoft (and paid big bucks) to insure compatibility.

You have no options about your hardware drivers, except to visit your hardware manufacturer’s web site, if you have trouble with a piece of hardware – in order to download and install a newer driver (hopefully a better one). Some hardware manufacturers write excellent software drivers, even though software is not their main skill. Others make good hardware and write poor software – beware.

All you can do about software drivers is to choose the best manufacturers from which to buy hardware. This implies that you buy your computer from a computer manufacturer that understands which manufacturers they in turn should use for the many parts of their computer.

Or, to be sure of quality, you can buy from a local computer assembly company – with or without your very own computer design specification. Of course most of you will not do the research or have the expertise to discover all the currently best brands (this in in constant flux) and to create your own design spec. But you can still create a design spec with the help of the assembly company, or a personal computer consultant. You will tell them what your computing needs areÂ and how much you are willing to spend to get the best. Many best-of-breed products cost no more than their competitors.

A great place to check hardware quality is Tom’s Hardware.

Operating Systems:
Today, you should get a 64 bit computer and run a 64 bit operating system. It’s hard to find a system with the fine Windows XP installed anymore, because Windows 7 is the current Microsoft operating system, following after Windows Vista.

Microsoft’s Windows Vista had a poor reputation at first, and some annoying “features”. But most of its early problems have been fixed, so I don’t recommend that you avoid it, if you can’t find a computer you like that has Windows 7.

If you have a computer assembled for you than you can get whatever you want. In that case, get Windows 7 or Windows XP Professional 64 bit.

Microsoft has recently released Windows 7, which is much better than previous versions of Windows. Usually I recommend not being an “early adopter” of any software. As usual in the PC business, you should avoid the “bleeding edge” and attempt to stay on the “leading edge”. That means waiting a month or three for the bugs to be worked out of new software products. Operating systems are among the most complex beasts every created by humans and it’s thought to be impossible to produce one without built-in problems. Early adopters are too often really product testers. However Windows 7 was released in very good shape and I began installing it for my clients in Early December of 2009 – with great success.

Utilities:
Here are the utility programs (including security) I couldn’t live without:

Backup:
Acronis “True Image” Home edition.
www.acronis.com
You must make backups onto another drive, because your live data (when your computer is powered) and the magnetic image of your data on your hard drive (powered or not) are way too fragile to be depended on.

It’s not enough to back up just your work. Think of the hours of effort that have gone into setting up your operating system and programs. What about all you favorite webs sites, your years of emails and contact info, your music and photos, those programs and games you don’t have CDs for, all the things you’ve forgotten you have, but still need from time to time.

Do you really want to find all that stuff, install Windows all over again, re-install as much of your stuff as you can find and start over from scratch? You’ll be limping along for weeks trying to get it all back and buying programs again you already own.

Much better to make a full backup – one from which you can (rather quickly) restore any file or folder – or your whole operating system, applications, utilities and all – the whole shebang. For most people, the best policy is to do such a full backup once or twice a week, with “Incremental” in between. Incrementals save just your newest work and take a much shorter time to complete than a full backup. And be sure to set your backup software to “Validate” your backups after they are made. Even though this takes about twice as long, you don’t want backups you can’t trust.

An even safer backup policy is to keep both the current backup and one or more older ones. In case of a natural disaster or fire and if your information is really critical, you should use removable drives (like external USB drives) and swap one, then the other out to a remote location, like a bank vault.

I do my backups to a very large internal hard drive, but using a fast external USB hard drive is good too. The newest computers let you use a standard SATA hard drive externally as well. This is somewhat faster and more reliable.

For me, the time has come when I just have too much stuff on my hard drive. You can always get larger drives in order to hold more. You can even get a monster enterprise network storage box. For example, my main (“C:” boot drive) is 750GB (750,000 millions of bytes – think of a byte as 1 character in a word). And, the way I like to do backups, I have an identical internal drive installed just to hold backups.

Recently that filled up to the extent that it would hold only 1 backup. I like to save the most recent backup and the one before it – at a minimum. You never know when something might go wrong or missing which you don’t catch right away, such that it becomes part of your next backup. Without a previous backup, or an “archive” (a backup or software copy saved to another, more or less permanent medium) you are screwed.

So, I just installed the largest consumer drive available, a Seagate 1.5TB (Terabyte = 1,000s of GB) unit. But more storage space is a limited solution, since with a large enough place to store your backups, the limiting factor becomes how long it takes to MAKE such a large backup.

Mine are taking way too long now, such that my backup program is sometimes overlapping the scheduled time when my anti-virus scanning program should be running. Then they fight over who gets to hog the CPU (“Central Processing Unit” or “Microprocessor” the “brains” of any computer). That slows them both down. I’m a night person, so my backup program fires off at 2:00 am and should finish by 8:00 am – but now it doesn’t. This in spite of my having to run backups and anti-virus scans on alternate nights now.

Next: The fix and a utility program that comes to my rescue – just in time!

…Continued in next post…
Please feel free to comment below..

_jim coe

Filed Under: tools Tagged With: backup, drivers, operating system, review sites, utility program, Vista, Windows 7 Leave a Comment

Jim Coe December 9, 2009

Tools we all need – 2

It’s computer file Spring Cleaning time.

I must move the files which are consuming the most space off of my hard drive. But exactly which files are those? The rather lame Windows file manager (“Windows Explorer”) won’t tell me.

TreeSize Pro to the rescue! TreeSize is a utility program which quickly builds graphs showing you which of your file folders (and their contents) are consuming the largest percentage of your hard drive space. Then it works interactively with you to help with your cleanup chores.
TreeSize Pro

The best maintenance toolkit – JV16 Power Tools
JV16

Everyone should have a copy of JV16 Power Tools to keep Windows fast and healthy. JV16 may be considered a geeks tool, but anyone can learn to use it. It’s quite friendly – if a bit verbose (kind of like me). You use it for many things, but most often to clean and repair the critical “Windows Registry”.

The Registry is a big quadruple database in which Windows stores everything it knows about itself and about all your hardware and software. Windows refers to its Registry whenever it has to interact with these things – which is practically all the time. Incorrect or missing Registry entries are a very common problem. So, once per month at least, and also every time a program crashes or anything really weird happens, you do a registry clean with JV16 Power Tools. Cleaning up or repairing the Windows Registry won’t fix every problem – but it will fix (or help to fix) many – since the Registry is one part of many computer problems.

Two other especially handy tools of the many in JV-16 Power Tools can undelete files you’ve accidentally deleted (if you do so rapidly) and a disk “scrubber”, that will wipe all traces of files, folders, or your whole drive – like if you want to give your old computer away, but not your files.

—-
By the way – a warning about getting technical support and your registry:
Some sloppy support personnel (who you might be getting telephone support from) will “talk you through” editing your registry – without having you make a registry backup first! Never so this!

A single typo in the registry can totally stop your computing experience. If you run into one of these flakes, insist that they help you make a backup of your registry (to your desktop, for example) before doing any edits! It only takes a few seconds. To make a backup copy:
1. Enter the registry editor: Star > Run > “regedit” > [Enter key]
2. File > Export {select where to save – usually the desktop} > enter a file name {something like “RegBak040209a” to indicate the date and that this is the first version, in case you save another version later} > [Save]
3. It may take a few seconds – not to worry.
—-

JV16 can also recover accidentally deleted programs (if you get to them soon enough), stop unneeded programs from loading every time you start Windows (a major cause of slow Windows operation) and do many other chores.

My only warning about JV16 is the same as for anything else about your computer. If you understand what you are about to do, then it’s probably safe to do it. But if you are just stumbling around in the dark, better get some light on the subject first (like with a quick Google search) or you may hurt yourself. JV16 is a powerful tool, so use it wisely. It has lots of text to explain things – you had best read that.

The best Security tools
AVG Internet Security 8.5 (Home and home office version)
AVG security system
Everybody needs to protect their personal computer from nasty malware (worms, trojans, viruses). But it’s also vital to have a good firewall to keep out hackers…

(we interrupt this thought to complain bitterly about the media taking this praise-phrase “hacker” – which used to mean an outstanding, geeky, hands-on [usually in the field of electronics] individual, who builds and invents things by “hacking” [literally disassembling and eviscerating] surplus equipment. The worst this “hacker” term used to connote was a “Gyro Gearlose”, slightly out-there, eccentric. Now our press has commandeered the phrase “hacker” to describe a criminal computer system/software break-in artist of ill intent. By the way, the correct term for one of those low-lifes is “cracker”. Being a hacker of the former kind – I object! There, I feel much better now).

…So, this AVG product has good firewall and anti-virus tools. It also has anti-spyware, email security and safe Internet surfing tools and more. Of course this big need for security is a drag on us all. You have to pay for these programs (which are usually yearly “subscriptions”, so you get to pay over and over), you have to schedule a daily (or nightly) scan of your hard drives, you have to automatically download the latest lists of all the bad guys every few hours and you have to accept some slowing of your computing and email delivery while your security programs scan everything.

In short, it’s all a royal pain in the fundament. One of those things that makes you wonder if personal computers are really “labor saving devices”.

A curse on all creators and users of malware!

But, such is modern life. So, to get on with it, there are several good security programs. Myself and most of my consulting clients use AVG. But Kaspersky is also good. And I hear that NOD and Avast are also. The important thing is that you do have a good software security tool, that you keep it updated and that you scan all your stuff regularly.

And for a secure computing experience, be sure you keep Windows itself updated…

Next installment… “Windows Update” and how to protect yourself from Microsoft’s occasional “Slipstreaming”…

Please feel free to comment below…
‘Til next time…
_jim coe

Filed Under: tools Tagged With: anti-virus, cleaning up your drive, firewall, first aid - registry repair, security, utility program Leave a Comment

Jim Coe December 9, 2009

Tools we all need – 3

Keeping up with Microsoft’s security patches

It’s a big security issue. You do this via the online “Windows Update” feature of Windows.

As the bad guys (or the good guys working for security companies) discover new ways to exploit the weaknesses in Windows, or the Internet itself, Microsoft figures out ways to protect against these vulnerabilities by making changes to Windows.Â Then Microsoft publishes them to everyone who subscribes to the free Windows Update service.

When a new vulnerability is discovered you need protection right away. That’s why you should setup automatic downloading of patches by using the Windows Update service. But, there’s a problem with these unsupervised automatic updates.

Microsoft has the bad habit of “slipstreaming” new products or major operating system revisions (“Service Packs”) in with their security updates. Remember, you don’t want to be an early adopter of new products, or Service Packs – you want to stay “off the “bleeding edge” and position yourself way back on the “leading edge”.

For example, Microsoft may automatically send you a new version of Internet Explorer, their web browser. But the new browsers almost always have serious bugs. You want to wait a month or three for these bugs to get squashed, before using the latest browser.

Happily, Microsoft provides a way to do “semi-automatic” Windows Updates to avoid this problem. You setup Windows Update as usual (e.g. from Control Panel or the Start button list). On Microsoft’s update page, you choose the option to automatically download all downloads – but to ask you before actually installing them. This auto download is good – it means when there’s a new update you don’t have to wait for it to download – it will download in the background, while you work.

When the new update is ready to install, you’ll see the usual yellow shield symbol in the System tray (where the clock is). The next trick it to click on that shield emblem – but don’t then select “Express Install” from the dialog box that appears. Instead, choose “Custom Install”. This lets you see a list of the updates before installing any. You can then cancel any that you don’t want.

My advice is to go ahead and install any Windows Update that mentions “security” in the description. Otherwise you are compromising your security. If there is a bug in a security patch and it gives you trouble (an extremely rare event in my experience), you can later remove only that patch, using the Control panel “Add/Remove” program tool (which has a different name in Vista).

Disk Defragmenter
This is another maintenance tool everyone needs. Hard Disk “fragmentation” happens like this: All your software files are actually broken up into small parts (each like a link in a chain). These small parts can be strung out all over your drive (wherever there happened to be an empty spot to put one). This is done because most of your files are too large to efficiently store all in one piece – that would leave lots of unusable spaces on your drive, spaces that no file could fit into.

So, the Windows file system breaks your files up into those small pieces and keeps track of where each of these “links” in the file “chain” is located, and how to join them back together when you need them. Now imagine your hard drive platter spinning around under the read/write heads. You can read or write all the links in your chain much faster if they are all contiguous. And you’ll get the slowest performance if the links are far away from each other (in terms of platter rotation time), since the hard drive will have to wait for the platter to make as much as a full revolution – besides moving the heads away from or toward the center of the platter to wherever the small data piece is.

When your data file parts are thoroughly scattered all over your drive platter(s), performance suffers a lot and your drive is said to be “fragmented”. This is another item in the long list (my list has 28 items) of things that slow down Windows. Very serious fragmentation even increases the chance that your files won’t be properly reconstructed by the file system, with missing or out-of-order links in that chain – data corruption.

The job of your defragmenter utility program is to move all the links in all your data file chains around so that they end up in nice contiguous groups – where they can be scooped up rapidly by the read heads with max efficiency and speed. And the defragmenter moves all the empty parts of you platters together into big empty stretches, so data writing speed also improves.

Some versions of Windows come with a slightly crippled defragmenter. That is, it works fine but is made so that it can’t be scheduled for automatic defragmentation. You have to remember to run it manually. This is a typical sales trick (there outta be a law) to get you to buy the “advanced” version of the defragmenter, which can be scheduled and has some other nice features.

Actually, I always buy the advanced version, so I’m sorry – I can’t tell you which versions of Windows might have versions of the defragmenter which must be run manually, and I don’t mean to frighten you. But you should certainly check yours out! There’s more than one way to get to your defragmenter. One is: [Start button > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Defragmenter]

The default defragmenting program that comes with Windows is “Diskeeper”. To find out if it is already protecting your drive, run it and do an “analysis” on your boot (C:) drive. After a while it will tell you whether it thinks you need to defrag and will present a report. If you want to decide for yourself, look in the report for the “% of fragments”. If it’s less than about 10%, you don’t really need to defrag. And that would mean that your defragmenter is already “taking care of business” and you don’t need to do anything more.

If your drive is heavily fragmented, be sure to do a defrag. Of course you’ll need to close any open programs before defraging. A full backup first would also be a good idea.

It might take as long as an hour (maybe even longer, if it’s a big drive) for a defrag process to complete. Don’t try to use your system during defragmentation – and be sure no one turns it off or restarts it!

If you did need to defrag, then you may have a defragmenter which can’t be scheduled. You can try to schedule it, to find out, by: [Start button > Control panel > Scheduled Tasks > Add Scheduled Task] If it won’t let you schedule periodic defrags, you’ll know you have a problem. You can either buy the advanced version of Diskeeper or be sure to manually defrag every month.

Please feel free to comment below…
‘Til next time…
_jim coe

Filed Under: tools Tagged With: anti-virus, defrag, defragment your drive, malware, Microsoft's patches, utility program, Windows update Leave a Comment

Jim Coe December 9, 2009

Why not use Notepad?

A plain text editor is a very handy tool
I wonder why so few people use theirs? And one comes built into every copy of Windows. It’s called “Notepad” and you can find it with [Start > All Programs > Accessories > Notepad]. If I were you, I’d right-drag it from there onto my desktop and choose “Create Shortcut here” from the pop-up menu I got (sometimes that would be “Copy here”).

That’s because I use Notepad several times every day. In fact it’s on my Windows Quick Launch bar at the bottom of my screen.

What’s Notepad good for?
Well, making notes to yourself, for one thing. I often want to remember something I run into online, a web address, a quote, some item that fits a list I’m keeping (like my growing list of weird coincidental names: bank robber named mr. Lawless, dentist Dr. Payne, etc.). I also have lists of procedures to fix PC problems and many other lists of reference materials and advice from various experts. I even use Notepad for a perpetual shopping list. So, I have a whole folder just for Notepad notes.

Notepad instant backups:
Â What if this post I’m composing right now suddenly disappeared (like from a power glitch or something)? Would I have to stat over? Nope – after I type a few paragraphs, I do keyboard Ctrl+A (select All), Ctrl+C (copy), open Notepad and Ctrl+V (paste) and I have an instant backup.

The chance of losing a post like that is pretty small, but if I’m filling out a big online form, such as a request for technical support, or a long post to a favorite forum, the chances of losing my entry are much greater. It’s because of having to re-type that sort of stuff so frequently that I started making these Notepad instant backups, so I know such lose is common.

Notepad filter:
As a wed site developer, I often need to copy and paste people’s Word documents and such into web pages. You might not realize it, but Word documents are filled with invisible formatting codes. They make a real mess in a web page. Same applies to many other uses of stuff from Word or Excel. But, if you first paste those contents into Notepad, then do another copy/paste from Notepad into you’re HTML editor (or whatever you’re using), all that Word code is filtered out – since Notepad is a plain text editor, it ignores all the invisible code. The down side is you do loose your text formatting, but in my case I have to redo that in my web pages in any case. Like me, you too might also find that simply inserting paragraph spacing to re-format the text, after taking it through Notepad, is much easier than dealing with all that invisible code.

Of course you could save your Word document as a plain text file from right inside Word, but most of the Word content I deal with is created by people who don’t know that or realize there is an issue.

Please feel free to comment below…

‘Til next time – happy computing!
-jim coe

Filed Under: best free Windows products, tools, working Tagged With: accessory software, Notepad Leave a Comment

Jim Coe December 9, 2009

When programs run wild

What should you do, for instance, if a web page refuses to close, or starts spewing copies all over your display screen?

What you SHOULDN’T do is to turn off your computer to stop it! Most of us know better, but I still hear of people doing this – and begging for damage to Windows or their other software in the process.

Instead, use the Windows ‘Task Manager’, via your keyboard’s Ctrl+Alt+Delete keys (known in the business as the “three fingered salute”). Then make sure you’re on the “Applications” tab, select the misbehaving application (a fancy word for “program”) and click on “End Task”. Most often, there will be a pause, then you’ll get a message box with an “End Now” button – if so, do that.

task mgr apps1 600 When programs run wild

Windows 'Task Manager', With Outlook under the cross hairs

There are other cool uses for that Task Manager, like looking at what resources your programs are consuming, or shutting down your computer if it won’t shut down normally from the desktop ‘Start’ button.

task mgr perform1 6001 When programs run wild

My PC's 4 processors and memory. Notice also the "Shut Down" option.

Until next time, happy task managing…
_jim coe

Filed Under: first aid, tools, working Tagged With: Task Manager, utility program Leave a Comment

Jim Coe December 9, 2009

Event Logs – A maintenance must

Many Windows users don’t realize that Windows keeps logs of almost everything it does. And these logs are easy to review for any recorded problems. Windows may be trying to tell you something – you’d best listen. Don’t wait for trouble when you can easily head it off.

I recommend that you inspect your ‘Windows Event Logs’ (for at least the Windows operating system) weekly, and do so right after starting your computer, so you’ll know about any current startup errors – not just old ones which Windows may have fixed already or which are intermittent.

You’d be wise to also look at the separate Event Logs for your applications (programs), and for security events.

Finding the Event Logs:
Follow this path:
[Start > Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Event Logs], then choose which logs to view from the list on the left.

ctrl panel1 550 Event Logs A maintenance must

First, go to the Control Panel and click on "Administrative Tools'

admin tools1 550 Event Logs A maintenance must

..then open the Event Viewer..

event log1 550 Event Logs A maintenance must

..then inspect the Windows logs.

What to look for:
The Event Logs will show white “Information” disks for events that went according to plan (ignore those), yellow “Warnings” for stuff you can probably ignore and the usual red disks for serious problems.

If you see any red disks, double-click on those events for a pop-up box with an explanation – probably an obscure technical one. You can copy and paste the error number or error name into a Google search to learn more, or you can copy it into an email to your computer guru. Don’t ignore red items – they are likely to already be causing trouble or to get worse over time.

Until next time – happy sleuthing…
_jim coe

Filed Under: first aid, maintenance, tools Tagged With: event logs Leave a Comment

Jim Coe December 9, 2009

More on Task Manager…

Ever had to restart Windows because you couldn’t launch some program?

Microsoft Outlook sometimes does the following: One component of the program is left running in your computer’s memory, but invisibly. Next time you try to start Outlook, nothing happens. After a few attempts, you may do the obvious “universal fix” – that is restart Windows.

Instead, try launching the Windows Task Manager (keyboard Ctrl+Alt+Del) and select Task Manager’s “Processes” tab. Look for the “Outlook.exe” process, select it and click on that “End Process” button. OK the warning, close Task Manager and Outlook should be good to go. This fix may work with other applications as well.

Caveat: Don’t be careless with running processes. If you don’t know what some process is, don’t mess with it!

Until next time – happy processing
_jim coe

Filed Under: first aid, tools, working Tagged With: Task Manager, utility program Leave a Comment

Jim Coe December 9, 2009

Notepad is so handy!

Have you discovered these time-saving tricks with Microsoft Notepad?

Quick notes to yourself
I have a notes folder, oddly enough called “Notes”. It has hundreds of useful quick Notepad notes to myself. If I need to refer to one of them often, I right-drag it onto my Windows Desktop (using Windows Explorer, the file manager) and choose “Create Shortcuts Here” from the context menu that appears. That creates a desktop shortcut icon that I can easily double-click on whenever I need that info.

For example, one of those handy Notepad notes has a list of all the URLs that I constantly need when I’m posting messages in the forums and social networks I belong to.

Sometimes you only need a note to yourself for a few minutes or hours, like perhaps some instructions you found on some web site after a Google search. So you simply leave that note minimised on your Windows Taskbar until you need it again – you don’t even need to save it.

Stripping invisible codes
Sometimes I need to copy (Ctrl+C) some text from Microsoft Word and paste (Ctrl+V) it into a web site page or form. But Word uses invisible codes to format your documents and those can cause problems in a web page or form.

You could save your Word document in a “plain text” (*.txt) format to strip out the codes – but I find it faster and more convenient to paste what I copied from Word into Notepad, then select it all (Ctrl+A), copy it (Ctrl+C) and paste THAT into the web page or form. Doing this is a lot faster than it may sound. Since Notepad is a plain text editor, doing this strips out all those invisible Word formatting codes. The only caveat is to be sure Notepad is set to not wrap your text after a certain number of characters. That is, uncheck [Format > Word Wrap]. Sometimes this matters, usually it doesn’t.

Copying email content
I often need to copy something from an email message into a new email message I’m composing. Notepad to the rescue again.

Brainstorming
You never know when a great idea will suddenly hit you. I keep an “Ideas.txt” Notepad file on my desktop, where I can quickly record any new ideas, then quickly get back to what I was working on. Every morning, I review that list and take action.

Online Chat
Some chat software and all forums lack the ability to record your text outside of their own context. So a copy and paste into Notepad can be handy to record important interactions with others or info you want to remember when your not logged in.

Notepad is very handy!
Please tell us – how do you use Microsoft’s Notepad?

Until next time – hope you’ve been taking notes…
_jim coe

Filed Under: tools, working Tagged With: free software, save money, Windows, Windows 7 Leave a Comment

Jim Coe December 9, 2009

Top free Windows products

My favorite free Windows products and Services

2kids300 Top free Windows products

See top PAID Windows products instead

There are lots of useful free Windows products. Check back - I’ll be adding freebies and very inexpensive items here from time to time.

Non-free items are marked $ xx.xx

Software

* Free Windows Blogging Software:

WordPress

WordPress is the “industry standard” blogging software ((you’re looking at it now) and the best way to start your own blog.

* Free Windows Courseware Software:

Moodle
Would you believe there’s a high quality free product for creating your own online courses and classes?
It’s true.

* Free Windows File Manager:

$ 22.95 Tree Size Personal (free version available)

Display the sizes of all your Windows folders. Useful for managing your files and determining which folders and sub-folders are the largest, when you need to clean up your hard drive. Does several things Windows should have been designed to do but was not.

* Free Windows Image Software

Color Picker:

Pixie
Used to find the color code for any pixel on your display screen. Useful for web developers and digital artists.

Image database:

These are used to organize images on your computer, share them online, create slide shows, galleries, etc.

Google Picasa
Free and powerful image management suite, including online albums.

Screen dump:

Screen dump programs are used to save an image of all or a part of your display screen as a picture file.

WMSnap
An excellent free screen dump utility.

Screen Ruler:

JR Screen Ruler
A screen ruler measures items on your display screen in pixels. Useful for photographers, web developers and digital artists.

* Windows Fonts

There are many web sites offering appealing Windows fonts. A Google search will locate many. Don’t let your collection grow too big though – more than about 800 fonts can slow down Windows and your programs.

* Security Software:

Gibson Research Corporation
Various small free security testing programs. Lots of good info.

* Suites

Productivity (Word processing, Spreadsheet, etc.):
Open Office
A free suite of products similar to (and compatible with) Microsoft Office. Also has a PDF converter to make word processing docs into PDF files.

* Utility Software:

Computer inventory:

Belarc Advisor
Creates a complete report of hardware and software on your computer – useful for insurance purposes. Some reports even show your licenses, which is ever so handy if you have lost track of them.
Caution – I got (non-critical) warnings in the Windows 7 system event log after installing Belarc Advisor. It didn’t seem to cause any problems though.

* Video Software:

Video editors

Windows XP Movie Maker
Create movie clips for use online – such as for YouTube or FaceBook.

* Games:

Solitaire
A very nice free Klondike game (the default Solitaire game) and several others are available from:
Free Solitaire

Free trials:

Industry standard Adobe products like: Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Dreamweaver, Acrobat, Illustrator, Flash and such, are all available for free 30 day trials. These are not crippled samples, butÂ fully working products.

This means you can use them for 30 days, one time only, at no cost. You can do a lot of work in 30 days – maybe enough to pay for the product!
Adobe

Free Information

* Reference

Encyclopedias

Wikipedia
Trustworthy and deep information.

Google Earth
A detailed online Earth globe, based on satellite photos, roadside photos and user input.

Free Tests

* Diagnostics

Security tests:
Gibson Research Corporation Shields Up!!
Test your firewalls against hacker probes.

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Tools we all need – 1

How your Windows software works…

Tools we all need – 2

It’s computer file Spring Cleaning time.

Tools we all need – 3

Keeping up with Microsoft’s security patches

Why not use Notepad?

When programs run wild

Event Logs – A maintenance must

More on Task Manager…

Notepad is so handy!

Top free Windows products