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Archive for the Utilities Category

FreeRAM XP Pro -- Freeware Memory Manager/Optimizer

Posted on Monday, July 24, 2006 at 4:38 PM by Randall
There are a huge number of programs (free and commercial) that claim to optimize and/or free RAM memory in Windows XP. In my humble opinion,... [Read More]

Find and Run Robot -- Program Launcher for Keyboard Maniacs

Posted on Monday, July 17, 2006 at 5:03 PM by Randall
If you have a large number of programs installed on your system, digging through the Start Menu for one you don't use very often can... [Read More]

Sandboxie -- Run Internet Explorer in a Sandbox

Posted on Friday, July 07, 2006 at 8:47 PM by Randall
While I prefer Firefox and Opera to Internet Explorer, there are a few sites that just don't work with any other browser. Sandboxie lets... [Read More]

Font Frenzy -- Safely Clean Up Unused Fonts

Posted on Monday, June 19, 2006 at 9:46 PM by Randall
Programs love to install new fonts to your system. Unfortunately, each font adds a tiny bit to your system footprint making your system slightly more... [Read More]

Calcute -- Freeware Calculator Replacement

Posted on Monday, June 12, 2006 at 6:33 PM by Randall
If you find the Windows calculator pointless, but find my favorite, Frink, overpowering and complex, give Calcute a try. Calcute can function like... [Read More]

MozBackup -- Backup Firefox and Thunderbird Profiles

Posted on Wednesday, May 31, 2006 at 9:15 PM by Randall
When I reformated and reinstalled XP over the weekend, I needed an easy was to backup and restore my Thunderbird and Firefox profiles with all... [Read More]

SVS -- Virtualize Software Installs

Posted on Friday, May 19, 2006 at 8:46 PM by Randall
VMWare has been in the news quite a bit since they released a freeware VMWare Player that allows one to install an operating system and... [Read More]

Windows PowerShell (aka Monad) RC1 Now Available

Posted on Friday, May 12, 2006 at 8:47 PM by Randall
Windows has always shunned the command line while Unix-based OSes have embraced it. This has meant that the command line (CMD) that comes with Windows... [Read More]

Process Tamer -- Tame Programs When They Hog the CPU

Posted on Friday, April 21, 2006 at 10:01 PM by Randall
You've had it happen. I know you have. You are trying to type an email or draft a report in Word when your system slows... [Read More]

Toolbox -- Application Launcher on Steroids

Posted on Thursday, April 20, 2006 at 9:46 PM by Randall
There are a lot of application launch bars and docks available. The current "in thing" seems to be bars that try to act like the... [Read More]

ClipSecure -- Text Encryption for Real People

Posted on Wednesday, April 19, 2006 at 9:22 PM by Randall
I remember getting excited about encrypting things was PGP first came out for DOS. Unfortunately, most early (and current, for that matter) programs aren't really... [Read More]

Allchars -- Type "Strange" Characters Easily

Posted on Monday, April 17, 2006 at 9:48 PM by Randall
If you regularly have to type "strange" characters not on your keyboard in Windows and do not want to use a complex, full-featured macro program... [Read More]

StartRight -- Control Windows Startup

Posted on Friday, April 14, 2006 at 10:01 PM by Randall
If you are like most people, when you start Windows, Windows starts a large number of programs: instant message programs, audio programs, mailbox monitors, firewalls,... [Read More]

ERUNT - Backup and Restore Windows Registry

Posted on Thursday, April 13, 2006 at 9:45 PM by Randall
The Windows Registry was a good idea -- at least in theory. Collect all the data Windows 3.x and Windows 3.x programs would scatter around... [Read More]

Scarabay -- Portable Password Manager

Posted on Wednesday, April 12, 2006 at 9:51 PM by Randall
It seems like every web site (and even some programs) want you to have a unique user name and password. Worse, you are expected to... [Read More]

Karen's Replicator -- Backup Files on Demand

Posted on Monday, April 10, 2006 at 9:34 PM by Randall
Everyone knows backups are important, but most people aren't likely to do them more than once a day (and once a week is more likely... [Read More]

Samurize -- System Monitoring and Desktop Enhancement

Posted on Wednesday, April 05, 2006 at 8:19 PM by Randall
A lot of people seem to like to monitor their computer system constantly so they can know just how much memory they are using or... [Read More]

StrokeIt -- Mouse Gestures Made Easy

Posted on Tuesday, April 04, 2006 at 9:35 PM by Randall
I'm a keyboard man. I like to keep my hands on the keyboard as much as possible, so I really like programs like AutoHotKey... [Read More]

Recipe Center -- Powerful Freeware Recipe Database

Posted on Wednesday, March 29, 2006 at 4:31 PM by Randall
There are an amazing number of recipe programs available. Most are fairly expensive, and all have somewhat different sets of features. None seem to have... [Read More]

7-Zip -- High Compression File Archiving

Posted on Wednesday, March 22, 2006 at 9:32 PM by Randall
If you download files for Windows from the Internet, you need a program that can unzip archive files. Unfortunately, the best known ones (WinZip, PowerArchiver,... [Read More]

XP Syspad -- 200+ Windows Utility Functions

Posted on Monday, March 20, 2006 at 9:56 PM by Randall
Windows 2000 and XP scatter their system functions all over the place. XP Syspad provides system information and a single interface to many system... [Read More]

RunFast -- Powerful Run Box Replacement

Posted on Friday, March 17, 2006 at 10:00 PM by Randall
Do you find yourself using the Run Box on your Windows Start Menu a lot? If you do, you probably wish it was more powerful... [Read More]

uTorrent -- A Tiny, Powerful BitTorrent Client

Posted on Thursday, March 16, 2006 at 9:55 PM by Randall
If you think of peer-to-peer file sharing at all, you probably think of it in connection with downloading music. While this is frought with copyright... [Read More]

freeCommander - Dual-Panel File Explorer

Posted on Monday, March 13, 2006 at 3:00 PM by Randall
While freeCommander isn't Directory Opus, it is a much better file manager than the builtin Windows Explorer if you do a lot of... [Read More]

StatBar -- A Freeware System Status Bar

Posted on Thursday, March 09, 2006 at 10:02 PM by Randall
A lot of people seem to want to have all sorts of statistics on their computer visible on their monitor screen. I've never found much... [Read More]

PureText -- Paste Text Without the Formatting

Posted on Tuesday, March 07, 2006 at 8:51 PM by Randall
Chances are it has happened to you. You've copied some text from a web browser or a word processor and pasted it into another program... [Read More]

TrueCrypt -- Open Source On-the-Fly Encryption

Posted on Thursday, March 02, 2006 at 10:13 PM by Randall
There are a number of commercial programs that will create an "encypted disk" in a file on your hard drive that you can use like... [Read More]

GSplit - Split Very Large Files Easily

Posted on Wednesday, March 01, 2006 at 10:26 PM by Randall
Even with CD and DVD recorders to save files to, some files are just too big for one disk. That's when you need a program... [Read More]

JetStart -- A Start Menu Replacement

Posted on Tuesday, February 28, 2006 at 9:54 PM by Randall
If you are tired of digging through the Start Menu to start commonly used programs, you may want to give JetStart a try. JetStart... [Read More]

Keynote -- A Tabbed Tree-Organized Notebook

Posted on Monday, February 27, 2006 at 8:49 PM by Randall
Keynote is a free notebook/organizer. It allows you to store all your notes and ideas in a single well-organized file. No need to remember... [Read More]

Gamma Panel -- Adjust Monitor Gamma via Hotkeys

Posted on Friday, February 24, 2006 at 10:06 PM by Randall
Have you ever been in a full screen application or game that is just too bright (or, more likely, too dim)? Fiddling with your monitor's... [Read More]

Agent Ransack -- Search Your Files

Posted on Tuesday, February 21, 2006 at 10:14 PM by Randall
Much has been made of various free search desktop programs provided by large companies like Google and Yahoo. However, many people have security concerns when... [Read More]

Frink -- A Calculator on Steriods

Posted on Friday, February 17, 2006 at 10:17 PM by Randall
I'm usually reluctant to use JAVA programs as they can take forever to start, but every once in a while I find one that I... [Read More]

Cathy -- Catalog Your Data CDs and DVDs

Posted on Thursday, February 16, 2006 at 10:26 PM by Randall
You downloaded a program a few months ago and know you backed it up to CD. Now you want to give a copy to a... [Read More]

PuTTY -- A Freeware Telnet/SSH Client

Posted on Wednesday, February 15, 2006 at 10:10 PM by Randall
Many Web Hosts (like Dreamhost) provide access to a unix shell account. Long ago, before the days when script kiddies made high security a... [Read More]

Build the Ultimate Boot CD for Windows

Posted on Monday, February 13, 2006 at 8:28 PM by Randall
It would be nice to have a bootable copy of Windows on a CD for those times your computer just will not boot due to... [Read More]

Apple Quicktime without Itunes

Posted on Thursday, February 09, 2006 at 9:46 PM by Randall
Apple really wants people to download Itunes, so they bundle it with Quicktime. To get Quicktime, you have to take a copy of Itunes whether... [Read More]

Eraser?

Posted on Wednesday, February 08, 2006 at 10:20 PM by Randall
Sometimes you really need to get rid of a file completely (so it can't be "undeleted") or you need to completely wipe your data off... [Read More]

First Page 2006

Posted on Monday, January 23, 2006 at 9:08 PM by Randall
I've used one version or another of Homesite as my HTML editor of choice since about 1997. While I've tried many other editors, none... [Read More]

EditPad Lite -- A Free Replacement For Notepad

Posted on Thursday, January 19, 2006 at 9:00 PM by Randall
Are you tired of the limitations of Notepad, the text editor that comes with Windows -- but don't want to pay money for a "programmer's... [Read More]

Stickies -- On Screen "Post-It" Notes

Posted on Monday, January 16, 2006 at 8:49 PM by Randall
To understand my need for this program, you have to understand that I have no sense of time when I'm working at my computer and... [Read More]

ListXP -- Free Windows File Lister

Posted on Tuesday, January 10, 2006 at 8:47 PM by Randall
One of the programs I really miss from the days of DOS is Vernon D. Buerg's LIST.It was a small program that could quickly... [Read More]

AutoHotKey

Posted on Friday, January 06, 2006 at 11:26 AM by Randall
I discovered this wonderful, if somewhat geeky, program when the macro feature of PowerPro decided to no longer function on my computer after I... [Read More]

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