www.MarkTAW.com/reviews/MyFavoriteSmallwareOld.html (printable version)

Most of these programs are small, under a megabyte and don't require an install. I use some of them every day, and others I use only occasionally. All of them are free. I'll be adding to this list as time goes on. I'm sure there are little programs I use that I forgot about, and there are some that are no longer available that I may make available if the license permits me to.

I skipped common programs like WinRAR / WinZIP, WinAmp, FireFox, etc. and went for the more obscure stuff. After all, everyone has an unzipping program, mp3 player, and web browser. Not everyone has one of these:

File Management & UI

• SpaceMonger - 212kb, no install
  This program shows you visually how much space is taken up by what folders/files on your hard drive. Think of it as a sort of square pie chart that allows you to zoom in to a folder. This is a very powerful program that allows you to literally see where all of your space is going. Not as popular as SequoiaView, but I think it's better because SpaceMonger shows you directories and allows you to zoom in on them.
  WinDirStat is a free, open source program that does many of the things SpaceMonger does, and more. (Thanks to Robert Bull for pointing me to this one.)
• SyncBack- 1.68mb, install
  I searched high and low for a program that will not only copy my files to another drive or computer on the network for safekeeping, but FTP them to another location entirely. SyncBack does this. Now if the worst happens - a total hard drive failure - my most important documents will be waiting for me on my server (in another city thousands of miles away). Not bad for freeware!
    Karen's Replicator is another good free utility that lets you archive files to another drive on a schedule, but Karen's Replicator won't FTP for you.
    I wrote an article called Automated Hands-Free Backups about my search for the perfect backup solution.
    I wrote another article called Recovering From Catastrophic Failure about how SyncBack let me keep working even though my computer died.
• BKReplaceEm - no install
  This is a great regular expression based search & replace utility. One of the great things about this software is that you can save your search & replace strings for later use. Very handy for repetitive editing tasks, like cleaning up documents you get from someone else.
• Oscar's File Renamer - install
  I use this program on a regular basis. I hate getting files with extremely long file names and going to burn them them to CD just to find they don't fit and I have to rename 100 files. Or getting an audio book on mp3 just to find that the filenames are "Author - Book Title - Disc 1 - File 15.mp3" when my mp3 player only shows the first few characters of the file. Well, luckily, there's Oscar's File Renamer to the rescue. It's extremely simple interface lets you search & replace or record keystroke macro's. What really sets this apart is that it opens a directory like a text file, moving the cursor up and down doesn't just select a different file, it keeps the same character spacing as before, and you don't commit your changes until you're happy with them so you can experiment without fear of screwing up. When you use a program like this, you have to balance the time & effort you spend learning it/using it with the time it would take to rename all the files by hand. That said, here are a few other renamers you might be interested in.
    I've also used BKRenamer, which is a great regular expression, command-line no-install tool. BKRenamer is great when you have to do a change all the file names in several directories because it can search through subdirectories as well. Other products in this category are The Rename (too complex), Rename Master, Rename 4u, Flexible Renamer, Bulk Rename, and Batch Rename. None of which I've tried, except the first.
    Caleb emailed in a recommendation for Lupas Rename, which, again, looks complex, but the ability to rename based on file properties (such as MP3 tags) is pretty cool.
• DoubleKiller - 721 KB, no install
  This file searches your hard drive & finds duplicate files. You can select the paramaters - Name, Filesize, Date or CRC, folders, filetypes, folders, etc. Easy to use, no install. Works great, the UI is excellent and it runs extraordinarily quickly.
  Update: They've introduced a "Pro" version of DoubleKiller with a bunch of new features. (Thanks to Robert Bull for the pointer.)
• Dup Detector 1.2 MB, install
  This program searches images on your hard drive & scans the actual image to see if the content is duplicated. Even if the image has been cropped a bit or resized, this will find them. There are a few "false positives" but the GUI allows you to compare two images fairly easy & determine which one to zap.
• WhoLockMe 22 KB, install optional
  Don't you hate it when you're trying to move a folder, or delete a file and Windows won't let you because it's "In use?" Well WhoLockMe will tell you what programs are using that file or folder, so you can shut them down and move on with your life.
• PowerMenu 49 KB, no install
  This program adds Always On Top, Minize to Tray, Priority and Transparency menus to your taskbar rightclick. Not the most useful item, but if you ever needed to minize something to your systray or make it invisible quickly... ;-) you may find it handy.
• Agent Ransack - install
  Agent Ransack is a great search utility that will search through folders and files based on regular expression searches. It also has a handy regular expression builder, though I find it only gets you about halfway to where you want to go.   (I don't use this program anymore, I think because I've become more organized). Google has a similar program called Google Desktop Search, which I haven't used.
• Unfrag - 203kb, no install
  A ZiffDavis utility, available via the link above (the site is in German, but the program is not). This tool finds compound files (mostly MS Office docs) that can contain lots of "nothing" for even small amounts of data and converts that nothing back into usable space. (Thanks Tom for this & a bunch of other cool utilities I'll go through as I get the chance.)
• PureJPEG - 40kb, no install, command line
  Dennis Forbes wrote this tiny tool to strip EXIF data from your .jpg images. This is typically stuff like what camera took the picture, what sorts of conditions it took it under, and so forth, but can include large amounts of data, such as thumbnails of the picture. This tool strips all that out. See also jhead, another utility that can edit that data as well as delete it. (Via the Joel on Software forum.)

Networking & Chat
(see also my How To Disappear article for an overview of the security feaures of various chat clients)

• MoonEdit - Install (Windows, Linux, FreeBSD) (New, January 21, 2005)
  This program is really cool. It lets you edit a file collaboratively - everyone in the group sees the changes (which are highlighted with a color that you choose) in real time. ICQ had a feature where you could see what the other person was typing as they typed, and it was a surreal experience, completely unlike regular chat. This takes that concept to a whole new level, and if you have any reason you do need to edit a single document with someone across the internet, this would be the way to do it.
• Trillian - Install
  The problem with Instant Messaging is I have friends who use nearly every protocol - AIM, ICQ, MSN, and Yahoo. Like Gaim (Gaim-Encryption is a plugin that supports encrypted conversations) and Miranda, this is a multi-protocol Instant Messaging Program, that also has a secure plugin. Trillian is the only one that isn't open source, and I paid to use Trillian Pro (currently version 2.0), but I like Trillian free a lot too. But, I don't think you could go wrong with any of the above, all of the above programs (especially Gaim) have a strong following.
• Jabber
  This is another instant messaging client based on an open protocol. Jabber also has an open source server, so you can run it internally behind a firewall, or run a Jabber server for your friends to chat on. And if you don't want to run your own server, you can use one of the public Jabber servers available. Basically, Jabber lets you be AOL or MSN or Yahoo. You have complete control over who can connect to who. Also, Jabber supports multiple servers, so different departments can run their own Jabber servers and still talk to each other.
• Waste - Install
  Waste is a controversial chat client. Pulled by AOL just hours after the developer posted it under the GNU public license, Waste is a decentralized (peer to peer) chat client. Neary every other chat protocol depends on a centralized server to carry and sometimes store messages. Everyone connects to that server. With Waste, you connect to your friends directly by exchanging IP addresses. Oh, and did I mention that it's encrypted too? You exchange public keys as well.
    With Waste, you create a small private network with up to around 150 people (maybe more). Within the network, you can talk without fear of someone listening in - only people inside the network can see what's going on. The protocol & program are new, and I'm sure there are a few bugs that would need to be worked out, but the concept is very promising.
    Waste clients for the PC and Mac can be downloaded from SourceForge.
•   Other Waste Resources
  • Mute is a anonymous file sharing network based on Waste. I tested it early on (as a favor to the developer) and found it to be slow. Slow seems to be the price of anonymity on the Internet.
  • The Waste Sourceforge Project Page, with forums.
  • The Waste Yahoo Discussion Group.
  • The Waste FAQ, put together by the Yahoo Discussion Group.
  • WasteWatchers.org. Lots more links here.
• VNC  - install
  Control any computer from any other computer. A buddy at work turned me on to this, works on nearly every platform from Unix to PC to Mac. It's strange seeing the Windows Desktop in a Mac window on OSX, but it was the only way he could check his e-mail. Now I leave a networked computer in the closet and control it from my main PC.
    If you need secure (encrypted) application sharing, white board, etc. Privaria looks promising, but I've never used it so I can't make any claims or endorsements. It seems a little complex to set up, but once it's up and running, it looks pretty powerful.
• Ethereal Packet Sniffer - install
  Want to know every bit of information entering and leaving your computer? Then use Ethereal Packet Sniffer. It's also great for learning about networking, the HTTP, FTP, TCP, etc. protocols. I discovered a potential virus on my girlfriend's computer when I noticed that it kept pinging random IP addresses in our network.

Security (also see my article "How to Disappear")

• Pretty Good Privacy - install
  Pretty Good Privacy was revolutionary when it came out. It allows two parties to communicate in a secure manner, and completely in the open. In the past, you had to privately transmit some sort of decoder when you wanted to send something encrypted. Using PGP you can tell the world how to encode a message or file so that only you can receive it. You can also sign messages and files so that someone who knows your public key can verify that you sent it. MIT maintains a PGP distribution that's free to use, and The International PGP Home Page also maintains a list of free versions PGP. If you're technicaly savvy, you can use GnuPG, an open source variant.
• Password Safe
  We all have to remember more passwords than we can easily count, much less remember. Once we start using the same password over and over it becomes less secure. Password Safe is a program that will store all of our passwords for us in one secure place. It uses the popular Blowfish security algorithm, which has been extensively tested. Not only will Password Safe remember all your passwords, it will generate secure passwords for you so you can simply copy & paste them into the correct application or web page.
    Be sure to back up your Password Safe file on a regular basis and keep it in a safe place.
  Update September 2004: I now recommend keeping your passwords in a two-pane encrypted outliner like Tranglos Keynote (see below under Information Management)
• Zone Alarm - install
  Zone Alarm is the best freeware firewall out there. If you're concerned about people hacking your computer, get this program. It pevents people from hacking in to your computer from the outside, and lets you control which programs connect to the internet from the inside.
• AVG
  This is a free Anti Virus software. It's fairly easy to use, and it's completely free.
• Ad-Aware
  Want to keep your computer spyware free? Use Ad-Aware
• Spybot Search & Destroy
  Another excellent tool to help get rid of and prevent spyware from infesting your computer. This one caught some spyware on my friend's computer that Ad-Aware missed.
• Safe XP - no install (Added August 31, 2004)
  From the manufacturer: "Safe XP allows users to quickly tweak various security and privacy related settings in XP. The options include Media Player settings, Services settings (error reporting, time synch, remote registry etc.), as well as and option to remove items from the Start menu, network security settings and more.
     Safe XP improves your system performance and makes Windows to run faster, more secure and reliable!
    It is suitable for beginners and experts!"
• Shields Up
  Gibson Research Corporation's website that will test you computer to see which ports are open. Thanks to my firewalls, I get a perfect "Stealth" rating. What kind of rating do you get? Also, dslReports.com/scan.
• BHODemon (Install)
  Browser Helper Objects are things that plug in to your web browser to make it work better... Any toolbars you have installed, for instance. Acrobat Reader is a BHO as well. Unfortunately, hackers exploit the BHO to hijack your browser. BHODemon will show you all the BHO's you have installed, and allow you to disable them.
• HijackThis & CWShredder (Alternate Link for Infected Computers)
  HijackThis scans your computer for anything that might attach itself to your computer & browser (IE) - good and bad things. Use some discretion and decide what's good and what's bad. His download page also has a lot of great tools to get rid of spyware & adware.
• • HiJackThis
    A general homepage hijackers detector and remover. Initially based on the article Hijacked!, but expanded with almost a dozen other checks against hijacker tricks. It is continually updated to detect and remove new hijacks. It does not target specific programs/URLs, just the methods used by hijackers to force you onto their sites. As a result, false positives are imminent and unless you are sure what you're doing, you should always consult with knowledgable folks (e.g. the forums) before deleting anything.
  • CWShredder
    A small utility for removing CoolWebSearch (aka CoolWwwSearch, YouFindAll, White-Pages.ws and a dozen other names). Spybot S&D and Ad-aware tend to forget essential parts of the hijack, so until they update, you can use this to completely remove the hijack. This program is updated to remove the new variants once they come out.

Graphic Design

• ArtRage (1.5MB, install, Mac & Windows)
   A painting program that least you literally "paint" as you would on a canvas. You can even load an image to trace, and it will pick up colors from the image as you draw. Tres cool.
• Calipers - 142kb, no install (newer version is bigger)
  A buddy of mine at work turned me on to this program. It measures objects on your screen. This is great for design work where you need to know exactly how many pixels something is on your screen.
• ColorPic
  From the maker of Calipers is ColorPic. Zoom in on a section of your sceen and grab up to 8 colors in HEX and DEC format. The registered version of Color Schemer does this, but if you don't have the registered version, I recommend this program. (I don't use this program anymore, I use the full version of Color Schemer.)
• Color Schemer Online
  See Color Schemer below in shareware, this website will let you enter any color and it will give you complimentary colors.
• FontEditor
  Flash based Windows & Mac font maker, pretty crude, but it looks like it can be fun.

Macro

• RoboType - v2 = 333kb, no install, v3 = install
  This is a great time saving macro. Any text you type can be replaced with any text in the robotype database. For example, any time I type ?latin, it's replaced with the Lorem Ipsum Dolor blurb text. This is great for sig files, or standardized bits of text you use all the time (like bits of code).
  Version 3 adds a lot of great features, such as categorization, getting rid of the extra space after the replace text, merging two .rtl files, a "launch when windows opens" option (before I had to add my .rtl file to the Startup group), and the ability to prompt for input.
  Note: RoboType is no longer free, it's now part of the PC Magazine Utilities, which are available inexpensively on the Ziff Davis website. See below under Miscelaneous for more information.
• MacroMaker - install
  Very robust macro program that can be programed to do just about anything you can do. I use it to automate tedious tasks, and create quick-launch keys to launch certain applications. [ctrl] + [alt] + [shift] + i = Internet Explorer, for example. Straightforward keyboard interface is easy to learn, though tedious to use. I don't use this nearly as much anymore now that I discovered than any shortcut on your desktop can have a shortcut key. Just right click on it and go to properties and choose a Shortcut Key in the appropriate box. Not as robust as other macro programs out there (like Maco Express), but this one has the advantage of being free.
• AllChars - no install (or install)
  This program is great. A few simple keystrokes and you can type any unicode character, like ¼ or û. Plus you can use it to playback certain keystrokes in Macro mode. I don't really need it much (I don't type non-keyboard characters much), but it's useful.

Information Management

• TreePad Lite - 314kb, no install
  Outliners are great for obsessive organizers like me. Not that you'd know it to look at my apartment. This is a "two pane" organizer. The left side looks like Windows Explorer, and the right side is a plaintext editor. You can use it to organize your notes or write your novel. I use it for all sorts of things, especially taking notes on projects, and keeping tips and hints that I pick up. It's small size lets it fit on a floppy so you can take your notes with you whever you go, though I tend to forget the floppy behind...  See Action Outline & Treepad Safe below in the shareware section. I use this program on a daily basis.
• Tranglos Software's KeyNote was recommended as a free (open source) outliner that has many of the features of the registered version of Treepad.
• More Outliners
  John Buckman has some reviews of Outliners & Brainstorming programs. His views are different from mine.
  Added June 05, 2003: Here's a good thread about outliners in the Joel on Software forum. And in September, there were 3 more. Organizing Random Notes, Knowledge base software ??, Personal Information Storage Retreival Application,
  Added November 13, 2003: WikiPad was recommended as a shareware cross between an outliner and a Wiki. WikiServer is a free program that is similar, though it doesn't seem to have as slick a UI. Instiki is a personal wiki that should run on your own machine.
  Added January 18, 2004: FreeMind is an open source and free as in beer mind mapper.
  Added August 31, 2004: MemPad is a tiny two pane outliner. So is Quick Outliner.
  TKOutline is one of the very few one pane outliners I've seen.

Games

Also see A Complete Waste Of Time for some games, including versions of these games, most of which are playable online.

• the Original Same Game 1.11
  "The ultimate time waster." In this addictive puzzle game, you have to clear the board of colored blocks. You can only clear 2 or more adjacent blocks, and the more you can clear at once, the more points you get.
• • SameGame 1.11
    The original Windows version was written by Ikuo Hirohata "Grow" in 1993 is available at:
    http://www.winsite.com/bin/Info?500000030590
  • Samegame 1.15
    This is basically identical to 1.11 and is available at:
    http://www.ryosoft.com/ (note that due to a small glitch on his site that screwed up all his links, you can't download it directly from his site in some browsers, so the direct download link is here: http://www.ryosoft.com/zips/same.zip
  • Same3 for Windows
    This version adds a lot of things like new game modes, undo, save, and choose a game to play (like Freecell). This version is shareware, and the only limitation (besides a mild nag screen on launch) is that your high scores won't be saved between games. It's available at:
    http://home.maine.rr.com/sabakker/same3_win.htm
  • Skinnable SameGame
    Finally there's Olof Tjerngren's version, which is skinnable. You can even make your own skins. It also lets you add many more game pieces, making the game much harder. It's available here:
    http://www.tjerngren.net/samegame/
  • Online Versions
    See my article A Complete Waste Of Time for some online versions of this game.

• The Original Daleks Game daleks.exe
  Another addictive puzzle game. You play Dr. Who, and you have to avoid the Daleks. They move one space every time you move one space. You kill them by getting them to crash into each other, or destroying them with the one-use sonic screwdriver. You can also teleport, but that's dangerous. While you won't teleport directly onto a dalek, you may teleport next to one, and it can kill you on it's next round. Download directly from my site. This DOS game was written by Robert Paauwe in 1985. Again, numerous other versions have been written of this game, including several online versions, but the first remains the best. Though some of the online-only versions have some good features, like, well, not having to install it at all, and you can compete against hundreds of other people for the high score.
  See my article A Complete Waste Of Time for some online versions of this game.
• MedWar "Medieval War" PBEM game
  This little wargame is simplistic by modern standards, and the Play By Email function seems quaint in the world of always-on-broadband and Playstation2 or XBox Live, but there's still a soft spot in my heart for this game.
    It was published in 1993 by Burnham Park Software, Inc. Written by Mark Brownstein. Download from pbm.com, or do a Google Search for "medwar.zip" and "medwar16.zip"
  A modern version is Declaration of War, which includes modern weapons such as airplaines and aircraft carriers. Search for "dowar11.zip" on Google. Also medoor11.zip, is a BBS door version of the game... I have no idea how this one works, as I never ran a BBS.
    I was in contact with the programmer, who was developing a 2.0 version (which I was waiting for before I registered) but it never came out, and the company fell off the face of the Earth. I never did get a registered version (which would allow you to build your own scenarios).

Project Management / Getting Things Done

• Allnetic Working Time Tracker
  A simple tool that's part clock, part spreadsheet. By clicking on it you can start tracking the time you spend on any task. If you're idle, or come back from idle, it will ask you whether or not you want to end/resume a task. At the end of the day, week, month, or year, you will know exactly how much time you spent doing what. The only drawback is that you have to be near a computer to use it.
  Update September 2004: Unfortunately, this program is now shareware. The new shareware version adds a number of new features, but you will have to pay for it from now on.
• Sciral Consistency
  This program, which I didn't fully understand until I used it, tracks tasks that you have to do "every 3-4 days" or "about once a month." You input them and it shows you around when you need to do it using a color coded grid. It's shareware, but the freeware version lets you have up to 4 tasks per instance, and you can have 2 instances on your desktop.

Miscelaneous

• PC Magazine Utilities
  This isn't one program, but several dozen very useful programs from PC Magazine. Some of them are so useful you won't know how you lived without them, others are increadibly useful to people who like having control over their computers, or just knowing more about what's going on.
  Update June 1, 2003: PC Magazine is now charging for these utilities. You can learn more here . The price is currently $20 per year for unlimited downloads, and around $5 for 3 downloads a month.
• • NetperSec - This utility shows a graph of your current upload/download bandwidth. It's great for evaluating various things from streaming audio to file transfers with your IM buddies. I keep it in my systray all the time and reference it all the time.
  • InCtrl5 - This is a great tool that will monitor changes to your system. Run it before you install a program, and it will tell you every change made to your computer during the install. It won't roll your computer back for you, but it will tell you every change - including to the registry - that was made during the install. To capture every change, be sure to use it the first time you run the program too... I won't tell you why this could be useful...
  • Robotype - I describe this one in the Macro section above.
• Readability Plus
  There are a few similar products out there, but this is the original. It's also free. It scans the text you write for, well, readability. Download from http://216.166.134.3/files/sw-dos/ or do a google search for "readplus.zip". "read201s.zip" appears to be an updated version, but it wouldn't work for me under windows. Published by Scandanavian PC Systems in 1989 as Shareware.
• Ghostzilla
  Ghostzilla is cool because it will allow you to surf the web while it looks like you're doing work. I haven't installed GhostZilla, so try at your own risk. Despite it's name it uses IE & MS Office, no need for Mozilla. Freeware and shareware versions. The Shareware version doesn't need to be installed and will run off of a CD. I've never really tried this program, but it seems like a clever idea.
• MouseTool
  This is a great little utility suggested in this thread . If you think about it, nearly every time you move your mouse it's to click on something. So why not have your mouse click for you every time you move it? I'm still getting used to it, but it seems like a great tool that I'll be using for years to come.
  Update August 2004: I never did quite get used to this. I came close after a while, but having to think about every place I rested my mouse became tedious. Maybe it's just a decade of habit, but I just never got comfortable with this program.

A short list of the programs I choose for more common tasks

• VLC Media Player (9MB, install, cross platform)
  This is the best media player I've ever used. It's just replaced Media Player Classic as my go-to media player when I need something other than just simple playback. The best part? It can brighten up dark videos by rendering in OpenGL and tweaking the settings. This is the only media player I've found that can do that, even for XVid videos.
• CDex - 837kb, no install (newer versions require install)
  A straightforward mp3 encoder that supports CDDB. Uses the Lame codec, amongst others, and is very fast. The ID3 comes from the CDDB (You don't have to type in the names of your albums and songs, it downloads it for you!), and the filename can be anything you want based on the artist, song title, etc. Exact Audio Copy (EAC) is another mp3 encoder which, as it's name implies, works very hard to get the best quality rip possible. It will take an unplayable CD and work until it can create a listenable copy of that CD.
• XNews - no install
  This is my newsgroup reader. It has a powerful feature set and an (I find) intuitive UI. A lot of other people like Agent, though, but I find Agent to be a little complex.
• Thunderbird Mail
  Thunderbird is my default mail reader. I used to use Pegasus Mail in the past, but like Thunderbird now.
• Opera & Mozilla Firefox - install
  Two alternative web browsers. Opera is shareware (the free version is ad supported, but I think without spyware) and Mozilla is open source. Both are excellent browsers and could replace IE. In fact, I never open IE anymore, except for that rare site that only works in IE.  
• Smart FTP - Free for personal use
  I got tired of WS_FTP crashing on me if I tried to upload a large volume of files, so I switched to Smart FTP. The Global Queue let it run in the background all day, uploading almost a gigabyte of content to a new server flawlessly. Plus, I could limit the upload/download speed so I could continue to work on other things.
• Weblog Expert Lite - While not as powerful as it's more expensive cousin Weblog Expert, the lite version is as good or better than what I get from Webalizer. Plus, if you have access to your daily log files, you can zoom in on a period of days. You can do this in the pay version, even with monthly log files.
• Tera Term Pro - Another of my coworkers turned me on to this terminal emulator program that's much better than the telnet program that comes with Windows.

Shareware

A short list of small, inexpensive shareware ($) programs that I like.

• PowerMarks - install
  This one definately falls in the category of "how did I ever live without this." It will search through your IE, Netscape and Opera bookmarks and index them. You can add keywords, and even add it to your IE toolbar. Then, when you want to find that bookmark that had to do with acoustics in small rooms you launch powermarks and type the word "acoustics" and every link with the keyword "acoustics" pops up. It pulls keywords from the page title & folder bookmark structure in IE. I use my favorites for links I want to visit every day. I use PowerMarks for links I want to archive for future use. Then I export my bookmark file and post it online so that I can view it from other locations. A simple Find on Page will turn up any bookmark.
  Update August 2004: I've quit using PowerMarks. I keep all my bookmarks in a Wiki instead.
• Action Outline - install
  Another outliner, like Treepad, but with different feature sets. This one is a bit more sophisticated than Treepad (at least the free version of Treepad), though I find a little less stable. I own version 1.6 and haven't tried 2.x. Action Outline is good because you can attach colored flags to each node indicating it's current status at a glance. Plus, when you export to text there are a number of options such as node numbering and commenting of notes, though I found it to be very buggy when typing in C++ code.
• Treepad Safe - no install (but with installer if you want it)
  I was never a big fan of the extra features in Treepad Plus - basically the ability to format your text and add links. I do, however, like Treepad Safe. I already use Treepad to store all of my notes, website login information, etc. so i don't have to go looking all over for it. Now, with Treepad Safe, I can store it all and password protect it with strong encryption. In other words, I don't have to worry about someone else getting the access codes to websites I log in to.
• 12backup - install
  Probably the most useful of the 12 Ghosts suite of products, 12 backup *automatically* backs up any file for you any time you change it, or at any given interval. The genius is that it stores several versions - every version for the past hour, one per hour for the past day, one per day for the past month, and one per month forever. While this takes up more space than a CVS style backup, you don't have to think about it Windows notifies it when the file changes and it automatically backs it up quietly in the background. When the database that holds my website crashed, someone reccomended this to me and I've used it ever since.
  Update November 26, 2003: The price of the 12Ghosts suite has shot up to $110 for the suite. You can still purchase 12backup for $30, and it's probably well worth that price for the peace of mind it gives you. However, at this price, you may want to look at Second Copy, which has been highly recommended to me. I don't know how they compare feature for feature, but they are the same price.
  Update August, 2004: Check out Karen's Replicator and SyncBack. Both are free and described under File management above. See my article Automated Hands-Free Backup for a more in depth discussion of backup software.
• Color Schemer
  A simple program that does something unique. You can choose any color and it will tell you what other colors compliment it. The algorithm it uses to do this is fairly straightfoward, but being able to see them all in the same place has it's advantages. You can try the online version here.

My First Month Installs

When I install a new OS, or am setting myself up at a new computer, some programs always end up coming with me and are installed within a week. My last OS install was about a month ago, here's a brief list of some of the programs that are on my computer now.

• PIM
• • Treepad Lite (great way to store & organize information)
• File Management
• • 12backup (backup important files without thinking about it)
  • SyncBack (and FTP them to a server)
  • SpaceMonger (see the size of all the files on your computer)
• Design
• • Calipers 1 (measures pixels on the screen)
  • ColorSchemer (check out color schemes and grab colors from your screen)
• Internet / Networking
• • WS_FTP (FTP)
  • Tera Term Pro (terminal client)
  • NetPerSec (network/bandwidth monitor)
  • InCtrl5 (install monitor)
  • Zone Alarm (firewall)
  • Trillian (IM client)
  • XNews (newsgroup reader)
  • FireFox (web browser)
  • Thunderbird (email)
• Audio
• • Winamp 5 (media player)
  • CDex (mp3 ripper / encoder)

filepile.com - RIP

Contact Me if you want to add to this list.

• LoopList List Of Open-source Programs (LOOP) for Microsoft Windows Operating Systems.
• Iwant to - a page of utilities that help you do stuff you want to do - great collection of mostly online/web based.
• TinyApps.org - This guy has a similar philosophy to me.
• SnapFiles.com - I go here more often than Download.com
• Software hall of fame - An excellent list that I think compliments mine very well.
• Pricelesswarehome.org - The best of the best in Windows © Freeware, as determined by the readers of alt.comp.freeware
• Karen's Power Tools has a lot of cool stuff.
• NirSoft also has lots of cool programs.
• CMD Tools - For everyone serious about the command line.
• NoNags "is the safest place on the Internet to download free software from. Before we list anything here we check for viruses, trojans, spyware etc. And even if we find something clean, it still has to pass our special "cheesetest" which for obvious reasons we do not publish exact specs."
• OldVersion.com "because newer is not always better."
• The 46 Best-ever Freeware Utilities
• Top 75 Network Security Tools
• FreeWareFind
• TheOpenCD - a collection of free & open source software that covers many common tasks.
• CleanSoftware.org "This software is believed to be free from nasties: adware, spyware, harmful/intrusive components, and threats to privacy. There are no sponsored entries."
• The "neat application I stumbled across on the web" thread (arstechnica.com)
• Jeffrey Vanneste My list of useful tools/services
• sweetcode reports innovative free software. "Innovative" means that the software reported here isn't just a clone of something else or a minor add-on to something else or a port of something else or yet another implementation of a widely recognized concept.
• AnalogX Some of what you'll find inside: audio tools, internet utilities, articles, web tools, DirectX plugins, original MP3 music, MIDI software, and much more, all available to download for free!
• Ten Tools in Ten Minutes
• UtilityGeek
  Diagnostic tools and utilities for your PC

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page first created on Saturday, September 14, 2002

this site and it's contents copyright Mark Wieczorek