On iPhone, Paris Hilton, Six Stupid, and more

Summary: This week's reading recommendations focused on processes and other topics.

Today is the iPhone day. Am I the only one who noticed that iPhone had turned into Paris Hilton of the technology world? Haven't we had enough of both? Really,

"Hitler got less coverage when he invaded Poland."

Thank you John Dvorak. And thank you Mika Brzezinski. Now, about things that matter.

Bob Lewis, the publisher of IS Survivor and president of IT Catalist, just discovered a new methodology called Six Stupid:

"Everyone knows that a group of people is dumber than its least intelligent member. Six Stupid is based on this insight. Unlike the better-known Six Sigma, Six Stupid requires the collaboration of at least six idiots, to design process flows that defy reason and preclude exceptions."

It's unfortunate that many Six Stupid processes (methodologies, rules, etc) start as great ideas, but at some point get overtaken by zealots and eventually turn into entities that exist mostly for the goals of their own. Instead of helping, they become obstacles. Instead of reducing time and effort, they require more time and effort. To make sure your process does not turn into Six Stupid, remember:

"Turning a new process on does not justify employees turning their brains off."

Now, here is a process from Google described in Life at Google - The Microsoftie Perspective, which is definitely not Six Stupid:

"Google has the concept of "Tech Stops." Each floor of each building has one. They handle all of the IT stuff for employees in the building including troubleshooting networks, machines, etc. If you’re having a problem you just walk into a Tech Stop and someone will fix it. [...] If your laptop breaks you bring it to a Tech Stop and they fix it or give you another one (they move your data for you). If one of your test machines is old and crusty you bring it to the Tech Stop and they give you a new one. [...] If you need more equipment than your job description allows, your manager just needs to approve the action."

As far as I know this process is not patented. Someone at Intel IT management chain, please give John Johnson a call.

And here is another process: hiring -- or should I say "non-hiring" -- of technology workers in the US. In this video, Lawrence Lebowitz, vice president and director of marketing for the Cohen & Grigsby law firm, explains how employers can hire cheap foreign workers while following the legal process imposed by the U.S. government that is inteneded to guarantee that no qualified U.S. worker is left behind. According to Lebowitz,

"[T]he goal [of this process] is clearly not to find a qualified and interested U.S. worker."

It's not stupid, but it's so wrong, so deviant... And what were these guys thinking when they were shooting the video. OK, maybe it's One Stupid. By the way, now I understand the purpose of the job advertisements placed in professional magazines.

Well, some processes directed against us have antidotes. In case you're shopping for a Dell laptop, read 22 Confessions Of A Former Dell Sales Manager. Smart, uh! Dell's reaction on the other hand was not so smart.

Finally, Dare Obasanjo (AKA Carnage4Life), a son of the president of Nigeria and a current Microsoft employee, described a meeting with Bill Gates, who was planning a trip to Nigeria, in a blog post, which I recommend to readers. You can learn a few things about Bill Gates and Obasanjo (the president): how he became a president after a military coup in 1976, served one term, held free elections, was jailed, was elected again, became a born-again Christian... What a life! The last part of the post made me laugh. As Obasanjo was leaving the building, he overheard the following exchange between the receptionist of the building and a visitor:

Visitor: Where is Bill Gates's office?
Receptionist: I'm not at liberty to divulge that information.
Visitor: I need to see him, I just downloaded Windows Vista and I have a number of complaints.

Enjoy the weekend, and please don't mention iPhone (or Paris Hilton) to me.

The end of Microsoft... Digital Image Suite

Summary: Obituary for Microsoft Digital Image Suite.

By now, you must have heard that Microsoft has discontinued its line of Digital Image Suite products. I'm a bit disappointed because it's one of my favorite Microsoft applications.

From the beginning, Digital Image Suite received mostly positive reviews from press and consumers. In his 2005 review, Paul Thurrott, who is not shy to criticize Microsoft's bloopers, said:

"Though I spend a lot of time using PhotoShop, I've come to appreciate the simpler, task-based approach used by Digital Image Editor, and some of its tools are clearly superior to those offered by the more expensive Adobe product. [...] And what can I say about Photo Story 3.1? It's an application without peer, and one of the few times when I can honestly say that Microsoft continues to out-do the best Apple has to offer. Taken together, the applications that comprise Digital Image Suite 2006 combine to make a fantastic solution for editing, managing, and sharing digital photos. Given the price, it'd be a mistake to ignore this elegant, well-designed product."

I totally agree. After using both Adobe Photoshop Elements and Digital Image Suite for a few years, I found Digital Image Suite more intuitive. I absolutely love its smart erase feature, which deletes unwanted objects (I could not find this option in Photoshop Elements, at least in the older versions). To be fair, Photoshop makes it easier to erase backgrounds (based on color proximity), which is a must feature for making transparent icons and images. But overall, I prefer Digital Image Suite's user-friendly interface.

And it is not just Paul Thurrott and me. Average user ratings of Digital Image Suite at Amazon.com stand between 4 and 4.5 (stars) out of 5 (depending on the version and edition), which is no worse than Photoshop Element. If user responses focused only on the product features and functionality, the ratings would have been even higher (many negative reviews addressed Pinnacle Studio, which came with some editions of Digital Image Suite; a few users also complained about Digital Image Suite's handling of RAW image files).

Why did Microsoft decide to ditch such a decent product? We may never know. Microsoft claims that

"Many of the digital imaging features and tools that have been enjoyed [in Digital Image Suite] for years now can be found in new Microsoft titles and services including Windows Vista™."

I would be really surprised if this were the case. Maybe some of the simple features, such as photo album and basic image enhancements (cropping, rotation, red eye reduction, color and exposure correction, image resizing) are or will be offered in Vista, but I really doubt that Vista would provide smart erase tools or anything more-or-less advanced. We'll see...

Microsoft has promised to support the product for the next 3 years, but in the meantime, maybe it's a good idea to start learning new tools. Say, GIMP (or GIMPShop)... Just kidding (no offense to GIMP lovers, I'm sure it's a great application once you figure out how to use it, I just never had time -- or patience -- for it). I must be naive, but I hope that Paint.NET will take over from where Digital Image Suite left off, similar to what Digital Image Suite did after Microsoft PhotoDraw died.

Dvorak prediction 4,652

Summary: Lame rant on the importance of buzzwords and fads in high tech.

John C. Dvorak, an award-winning technical columnist, is not known for avoiding (technical) controversies. Some of his opinions and predictions (such as suggestion that Apple would abandon MacOS and switch to Windows) were proved wrong (at least thus far); others came true (for example, he predicted that Apple would release iPod despite Steve Jobs' denial). In a recent column Dvorak responds to Sam Palmisano (head of IBM) who has just pronounced client-server computing dead. Says Palmisano:

"The PC client-server model has run its course."

According to Palmisano, businesses must "escape the economic waste that has plagued traditional client-server architectures" and move to "a new architecture for data centers" coupled with "software as a service (SaaS) environments and service-oriented architectures (SOAs)."

Dvorak calls Palmisano's "new" approach nothing more than:

"what they do now, but with a fancy name"

and concludes:

"In the next few years we will see more and more new monikers that rename what we already do but change absolutely nothing."

You may discard Dvorak's opinion as irrelevant, but if you decide to analyze Palmisano's statement seriously, you will have to answer similar questions. Do client-server architectures really plaque businesses with economic waste? If they do, what (or who) can guarantee that the "new" architecture will do any better? By emphasizing the end of PC client-server model, does Palmisano mean to somehow distinguish it from non-PC client-server models? Does he suggest that non-PC client-server models (whatever they are) are alive and well? What is so particular about the PC (vs. non-PC) client-server model other than the fact that with the recent sale of PC unit to Lenovo IBM has exited the PC business? And which "traditional" client-server architectures is Palmisano talking about: 2-tier, 3-tier, n-tier, ...? Isn't Web-based architecture also client-server, as Dvorak rightly points out? Aren't all distributed application architectures based on the client-server architecture (even peer-to-peer can be viewed as client-server at certain angle, as well as SOA and others)?

I guess, Palmisano, who majored in history at school and specialized in sales at work, did not intend to be technically precise, or even correct. His likely goal -- and it's hard to argue with Dvorak about this -- must be promotion of the IBM's current lines of businesses (servers, consulting services), and buzzwords seem to be the best promotional drivers in the today's corporate world. In fact, if he substituted a new architecture for data centers with IBM-built hardware and software as a service (SaaS) environments and service-oriented architectures (SOAs) with IBM-built software, Palmisano's talking points would make more sense (at least, from the IBM's perspective), but they would not generate as much hype.

MP3 encoding primer

Summary: A mini-tutorial on audio ripping and MP3 creation.

If you are trying to figure out how to make the best sounding MP3s from your favorite CD collection or keep wondering why certain MP3s sound better than others, here is some information that can help you sort things out.

First, a bit of background on CD ripping for MP3 novices (if you're not a novice, feel free to skip the next section).

Music (and other audio) on traditional CDs comes in uncompressed format. To copy a song from a CD you first need to rip it using a CD ripper software (no, you cannot just copy it in Windows Explorer). If you want to keep an audio track in original (uncompressed) format (i.e. without loss of quality), you need to rip it to a WAVE (or WAV) file (like Track01.wav). Because WAVE files are very large, it is more practical to convert (encode) audio to compressed formats. Most CD rippers can convert (encode) audio files to compressed formats when ripping them from CDs. Alternatively, you can generate compressed audio files from the already ripped WAVE files. There are many types of audio compression formats, but the most popular is probably MP3. Audio files compressed using the MP3 algorithm (MP3 files) are typically more then 10 times smaller than the original WAVE files. You must be aware that MP3 files may lose audio quality.

The quality of MP3 audio largely depends on the choice of encoder and encoding algorithm settings used when the MP3 file was generated from an original audio source (such as a WAVE file). Because after creating an MP3 file you cannot improve its quality, be careful when selecting the encoder and encoding algorithm settings.

LAME is a popular encoder which makes good quality audio and is (or can be) used with a number of audio rippers. LAME -- and other MP3 encoders -- can generate MP3 files of different quality based on various settings used during encoding, the most important of which is probably bit rate.

Bit rate defines the number of bits (or kilobits) that can be used to encode one second of audio. A higher bit rate normally produces better quality audio, but it also results in a larger file size. Most modern MP3 encoders can make very good quality audio at 128 kbps (kilobits per second) or higher; lower bit rates generally result in poor quality audio.

MP3 audio can be encoded using constant bit rate (CBR) or variable bit rate (VBR); the latter uses different bit rates for encoding different parts of the original audio with more complex parts encoded at higher bit rates and less complex parts encoded at lower bit rates. Using variable bit rate can help achieve better audio quality in smaller files (when compared to CBR). Some older MP3 players may not support VBR encoding, but they are quite rare.

To learn more about MP3 encoding, check the references at the end of this post, but if you just want to know how to make the best-sounding and reasonably-sized MP3 file, simply use a quality MP3 encoder and encode audio using a variable bit rate (VBR) with a minimum of 112 kbps (or higher). Many audio editors require users to install LAME binaries, but you can find a few, which already come with a built-in LAME encoder. For example, winLAME comes with pre-installed LAME binaries and also offers a simple user interface and easy-to-follow process.

If you are fond of a popular (and free) Audiograbber software, you need to manually change its MP3 encoding settings to use an external MP3 encoder, such as LAME (the default settings produce poor-quality 56-bit audio).

To install LAME, copy the LAME binaries from one of the distribution sources, such as RareWares, or following instructions at SourceForge); you can copy the files from the distribution bundle to a new Program Files folder (you will first need to create the folder, e.g. C:\Program Files\Lame).

After making sure that you have the LAME binaries, do the following:

1. Start Audiograbber.


2. Select the MP3 Settings option from the Settings menu.


3. Check the External Encoder check box in the corresponding tab.


4. Click the Browse button (located next to the text field displayed right below the External MP3 program name label) and select the LAME executable file (lame.exe) from the location where you copied the LAME distribution files.


5. Change the Predefined arguments option to User Defined.


6. Enter the following arguments in the Arguments field:
   
   -h -v -b 128 %s %d
   
   Some advanced users recommend more complex settings, such as:
   
   -V9 --vbr-new -q0 -mj -b32 -F --lowpass 19.7 --nspsytune --cwlimit 10.7 --athaa-sensitivity 1 %s %d
   or
   -V2 --vbr-new -q0 --lowpass 19.7 -b96 %s %d
   or
   -V2 --vbr-new -q0 --lowpass 19.7 --cwlimit 10.7 --scale 0.99 -b96 %s %d
   
   I haven't tried these, but if you experiment, you may be able to find the best sounding options that works for you.
   


7. Click the OK button to save settings.

Now, when Audiograbber makes MP3 files, it will use the LAME encoder instead of its own.

To check the quality and encoding settings of an MP3 audio file, use the free EncSpot utility. It can guess which encoder was used to encode the file and give you a general idea of the audio quality of the file.

Here are some tools that can help you generate and improve your MP3s:
Audacity
Exact Audio Copy
mp3DirectCut
MP3Gain
Mp3Tag
MP3/Tag Studio
mpTrim
Monkey's Audio

Additional references:
First look: Digital Media Core, Audio Format: MP3
How MP3 Files Work
How to turn your MP3’s into ringtones for your mobile phone for free
Variable Bit Rate: Getting the best Bang for your Byte (read comments, they have a lot of good info)
Creating quality audio-files using Windows, L.A.M.E., Ogg Vorbis
Wait wait... fix this podcast

What's in your toolbox?

Summary: Continuously updated list of excellent Windows freeware tools.

Update: For the categorized list of my favorite freeware tools and utilities, see the Essential freeware for Windows post.

As a true software junkie, I'm always looking for new tools and utilities. Every time I stumble upon a piece of software, which offers at least a vague promise of helping me in a daily battle with computer (or another piece of software, namely, OS, IDE, etc), I have to install it.

Unfortunately, most software I install belongs to a category called crap. The desktop lifespan of a typical tryware on my system is about 10-20 minutes, the time it takes to complete the installation, launch the program, and, after a few minutes of frustration, reach for the Add or Remove Programs panel.

Although I feel the urge to start ranting about bad software (what makes software bad, why it is so pervasive, and so on), let me do something useful and mention the applications, which I actually like. In fact, I think that these apps are so good that I carry their binaries (or setup files) on a flash drive attached to my keys for easy reach.

Here is the list of my favorite FREE* software tools and utilities:

1-Click Answers is a must-have application for English learners, but it can also come in handy for many native speakers. The program can be used on any word displayed in any window (with few exceptions, such as windows' titles) to check spelling, to show the word definitions, explanations and facts (biographies, tech terms, geography, pop culture, etc), to translate the word into different languages, and to pronounce the word. (Note: To display the information, make sure that 1-Click Answers is running, press the ALT key, click on a word using the left mouse button, and release the ALT key; the informational popup window will appear after you release the ALT key.)
Advanced Renamer allows you to rename multiple files (or folders) at once. It can use several methods for building the new names, e.g. by adding, removing, replacing, changing case, or giving the file a brand new name based on known information about the file. The program can also change file attributes and timestamps.
AIMP2 is a capable audio player with many options including Unicode support, multilingual interface, audio grabber, audio converter, tag editor, and more.
allSnap will be appreciated by neatness freaks like me. It allows you to align top level windows (a'la WinAmp).
Amok DVD Shrinker can reduce the size of a DVD up to one fifth of the original size without any noticeable quality reduction, so it can be burned on a "normal" 2.5 GB or 4.7 GB DVD-R. Although it does not remove copy protection, Amok DVD Shrinker is reported to work faster than DVD Shrink.**
Ashampoo Burning Studio Free 6.6 is a very capable CD/DVD/Blue-ray burner (and ripper), which offers more features and better GUI than most (free) burners, such as ability to set burning speed, number of copies to burn, and more (DVD Decrypter/ImgBurn are still my favorites, though).
Audacity is a well-known audio editing tool, which can record sounds, edit and mix tracks, add sound effects (bass boost, equalizer, and others), remove background noises (static, hiss, hum), remove silence, import/export audio files to/from different formats. To edit MP3 files in Audacity, you will need to install LAME.
Audiograbber can be used to rip music files from CDs and convert them to different audio formats, such as WAV, MP3, and WMA. In addition, Audiograbber can normalize audio files in a play list, remove silence from audio tracks, split, join, and fade audio files, and do a few other things. Keep in in mind that the built-in MP3 encoder produces audio of very poor quality, so you're recommended to install an external MP3 encoder, such as LAME. For additional information about using LAME in Audiograbber, read my MP3 Encoding Primer post.
AudioShell is a Windows Explorer shell extension (plug-in), which allows you to view and edit music tags directly in Windows Explorer.
AusLogics Disc Defrag can defragment disc drives better than Windows Disc Defragmenter.
AutoCollage is a product of Microsoft Research. It allows you to create collages of your photos (or pictures) in a few clicks of a mouse.
AutoRuns shows which programs start automatically during system boot up or login in the order Windows processes them. These programs include ones in the startup folder, Run, RunOnce, and other Registry keys. You can configure Autoruns to show other locations, including Explorer shell extensions, toolbars, browser helper objects, Winlogon notifications, auto-start services, and much more. Autoruns' Hide Signed Microsoft Entries option helps you to zoom in on third-party auto-starting images that have been added to your system and it has support for looking at the auto-starting images configured for other accounts configured on a system. Autoruns comes with both a GUI tool and command-line utility, which work on all versions of Windows (including 64-bit versions).
Avanquest Connection Manager can automatically adjust laptop settings -- printers, email, disk drives, etc. -- for each defined network connection; this is handy if you travel between different job sites, or use your laptop at work and at home.
BurnAware Free is a simple utility to burn disks: CDs, DVDs, and Blu-ray.**
Buzzsaw On The Fly Defragmenter allows you to defragment your drive while you work.
Caffeine can be used to temporarily disable screen saver, e.g. when watching a movie.
CAPshift extends the Caps Lock key by slowing it down, and shows a menu to change the selected text to lowercase, UPPERCASE, TitleCase, iNVERTEDcASE, RaNDoMCaSE or to Replace user defined characters. To use, select text and hold the Caps Lock key for a few seconds.
CDBurnerXP Pro performs most typical CD/DVD burning and ripping tasks. [I wish it could copy disks in one operation.]**
CCleaner is a system cleaning utility. It removes unused files, unneeded and corrupted registry entries, allowing Windows to run faster and freeing up valuable hard disk space. Some recommend setting CCleaner to not delete cookies or pre-fetched data.
CDex is an open source digital audio CD extractor, which offers a set of nice features, such as ability to automatically insert ID3 tags during ripping, support for most common audio formats, and more.
ClipX is a clipboard manager, which holds entries from your clipboard history so that you can easily copy them between applications.
Clip2Net offers an easy way to share screenshots and files. It will host up to 500 MB of files in your free online account, or keep them in a temporary location (if you are uploading files anonymously) for 5 days. Clip2Net also provides a free screen capture tool.
CubicExplorer is a better alternative to Windows Explorer. It offers many nice features not available in Windows Explorer, such as natural sort, ability to copy file paths, folder bookmarks for quick access, tabbed views, command prompt shortcut, and more.
CyberShredder lets you erase confidential files from your computer permanently. CyberShredder overwrites the space occupied by a file with random data, so it cannot be recovered.
Daemon Tools acts as virtual CD/DVD-ROM drive emulator. Using this utility, you can mount an ISO image file as a virtual disk drive without having to burn it on a CD or DVD. I also recommend awxDTools, which is a shell extension for DAEMON Tools v4.x (notice that it's available in 32-bit and 64-bit versions). The awxDTools add-on creates the mount and unmount context menu options, which appear when you right-click on an image file. Daemon Tools is free for home use only.
Ditto an extension to the standard Windows clipboard, which saves each item placed on the clipboard and allows you to access any of those items at a later time. Ditto supports different data formats including plain text, rich text, HTML text, images, bitmaps, and more. This program looks like a good alternative to ClipX.
doPDF creates PDF documents from Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and other document formats (including HTML). You can also use this utility to save changes to PDF forms, which normally do not allow saving changes. doPDF installs itself as a virtual printer driver, so it will appear in your Printers and Faxes list. To create or save changes to PDF files, you have to print your documents to the doPDF converter (instead of a regular printer). doPDF will ask you where to save the PDF file and when finished, the PDF file will be automatically opened in your default PDF viewer. doPDF does not seem to work from a remote desktop window (in a terminal server session).
Double Killer finds and removes duplicate files.
DriveMax allows you to download the latest driver updates for Windows Vista and Windows XP, so you do not need to search for rare drivers on discs or on the web after rebuilding the system. Just create a free account, log in, and start downloading the updates that you need. You can also export all your current drivers (or just the ones that work) to a folder or a compressed file. After reinstalling Windows you will have everything in one place.
DVD Catalyst Free can convert video files to formats playable on portable devices, such as iPod, iPhone, Zune, etc.**
DVD Decrypter is a classic DVD ripping tool. According to some sources,

"Macrovision Europe [...] has acquired full rights to the DVD Decrypter software and [has] changed its licensing terms. Effective immediately, they have decided to withdraw all distribution rights from all third party companies[...] Thus, distributing DVD Decrypter is now as illegal as it would be to distribute cracked copies of Windows operating system or pirated copies of games."

If this is true (and it must be), soon you may not be able to find DVD Decrypter online.**
DVDFab HD Decrypter removes copy protection from DVDs when copying them to hard drive.**
DVD Shrink is capable of re-authoring, decoding, and re-encoding DVDs. With DVD Shrink, you can select compression level for each video track separately to obtain the desired disc size (which is usually below 4.38GB). The software can produce either an ISO image of the ripped DVD, or a VIDEO_TS folder for further processing, viewing or burning.**
EasyCleaner cleans up Windows registry (entries pointing nowhere) and file system (temporary, backup, or duplicate files). It shows disk space usage data and fixes startup programs, invalid shortcuts, and the add/remove software list.
EncSpot will tell you what is wrong with your lousy-sounding MP3 files. It can guess which encoder was used to encode each MP3 file in your collection. It will also give you a general idea of the audio quality of the file. The Pro version of EncSpot is now available free of charge.
ePassportPhoto is a Web-based tool (so you do not need to install it), which can generate image files for printing passport photos, and photos for other state and government documents, such as immigration forms. Just ask someone to make a picture of you against a white (or off-white) background (make sure you follow the U.S. government guidelines), use an image editor to fix colors, exposure, contrast (if needed), upload the resulting image, and use ePassportPhoto to crop and replicate the part suitable for printing on a standard 4x6 photo paper. If you are planning to use ePassportPhoto, check my Free passport and document photos post, which provides some helpful tips.
Eraser allows you to completely remove sensitive data from your hard drive by overwriting it several times with carefully selected patterns.
Exact Audio Copy rips music (and other audio) from CDs and DVDs correcting errors left out by other audio grabbers. It also comes with a simple sound editor allowing to enhance the quality of uncompressed (WAV) audio files and a rudimentary CD burner. Similar to Audiograbber, Exact Audio Copy requires installation of external MP3 encoder.**
FileBox eXtender adds a couple of buttons to Windows Explorer's title bar, system tray, File Save As and File Open dialogs, which allow you to quickly switch to a favorite or recently accessed folder (you need to define favorite folders before they appear in FileBox eXtender).
FileSplitter can be used to split files to multiple chunks and then merge these chunks into a single file.
FileZilla is an FTP client (server is also available), which works across firewalls and supports SSL, drag-and-drop, custom commands, and other options.
Firefox Preloader load parts of Mozilla Firefox into memory before it is used to improve the its startup time. While it's a bit taxing on the system memory (and can delay the Windows login process), Firefox Preloader can in fact decrease the Firefox startup time. Note: When using Firefox Preloader, remember to unload it when installing (or uninstalling) new extensions or peforming other tasks requiring Firefox restart.
FlashFolder is a small toolbar that docks onto the Windows’ "Open/Save" and "Browse for Folder" dialogs. It provides a number of functions including the ability to bookmark and quickly access favorite folders, as well as quick access to recently used folders.
Flexible Renamer can rename files using various rules. The program has a nice feature: live preview.
FolderBox is a Windows Explorer extension, that displays additional folders in the lower part of Explorer, so that you can open two folders at once.
FotoSizer is a simple batch image resizing tool, which can resizes photos in 3 easy steps.
Free Commander is a light-weight file explorer/manager, which offers certain functions missing in Windows Explorer, such as dual panel with tabs, built-in file compression tool, file splitter, folder comparison and synchronization, and more. One major limitation of Free Commander is lack of Unicode support, which (being bilingual) is a deal breaker for me.
Free Download Manager makes the process of downloading large (or multiple) files easier and faster. You can pause and resume downloads, schedule downloads at specific times, download entire sites, limit the download speed, and use a number of other tweaks.
Gadwin PrintScreen can capture screenshots better than Windows. For example, Gadwin PrintScreen can capture the mouse cursor, overlapping application windows, and partial screens. It can also save captured screen directly to a file.
GOM Player is light-weight media player which supports most popular codecs and offers a few niceties such as ability to play broken AVI files and files that are still being downloaded, WinAmp plug-in support, screen capture, and more.
GNUCash is personal and small-business financial accounting software, which allows you to track bank accounts, stocks, income and expenses.
Google Hacks allows you to perform specific kinds of searches: music, books, lyrics, tools, and more. (Note: For a Web-based alternative, see Filoogle.)
Hide Desktop is a nice little utility which hides desktop icons when the mouse is elsewhere.
HP Smart Web Printing allows you to print clips from multiple web pages as a single page. The program, which integrates with Internet Explorer and Firefox, supports any printer (not just HP).
Iconix eMail ID can help you detect email spoofs. It verifies email senders against the list of senders registered with ICONIX, Inc., and once an email has passed authentication and identification steps, it displays a Truemark icon next to the message in your inbox. The program works with most popular email clients (Outlook, Outlook Express, etc) and web-based email providers (GMail, MSN Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail, etc).
ImgBurn is a lightweight, yet powerful CD/DVD/ HD DVD/Blu-ray burning application. It supports a wide range of image file formats (including BIN, DI, DVD, GI, IMG, ISO, MDS, NRG and PDI), Unicode folder/file names, all the Windows OS's (Windows 95, 98, Me, NT, 2000, XP, 2003 and Vista, including the 64-bit versions). ImgBurn has several advanced features that are often lacking in other tools.**
InfoTag Magic is a shell extension that provides informational tooltips on mouse-over for audio files, quick tooltip previews for text files (TXT, INI, LOG, BAT, DIZ, BAK, and QUE), tooltip information on the properties of windows shortcuts, and tooltip version information for EXE, DLL, and OCX files.
InfraRecorder is a nice and clean CD/DVD recorder. InfraRecorder is one of very few free burners, which can create disc copies on the fly (using a temporary disc image).**
IZArc is an archive utility supporting many archive formats and most compressed and encoded files. It allows you to drag and drop files from and to Windows Explorer, create and extract archives directly in Windows Explorer, create multiple archives spanning disks, build self-extracting archives, repair damaged zip archives, convert from one archive type to another, view and write comments, and do more. IZArc also supports command-line interface.
Jing as a screencast and screenshot software, which also offers free hosting (2GB of storage and 2GB of bandwidth/transfer).
John's Background Switcher periodically changes the wallpaper on your computer. You can specify how often to change pictures and where to get the pictures from (your computer, Flickr, Phanfare, or Yahoo! photo search).
Juice is a podcast receiver, which can be scheduled to download your favorite podcasts when they become available online.
Ka Type In lets you define frequently used text snippets. The application will auto-complete your text entries once you enter the first few characters and hit a hotkey, such as Ctrl+;. You can also define variable placeholders in the snippet templates, in which case the program will prompt you to enter the values before pasting the snippet.
KeePass Password Safe helps you manage passwords in a secure way. You can put all your passwords in one database, which is locked with one master key, so you only have to remember one single master password. The database is encrypted using the best and most secure encryption algorithms currently known.
KMPlayer is a very capable media player which can handle most types of audio and video files without the need to install additional codecs.
Launchy designed to help you forget about your start menu, the icons on your desktop, and even your file manager. Launchy can launch your documents, project files, folders, and bookmarks from the indexed folders (predefined and/or customized) with just a few keystrokes. It can also perform simple calculations.
Lingoes is an easy-to-use dictionary and text translation software, It offers lookup dictionaries, text translation, cursor translator, index list and pronunciation of word in over 60 languages. These language are English, French, German, Spanish, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Italian, Portuguese and more.
Magic Boss Key will hide open windows (and also desktop icons and taskbar) with a stroke of your keyboard or mouse. When you hit the shortcut again, every window Magic Boss Key will restore windows to its previous state (although it will screw up the order of items in the taskbar).
MagicDisc, offered by MagicISO, is a virtual CD/DVD manager, which allows you to map ISO images files as virtual disc drives.
Media Coder converts audio and video files to different formats.
Mega MP3 Splitter is a simple audio editing utility that can split an MP3 file into multiple segments (tracks). It is handy for dividing long radio shows or mixes. Unlike other MP3 splitters, this program is extremely easy to use: just load the MP3 file, and set the breakpoints. There is no installer or documentation, though, and the current (beta) version leaves all tag fields blank.
Miranda is an instant messenger (IM) client which supports all popular instant messaging protocols including AIM (AOL Instant Messaging), Google Talk, ICQ, Jabber, MSN, Yahoo, and others. With Miranda, you no longer need to install and run multiple IM clients.
Monkey's Audio can be used to compress audio files without loss of quality. Unlike traditional audio compression algorithms, such as MP3, which permanently affects sound quality, Monkey's Audio compresses files in such a way that you can convert them back the original (uncompressed) files. You can think of Monkey's Audio as WinZip for audio. Several audio players and rippers, including Windows Media Center and WinAmp, support Monkey's Audio.
MP3 Album Maker by Make it One will merge/pack/join MP3 files in a single file. This is helpful for converting multiple audio tracks into a single podcast file.
mp3DirectCut is an audio editor and recorder for MP3 files. You can directly cut, copy, paste or change the volume with no need to decompress your files. This saves encoding time and preserves the original quality, because nothing will be re-encoded. I use mp3DirectCut to split large MP3 files, such as long podcasts, to smaller files.
MP3Gain analyzes and adjusts MP3 files, so that they have the same volume. MP3Gain does not just do peak normalization, as many normalizers do; instead, it does some statistical analysis to determine how loud the file actually sounds to the human ear. Also, the changes MP3Gain makes are completely lossless. There is no quality lost in the change because the program adjusts the MP3 files directly, without decoding and re-encoding. Some users recommend increasing the volume of the files to 95.5 dB for pop/rock/dance and 91.5 dB for classical/jazz/spoken word (see Justin's comments submitted on January 21, 2006 11:53 AM).
Mp3Tag is a powerful and yet easy-to-use tool to edit MP3 tags and other metadata (ID3, Vorbis Comments, APE) of common audio formats. It can rename files based on the tag information, replace characters or words from tags and filenames, import/export tag information, create playlists, and more. The program supports online freedb database lookups for selected files, allowing you to automatically gather proper tag information for select files or CDs.
MP3/Tag Studio provides an easy interface for MP3 tag manipulation. You can rename MP3 files based on their tags, change tags based on file names, copy data between tag fields, clean up custom tags, repair variable bit rate (VBR) headers (which is a common issue for MP3s using VBR), and perform a number of other operations. (Note: I tried this application several times and in all cases ended up uninstalling it. The last time I tried to use it to fix the VBR headers, but it did not work on all files; it also seemed to add noises to MP3 files, but I haven't verified it.)
mpTrim is a simple audio editor which works directly on MP3 files. It can remove silent or unwanted parts, adjust and normalize the volume, fade-in/fade-out (to fix abrupt beginning/ending), and do other things. See also WavTrim. Notice that the free edition of mpTrim has a limit on the maximum size of MP3 files, which significantly limits its usefulness (e.g. it refused to load a 10-minute 64-bit-encoded podcast).
nCleaner (free for non-commercial use only) allows you to clean your system, free disk space, and boost your system's speed.
Net Profiles eliminates the need to manually reconfigure network settings when moving laptop to different locations. Once a profile is created, Net Profiles can configure your IP settings, proxy settings, mapped drives, default printer, wallpaper, and screen resolution with a click of a button. It can also run any number of user-defined applications upon activation of a profile.
Notepad++ is a multi-document text editor, which can be used as the Notepad replacement. Notepad++ supports syntax highlighting for several programming languages (C/C++, Java, C#, XML, HTML, PHP, CSS, ini files, batch files, JavaScript, ASP, VB/VBS, SQL, and others), syntax folding, auto-completion, regular expression search and replace, drag-and-drop, split views, file status auto-detection, zoom in and zoom out, bookmarks, brace and indent guideline highlighting, macro recording and playback, and numerous other features. The default installation of Notepad++ may be missing spell checker, but you can install it as a plug-in (other plug-ins are also available). You need to copy the plug-in DLL to the Notepad++ plugins directory (normally, c:\Program Files\Notepad++\plugins). Configuration steps may be required, e.g. spell checker requires GNU Aspell binaries and dictionaries. [Updated on 6/27/2007: I tried to replace text based on a regular expression replacement -- removing new line characters; specified '$' as the search expression to indicate end of line -- and it failed saying that the format of expression is invalid; well, it worked fine in PSPad, so I'm switching to it now.]
Paint.NET is a photo editor which is much easier to use than GIMP. It supports many common image editing features, including resizing, rotation, levels, adjustments (brightness, contrast, hue, saturation, curves, levels), special effects (blurring, sharpening, red-eye removal, distortion, noise, embossing), and more. Paint.NET requires .NET 2.0 (or later).
PDF Tools can merge, split, reorder, encrypt, decrypt, rotate, crop, reformat PDF files. You can use PDF Tools to define headers, footers, insert watermarks, convert images to PDF and PDF to images, delete/flatten/list form fields, and more.
PDF-XChange Viewer is a better alternative to the Adobe Acrobat Reader, which is not only faster, but more capable. It allows you to fill and save forms, export text, images and add content to PDF files, type on PDF documents, and much more. (Note: When printing documents with typed over text, make sure you select the Print Markups option in the Print dialog box.)
Piky Basket simplifies the task of copying or moving files from different locations to a single folder. The program provides a context menu available in Windows Explorer (or an alternative file manager), using which you can add files to a virtual basket; once you are done, simply copy or move these files to a specified location.
Pismo File Mount lets you mount ZIP files, ISO images, and folders as virtual drives. E.g. to access files in an archive (ZIP file), instead of extracting them, you can mount the ZIP file, and its contents will look like contents of any other drive on your system.
Pitaschio (yes, I spelled it right) is a somewhat weird utility, which -- among other things -- can tell you the current age of the Moon. For those more interested in Earthly matters, Pitaschio offers such features as ability to snap a window to other windows when moving and resizing, disabling the Insert and other keys, and more. I particularly like the option to control the sound volume using the mouse, and ability to mute and unmute the sound via a double-click on the desktop.
PrimoPDF is similar to doPDF, but it has extra niceties, such as ability to merge and append PDF files upon conversion. Unlike doPDF, PrimoPDF works over terminal server sessions.
PSPad is another excellent text editor, which can be used as a Notepad replacement. It has a built-in spell checker, and a few features developers would appreciate, such as syntax highlighting, macro recorder, hex editor, HTML preview, and much more.
Q10 is a minimalist text editor, which lets you concentrate on writing (once running Q10, press the F1 key to view the list of hotkeys and menu options).
QuickTime Alternative allows you to play QuickTime files (.mov, .qt, .3gp, etc.) without having to install the official QuickTime Player. It also supports QuickTime content that is embedded in web pages. After switching to QuickTime Alternative, I no longer get annoying daily pop-ups prompting me to update QuickTime and sneak in its Safari web browser (or iTunes).
RadarSync finds and install the correct updates for programs and device drivers installed on your computer.
Real Alternative allows you to play RealMedia (.ra, .rm, etc.) files without having to install RealPlayer/RealOne Player (I do not like Real players because their free versions are a bit heavy on advertising).
RegSeeker is a registry and file system cleaner. RegSeeker includes a tweaks panel for OS performance optimization.
ReNamer provides an easy interface for renaming files.
ReSysInfo is a system information viewer for Windows. The tool has 25 total information modules: BIOS information, CMOS, desktop, DirectX, drives, environment, fonts, keyboard, locale, machine & APM, mainboard, MCI, memory, mouse, multimedia, network, OpenGL, passwords, ports, printers & fax, processes, processor, video system, general information about Windows and a summary. The tool supports most of the latest technologies: SMBIOS/DMI, AGP, PCI, PCI64/66, VESA, EISA, MCA, PCMCIA, CardBus support, full DirectX support (DirectDraw, Direct3D, DirectSound, DirectMusic, DirectPlay, DirectInput), OpenGL support and detection, processor detection for most processors currently available on the market. ReSysInfo has a report wizard which can export the information to 3 different formats: plain text, HTML and XML.
Revo Uninstaller helps you keep your system clean by removing unwanted applications including the ones which have been corrupted and which cannot be uninstalled via the Add or Remove Programs Control Panel. In addition, it can prevent program from auto-starting, find and remove unnecessary files from your computer, erase Web site history, visited pages history, and temporary Internet files, remove recently opened files history, delete temporary files, remove tracks and history saved by Windows, erase files and folders forever, make sure already deleted files, folders and other data are unrecoverable.
RunScanner can detect all programs that start automatically, including spyware, adware, and homepage hijackers. It offers, Authenticode signature analysis, built-in Google search, VirusTotal, FileAdvisor and CastleCops integration, which allow you to compare the MD5 hash of your files with their respective online databases.
Search Commands is an add-in, which can help you find commands, options, wizards, and galleries in Microsoft Office 2007 Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Just type what you’re looking for in your own words and click the command you need. Search Commands also includes Guided Help, which acts as a tour guide for specific tasks.
SecureZIP is a WinZIP-like compression utility, which can also encrypt e-mail messages and attachments, generate self-extracting files, and perform other more advanced tasks, such as launching a specified program after extracting files from an archive. According to the Web site, a free version of SecureZIP v.11 is offered for a limited time. Other compression tools: ZipGenious, 7-zip.
SpeedLaunch allows you to create aliases and shortcuts for frequently used websites, applications, files, and so on, so you can open them faster. Drag-and-drop support makes creating shortcuts really easy.
Stickies allows you to create virtual notes on the desktop.
Super is one of -- if not -- the most comprehensive audio and video conversion tools, which supports many formats including DivX, XviD, Flash, MP1, MP2, MP3, MP4, OGG, AAC, Real Audio, WAV, WMA, and many others. It comes with a media player and all necessary codecs. Super can decode/encode audio and video files from/to different formats and save Internet media streams to local files. Some users posted a few complaints about the tool, the setup is not particularly small, and it takes forever to download, so I would not recommend installing it unless you really need to use certain features and cannot find a better alternative. [I have not used this application, yet. Just added a reference in case I need it.]
Taskbar Shuffle is a memory-resident program (with a reasonably small footprint), which lets you rearrange taskbar buttons and system tray icons via drag-and-drop. If you want to achieve the same functionality without running a memory-resident program, try Nicholas Butler's Taskbar Sorter (I have used this one for quite a while) or Mike Lin's TaskBar Commander (I haven't tried this one, yet).
TCExplorer provides an interface to import and export files from encrypted containers protected by TrueCrypt without requiring administrative privileges.
Texter can replace abbreviations with the commonly used phrases. Texter works similar to AutoHotKey, but is easier to use. For example, you can define an abbreviation #href, associate it with text <a href="%c">%|</a>, and set TAB as a replacement trigger. Once you enable this hotstring, every time you type #href (in any text editor or text field) and press the TAB key, Texter will change this value to <a href="%c">%|</a>, replace %c in the href attribute with the contents of the Windows clipboard, and move caret between the <a ...></a> tags.
The PC Decrapifier attempts to remove the crap from new PCs that you never asked for or wanted.
ToddlerTrap disables mouse and keyboard input to allow for cleaning.
TreeSize shows the size of folders (including subfolders) on your hard drives.
TrueCrypt is a disk encryption software. It is especially helpful for protecting sensitive data stored on flash drives.
TUGZip is an archiving utility that provides support for a wide range of compressed, encoded and disc-image files. It can also create self-extracting executable files and supports scripting (command-line interface).
UltraExplorer is my favorite file manager, which I use instead of the built-in Windows Explorer. It offers such features as dual panels (for easy copying), ability to define favorite folders, built-in command line window, and much more. Unlike Free Commander, UltraExplorer supports Unicode characters.
USB Disk Ejector ejects disks that are connected via USB better than the built-in Windows Safely Remove Hardware tool it can run as a command-line or GUI tool.
Update Checker can help you keep installed programs up-to-date (this is helpful for applications, which do not offer built-in auto updates).
WavTrim removes silence and any leftover of another track, when extracting audio tracks from CDs. See also mpTrim.
Who.HasFiles is an oline service offering you personal Web-based storage, which can be mapped to a local drive. With the help of who.hasfile you can share files between different computers. The amount of free storage is limited to 100 MB, but additional storage is cheap ($1 per each additional 1 GB).
WinAmp is my favorite media player. Although you can buy the Pro version, the free basic version works just fine.
WinDirStat is a disk usage statistics viewer and cleanup tool, which can help you figure out where your hard drive space went.
winLAME provides a simple interface for converting audio files between different formats, such as WAV and MP3. winLAME comes with all required libraries for producing high-quality audio.
WinOFF schedules Windows shutdown, restart, log off, hibernate, and other shutdown modes using a variety of scheduling criteria, such as specific time, after a specific period, or when the CPU is idle or usage is low for a certain period of time. Before shutdown, WinOFF can capture a screenshot of the desktop or execute a program.
WordWeb is a one-click English thesaurus and dictionary that can look up words in almost any program. It works off-line, but can also look up words in web references such as the Wikipedia encyclopedia. Features of the free version include: definitions and synonyms, proper nouns, related words, pronunciations, and more.
Xerox Mobile Express Driver lets you print to virtually any PostScript device on your network, even to those made by other manufacturers, largely eliminating the need to download individual printer drivers.
XNeat Windows Manager allows you to re-arrange taskbar buttons, show/hide system tray icons and desktop windows, prevent windows from overlapping, and more.
XnView Shell Extension adds graphics-specific commands to the context menu. After installing this extension (do not mix with the full-blown XnView application), when you right-click on an image files (such as GIF, JPEG, etc), you will see a section in the context menu showing image preview, options to convert graphics to a different format, resize image, and more.
Xobni is an Outlook add-on which opens a sidebar showing you an alternative view of your inbox data (Xobni is "inbox" spelled backwards). I think that the hype over Xobni is a bit overblown, but there are several features I like, such as fast inline search and better attachment organization. I also appreciate the ability to minimize the sidebar when I do not need it.
Zip Genius is a file compression tool, which supports more than 20 archive formats, including CD/DVD-ROM image files in ISO9660 standard, RAR, ARJ, ACE, CAB, SQX, and more.

If you are looking for a good and/or free anti-virus software, read my What Microsoft/McAfee/Symantec and AVG/AntiVir/avast! do not have in common post.

For more free software, see these sites:
Find reviews of the best free software by Windows Secrets (see the sidebar on the right side)
45 Best Freeware Design Programs by Snap2Objects
A Directory Of Programs Designed For USB Drives by Jeremy at LooseWire
Absolutely Free Software - Best Windows Freeware by nedwolf
Another FREE Online Freeware List by Daily Revolver
BestFreeApps by BestFreeApps
Best Freeware Downloads and Tips by TopFreeware
Exefind (a software search engine)
FileHippo (download free software)
Freeware Download Box by FreewareBox.com
Freeware Guide by The Freeware Guide Network
Free Apps for USB Drives by Chris Pirillo (the page has several references recommending small but helpful programs)
Free Portable USB Flash Pen Drive Applications by PenDriveApps.com
I want a Freeware Utility to ... 450+ common problems solved by eConsultant
Latest Freeware Finds by extort.net
Mohawke's Best of the Best Free and Open Source Software Collection by Dark Artistry
Open Source Alternative by osalt
Open Source Alternative to Commercial Software by Wikipedia
Free and Open Source Software by Webi
Open Source Windows by OpenSourceWindows.com
Portable Apps by Rare Ideas, LLC
Power replacements for built-in Windows utilities by Gina Trapani of Lifehacker
Reinstall Windows and outfit your system with all freeware programs by Samer (FreewareGenius)
Software by Donation Coder
The 46 Best-ever Freeware Utilities by Tech Support Alert
Reviews and Downloads of the Best Windows Freeware by FreewareGenius
The Best Free Software by PC Magazine
The Best of Free Software for Business and Productivity by John Hood
The Best of The Best Freeware by Free Feast
The Top 15 Ultra Tiny Apps by CyberNet News

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*	These applications were free (at least for non-commercial use) at the time of writing, but I recommend checking the most recent terms of use. Also, you may notice that while offering these applications for free, most of their authors encourage donations. If you find a particular program helpful, consider skipping your next dose (or two) of Frappuccino and making a donation instead.
**	Please keep in mind that making unauthorized copies of copyrighted media is prohibited by law.