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Windows Desktop Utilities
Last Update: August, 2001

Video Monitor:

Keyboard: Editors: Personal Information Managers (PIMs) & Free-form Databases (DB) Multimedia: Screen Savers:
  1. Picture and Sound Show - displays pictures (JPGs) from your own folder(s)
  2. Photo Saver - displays pics from one folder
  3. Nostalgic - displays pics from your folder using a slow zoom in/out (I've had some problems running it under win98 though)
Name   Rating (1-10) - Description, *ware Size, Tray?, Res.
  Ratings: 1=crappy, 5=so-so, 10=Excellent.   Size = File/Download size in Kilobytes or Megabytes.   Tray? = resides in the system tray.   Res. = Resources used (in %)
 
BarClock   6 - Title-bar Clock, freeware   295K, Y, -
  Displays a clock on the Title Bar of the current window. (bloatware)
 
EditPad   9 - NotePad replacement, postcardware   310K, Y, 9%
  no file-size limit, loads multiple files at once (each with their own tab)
see also: EditPlus w/ spellchecker (900K, shareware), a great programmer's editor.
See also: OmniPad (freeware)
 
MoonTool   8 - Moon Phases, freeware   61K, Y, -
  Keep track of the moon, if there's no sky where you live. To keep track of the moon and the stars, HomePlanet is pretty complete (7.2 megs); and OpenUniverse (4.5M, open source) is pretty nifty. see also: MoonPhase (357K, shareware)
 
MouseImp   5 - Mouse utility, freeware   390K, Y, -
  Makes (almost) any mouse auto-scrolling, and adds a couple of cute additional functions. If you don't have an scrolling mouse yet, get one, make your wrist(s) happy:
Office Suites   Word Processing, Spreadsheets, & more, freeware   -, -, -
 
  • Software602 PC Suite Word Processing, Spreadsheet, Image editor; somewhat MS Office compatible (15M, nagware until you register, registration is free)
  • Star Office (from Sun) Word Processing, Spreadsheet, presentation software, calendar, e-mail, graphics program; somewhat MS Office compatible (~90M, freeware, bloatware; see: FAQ, user group, OpenOffice)
  • See also:
    • AbiWord - Word Processing (2.8M, open source)
    • Atlantis uses RTF (Rich Text Format) files (642K, freeware)
    • ReplaceEm - a tool to search and replace text in multiple files or whole folders/directories and sub-directories (540K, freeware)
    • RoughDraft for writing screenplays or regular documents (1.3M, freeware)
    • Think Free (10M)
    • Hidden File Detector for MS Office documents - your .doc may contain info you don't want recipients to view, this little program will expose most hidden info.
PowerDesk   10 - File Manager+, adware   1.1M, N, 4%
  Replacement (almost) for Windows Explorer; includes a toolbar for your favorite programs, lets you view files from within PowerDesk (if you have QuickView installed), keep a history list of your favorite folders; many more handy features. (OnTrack's ad is very unobtrusive.)

See also: 2x Explorer
 

Name   Rating (1-10) - Description   (^top of page^) Size, Tray?, Res.
   
SCMPX   9 - MP3 Player, freeware   343K, Y, 2%
  Audio playback, encode (multiple) audio files; very tightly-integrated controls; efficient good looks and sounds great! (cnet) Written by a considerate programmer who doesn't muck around with your registry. Also available is an optional file-association program (SmxExt01.exe associates .mp3 and .m3u with SCMPX, although this can interfere with streaming mp3).
Also: Simple, nice player/ripper (1.1M, freeware, works on Win2K, [spyware?])
FreeAMP (Open Source, 2.1M)
 
Startup   6 - Startup Screens   20K, -, 0%
  Some static and animated graphics to replace the regular windows startup and/or shutdown screens
 
Transparent   6 - Desktop eye-candy, freeware   35K, -, -
  Make your desktop title (text) background color transparent (invisible) [alternate download site].
see also: Icon Lock - Locks Desktop Icons in place (883K, freeware, bloatware)
 
Tray HQ   7 - Notes,, shareware   318K, Y, 7%
  Calendar, Stopwatch, Address Book, Clipboard saver. This simple multi-function program saves loading several single-purpose programs
 
TreePad   10 - Information Organizer, freeware (alternate link)   390K, Y, 3%
  Free-form hierarchical (tree) program for managing your text . Quite good as a Personal Information Manager (PIM), will even run off a floppy (without the documentation/install files, the program is only 233K). See also: Keynote (freeware)
 
Virus Checkers   n/a - Various Virus Checkers   -, Y, -
  GriSoft's AVG (freeware)
Avast (freeware?)
AntiVir (freeware)
McAfee VirusScan (7.8M nagware demo)
Norton (30 day demo, HowTo uninstall)
InoculateIT, kind of slow, but works well;
or other choices on Tucows
see also: ScripTrap
 
VolumeTray   5 - Adjust Sound Volume, shareware   205K, Y, 4%
  on your soundcard, with just a right or left click in your system tray (bloatware). Want to convert some .wav's to midi? WaveGoodbye (freeware, 490K).
 
WinZip     8 - Archive utility, shareware/demo?   1.3M, N, -%
  Compress & decompress (e.g. zip & unzip) a large variety of file formats. Nearly all downloadable programs on the internet require some kind of decompression program like WinZip. Check out compatible freeware programs on ZDNet, or get PowerDesk (adware) or 7 Zip (open source).
 
WordWeb   9 - Dictionary, freeware   4.5M, N, 4%
  Word definitions, spell checker, thesaurus; standalone or integrates with MS Word.
See also: LeXpert - rearrange letters (for word game enthusiasts)
 
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