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Best programs/system utilities I've come across for the Windows platform.

• Windows Utilities from NeoSmart Techologies neosmart.net NeoSmart Techologies provides the populary kown Windows utility EasyBCD, which makes it simple to edit the Windows Boot Control Data store implemented to replace boot.ini in Windows Vista and later. Life without EasyBCD means typing in a few dozen bcdedit commands into the command prompt. Using this utility, just about anyone can safely and easily modify thier BCD store. It also provides support for multibooting Windows, various distributions of Linux, and Apple's OS X operating system. It is just one of many great system utilities NeoSmart provides. The forum is an excellent place to get/recieve support. I and few other people regulary help out there to address any questions that may arise.

• Slysoft www.slysoft.com/en/download.html Slysoft provides a few CD/DVD/BD/hard disk disk emulation utilities capable of mounting disk images. Virtual CloneDrive is freeware that allows you mount common images (like .bin, .iso, etc) as a virtual disc drive in the system that is seen by other applications as a regular disc drive. You can mount up to 8 images at a time if desired. Best of all its light and easy to use. Thier commercial products are great as well. If you've ever wanted to go discless in a cafe or other network environment with multiple gamers, than Game Jackal is the way to go. You'll never need to insert a disc everytime you want to play a game again.

• ImgBurn imgburn.com ImgBurn is THE burning utility for Windows. While simplistic at first look it provides all the settings a tweaker would ever need that many disc burniing and image management utilities don't provide. Being free, why would you ever pay for commerical products like MagicISO? Yeah, download today.

• 7-Zip www.7-zip.org/ 7-Zip is an excellent file archiver/extractor for Windows. It supports various formats and allows you to even extract/make tar files that you would normarlly only be able to work with on linux systems. Thier proprietary .7z format under LZMA compression is hard to beat when you start comparing compression methods for best end file size. In addition you can password encrypt an archive with up to 256-bit AES, protecting any valuable information from being leaked should a unauthorized parties get thier hands on the file. They've also got 7-zip portable on portableapps.com which makes it easy to carry this handy tool around with you on a flash drive. I use it all the time to create .7z archives of my tools that I than upload here available for download.

• DoPDF PDF Printer www.dopdf.com/ DoPDF is a virtual printer for Windows. When you send things to print to it, it saves what whould normally be printed in hard copy as a PDF file. My only complaint is the little ad you get below the where to save PDF file dialog, but other than that its freeware and very lightweight. I've been using it to send PDFs of documents in e-mail or to save so I don't haft to print out a hard copy and scan back in. Not only does it save time, but it also saves money--one less thing I haft to print out that could be using paper and ink.

• VLC Media Player Portable portableapps.com/apps/music_video/vlc_portable Using this player I havent come across any media files I couldn't play. Its not exactly the fastest loading, but once its up you can bet 99% of the time it'll play the file(s) you want it to, whether that's music, movies, or even DVDs. Having it as a portable app is nice so its always in my pocket should I need it to play something. If anyone owns XP Home they know by default they can't play certain types of copyrighted DVDs in WMP without paying for a third-party codec. Using VLC I was able to easily play my movie--menus and all :) I've even got creative with it and put it on my iPod. Pretty dang nice being able to play off music from my iPod on a computer and have it charge without having iTunes installed, perfect when I'm traveling. While the version I'm linking to here only works on Windows I believe if you look hard enough you should be able to find at least a version for linux as well (at one time I had VLC installed in Ubuntu working fine if not better than it does in Windows). The list of possibilities goes on and on. Sometimes I wonder why I even use WMP and iTunes.

• OpenOffice www.openoffice.org/ OpenOffice is a completely free alternitive to pricey productivity suites like Apple's iWork and Microsoft's Office system. It even looks similar to Office 2000, complete with spreadsheet, document word proccessor, presentation, and database management software. There are installable versions for Windows, OS X, and Linux and many distributions of Linux such as Ubuntu come with it pre-installed. Get the Windows version available from portableapps.com and have it on your USB drive whenever you need it.

• Audio/Video to EXE www.f2ko.de/English/a2e/index.php Best freeware media converter I can find. Can handle multiple files at once. You can convert files into standalone executibles so they well play on any computer without need for a player. Doubles as a player and is completely portable. If you choose to get the paid version though you can do other things like adjust bitrates.

• XnView www.xnview.com/en/xnview.html Best freeware image manipulator, file renamer, slideshow creatoer, converter and browser I could find. Does batch conversion, can maintain subdriectory structures, and supports over 400 formats imported and 40 formats exported. Its a little intimidating because of many many options but a very useful tool to have when you need it most. Download the zip version if you want to make it portable using the ini settings save option when you startup the program for the first time.

Websites that provide online tools to accomplish something.

• YouTube Download Link keepvid.com javascript:document.location='keepvid.com/?url='+escape(window.location); - Put this link in your favorites or links bar. Whenever you visit a YouTube page with a video you'd like to download click it to get direct donwload links to flash and mp4 versions of the video. Now isnt that useful!

• Block Hosts File www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.txt Update your hosts file regulary to effectively block web ads regardless of browser. Though for Windows you should be able to use it as well in your Linux hosts file.

Websites that contain how-tos on just about anything (technlogy for most part though) and online e-books.

• Code Project codeproject.com A site full of how to articles in regards to programming. Use it quite often on my projects :)

• W3Schools w3schools.com Excellent site to acquire knowledge of the various languages used by web developers in developing quality websites. They also provide code window for trying out your code as you go through the tutorials. If web development is your calling, they offer certifications to identify the knowledge you've obtained.

• Techotopia www.techotopia.com/index.php/Main_Page Offers online and downloadable e-books on a variety of technology related topics, such as Linux and Windows management (client/server & client), programming both for desktop and web applications, and virtualization.

• Computer Performance computerperformance.co.uk/ Perfect site for the Windows IT guy who needs to manage a network via windows script host, powershell, group policy, and other administration technologies.

• Proprofs www.proprofs.com/ Education portal on education and techology.

Online freely accessible coursework posted by educational institutions. Classes online come with pdfs of the notes/assignments, and additionaly some may have been taped.

• MIT Open CourseWare ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/courses/courses/index.htm MIT's online open courseware respository full of courses from all the different degree programs offered. Courses go back as far as 2001 but as recent as last semester. New courses are added each semester.

• Compuater Science 50 at Harvard College cs50.tv Follow along in this 13 week taped course as David Malan teaches you to program in C. Source code used in the class is also available in pdfs you can download from the site.