The best things in life ARE free….

These programs and utilities for the PC are the best things money can’t buy. Though they are offered entirely free for personal use, some of the below require payment if deployed in a business environment. Consult the End User License Agreement (EULA) or the website of the developer for details.


Anti-Virus:

AVG Free 8.0

Using AVG, you'll save an average of $40 a year on antivirus software. Pat yourself on the back!


System Optimization:

Ccleaner

Possibly the coolest little utility, this piece of software removes temporary files that bog your system down, clean the registry and efficiently uninstall programs.

AusLogics Disk Defrag

This utility can be summed up as the Windows defrag utility on steroids.

WinDirStat

Want to see what happened to your hard drive space? WinDirStat allows you to visually see what’s taking up space in an appealing, colorful interface.



Office Suite:

Google Docs

Imagine Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint with seamless collaboration and chat functions. Did I mention Google pays for all of it? Why pay $XXX for Office?

OpenOffice

A direct competitor to Microsoft, the OpenOffice suite is a very powerful and robust suite. Again, why pay for Office?


Spyware and Malware protection:

Spybot Search and Destroy

Possibly the most versatile application in the category, Spybot can remove most spyware.

Ad-Aware 2008

Another great utility, Ad-Aware has lost some of its’ fire to me. The company tries to make you upgrade to their paid offering, in sneaky ways. Ad-aware, what happened to the good 'ol days?

Malwarebytes Anti-Malware

In one word this utility is superb! Do you know someone who has hosed their system with the Anti-Virus 2008/2009/XP? This is the utility you pay your local shop or GeekSquad a fortune to use. It is also entirely free. Shhh... Don’t tell my boss!


Image Editing:

Google Picasa

Possibly the easiest and robust free photo suite, Picasa is a wonderful utility

With these programs, you’ll save a ton of money. The best things in life are free!

Dell integrates flashy LCD into XPS 420 computers

At first glance, the small LCD on the top of the tower is elegant and frankly, very sexy. It’s bright, stylish and set into the top panel of the computer. This makes the physical transition between plastic and LCD literally seamless.

Turn the tower on to find an organized group of blue LED backlit buttons. These buttons navigate a very Vista-esque user interface. You can display a slide show of your favorite pictures, display system information such as graphs of processor usage, memory and page file usage, disk usage and as odd as it sounds, solitaire. Why anyone would want to play solitaire with cards that are about the size of fingernails is way beyond me.

All in all, the LCD is a flashy and sexy addition to Dell’s flagship line of consumer computers. Currently the feature only appears on the 420 line of XPS systems, which start at $799.

The DTV Transition: To postpone, or not to postpone...

The Obama Administration is urging congress to postpone the DTV transition date, which could potentially confuse the masses. On the contrary, this will prove beneficial to the procrastinators and ill-informed of today’s America, as funding for the converter coupons will be restored. Overall, the whole thing is a mess regardless of when the switch takes place. Attempting to introduce "mandatory" and "change" in the same sentence to the entirety of the country is bound to be hell. Here’s a quick list of the pros and cons of postponing the deadline:

Pros:
+ Government to renew funds for $40 coupons for Digital TV converter boxes

+ Estimated one million on wait list for coupons will receive coupons

+ More time to raise and spread awareness, hopefully reducing confusion about the situation


Cons:
- More confusion hovering over the deadline than is already present

- Increased funding from private parties for awareness (major news networks airing commercials)

- The people that are prepared will have to sit through another couple of months of cheesy DTV transition commercials and ads


As previously stated, either way it's going to be hell.

OS X 101: Repairing Permissions

Though the Apple file system does not require maintenance like defragmentation, correct file permissions are important for stability and performance. Repairing permissions on a Mac can take anywhere between 5 and 30 minutes.

• Open a new Finder window by clicking on Finder

• Navigate to the "Applications" folder

• Select the "Utilities" folder and then "Disk Utility"

• When Disk Utility has opened, find “Macintosh HD” (you may have renamed this) in the upper left corner of the window

• Click the button that says “Repair Disk Permissions”

When Disk Utility is done repairing permissions, close it and continue about your day!

Speed up Firefox: 3 tweaks for a foxier fox

(Mac, Windows, Linux)
(Time <5 Minutes)

Has the fire in your fox turned into an ember? If so, here are three tips to optimize Firefox for your high speed connection:

In the Firefox address bar, type “about:config”. Don’t be overwhelmed, follow the steps below and you’ll be fine...

• Right-click (Ctrl+click for Mac users) anywhere in the list and select “new” then “Integer”. In the pop-up box, type “nglayout.initialpaint.delay" and click OK. Set it to “0”

• Again, make a new integer value. This time name it “ui.submenuDelay” and set it to “0”

• Place your cursor in the “Filter” bar at the top of the screen and type ”pipelining”

• Four results should appear. Double click on “network.http.pipelining”; this will set the value to true

• The next entry should be “network.http.pipelining.maxrequests”. Double-click it and Set this value to 64

• Find "network.http.proxy.pipelining" and again, double-click it to set the Boolean value to “true”

That’s it! Not so bad right? Restart Firefox and enjoy your faster web browsing experience!