WARNING: THERE IS NOT MUCH FUNNY TODAY. FUNNY HAS BEEN HIJACKED BY UTILITY.
Since the beginning of history, humankind has loved software. Until now, however, it hasn't been possible to put software in computers and watch it come alive. Here's a quick rundown of really good, really small, really free software that I use on my computer. I use Windows XP, but most of these will work on just about any Windows OS. Please make sure before you install any program that it suits your system. For those of you who are watching this page from a Mac, I have nothing to offer you. You may only press your nose to your fancy bubbly screen with that cool GUI of yours and crave these sweet bonbons. I do not guarantee that these programs will not do gruesome things to your computer. I only know that they haven't hurt me yet.
For those of you who visit my site to read all the trenchant observations, this scattershot smorgasbord of opinions on software may not interest you. I've provided a permanent link to this page somewhere near the bottom, right after the little jerks in the cowboy costumes.
The internet is a horrible, sleazy place full of people who want to take advantage of you. They will stuff your computer full of irritating programs that will track your internet movements, spray you with ads like a territorial tomcat, hijack your browser and force you to put up with hard links to porn web dialers on your desktop. Fortunately for everybody, Lavasoft has a snazzy-looking new version of Ad-aware. Version 6.0 has a built-in reference file update function, which is what the wise people call useful.
One of the frustrations of modern computing springs from the fact that most of us don't know a single thing about the computers we own. Most people don't know where to go on their own computers to retrieve information about their hardware and software. This is a shameful state of affairs which can be rectified by two wee free pieces of software: AIDA32 and Karen's Computer Profiler.
Both programs are remarkable pieces of software that organize all the scattered pieces of computer information into one display. AIDA32 will even provide links to manufacturer's websites. There's plenty of overlap between the two programs, but you'll have banished ignorance for good. There are three versions of AIDA32, all free for non-business use. The Enterprise System Information gives you the most bang for your buck. Computer Profiler requires the Visual Basic 6.0 runtime library, which is not as frightening as it sounds. You can download it at the link above or right at the Profiler page.
Do you hate Notepad? Are you so suffused with hatred for Notepad that you wonder whether you're the decent person you thought you were for feeling so much disgust over this dull, useless, featureless, irritating piece of crap? Etcetera etcetera? Then download the oh-so functional and lightweight Edit Pad Lite, a non-sucking program for editing text documents. Most people almost never need the endless options and resource-hogging demands of programs like Word and Wordperfect. So: instead of booting up some bloated software pig which will sit and critique your grammar until it decides to crash your system under its own soggy weight, try Edit Pad. My favourite thing: it minimizes to the system tray instead of sitting around on your taskbar.
You would be surprised to learn that uninstalling software does not entirely rid you of that program. Most programs when uninstalled will leave little pieces of themselves in your registry like the mandibles of a tick in your skin. Registry keys sit and fester, clogging up your registry with entries pointing nowhere and slowing your system. I have no idea why these little pieces of programs are left behind, but there is no need to put up with it. Go now and obtain Registry Ripper. With Registry Ripper you can search out those leftover traces, delete them and save a backup of the deleted bits, just in case you went and did something really really dumb. Just like Computer Profiler, you need the Visual Basic Runtime Library 6.0.
BIGGIE SIZED WARNING: Screwing with the registry can kill your computer as surely as dropping it from a cliff or giving it a bath. Registry Ripper has never done me wrong, but if you feel queezy about searching out and deleting little bits of your registry, there are other programs that will automate the process for you. You can check here for similar software.
Do you run Windows XP on your computer? Do you think that XP is so kind as to automatically backup your registry and restore it if something goes disastrously wrong? After all, Windows 98 & ME have a registry backup program. But Windows XP is not so kind. Fortunately, a man named Lars Hederer has filled the charity gap by writing a program called ERUNT, a registry backup tool for XP. The program comes bundled with NTREGOPT, which optimizes your registry and helps ensure that your computer runs smoothly. ERUNT is most useful when you have two OS's on your computer (read the site for more details).
I am a horrible font hog, so I have approximately 1000 fonts on my computer. Never mind that I use only five of them. The others are available any time I want them, which should be any day now. But even if you're not a font hog, you could do a lot worse than Font Explorer. Font Explorer allows you to view the complete character set of any font (including information normally hidden in the font file) and print up sample pages. You can adjust font size and effects. Best of all, Font Explorer goes one better than a lot of font listing programs out there and displays True Type, Open Type and Adobe Type 1 formats. Requires the Visual Basic Runtime Library 6.0.
Did you shell out gobs of cash for Photoshop or acquire some streamlined cracked version over Limewire? And now you sit and wonder why you're using such a gigantic program to produce thumbnail galleries of last summer's Grand Canyon vacation? A man named Irfan Skiljan has rescued you from your folly with Irfanview. The weird little squashed red raccoon icon is irritating but the program is beautiful. It's small, fast, and it does absolutely everything a non-professional will need. You can apply Photoshop-style effects, make slide shows easily, and above all you can view images quickly and painlessly. It also has a media player (which I haven't used) that will play Quicktime and cursed cursed Real Audio files. The only feature that can Photoshop can really lord over Irfanview is layers, which the freeware sadly doesn't have. If you can't live a moment without layering, though, I've heard that free image programs Photoplus 5.5 or the sleepy and the sleepy GIMP will let you layer images like pixel pancakes.
This entry is getting a bit lengthy. Expect another software page soon. So: in the spirit of ugly websites everywhere, take a few moments to look at this.
