Tech Tips
Free tools for every Windows desktop
Whatever your poison -- Windows 7 or 8, updated or not -- there is a desktop tool begging to become part of your repertoire
By Woody Leonhard, InfoWorld, July 28, 2014
PDF-XChange Viewer
For years, I recommended Foxit Reader as my favorite PDF viewer. Then the folks at Foxit started piling crapware into the installer, and I finally gave up. Now, I recommend a better product -- not only with more features (including text overlay, which works for form filling, and OCR conversion), but also fewer, uh, unintended installer hitchhikers.
PDF-XChange Viewer offers all the PDF functions that most desktop users need. For Windows 8 users it also keeps you from that awful Metro viewer. The Viewer is free for businesses, too.
Malwarebytes
No doubt, you already have an antivirus program. I use, and recommend, Microsoft Security Essentials (or Windows Defender in Win8, which is basically the same thing),
but there are many good alternatives.
Malwarebytes is different. The free version is designed to run manually -- I run mine once a week. Malwarebytes picks up all sorts of creepy crawlies that get past AV programs. When combined with the support on the Malwarebytes forum, Malwarebytes is the ultimate fallback for infected systems -- whether you know they're infected or not.
LastPass
LastPass keeps track of your user IDs, passwords, and other settings; stores them in the cloud; and offers them to you with a click. LastPass does its AES-256 encrypting and decrypting on your PC, using a master password that you have to remember. The data that gets stored in the cloud is encrypted, and without the key, the stored passwords can't be broken, unless you know somebody who can crack AES-256 encryption.
LastPass works as a browser add-on for IE, Firefox, or Chrome, so all of your passwords are stored in one place, accessible to any PC you happen to be using -- if you have the master password.
Recuva
File undelete has been a mainstay of the PC utility market since the days of DOS. Far as I'm concerned, there's never been an undelete tool better than Piriform's Recuva (pronounced "recover"): fast, thorough, and free.
When you throw out the Windows Recycle Bin trash, the files aren't destroyed; rather the space they occupy is earmarked for new data. Undelete routines scan the flotsam and jetsam and put the pieces back together. As long as you haven't added new data to a drive, undelete (almost) always works; even if you've added some data, there's a good chance you can get most of the deleted stuff back.
Recuva does all of that and more, for your hard drive, USB drives, even memory cards.
HWiNFO
If you're curious about the hardware that beats inside your system, I have a utility for you. HWiNFO delves into every nook and cranny. From the summary (shown here) to detailed Device Manager-style trees of information -- entire forests of information -- HWiNFO can tell you everything anyone could want to know about your machine.
There's a separate real-time monitoring panel that tells you the current status of everything under the sun: temperatures, speeds, usage, clocks, voltages, wattages, hard drive SMART stats, read rates, write rates, GPU load, network throughput, and on and on.
Secunia PSI
A key component in keeping your system up-to-date, Secunia Personal Software Inspector scans every program on your computer and tells you in no uncertain terms if you have any wayward programs that haven't been patched. PSI knows about more than 3,000 different programs.
You can tell Secunia PSI to automatically keep your programs updated, and unless there's some sort of odd manual intervention required, everything gets patched behind the scenes. I particularly appreciate the fact that PSI respects my Windows Update settings -- while I have everything else updated automatically, it lets me install Microsoft patches on my own schedule. Free PSI is for personal use; CSI corporate editions available.
HandBrake
Windows doesn't rip DVDs. Period.
While you're bound to get a hundred different opinions from any collection of a dozen different RIAA lawyers, ripping DVDs for your own use (say, to play them from a computer that doesn't have a DVD player, or to keep your three-year-old's fingers off the shiny side) is a common, debatably illegal, activity. Ask your lawyer how she rips DVDs.
I rip DVDs all the time (sue me), and when I do, I use Handbrake. Open source software at its finest, HandBrake has an enormous number of options that should cover even the most convoluted cases.
VirtualDub
I know many people who swear at Windows Live Movie Maker, but don't want to shell out for an expensive Windows video editor and refuse to switch to Apple's iMovie. For those people, VirtualDub is a good compromise -- and the price is right.
It's almost entirely AVI-based, although it can handle screen captures, MPEG-1, and BMP files. If you're working with AVI or your camera cranks out files in AVI (mine does), the restriction may not hurt. The program itself runs easily, fast, and very simply, with no installation required.
Image Resizer
Once upon a time, the Windows XP PowerToys included a fabulous, simple, fast image resizer. Right-click on a photo, choose Resize Pictures, and the photo is reduced in size to a fraction of the original. With options for Small, Medium, Large, Mobile, and Custom, you can make the resized file as small as you like, and maintain a lot of image fidelity in the process.
But XP came and went, and Microsoft didn't keep PowerToys updated. Enter Brice Lambson, a Microsoft employee with a heart of gold -- and a mission to bring the free Image Resizer to the latest versions of Windows. Microsoft still doesn't support Image Resizer. But Brice does.
VLC Media Player
Another poster child for open source software, VLC Media Player plays just about anything -- including YouTube Flash FLV files -- with no additional software, no downloads, no headaches. I use it exclusively for videos.
Unlike other media players, VLC sports simple, Spartan controls, built-in codecs for almost every file type imaginable, and a large and vocal online support community. VLC plays Internet streaming media with a click; records played media, converts between file types, and even supports individual frame screenshots. Yes, there's a Metro version. No, I don't recommend it.
VLC is well known for tolerating incomplete or damaged media files. It will even start to play downloaded media before the download's finished.
Comodo Backup
Windows 7 has a decent -- but not perfect -- backup and restores function. Windows 8 basically throws it all away. Yes, you can find vestiges of Win7 backup buried in the dregs of Windows 8, but it's a pain. Microsoft wants you to use its new backup method, stick everything on OneDrive, and use Refresh/Restore should the proverbial hit the fan. Comodo Backup runs rings around all of them.
Comodo wants to back you up to the cloud, give you 10GB of free online storage, then sell you the rest. But even if you choose to backup the old-fashioned way, Comodo Backup is free and works like a champ.
SpaceSniffer
Want to know what's taking up all the space on your hard drive? Run SpaceSniffer.
No installation required -- it runs from a simple EXE -- no malware, no funny stuff. You end up with a patchwork quilt of files and folders. Click on a folder or file to get more details. Double-click on a folder to see all of the components.
There's even a filtering capability, so you can look at all of your MP4 files or JPGs. It's a great way to zoom in on the space hogs.