hackyourworld.com

I know I’ve been posting a lot today, there was just so much I had got half done and I’ve got the next few days off from work, but my fiance does not, so you’ll probably see even a couple more over the next few days, then you can expect it to slow down to 1-2 a week. So yea, it’s been done over and over, but I never seem to see many tools I use on this list, so just some common things I use on windows. I tend to look for the lightest but powerful tools, seeing how I know what happens to Windows when you stress it out, I keep my laptop running smooth and snappy using these tools. In no particular order:

* Looking at the stats from the traffic of this site we’re going to assume everyone already uses Firefox.

SSH Secure Shell Client – Assuming you have a linux computer, or anything you use SSH for, this has got to be one of my most used tools, sure there is putty, but it just doesn’t provide the full functionality that this discontinued free tool does, and still is lightweight. Includes built-in support for SFTP transfers, saves profiles, supports tunneling.

Media Monkey – I finally kicked winamp to curb after I found this little gem. Keeps my music in a fashion that I can quickly find what I’m looking, or just double click the auto-generated favorites list to hear songs I commonly search for, it does this without eating all my memory or processor, something winamp hasn’t been able to do in a long time. I can also keep my desktop shared music in the library and remove it from the playlist when I’m away from my home with just a few mouse clicks, or it just skips it without fussing.

µTorrent – Who doesn’t use this now days? The lightest client, but still has everything I need. I always seem to get the best speeds using this, it could be that Azureus just eats up so much memory that it can’t keep up with the 1200KB I get off Tvtorrents.com . Make sure to tweak your connection settings to handle more connections than the default, assuming you have a fast connection. If your using XP you’ll probably want to increase the amount of half-open connections you can have (default is 10), visit this site and download the tool.

LeechFTP – If anyone used this FTP client before you probably still do, again I’m always looking for the lightest client, efficient, and to the point. It’s from 1996 I think, but since I’ve started using it, I’ve tried just about every one out there and I can’t seem to find one that is as light and works as easily. Supports bookmarking, ASCII file transfers, and multiple threads. Was last updated in the very late 90’s, maybe one day we’ll get an update, but it still works just as well as it always has

VLC Media Player – Does it get any better than this player? I think not. It will play damn near anything you throw at it, including unfinished AVI videos and BIN/CUE. Supports playlist, not the best interface for the playlist, but effective and supports drag-n-drop. You can skin it if you’d like, but I find it works fine out of the box, and I usually full screen everything anyway. Did I mention it runs on almost every operating system natively without bogging your system down like a certain Media Player that comes with Windows? Who could ask for more??

Syncback V3 – I do a lot of work with Windows computers that are on the same network, many times I want to sync some directories between a few users, this will do just that, create a profile for each task you want, schedule it, run it, and forget it. Copies files even when their in use, options to make it overwrite files based on which is newer or older, or only sync files one way (more like a backup). I tend to forget I installed this on some machines as it doesn’t slow me down even if it’s running while I’m using the computer.

UltraVNC – Let me just say I’ve used VNC clients for years, this one is the most full featured, customizable, and yet the fastest. It will auto select connection settings, auto-scale the screen to fit the system your using. The server allows for silent installs and disabling user control, and will even hide the icon for you. Useful on systems you don’t want people knowing it’s running in the background.

MagicDisc – So you downloaded an ISO/BIN or pretty much any other type of compressed CD that you would normally be burning before you use. This little tool is a lifesaver sometimes, you can mount (acting as a virtual cdrom drive) almost all types of compressed CD formats to a virtual drive and use it without burning, even will install into the context menu (right click menu) so you don’t have to open the program first.

Notepad++ – Tired of notepad screwing up your perfectly formatted text/php/perl/ASCII files? Yea it gets old real fast, that when I wanted a quick replacement for notepad. Supports tabs, so you don’t end up with 10 or 20 open at a time. Other than that, just a basic text editor that won’t mess up our formatting, pretty straightforward, again, lightweight, and free. When downloading you’ll most likely want the .exe

Teracopy – Another replacement for a standard Windows tool. This will make coping files a breeze. How many times have you been coping files and Windows encounters a small error and the 20 minute file transfer cancels itself. Just once too many times it happened to me, I went in search and found this drop-in replacement for Windows copy. It will let you adjust the buffer size you use as well, has a few more bells and whistles, but I’m just glad to never see “could not copy xxxxx” and my whole transfer get canceled, as it will ask you what you want to do if it encounters an error, which doesn’t happen nearly as much.

I hope you enjoy these free tools as much as I do, this is what makes me able to stand using Windows for extended periods of time. None of these files should negatively effect Windows.