Other than the usual variety of strange and devious doings at One Redmond Way, not too much regarding computing has been going on for the past  seven days.

With that in mind, I thought I might make up one of those little lists that get made up giving kudos to the programs and utilities the author uses daily that make things possible, easier, or simply a little more pleasant.

At the start of every day, I’ve found Opera to be my friend, one that doesn’t let me down, even when new things are tried (betas).  It never worries me that some ActiveX control will impart its nastiness on my system while I’m not paying full attention. It offers the possibility for getting crazy with customization, but never gets bloated in the process. If I want to, I can order it vocally, to do my bidding on the internet.

I use Windows XP most of the time, and other than Windows Genuine Disadvantage, I find it to be very easy to use, for the most part. One thing I have never liked about Windows is the Explorer file manager. It is only barely better than FileMan from Windows 3. Microsoft has never gotten the idea that two pane file management is what most people prefer, or perhaps it has never cared. A better file manager is what is needed for just about everyone. I’ve found, lately, that Explorer² is the best currently available for what I do. I have wished for many years that the makers of XTree would renew efforts to make a comeback in Windows, but it has not happened.  I know that there is ZTree, but it omits the best parts of XTree, so I have never done more than look at it for a short while. Explorer² is available as a free product, and does so much I really did not need to register it. I did, however, to allow continued work on this fine product. As I’ve said before, when a product is that good, it can ‘guilt’ its users to pay, no form of time out or other trickery is needed.

For dealing with archives, I have 3 programs, because not one of them will do all that I need it to. Perhaps PowerArchiver would do the trick, by itself, but I have an older version, and paying for the upgrade doesn’t get my vote as I have the other 2 programs to fill out the needs. ExtractNow is an unarchiving utility, free, and very good. It will also open the occasional Mac StuffIt archive I run across. The third product I didn’t pay for, as I somehow obtained a free copy of the program, and as with PowerArchiver, the version I have does what I need without having to pay for the upgrades. That third program, WinRAR 3.51, is useful when I have an RAR archive that my version of PowerArchiver will not work with.  If I were starting out again, or needed to have only one product for reasons of disk space, I would pay for PowerArchiver, as its interface I find to be the best of any. (One small note, I find that the newest revision 10.x.x, substitutes a very cartoon-like set of icons, and a very ‘angry fruit salad’ colors scheme, so that too, keeps me from upgrading. Others may like the cartoonish look, I do not.)

Playing multimedia files is always a pain, or so I thought until I downloaded GOM Player. It makes things easy. I like it a lot, and it works every time, unlike Windows Media Player, regardless of version.

I like to listen to internet radio and while I like WinAmp, for most things I find it too unwieldy for my use. I do have it, and at times will use it to find specific music or stations, but I have found I use a small, free program, Screamer, much more often. It uses presets and makes what I want to listen to much easier to access.

I have always been kind of a utility junkie, and still use many on my machine. I pine for the days when PC Magazine had free utilities, as many of the ones I still use are from that time. I haven’t found a single one during the pay-era that calls to out, saying ‘buy me, you really need me’.  I use Tray Manager 2 to control the clutter in my task bar area. I use MultiREN to rename files, which has a better interface than any other program of its type.  I use DisplaySet and Theme Manager when I want to make my desktop look different. Just recently, PC Magazine decided to shame the devil and release Surf Speed gratis, and I picked that up, using it in my ongoing battle with the ups and downs in speed of my Verizon DSL.

To help with some hotkey sequences, I use Winkey, which is no longer available from Copernic, but it can be found on certain sites. I do find this to be a very annoying behavior, as many authors will remove products that are no longer being developed, but they were free, and no new competing product is being put forth, free or paid.

I tend to be very meticulous about the files on my machine, but I can’t always remember where each and every file, ISO, or archive is located. Instead of using a Microsoft offering, or Google Desktop Search, I use X1, which is free, fast, keeps being improved, and has gotten an Editor’s Choice award from PC Magazine.

As with archives, graphics files are not all handled by one program. I have both XnView and IrfanView installed, which seem to take care of all my needs. When I need to edit a graphic, or make one up, I use Paint.NET, which gets better with each iteration.

Although Outlook Express, and the new Windows Desktop Mail will both do newsgroups, I prefer to use Agent, which I have used for over ten years. Detractors will say it doesn’t have this or that, but the developers get around to adding features on a regular basis.  The only sad part here is that there is no free version anymore. For anyone who seriously checks in to newsgroups, $29 is not too much to pay for a great reader.

Microsoft has been doing some good lately, with the upgrades to Messenger and Outlook Express, and the upgrades are truly good. (Shock and Awe, indeed!) I use these daily (Live Messenger, Windows Desktop Mail), and have discontinued using Thunderbird until the problems are fixed,

A couple of utilities I have started using this year are StartRight, which controls the start up behavior of Windows, and TeraCopy, a great little copy utility that is what the copy an move utilities built into Windows should have been all along. There are a couple of small annoyances with TeraCopy, which have stayed with it for 3 iterations, so perhaps the author can’t replicate the problem, but it is minor, and has no effect on data integrity, so I recommend it heartily.

If you try any of these great programs or utilities, you’ll be a happy camper, and well ahead of the pack.

Tags: opera, explorer², powerarchiver, extractnow, winrar, gom player, screamer, pc magazine utilities, xnview, irfanview, x1, winkey, paint.net, agent, startright, teracopy, windows live messenger, windows desktop mail