Ah, Windows Vista, how could we have left this off the list of Stuff To Get for so long? The new operating system from Microsoft is really..
Allow / Don’t Allow

Well if blog posts were like Windows Vista, that’s would you would get. Overly cautious security is just one of the great features that has been included in this new operating system.

Clearly concerned by the prospect of the operating system being too fast for people with powerful computers, Microsoft have also ensured that Vista requires a huge amount of memory before it gets too quick and starts to handle like a Ferrari on an ice rink. Luckily you can find plenty of places that will sell you a laptop with 512 MB of memory bundled with Vista, so you never have to worry about the computer waiting for you to catch up again, which is nice.

So while you might be used to seeing free software on this site, the hundreds of dollars you’ll spend so that only half of your programs will work is totally worth it…

April Fools!

OK seriously, one thing that can be said about Vista is that it’s not bad to look at. So here is something you might like for Windows XP, a great Vista-like theme, check it out here @ deviantART

Also, while we’re on the subject of April Fool’s Day, check out Google’s annual offering as well as the Google Australia Blog’s effort. Make sure you watch out for this one too!

windirstat.info

This software was suggested by a reader, Patrick, who commented on TreeSize Free. After checking out WinDirStat, it’s clearly a great utility. WinDirStat helps you manage your hard drive space. Packed with features, not only does this free software list the size & percentage of disk space used for all folders & sub-folders on your computer, it also gives you a graphical representation of your files, sorted by the type of file extension. There are also no limits on this software, this isn’t a trial version but genuine freeware, so you can scan specific folders, multiple local drives and even network drives without any restrictions (scanning network drives can be especially useful for network administrators trying to keep things lean and tidy). More handy features include user defined cleanup jobs, so you can run regular cleanups on different folders as well as shortcuts to command prompt and windows explorer for fast access to folders and files.

The main file view is also packed with information, not only do you get shown the size of folders but extra attributes as well such as total files, the number of sub-directories, last modified date and even details such as folders being read-only or hidden.

Tip: Just hit F9 to toggle the Treemap (graphical view) on/off for a clearer view of the scan results.

alcohol-soft.com
Alcohol 52% download page

“To alcohol! The cause of… and solution to… all life’s problems” - Homer Simpson

Well, not quite. This Alcohol isn’t the booze variety but a virtual CD application. With it, you can create disk images of any CD/DVDs you have, so it’s great for backing up all your software, in case you lose the disks. More than that, Alcohol also let’s you create virtual drives, that let you mount your disk images and run the CD/DVD from your hard drive as though the actual disk was in a physical drive. Not only does this save you from having to search around for your disks, access speeds can be greatly increased because the information is coming straight from your hard drive, so it’s also great for gamers who are tired of changing game disks everytime they play something.

The paid version of Alcohol, called Alcohol 120%, adds the ability to burn your disk images as well and letting you create 31 virtual drives (instead of the 6 allowed with Alcohol 52%). The free version does come with a toolbar as part of the installer but you can just make sure to untick it as an option during setup.

Meebo.com

Meebo is a website that allows you to login to many popular instant messaging (IM) services at once, without the need to download software. With a slogan of instant messaging anywhere, Meebo offers just that - from any web browser in the world, you can login to your favourite IM and chat with your contacts. With a Meebo login, you can set up multiple IM accounts, so you can have your ICQ, MSN and Yahoo! contacts all in one list and chat with them all at the same time. It’s also handy for when you are away from your regular PC, using a public computer for example or maybe you want to check out your old ICQ account with installing the software. Meebo even includes advanced features such as file sharing and a widget called “meebo me” that you can put on your website so visitors can contact you when you are online.

Current IM services you can connect to include

• AIM
• Yahoo!
• MSN
• Google Talk
• ICQ
• Jabber

jam-software.com/freeware/

TreeSize Free is a handy little program that tells you where all your disk space has gone. This is great if you are running out of disk space or planning a format and want to know where all your data is on your hard drive. You can scan entire drives at once or a particular folder (and it’s sub-folders) just by right-clicking on the folder and picking TreeSize Free from the menu. Results can be sorted according to size or name and sizes can be listed by percentage or space-used (in KB, MB or GB). Folders can be expanded in the results view just like in Windows Explorer, so you get a full view of which folders are really taking up all that space.

This is the free version of TreeSize (the paid version includes extra features such as 3D graphs, last access dates and owners of files as well as scanning network drives) and works on Windows 9x/2000/XP/Vista. Using TreeSize Free is a great way to do some spring cleaning on your PC

filezilla-project.org

Here is some more great, free & open-source software, this time it’s an FTP client, FileZilla. Something every webmaster needs is a good FTP client for uploading (& downloading) their web files (along with some hosting).

At just under 3MB, FileZilla is a quick download so you’ll never have to worry about using shareware FTP clients again. FileZilla is a fully featured program including;

• Simple to use, familiar FTP interface (GUI)
• Runs on Windows, Linux, OSX (& more)
• Includes a site manager (for one-click access to your websites)
• Can resume broker transfers
• Drag-and-drop UI
• Speed controls
• Folder permissions

… and everything else you’ll need for your FTP work.

www.openoffice.org

While we’re on the subject of Office & productivity programs, let’s look at a non web-based solution, OpenOffice. The actual name of the suite is OpenOffice.org but don’t let the name fool you, this isn’t an online application like Google Docs but a fully fledged productivity suite that will do everything that Microsoft Office will plus a little bit more. Don’t forget, it’s also open-source and free. The standard install comes with a word processor, complete spreadsheet solution, presentation software just like PowerPoint, a dedicated drawing application (so adding diagrams to your documents is made easier) and even a database program to fill in for Microsoft Access.

The user interface of OpenOffice will be familiar to anyone who has used Microsoft Office before, so finding your way around and getting started will be easy and while OpenOffice does have it’s own standard file extensions, you have the option to save all your files by default in a huge range of formats, including Microsoft Office so you can open all your existing files without a problem (for Office 2007 files, you can use the Office 2007 File Converter for OpenOffice too).

Also included is built-in handling of PDF files, so instead of using Adobe Acrobat (or a free alternative like CutePDF), you are able to turn your documents into PDF files (for free) as a standard option & you have access to security features on your PDF files, so you can stop others editing, printing or even opening your PDF without the right password. This is a great solution if you need an Office program with a bit more functionality than Google Docs.

documents.google.com

Google Docs is great. It gives you a word processor, spreadsheet and presentation solution all for free, all online, all from your Google account. It is basically Office on the web, replacing well known Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint with a solution that lets you access your files from anywhere in the world. With a limit of 5,000 stored word docs and presentations & 1,000 spreadsheets, you have plenty of room for all your files and without the worry of a hard drive crash wiping all your important data.

Apart from creating and saving new documents, Google Docs also allows you to import existing files from most popular formats like Microsoft Office, Open Office and .CSV, so you can even use it to backup the documents you already have and transition totally to Google Docs if you want to.

Other great features include;

• Fast & familiar interface, like most Google sites, Docs is designed to download pages fast and each program is set out to be familiar to uses of other Office suites.
• Share your work with others. You can let others access your documents so that they can view your progress or even set them up us a collaborator so files can be created by a group of people. Great for team presentations and projects.
• Just like Gmail, with it’s access-anywhere approach, you can open, edit & export your files from anywhere in the world and they can all be organized into folders/ file type/importance

This article is part of a series showing you stuff you can do with your Google Account.

http://www.utorrent.com/

µTorrent is a great torrent application with all the traits of great software - easy to use, small & efficient with lots of features! As far as being easy goes, it doesn’t get any easier than µTorrent, you just download the program and double-click. No installs, no setup - you just start adding torrents and downloading. The program itself isn’t even 1MB in size, in fact it’s current version (1.7.7) is only 214kB, so it’s a really tiny download too. µTorrent is also very stable, which is good for a torrent program that gets left running for big downloads. You don’t have to worry about memory leaks or other issues if you leave µTorrent running overnight, every night.

As for features, apart from the standard features you’d expect for downloading torrents like multiple simultaneous downloads, resumed downloads, skinning support, selecting individual files from torrents and bandwidth control, µTorrent also offer

• Scheduler so you can leave µTorrent running but it will only download at certain times (even at specific speeds if you want). This is great for getting the most out of your off-peak downloads.
• RSS Downloader which lets you pick up a feed from a tracker (torrent website) which will pick up all the latest downloads on offer for you to choose from or download automatically (great for keeping up to date with a series of shows you like).
• Web UI is a new feature to µTorrent and while it is still in beta it is available to use right now. This lets you control you µTorrent downloads on your computer from any other computer in the world via your web browser, so you never have to miss a download again.

Tip: On the μTorrent information screen (Help > About μTorrent…) try hitting the T key for a bonus.

http://www.stumbleupon.com/

StumbleUpon is a popular plugin for your web browser (with toolbars for Firefox and Internet Explorer) that’s helps you discover great new websites, videos, articles and more from around the web. The main feature of StumbleUpon is the Stumble button, when you click this it’s like channel surfing the web, bringing up a new page that other StumbleUpon users have liked and added. You can try out the demo on StumbleUpon.com before you sign up so you can see how it works.

You can give any site you’re on a thumbs up or a thumbs down using the toolbar and StumbleUpon will remember the kind of sites you like and show you more of them in the future, and vice versa with the kind of pages you don’t like. You can even add your own pages to StumbleUpon to share with other users. Even StuffToGet is on StumbleUpon so if you want to discover some great new things to see while surfing the Internet, sign up and start stumbling!