Frequently when talking to them about how to get started I begin talking about some other great tools that I use to organize your thoughts and create your posts and pages for your website. Most of these tools are free, or free with premium versions as well. All of them have been incredibly useful to me over the years (or months and days that I’ve been using them).

I’ve written about my use of programs like Evernote, Picasa, IrfanView, Windows Live Writer, Firefox and others on this site at some point or another.

I’m curious though, what other tools do you use regularly that you don’t think you could live without these days. If you’re not a blogger, don’t worry about it. Just let me know what programs you have installed on your machine that you use on a daily basis. Daily would be a good cut-off, perhaps at least every other day at the most.

Looking forward to hearing what you share and giving a few a try if I’m not already using them on my machine.

Image: sxc.hu

Post from: EveryJoe

The Tools of Blogging

The article shares a a list of 10 applications that you can get completely free. The apps vary from security, image and graphics or office productivity. Dustin Wax provides a full description and reasoning behind his choice for each of these applications. Be sure to read his entire post for that information, but here are his top 10.

• Panda Cloud Antivirus
• Mozilla Firefox
• OpenOffice.org
• Mozilla Thunderbird
• Picasa
• Skype
• VLC Media Player
• Handbrake
• Digsby or Pidgin
• CDBurnerXP

One of the great things about blog posts and articles is the comments section. For example, I don’t remember hearing about Panda Cloud Antivirus, so I was interested in reading through the comments to see what other people had to say about Panda if they had experience. In the meantime I heard of other suggestions for virus and anti-spyware.

What are you required choices for applications to accomplish those tasks you need every day? Let us know in the comments and maybe someone will find an application they’ve never heard of before that will change the way they work and use their computers. Your app doesn’t necessarily have to be free, but that’s always a plus.

Post from: EveryJoe

What Do You Install First on a New PC

The following are these applications:

TypeIt4Me, Typinator and TextExpander for MAC.

TypeIt4Me is also available on the iPhone

AutoHotKey, ActiveWords and Texter for Windows

AutoCorrect feature for Microsoft Office applications

In-depth discussion of the typing application and features can be found here —

Typing-Expansion Software.

In an excerpt:

Of course, you can get the same effect within Microsoft Office (Mac and Windows), using its AutoCorrect feature. That arrangement has one profound advantage: the expansion happens even when you’re editing. That is, I can click just after a "w" I typed earlier; if I add a "v," it expands to "Windows Vista." With the shareware programs, by contrast, you have to type the whole thing at once, *followed* by a space or punctuation so it knows you’re finished with the abbreviation.

But Microsoft’s AutoCorrect has a big downside, too: it works only in Office. I want my expansions to be system-wide. I want it to work in my e-mail program, browser, sticky-notes app, word processor, spreadsheet, on the desktop, and so on.

News source from Typing-Expansion Software

Image from acplteens.wordpress.com.

Post from: EveryJoe

Type Faster on Various Applications

Now those applications have become worthy software components of their own. One of those programs that have been developed and tweaked over the years into a robust and very useful application for many users is Startup Cop 4, which is now celebrating it’s 10 Year Anniversary.

PCMag’s computer apps program, which started out as a free reader perk, has churned out some top-notch utilities over the past two decades. In particular, Startup Cop Pro has become the de facto standard for Windows startup management.  Startup Cop Pro celebrates ten years with an anniversary version—Startup Cop Pro 4—now available for download.  Full details below and at http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2346165,00.asp.

If you’re system is running slowly, the first question I ask is how many applications are starting up and sitting in the system tray just waiting on the chance that you’re going to use it during this session while you’re working.

Gain control over how you think you’re system is trying to be helpful. Use Startup Cop 4 to find out what’s happening and either allow it to continue, or shut it down at the source.

Post from: EveryJoe

Startup Cop Pro 4 – 10th Anniversary Edition

Startup Tab of MSCONFIG control in Windows XP Pro

If you’re running Windows XP Professional there’s a really easy way to configure at the operating system level what applications have set themselves up to run on startup and to disable them.

Just follow these steps:

1. Go to Start > Run
2. Type in “msconfig” in the window (minus the quotes) and click “OK”
3. Click on the “Startup” tab
4. Scroll through the identified programs and uncheck the programs you don’t think you need automatically starting up every time Windows starts

Be careful not to uncheck anything you’re not too sure about. The programs that you’ll probably want to turn-off should be easy to identify and uncheck.

Post from: EveryJoe

Configure System Startup Settings

Image: Stock photo from Stock Photo Exchange

Before I share my list of tools with you though, I’m very interested to see what you all are using in your own software toolboxes. What apps do you use for anti-virus, spyware, registry clean-up, defragging? We’ll not limit ourselves to just those items either. Any tool you use to help service computers or keep them running smoothly, I’m interested in hearing about it.

Post from: EveryJoe

What’s In Your Computer App Toolbox

Image via Wikipedia

I want your suggestions. After I get a list of worst apps that you can think of (leave comments, email jesse dot middleton at b5media dot com, or hit me up on Twitter), I’ll go ahead and review them myself and bring a team of highly trained professionals to rate and review them (namely, you guys) by choosing in a poll.

So, please what are your favorites (or would that be least favorites)? Let me know.

Post from: EveryJoe

Only you can prevent poor programming