3.29.11

Hello everyone! Its Wednesday, and as promised I have a new batch of app-y goodness. Today's list comprises of mostly of programs that allow you to see whats actually going on in the black magic wizard-box known as your computer.

Now that you are sufficiently terrified, lets get started.

1) Speccy

Speccy is a good program for knowing what and what size is in there (that's what she said). It is also a good troubleshooting tool because it shows memory and CPU usage, along with temperature of certain components (provided the components have sensors). This way if there's a memory leak, or if there is an overheating issue, I can watch it as it's happening and know what component is overheating. I use it a lot for those reasons in particular.

The Dirty:
-FREE
-A lot of information for such a small program (at 3.3MB)



2) CCleaner

CCleaner is one of those programs that has helped me time and time again. This little beauty (at 2MB) goes through your computer looking for junk files, useless duplicate files, log files, etc from windows and will delete them, freeing up precious space if you get the dreaded "Running out of free space" error. CCleaner also comes with additional tools that clean your registry (if you are a member of that school of thought) and help delete files "permanently". For the Average Joe trying to delete porn bank statements and other responsible-person forms, this is one easy way to do that.

Another aspect of this program that I use constantly is the ability to stop programs from running at start up. Some companies like Adobe, Apple and HP hate you* so much that they devised an evil scheme to slow your computer down as much as possible by causing every freaking piece of bloatware that you had to install with a program (I just wanted a printer driver!) to start at once. To get an idea of what this is like, take all of the work you do in one day, and do it ALL in 30 seconds after getting to the office. THAT is more than likely why it takes your computer 15 minutes to get to the point you can use it.

...Got a little angst-y there. Sorry about that.

The Dirty:
-FREE
-Comes with a 32bit and 64bit version
-Lots of extra tools
-Customizable to prevent unwanted removal of important files



3) PC Decrapifier


You just bought a new laptop from your local SortaGood Purchase. After buying the best option for you, you hurriedly run home, with hope and excitement in your eyes for all of the glorious time you and your new computa-buddy will have. You get home, open the laptop up, and start it. It hums away as the anticipation wells up inside of you like a tea kettle. Behold, your fresh and clean desktop appears with all of the free spa... wait, whats all of this crap? There's 19 different installers and trials for terrible online applications, 3 different anti-virus trials and a bevy of "help" applications from the maker that don't help anything. What is one to do?

That's where PC Decrapifier comes in.

"I am the program that your PC deserves."

 This program will automatically uninstall and remove a hit-list of programs from your computer all at once. There is also a commercial version that you can add command-line switches to the program for automation and other options.

The Dirty:
-FREE version and a paid commercial version
-A limit is that it uninstalls only certain programs, but the list is pretty big.
-The program doesn't have an installer. It is a stand-alone executable.

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This Is Relevant To My Interests.

Welcome and thanks for reading! My name is Steve and I work in the IT industry. What that means for those that might not know, is that 60% of the time I am actively fixing computer issues from the mundane to the absurd with on-hand knowledge. The other 40% of the time I am on a Google search trying to find out what in the hell an ID 10 T Error is. (Get it? Thaaaats right. I got jokes.) During my traipsing of the Googleverse/Blogosphere/dark inky depths of the internet, I tend to come across helpful programs that make either my work-life or my real-life-life easier. With this blog I intend to share what I find with you. So here it is, the first set of awesome programs:


1) Mint.com

Mint is a financial program that you can sync with your accounts to view purchases and income either graphically or by list, and helps you set a budget by letting you actually see how much the midnight runs for munchies can suck a bank account dry. With bank-level encryption and support for many major and mid-level banks (sorry Central Bank of Wallabangbang, no Mint for you) Mint.com could be just what you need to get your finances in some semblance of order.

The Dirty:
-Web based
-Android/IPhone mobile app
-FREE (the magic word everyone loves)
-Can send alerts through email or text
-Personalized recommendations for CDs, credit cards, etc.



2) FullScreenWeather.com

This is another web based application that I really like. It is just what it says: it uses the whole browser window to show a map of your location with the weather. Its simple with not a lot of frills, but it gets the job done. You can view local radar maps of areas for precipitation, cloud coverage, or temperature. It also allows for storm tracking and will give you info from the National Weather Service and Weather Underground (they also power the site).


The Dirty:
-Web based
-FREE
-Simple and easy to use



3) Grooveshark.com

Grooveshark is an awesome web-based music player. Users can upload their music (that was legally obtained, right?) to their servers and anyone can listen to the songs. You can also create playlists of your favorite songs and save them or share them, so instead of making a mix tape to give to the girl that wont give you the time of day/month/year, you can now make a playlist that you can send to her and still be ignored! Isn't the 21st century AMAZING!? It boasts an impressively large library of music and offers three tiers of service: The free, standard version; Grooveshark Plus, which doesn't have ads on the web app and allows a desktop application; and Grooveshark Anywhere, which has all of the perks of Plus, with a mobile application for quite a few different phones. The mobile application used to be a little strange and hard to deal with, but a fairly recent update to it has made it far easier to use.

The Dirty:
-Web based
-Desktop application (with subscription)
-Mobile app for Android/IPhone/Blackberry/Palm/Nokia phones(with Anywhere subscription
-Flash 9 or better to run



Also, best "server down" message. ever.