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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