Useful Windows 7 Applications

I thought I might as well write one up for the benefit of everyone. Who knows you may actually find one or two of these useful! (These are ALL FREE APPLICATIONS!!!) In no particular order:

1. Firefox (website)
Not much to say here really. This is usually at the top of most peoples list. I like it for the sheer amount of plugins available. I use DownloadThemAll! and Download Helper. I must admit though that I am not a fan of their new release system.

2. Dexpot (website)
After switching to Ubuntu for a while I got used to having virtual desktops. For those of you who do not know what this is, it’s like having many computer screens that  you can switch to with just a click of your mouse. I find this is useful if you are the kind of person who has lots of applications open. Also, I would like to mention Dexclock which comes with Dexpot, it is a desktop wallpaper clock which is a very nice feature in my opinion. Has a very nice taskbar mode called “pager” which I would suggest using.

3. Fences (website)
Lots and lots of icons and folders on your desktop? Fences can help you organise and tidy up without removing a single one. What it does is it creates “boxes” that you can put your icons into. These boxes can be scaled and positioned. Should more icons go into a box than can fit it will create a scrollbar (do not worry, the scrollbar only shows when you hover over the box). You can also name these boxes and have more than one as well as a very friendly colour and transparency customiser. A small feature I found useful is if you double click on your desktop it hides all your icons and boxes (giving you a clean desktop) and re-double click to show them again!

4. Open Hardware Monitor (website)
While I was testing my machine I was wondering that temperatures I was getting inside my computer (as I was worried that the thermal paste was getting too old). Open Hardware Monitor was the only application that was simple and to the point. Lots of temperatures and statistics in an easy to read manner.

5. NetWorx (website)
A very nice bandwidth monitoring utility. It has a very nifty feature that it can place a usage graph on your taskbar. Very nice and clear to read usage statistics.

6. Eraser (website)
When you erase things from your hard drive in the traditional way they are not really being removed from your hard drive. Eraser fixes that with professional grade (think military intelligence “professional”) file erasing techniques, so that when they are deleted they are gone for good with no hope at all of recovery. Very nifty for sensitive data.

7. BOINC (website)
Why not use some CPU cycles for the greater good. Help find the cure for cancer, look for E.T. with SETI or as I am doing; helping CERN with their test4theory (there are many more causes to join so look it up!).

8. MusikCube (website)
Now here is where I differ from the mainstream a little. Most will say use one of the four giants (WinAmp, Foobar2000, iTunes or Songbird). If you had to use one of those I would say Foobar2000 and here is the reason. I have always liked simple music players. I have a dislike of all these “buy music this through the player” or “watch movies in your music player”. I want my music player to only play music as I have other applications to take care of those other bits. MusikCube is VERY lightweight and does what I need (Foobar2000 is pretty much the same). Check it out. Although it is a little lacking in the internet radio department.

9. Media Player Classic – Home Cinema (website)
A lot of people will refer to to VLC. I won’t. I will share with you a little secret; how to get the best out of your player (quality wise). madVR. I really do not have time to write a full guide on how to get it running so I will post a link here that shows you how. You can thank me (and the writer of the guide) later 🙂
Hi10P Info / Guide | Haruhichan

10. LibreOffice (website)
A fully featured office suite born from OpenOffice (it actually has the same development team). This is one of the many free alternatives to Microsoft Office (but in my opinion the best). They are getting the program to run smoother and lighter (and relying less on Java). They have some big dreams, i’m on board.

11. Defraggler (website)
A free hard drive defragmenting application that does what it says on the tin. Lightweight, fast and constantly updated. What more could you ask for? There are a few great alternatives out there but I found this one suits my tastes better.

12. dispcalGUI (website)
This bit may not be useful to many of you. This is the GUI for Argyll Colour Management System (hardware based). Very very good software, you will not find better I promise. Lots of very advanced features so you may need a guide to use it to it’s potential.

13. Notepad++ (website)
A great for programmers. Has almost every programming language you can think of and more! Lots of features and constantly updated. Very lightweight and funky (the logo just plain rocks). Also has a few plugins so if you feel there is a missing feature I suggest you check them out too before dismissing it.

14. CCleaner (website)
A very simple tool that cleans useless rubbish from you computer with the click of a button. Also has the ability to fix some errors with the registry. As with everything else from Piriform; Lightweight, fast and constantly updated.

15. Recuva (website)
Another Piriform treat. This time a file deletion recovery tool (keep in mind that if you deleted the file with Eraser then don’t even bother trying… it’s gone for good). Very nice interface (most others are no so tasty).