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I got time to go through one of my PC mags and it had
some useful (and free!!!) stuff I thought I’d pass on.
Audio
EAC (Exact
Audio Copy): The perfect way to rip MP3s from CDs. You
will need two more things to make this work but they are also
free:
1. The LAME encoder
2. These
directions from Maximum PC magazine
You might want to read my blog
entry about the success I've had with this.
dBpowerAMP
Music Converter: this is a simple audio file converter.
If you want to go from .wav to .mp3 or vice versa, this gives
you right click abilities from IE. Also, it enhances the yellow
hover help/info pop ups on mp3 files.
MP3Gain:
this will normalize the volume on all your mp3s. I ran it
on all of mine last night and it worked great.
Media Monkey:
Let's face it, iTunes
suck so if you want a free alternative that is quantum
levels better than iTunes, check out Media
Monkey. It's what I use to keep
my iPod full.
Spyware Hunting
My question to a friend was if I needed to run all
of these or was it overkill. The answer is that not all of them
catch everything so running them all will keep your system safe
across a spectrum of spyware.
WinPatrol:
alerts you when a program tries to add itself to your start
up menu or registry. Does some other watchdog things and has
a cute schnauzer dog icon and theme to the help.
Startup
Monitor does just what it says. It's a small program that
doesn't even have a tray icon and just stops things from loading
in a stealth mode. This probably does the same thing as WinPatrol
above but I have them both running to see how it works.
Ad Aware: A
good addition to your spyware arsenal. Run all these to catch
the crap that tries to get into your system.
Spybot
Search and Destroy: this was the first one I found in
a magazine and I run it once a week. Good and free.
Spyware
Blaster: another good tool to keep your system clean.
Just update it and run it once a week.
EasyCleaner:
an incredible and free utility that searches your system for
all kinds of problems including bad registry entries, unnecessary
files, and a host of other potential bad juju. I will using
this to clean my system often.
Microsoft
Windows Antispyware (Beta): PC World says you should have
all three of the free big ones running (Spybot
Search and Destroy, Ad
Aware, and this one so I'll give it a shot.
System Tweaking
Black
Viper: I saw this one on TV and it’s a hell of a
site. Basically, it goes over every process your machine normally
starts up by default and tells you if you need it or not.
If you don’t, it shows you how to stop it from starting
and you can recover megabytes of RAM. I spent a few hours
tweaking mine and other than killing my Media Player (it’s
off and on now), I’ve noticed significant speed improvements.
(Here is my copy since his site goes up and down:
Tweaks and details)
Firewall Tests:
Sygate Scan:
this will test your firewall. Run the tests and see if you
are really protected.
AuditmyPC:
Then run this one for both privacy and security tests.
Qualys
Scan: Lastly, run this one for full protection.
Anti Virus:
I use Norton because I get it for free from DoD but
here is AVG
Software that I hear is as good as Norton but it's free.
House
Call is a free, web based scan that found 2 viruses that
Symantec didn't.
Pop Up Blockers:
I like to use the Goggle
Toolbar plus, it has an autofill function for forms. I
also like the fact that I can do a Google search from any
IE window (saves me a button on my links space).
I've also heard that Pop
Up Vanish works pretty good.
Passwords:
Asterisk
Key: this free utility will help you recover a password
that you forgot. If you let Windows autofill passwords for
you, you might have run into the problem where you forgot
the password and then something goes wrong and you need to
fill it in again. Bummer. This will help.
P.S. Use your powers for Good and
not Evil, Luke!!!
Acerose
Password Vault: I've tried many free ones but this seems
to work for me.
Back Up:
EZBackItUp:
I searched high and low for years
but this was the easiest one I found that works for me. It
runs every night and backs up my entire hard drive onto my
external hard drive. It's just that easy. And FREE!!!
Computer Tips:
JSI FAQ is a
really good site to find good advice over a variety of Windows
situations.
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