There’s always a need for a good, simple text editor when you need to edit text files or make up a simple document (a blog post, perhaps?). Windows comes with Notepad, but that’s about as bare-bones as you can get. A much more powerful, yet still free, alternative is Notepad++. It’s especially useful for programmers, with its syntax highlighting and auto-complete, among other features, but it has things that everybody can use, such as a tabbed multi-document interface. It has quickly replaced Notepad for me, and will no doubt do it for anybody else looking for a good editor.

• Currently Listening To: "New Year's Day", U2

It’s generally acknowledged that Windows slows down with time: as you install and uninstall programs, crap gets left behind on the hard drive and in the registry that can make your computer act like molasses on a cold day. In the old days, pros recommended that every few months you simply reinstall Windows to solve this issue, but that’s using a pretty blunt axe. You can use a scalpel instead: CCleaner.

CCleaner will clean up files you don’t need, invalid registry entries, and the like. Since it does mess around with the registry and important system files, you need to be careful when using it, but overall it’s safe and does a good job of deleting unnecessary things without hosing your computer. If you’ve had your computer for a while and it’s bogging down, give CCleaner a try.

• Current Mood: Super!

This piece of software is a two-fer: it’s a computer utility for photographers! Most people these days know that you can “geotag” pictures; that is, add the precise location of where a picture is taken to its EXIF metadata, allowing you to see it on maps, Google Earth, etc. Unfortunately, unless you have a very expensive camera, an expensive camera add-on, or a lame iPhone, your camera probably can’t do this automatically. That’s where GeoSetter comes to the rescue.

GeoSetter uses a very simple Google Maps interface to allow you to add geotagging information to JPG, TIFF, or camera RAW files. Select the location on the map, click to add it to the photos, save, and done. It can even remember your favorite locations if you return to the same spots over and over. Of course, it’s free.

GeoSetter is obviously not as convenient as an automatic geotagging system, but it’s a great manual replacement.

• Current Mood: Grumpy
• Currently Listening To: "Dark and Long", Underworld

If you have more than one computer, laptop, or external hard drive, and you want to keep files synchronized between them, one of the best tools out there is SyncBack Freeware. This free utility allows you to set up multiple syncing rules between different drives and network locations, such as full two-way synchronization, pushing data from one drive to another, or pulling data from one drive to another. It has a comprehensive filter system that lets you tweak everything to your heart’s delight, and a scheduler that lets you schedule when you want it to run. I use it not only to synchronize files between my desktop and laptop, but also to backup all of my data to my external hard drive. It’s a fantastic piece of software.

• Current Mood: Sleepy

Firebug isn’t a computer utility per se; it’s an add-on to the Firefox browser. If you do any web development work, such as working with CSS and JavaScript, Firebug is indispensible. I’m a CSS noob, and it is incredibly useful for seeing how CSS works, especially fun things like inheritance.

Of course, it goes without saying that you should be using Firefox.

• Current Mood: Helpful

Hard drives are huge these days (I have a couple drives in my computer with a total of over 1 TB of space), but that doesn’t mean that it is infinite. More important, having lots of stuff on your hard drive can slow down your computer and make some tasks, like defragmenting, take much more time. Sure, you can see how much space you have used and how much is left in Windows by looking at the drive properties, but wouldn’t it be nicer to see exactly where things are? In an easy-to-interpret, graphical format: Then here’s the utility for you: TreeSize Free.

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As a tech person, I use a lot of software utilities. Some of them are esoteric programs that do one thing and few people would care about, but others are so great and generally useful I think everybody should have them. Through the magic of this blog, now I can share my experiences and suggestions. I’ll write about the utilities I find most useful, and to start out, here’s a utility I use nearly every day that you should be using too if you value security: Password Safe.

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