Other Neat Free Applications

Infomagic and Infomagic Extra
  Infomagic is a program that stores text files. it's a great place for those little "snippets" of information that come along all the time that you want to remember, but always lose the scrap of paper you wrote them on! Recipes, birthdays, a listing of your oil deliveries, a history of prescriptions - make a text file for each! You can password-protect whichever ones you wish to. I use it for passwords, stocking stuffer ideas, my local Library Card number... the list goes on and on. You can put links to websites as well. Also, since the files are in text format, they'll always be "usable" down the road, unlike some program that you lose or the format becomes defunct years from now.

Here's how the author describes it: "InfoMagic is a Personal Memory Aid. I'm an old guy with a bad memory. InfoMagic remembers for me. I made InfoMagic for my own needs, and distributed it free for several years. It's an organizer for people who hate to organize. It's the computer equivalent of throwing everything into a junk drawer, then when you need something, just say (type) it's name and it jumps out of the drawer into your hand. It's the simplest, most straightforward, freeform way to keep track of the bits and pieces of facts, data and information that swirl around your everyday life. It lets you quickly locate any fact you've saved. It's not just another electric calendar, it's a real Personal Information Manager. There's no trying to conform to somebody else's idea of how to organize information or trying to fit your data into their forms. If you have a neat desk and need structure in your life you probably won't like it, but if you're something of a nonconformist or your desk looks like mine and Andy Rooney's you'll love it. It uses an open, universal structure, making it easy to switch to other information managers in the future."

Jim Evans also provides pointers on Infomagic use with Windows Vista for those of you struggling with Vista (his tips, especially the one on installing programs to your own program files directory will work for many other older programs as well!)

Convert
  For you Engineers and Scientists out there!  This nifty little free, one-file program converts all types of units quickly, from distance and area to lux and dyne-centimeters!  The program will convert the most popular units of distance, temperature, volume, time, speed, mass, power, density, pressure, energy and many others, including the ability to create custom conversions.

Miniminder
   MiniMinder is a slick little date reminder program which gives an attractive daily countdown to any upcoming events which you've chosen to track. It's designed to be small and unobtrusive, but how you size it and where you put it is entirely up to you. If you're the type of computer user who starts up their computer every day, MiniMinder is there for you with your reminders each time you reach the desktop. If you're the type of user whose computer is always on, MiniMinder can be minimized (the orange button) to the system tray, where it uses the absolute minimum of system resources. When the new day arrives, so will your helpful reminder, displaying itself until you send it back to the tray.  I t can also serve up daily jokes, inspirational thoughts, Bible quotes (or whatever you put into the daily text file).



 

System Information for Windows (SIW)
  This stand-alone file is another good one to keep on your handy-dandy USB drive.  The program will give you detailed information on the hardware and software of a computer, which you need to know many times in order to find new drivers or get help.

OpenOffice
  OpenOffice is the leading open-source office software suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and more. It is available in many languages and works on all common computers. It stores all your data in an international open standard format and can also read and write files from other common office software packages. It can be downloaded and used completely free of charge for any purpose.  If you're on a budget, but still need to be able to open and edit Word and Excel files, this is the program for you!

CDBurnerXP
  CDBurnerXP is a free easy-to-use application to burn CDs, CD-RW, and DVDs, including Blu-Ray and HD-DVDs. The program can also write disks directly from an ISO image file, and save image as an ISO image file (*.iso). You can create data and audio CDs, and it supports Burn-Proof technology, multi-session disks, import of ISO images and more. In addition to CD burning, you can also rip audio CDs, normalize WAV files, encode MP3 files, erase disks, and more. The program can also convert .bin and .nrg (Nero) images to .ISO format.