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This week I thought I would list my top ten tools and utilities – the pieces of software that live on my 2GB memory stick and come with me everywhere I go. These range from troubleshooting tools through to great free software. So, in no particular order: 1. AVG Free anti-virus - http://free.grisoft.com/. Free, fast, effective, and won’t bog down your system. I’ve been using it at home for years and have never had a virus.
2. Ad-Aware & Spybot – http://www.download.com/. Fabulous free anti-spyware tools. For XP and Vista users I also recommend Windows Defender (free from the Microsoft website).
3. Acronis True Image – Hard drive imaging and backup software. Not free, but invaluable. Lets you recover your entire system in less than 30 minutes even in the event of a complete hard drive failure.
4. PDF995 – http://www.pdf995.com/. A free PDF printer. It appears as a printer on your system and converts anything you can print into a PDF file.
5. Cobian Backup - http://tinyurl.com/7sydh. Free, powerful but easy to use file backup program with a lot of fantastic features including emailing of a log file after each backup and scheduling.
6. PS Tools - http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/Utilities/PsTools.mspx. Very useful command line system tools including process viewer, shutdown and kill tools.
7. Netscan - http://www.softperfect.com/products/networkscanner/. Allows you to find the addresses of any network devices on your network.
8. TCPView - http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/Utilities/TcpView.mspx. Allows you to view all the network connections your computer is sending and receiving. Great for working out if you have network viruses or finding that program that is using up your entire broadband quota!
9. Active-Undelete - http://www.active-undelete.com/. Great tool for recovering files you accidently deleted.
10. Open Office - http://www.openoffice.org/. Completely free office productivity suite, with a very similar look and feel to Microsoft Office. Includes equivalents to Word, Excel, PowerPoint and more.
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