Must Have Utilities

An unnerving sound has developed deep inside my PC's hard drive which has spurred me to think of what I might do if disaster did indeed strike & my (only) drive went platter up.

If you're like me & half-heartedly attempt to keep backups, you will have the same pile of blank, poorly labelled CDs with a random mix of programs, pictures and documents on them. Whether half of these still work I don't even know!
I fully plan to purchase a DVD writer & get organised on the backup-front, particularly with my expanding collection of digital images & website projects.

Then I started thinking of all the little programs & utilities I've downloaded or acquired over time & realised how important these were also. So here (partly for my own reference) is a list of my utilities that I'd want to get back on my PC soon after disaster hit..

• AVG Free - Top priority - the free anti virus software from AVG.
• Ad-Aware - Tool for detecting & removing any nasty bits of spyware that get onto your PC.
• Adobe Acrobat Reader - You can't view tons of documents on the internet without it.
• Beyond Compare - A directory compare and synchronise tool - I use this to sync my music with my iRiver MP3 player.
• DVD Decrypter/SmartRipper - For creating DVD backups of course.
• EasyCleaner - Very handy utility that allows you to clear temporary files, clean the registry etc.
• Macromedia Flash - After a while one webpage is going to force you to get it anyway to view their fancy content!
• Microsoft Anti-Spyware - One of few Microsoft application to make my list - their spyware removal & blocking tool.
• Mozilla Firefox - A reccommended browser from Mozilla.
• Real Alternative - Allows you to play Real Media (.ram files etc.) without installing the massive & slow Real Player.
• RegClean - An old Microsoft utility to clean out unneccessary keys from the registry
• SpyBot Search & Destroy - Another tool to rid your PC of nasties, similar to Ad-Aware but I tend to run them both cos I'm paranoid.
• Trillian - Instant Messaging utility that supports all the varieties inlcuding MSN Messenger, Yahoo IM, AIM & ICQ.
• Winamp 2 - Nice streamline music player. I found they got a bit clunky after version 2 (but I still prefer them to Windows Media Player).
• WinRAR - Utility for compressing/uncompressing files & folders. Like Winzip but supports many more formats.

That's it for now - but I may update the list should I find any more really useful applications!

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