OVERVIEW: You can replace the most expensive applications on a typical computer with excellent, free software and internet services and never miss a beat.

Why Pay More?

Equipping your computer with the software that you need to get everything done can be insanely expensive. However, you don’t need to put off your retirement to have a very effective computer that is loaded with everything you need. You don’t need to by the most expensive apps to take care of occasional things. I compiled a list of ways to replace the most expensive software that typically sits on most people’s home or work computers.

The software will be organized into the following categories:

• Productivity
• Communication
• Multimedia
• System Utilities
• Development / Programming / Blogging

The bulk of the software costs addressed here are created by two main suites: Microsoft Office Ultimate 2007 ($679) and Adobe Creative Suite 4 ($1,800 – $2,500). The reason they cost the most is simple; they are each packed with several of the most highly used applications. Professionals from accountants to artists, project managers to photographers all rely on them every day to add value to what they are paid to do.

There are also several “standalone” applications that I have targeted ranging from a few dollars to several hundred. Again, many professionals swear by these tools.

Important Disclaimer: I am not suggesting replacing all of your most “mission critical” software in favor of the free options listed here. If you are a professional Graphic Designer, or Certified Public Accountant, ponying up the money for Photoshop or Excel is the cost of doing business. I am saying that a CPA does not need to spend $600 to tweak the pictures of their kids soccer game and a Graphic Designer does not need to pay for Microsoft Excel to track their fantasy baseball league.

Productivity

This is the most important and most expensive category of software for most people are productivity applications. You can’t have a computer without Microsoft Office (or Apple’s iWork), right? Think again. There are so many viable alternatives available that I have stopped counting.
re is what we are talking about replacing:

Microsoft Office – Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, Outlook, InfoPath, Groove, OneNote, Publisher (Outlook handles email, contacts, calendar, and tasks. It will be covered in the Communication section.)

Microsoft Visio – Flowchart and diagraming tool.

Microsoft Project – The industry standard project management tool.

Microsoft OneNote – Very useful note taking application.

Adobe Acrobat Professional – The ability to create, open, edit, and combine files into PDFs. (This is part of $2,100 +/- Adobe Creative Suite which is covered in the Media section.)

Intuit Quicken – The king of the hill in personal finance software.

Integrated Office Suites

Open Office – An open-source office software suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and more. It stores all your data in an international open standard format and can also open and create Microsoft Office files. It’s not quite as good as the “real thing”, but it works fine on Windows, Mac, and Linux machines. It also has a host of plugins that extend its functionality.

Web Based Office Suites – Who says you even have to load any software to your computer? Several web-based office suites allow you to open, create, download, and share documents, presentations and spreadsheets right from your browser.

The most impressive feature of these web-based suites is the real-time collaboration abilities. I have been on a conference call where 5 people were all updating cells in a spreadsheet at the same time. Everybody gets a different color and you see it happen instantly. Plus, they have great mobile version of their tools that can be used on your phone. While there are a lot of choices, the two that have impressed me the most are Google Documents and Zoho Applications.

Google Documents is very tightly integrated with other Google services. You can create documents online and download them to your desktop or vice-versa. You can also store and share just about any other type of files there too. If you”re a Gmail user, you get the option of opening email attachments right in your browser.

Zoho Applications has an impressive collection of well integrated applications. Aside from the core docs, spreadsheet, and slide shows, you get the following: email, calendar, planner, chat, online meetings like Webex, database, project management, billing and invoicing, CRM, and a bunch of other applications. (Some of the business apps have a cost associated, but nothing compared to what their competition charges.) If all of that is not enough, they even integrate seamlessly with third party applications. This is about as close to Microsoft Office as you will find anywhere.

If you are not sure whether you should use a desktop or web-based office suite, you should just do both. Open office has plugins that allow you to open and save your online Google and Zoho documents directly from the File> Save menu. And if you do spring for Microsoft Office, there are similar plugins for that too.

What Office applications are missing? Visio, Project, Note Taking, and Publisher

Flow Chart Creation

Some times a picture is worth a thousand words. Just not a thousand bucks.

Gliffy allows you to create and share beautiful diagrams and flow charts just like Visio.

Dia can create very sophisticated drawings and diagrams.

Cade is a compact but powerful 2D vector editor for Windows. It includes basic Visio functionality and could be used to create diagrams, network diagrams, flowcharts, schemas, maps and so much more.

Project Management

Who needs Microsoft Project? This article breaks down The 10 Best Free Online Project Management Applications. If you can’t find a winner here, you probably shouldn’t be managing projects any way.

Note Taking – With all of this productivity going on, you have to keep track of it. Microsoft OneNote is nice, but there is a waaaaay better free option out there.

Evernote – Evernote allows you to easily capture information in any environment using whatever device or platform you find most convenient, and makes this information accessible and searchable at any time, from anywhere. Visit my Evernote tutorial to see how useful it can be.

Zoho also has a nice note taking application that is completely online.

Desktop Publishing

You may need to replace the features that Microsoft Publisher or Adobe InDesign have.

Scribus – A free desktop publishing application with native versions available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Scribus has broad feature set of page layout features that comparable to leading commercial applications such as Adobe PageMaker, QuarkXPress and Adobe InDesign, and able to prepare files for professional quality image setting equipment. It can also create animated and interactive PDF presentations and forms.

Working with Adobe PDFs

Let’s face it Adobe Acrobat SUCKS. Every new version makes it suck even more. It’s slow, bloated, buggy, and the good stuff (creating and converting) costs extra. Well these three gems will help you shed the fat when you read PDFs and save some money when you need to create them.

Foxit PDF Reader – Love PDFs, but hate the bloat of Adobe Acrobat? I thought so. Foxit will open your PDF files so fast, you’ll wonder why anyone would ever use Acrobat. Get hours of your life back.

CutePDF Writer – If you need to create PDF files from your documents and don’t want to shell out for Acrobat Pro, then get CutePDF Writer. This installs on your system as a Printer. Then, you can turn any printable information from any application on your computer into a perfect PDF.

Free PDF to Word Converter – Now that you can convert any documents into PDFs, you’re probably wondering how to convert PDF files into an editable format to work with them.

Put it all together to be a PDF guru.

If you use a Mac, you can use the Preview app to do most of the PDF steps listed above. See this tutorial by MacLife.com for instructions.

Finances

Raise your hand if you or someone you know uses Quicken or MS Money to track their finances and expenses. This is another area that we would never have considered doing online a few years ago. The fact is, you can get your bank on from anywhere these days. My grandmother does it, so what’s stopping you?

Mint – Who needs quicken when you can securely store it all in the cloud and get to it from anywhere?

Communication

Communication is a critical function that your computer facilitates. Microsoft Outlook and its supporting services are the centerpiece of the typical enterprise communication infrastructure. (Lotus Notes if your company just hates you.) Outlook handles Email, Contacts, Calendaring, Task/To Do Management, RSS Feeds, and basic Instant Messaging. You will also need some type of phone system and tools to manage it. When you’re done with all that, you might just want to ask your Facebook and Twitter friends where they are going for drinks.   

Let’s see how you can replace all of that functionality for free.

Desktop Outlook Replacement

You will need a tool that sits at the heart of your communication hub. The closest free desktop tool to Microsoft Outlook is Mozilla’s Thunderbird.

Thunderbird – If you use Microsoft Outlook at work and would like to manage your personal email, contacts, and schedule then Thunderbird is for you. You’ll need to install the Lightning Calendar application to have scheduling too. It’s not quite Outlook, but it’s pretty darn good for free.

One of the things that makes Thunderbird so great is its open Extension platform. It works the same way that FireFox does. There are tons of extensions that add great new functionality to meet your needs.

Web Based Outlook Replacement

There are several web based options that will give you basic Email, Contacts, and Calendaring.

GMail – I love Gmail. The interface is simple and fast. You get tons of file storage and the threaded email conversations help you stay organized. Gmail allows you to tag your emails so that you can group, sort, and search them using any system that makes sense to you. You can keep your Contacts organized and synced with your phone and desktop too. Google’s Calendar and Instant Messenger (Gtalk) are integrated with the whole system too. There are some other add-ins listed further down that bring more features to the system.

Zoho, Yahoo, and Microsoft Live also have similar apps for managing the basics. I’m sure one of them will meet with your approval.

Plaxo Sync – If you have Contacts, Appointments, Notes, and To Do’s on your desktop and some other places on the web, Plaxo will automagically sync them all. What other places you say? Here’s a few that you may have heard of: Gmail, Google Calendar, Yahoo, Hotmail, Windows Live, and AOL. Do you have scattered out-of-sync data across any of those services? Well I don’t.

RememberTheMilk – This is an online task manager. It is quick and simple to use. Best of all, it integrates with Gmail and Google Calendar very well. It helps me keep on top of the things that I have to get done.

Google Reader – Read all of the latest updates from your favorite blogs, news, and websites in one spot via RSS. Google Reader has some great features for managing and reading your feeds. If you see an article that you like, you can Star it and Tag it for future retrieval. You can share articles with your friends too. I currently subscribe to over 200 feeds and Google Reader helps me handle them easily.

Mulit Protocol Instant Messenger

All of the tools listed above integrate with some type of instant messenger. However, if you have friends on AIM, Yahoo, MSN, and Google’s instant messenger networks you’re kind of stuck. Having four different windows open to see all of your friends gets old real quick. Use one of these applications (depending on your OS) to chat with all of your friends on every network known to man.

Digsby – Simply the best Instant Messenger tool available. This WIndows only app can connect to all of your IM networks (AOL, Yahoo, MSN, Google, ICQ, Jabber, and Facebook ) to let you chat with any of your contacts. That alone makes it valuable, but wait, there’s more: Get real-time updates on your social networks (Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and LinkedIn). You can also get updates on your inbox for just about any email account (Gmail, Yahoo, MSN, plus any IMAP and POP3 accounts).

Trillian – A buggier generic equivalent of Digsby will run on Macs and PCs.

Pidgin IM – This is an open source tool that does most of the same stuff that the rest of these apps will do. (Windows)

Adium – Awesome multi-network Instant Messenger tool. You can connect to all of your IM networks (AOL, Yahoo, MSN, Google, ICQ, Jabber, and Facebook ) to let you chat with any of your contacts. Clean, light, and simple; everything you need. (Mac)

Meebo – Well, if you want to chat with your friends on all of your IM networks from inside your browser, then Meebo does a great job. Register, set up your screen names, and voilla, you can chat with anyone. Now, when you’re at work, or your friend’s house, you can instantly get to your buddies. This just in… Meebo has an iPhone application that works great. Look for other smartphones to follow.

Voice Calling

You may be wondering why I’m including phone calling in an article about saving money on software. There are two reasons: 1. You can use one of several free applications and services to save money on phone calls. 2. You can integrate voice calling into your other communication software to make it even more powerful.

Skype – Make free Computer to Computer phone call with video using skype. You can also pay (very little) to make and receive calls to regular land line phones. You can even set up multi-person video conferences. Nice.

Google Voice – is a cool new phone service that gives you the power of a sophisticated corporate phone service for free. Here are some of the great things that you can do with a Google Voice account:

• Google voicemail: voicemail like email
• Voicemail transcription: read what your voicemail says
• Custom greetings: vary voicemail greetings by caller
• International calling: low cost calls to the world
• Notifications: read voicemail messages via email or SMS
• Share voicemails: forward, embed, or download voicemails

Dial2Do – Dial2Do lets you do common tasks by just calling a number and speaking. Use it to send EMAIL or TEXT messages, record REMINDERS to help you remember things, post updates to your TWITTER or JAIKU stream and LISTEN to your favourite internet content.

Social Networking Management

You can update your Facebook and Twitter status from your Instant Messaging client, but if you want the full experience, you should take a look at these two desktop social networking command centers. They both run on the Adobe AIR platform which is covered in the Utilities section below.

TweetDeck – This is a desktop application, built on Adobe AIR, that allows you to view and interact with your Twitter and Facebook streams. TweetDeck splits your stream into multiple columns, so that you can see what’s happening from multiple vantage points. If you follow a lot of people, this will help you keep it all straight.

Seesmic – Build your community in one central place with Seesmic Desktop, which integrates both Twitter and Facebook. This all-in-one tool makes it easy to reply to your friends and share text, links, photos and videos all in one screen.

Mulitmedia – Imaging, Video, and Music

You can run into some big bucks when you enter the world of Media Creation and Management software. Not to mention how much money you can spend getting the music and videos that you want to enjoy.

Media Creation

Adobe Creative Suite 4 (Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat 9, Flash, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Premiere, Soundbooth, Encore, InDesign ) has most of the tools that pros use for these media tasks. If you’re willing to have a few less features and integration, you can get all of the most important functions for free.

Photo Editing – Photoshop is still the only choice for professionals, but amateurs can still do everything they need with the free tools listed below.

Gimp – This is constantly labeled as the “best free photoshop alternative” available. Gimp will handle anything from basic touch-ups to advanced image creation. The best thing is that it works equally well on PC, Mac, and Linux machines.

Paint.net – If you need to do minor edits to your photos and images that don’t warrant the King’s ransom that Photoshop commands, you should give Paint.net a try. You can do edits that range from simple to complex without spending a dime. Yes, I know there’s a huge Gimp following, but I just like this better.

Web-Based Graphics Tools

Aviary- This is an online suite of tools that does photo-editing, logos, web templates, filters, color palettes, screen capture & more. Think of them as the right side of Zoho’s brain. If Zoho is MIcrosoft Office, then Aviary is Adobe Creative Suite.

Picnik is another great online graphics tool, because it integrates right into Flickr, even if there are some other applications that are a little more feature-rich or powerful.

Find other great online photo editing services here and here.

Capturing Your Computer’s Screen – If you need to take screen captures of applications on your computer, then TechSmith Snagit is the Cadillac. It does everything that you need perfectly. The best combination of simplicity and power of any application on my computer. Woth every penny!

Skitch – I have to take screen shots of things all the time. On my PC, I use Snagit, the best screen shot tool in the world. Skitch does a great job of capturing, editing, and annotating anything on your screen. If you document anything, this will become a trusted friend.

Aviary- they also have a nice little browser plugin that will take screenshots and let you edit them using their online tools. Then, you can save the screenshots online or back on your computer.

Video Editing – You can spend a few mortgage payments on professional video editing software. Do you really need all that to edit down pictures of your Fraternity’s Kegger and post them to Youtube? Probably not.

Windows Movie Maker – There are a ton of expensive, complicated video editing programs out there. Fortunately for Windows users, there is Windows Media Player. Until you are actually getting paid to make videos, this is all you’ll need.

iMovie – This is a very good video editing option. I use it all the time to create videos for the VItaminCM.com podcast.

Online Video Editing – Cuts, Eyespot, JumpCut, Motionbox and, One True Media allow you to edit and share your videos online. Here are several other good online video editing services.

Video Screen Recording – If you want to do video captures of your applications, then TechSmith CamTasia is for you. This simple, beautiful product. It will make you look and feel like a pro. Problem is, it’s $300.

CamStudio – is an open source alternative to Camstasia, and the project just released version 2.5, which solved many bugs that were present on the older versions.

Web Based Screen Recorders

Screenr- Capture everything that is happening on your computer’s screen without installing any software.

Screentoaster – You can record screencasts, tutorials, demos, training, lectures and more for free.

Audio Recording Software – Want to record your next great album yourself? You can do it for free.

Audacity – Audacity is free, open source software for recording and editing sounds. It is available for Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems. You can have a pretty good multi-track recording studio entirely free.

Aviary- They also have an audio editing app.

Media Acquisition

Apple iTunes downloads for music, TV, and movies can pile up a small fortune. Luckily, there are a number of great ways to get a hold of your favorite stuff for free.

Music Streaming - You can hear all of your favorite music for free from a number of great streaming music sources. Here are a few of my favorites.
Pandora – Get a constant stream of music that you like. Put in artists that you like and hear songs from them and similar artists. I constantly find new, great music on Pandora. My Pandora Profile.
Other great options: Last.FM, Grooveshark, and Lala.

Boxee – Boxee’s free software lets you navigate all your personal movies, TV shows, music and photos, as well as streaming content from websites like MLB, Netflix, Pandora, Last.fm, and Flickr from one screen with a remote. This HD content can be played on your TV by hooking your computer to the inputs on the back. If you have an iPhone, there is a remote control application that allows you to control it all from your couch.

Miro Player – Open-source, non-profit video player and podcast client. Torrents made easy, RSS made beautiful, with tons of gorgeous HD video.

Hulu Desktop – Hulu Desktop is a great viewing experience for your computer. It’s optimized for use with an Apple remote control, allowing you to navigate Hulu’s entire library with just six buttons. You know you want some.

uTorrent – The best way to download huge files is with BitTorrent technology. My (current) favorite BitTorrent client is uTorrent. Nothing spectacular, just a solid tool that fills an important role. Alternatives: Azureus is a java based bit torrent client with similar features.

Media Management

Once you create and/or acquire all of that great content, you’ll need something to organize it and play it back. You’re in luck, there are some amazing free media organizers.

Picasa – Do you take a ton of pictures? Me too. Do you have a hard time keeping them all organized? Well, then you need Picasa. Picasa finds, organizes, and does simple effective edits to your photos. You can view them by dates, folders, keywords, etc. It’s quick, easy and very fun. It also seamlessly integrates with Picasa Web Albums (think poor man’s Flickr) to put your photos online. You can also email your pictures using Gmail, MS Outlook, or Picasa Mail quick and easy. I could not live without this app. Mac uses have iPhoto which is built into the OS.

VLC Media Player – If you don’t like dealing with the Missing Codec errors (damn Codecs) of Windows Media Player and some of the other annoyances of Quicktime or Real Player, then just use VLC Media Player. This small light tool plays every video format know to man. It does one thing and does it perfectly. It doesn’t look as pretty as the other players out of the box, but this article on Download Squad tells how to use skins to make VLC look better.

System Utilities

Keeping your system secure and healthy can be an exhausting and costly chore. Truth be told, most of my favorite system utilities on my PC and Mac are actually free.

Security

AVG Antivirus – Just say NO to Norton. It sucks and will destroy your computer. AVG is lighter, faster, better, and free-er. Windows and Linux only, but Mac users claim to be immune to viruses.

AdAware Spyware Remover – Take back your computer! Spyware and malware can infest your computer, stealing your private data and slowing down your machine. Run AdAware and see how much gunk gets removed.

Backup Tools – Why are backups part of security? If you do end up getting a virus, you will feel a lot more secure knowing that your “good” data is safely backed up.

SyncBack SE –You do regular backups, right? Yeah, me too. There are no excuses with SyncBack SE. This software will allow you to do thorough “incremental” backups of your system without having to be an IT guru.

Mozy Backup – A really nice and simple backup tool for your Mac. That is if you’re not a fan of Time Machine which is built in.

DropBox – Put your files into your Dropbox on one computer, and they’ll be instantly available on any of your other computers that you’ve installed Dropbox on (Windows, Mac, and Linux too!) If you work on more than one computer, this is a life saver. See how incredibly Dropbox syncs files on multiple computers in this tutorial.

Maintenance

Here are some great free tools to clean and optimize your system.

System Cleaners

CCleaner – Get the crud out of your system. Remove junk from the Recycle Bin, Cookies, Temp files, Registry garbage. Keeps your system running smoothly.

Monolingual – I only operate my computer in one language; English. So why do I need a bunch of localization files for the Mac OS wasting space on my hard drive? Monolingual is a handy utility that reclaims this wasted space in a few simple clicks. It also gets rid of files for non Intel processors, assuming you’re on a relatively new machine. I usually run it after I install any system upgrades or new software.

AppCleaner – One of the weirdest things about a Mac is the way that you uninstall applications. I don’t see any obvious way to completely and cleanly uninstall software from my machine. That is where AppCleaner comes in. Just go to your Applications folder and drag the unwanted application onto the AppCleaner window and it’s gone. It also cleans up all of those hard to find preference files too.

Remote Access

VNC – If you need to control another computer on your network, you can set up VNC on both computers. This will allow you to control another machine remotely. The link is for a Windows version, but just search for one for your operating system.

TightVNC – Remotely view and control other computers from your desktop. Install the server software on one (remote) computer and then control it with the viewer software from your main computer. Great for helping diagnose computer problems on your family and friend’s computers. Alternatives: UltraVNC andRealVNC have comparable feature sets and decent followings. See this tutorial for Using VNC to remotely control another computer.

Chicken of the VNC – Chicken of the VNC is a VNC client for Mac OS X. A VNC client allows one to display and interact with a remote computer screen. In other words, you can use Chicken of the VNC to interact with a remote computer as though it’s right next to you. The VNC server is built right into the Mac OS. Just go to System Preferences> Internet & Network> Sharing and turn on the Remote Management service. Check out this tutorial on some of the cool things that you can do with VNC software.

File Management

7Zip – This WinZip alternative will open just about any archive file format known to man. It’s faster and lighter on resources than any archive tool I’ve used. Alternatives: There are a bunch, here is a list of free winzip alternatives.

Zipeg – Zipeg is the easiest way to open Zip, Rar, and any other type of archive files. Plus, it has a cool little sheep for a logo. Yeah, I’m sure there are tons of other good ones, but I really like the little sheep.

Roxio and Nero have been the go-to CD and DVD burning tools for a while now. They are relatively expensive and can easily be replaced with better tools for free.

InfraRecorde – is a free CD/DVD burning solution for Microsoft Windows. It offers a wide range of powerful features; all through an easy to use application interface and Windows Explorer integration.

ImgBurn – is a lightweight CD / DVD / HD DVD / Blu-ray burning application that everyone should have in their toolkit!

DVD Shrink – If you want to make “backup copies” of any of your “legally purchased” DVDs, this is the simplest application out there. Pop in the disk, click “Backup” and go. Then, use DVD Decrypter to burn it to a blank disk. Once you do the simple setup, you can do a two click back up of any DVD. (I hope Netflix doesn’t read this blog.)

Hand Brake – If you want to make “backup copies” of any of your “legally purchased” DVDs, this is the simplest application out there. You can make copies that will play on your iPod, iPhone, PSP, or any other portable device from Hand Brake.

Customization

Here are a couple of nice additions to your Mac or PC:

Quicksilver – Just start typing the first few letters of a program, file name, or folder and Quicksilver will pull it up in front of your eyes. Then, just hit enter and open up whatever you were looking for. There’s a reason the word quick is in the name. This will shave hours of hunting and clicking through menus and folder off your life.

Rocket Dock – Do you have Mac Envy? This launching doc is nearly a dead clone of Apple’s dock. You can launch Applications, Folders, Files, and other processes so quickly and easily, you’ll never click the Start button again.

Adobe Air – Adobe Air uses Flash and some other magic sauce to take web based applications and turn them into desktop applications. There is a growing list of small, simple applications that give you control of many of your favorite web services. (See Tweet Deck above.) Best of all they will work on a PC, Mac, or Linux system.

Here are a few places where you can find tons of cool, useful Adobe AIR apps: 60+ Useful Adobe AIR Applications You Should Know, 45+ Most Useful Adobe AIR Applications, and 30+ Enormously Useful Adobe Air Applications.

Web Development / Programming / Blogging

Web developers, programmers, and bloggers actually have a wealth of free tools available. I have them grouped by Server, Coding, and Blogging tools.

Server

XAMPP – Everything you need to run a full-fledged testing server on your computer. All bundled into one install file. All configured to work immediately. This thing will save you hours. See this article for setup instructions: How to Set up A Testing Server on Your PC.

Filezilla - FTP Client – Free, simple FTP tool. I use this to upload files to this site’s server.

Coding

Notepad++ – NotePad is OK, but if you want some really nice features for working with any kind of text based file, then step up to NotePad++. It’s got to be better, didn’t you see the 2 plusses? Seriously though, I use it daily when I am working on web development.

Smultron – I miss NotePad++ from Windows so much. It is a simple, clean text editor that allows me to edit HTML, PHP, CSS, and any other format files. Smultron is the best free text editor that I have found on the Mac platform yet. I’m desperately hoping that someone will give me a better suggestion in the Comments below.

Snippely – Snippely is a basic text and code organizational tool. Instead of storing bits of code, quick notes, and memos in text files all over your hard drive, this application will let you save and organize “snippets” in one convenient location. A snippet is a collection of one or more pieces of code and notes. Snippets are stored in groups for organization and quick retrieval. If you write or maintain a lot of code, this is a must.

Blogging

Windows Live Writer – This is the tool that I use to write my articles. It’s not perfect, but it has a lot of pretty nice features. It integrates with several blog platforms very well too.

Qumana – I still have not found a desktop blogging tool that I love on the Mac, but I just recently discovered Qumana and like it a lot. I has most of the features that I need. The biggest one that it doesn’t have, (code snippet clipboard) I have been able to get with Snippely.

OK, Where Do I Start?

You can actually download and install dozens of the applications listed here in one shot using a bulk software installer. See how to Install Dozens of Free Applications at Once in this tutorial.

What are Your Favorite Free Applications?

I know I covered a lot of tools, but there are plenty of other great ones that I left out. If you have a free application or web service that you love, please enter it in the comments below.

Overview: You will learn how to turn your iphone into a portable document scanner for free in under 15 minutes. This will all be done using one piece of cardboard, a ruler, a utility knife and a pencil.

Getting Things Done With Creativity and Elbow Grease

Occasionally I need to get digital copies of papers into my home and/or work computers. I don’t feel like having two full-blown scanners wasting space on my desks, nor do I feel like buying them.

What’s my quick, free, space saving solution? Build a stand that allows me to use my iPhone to make quick images of documents.

I have a few simple requirements for this document scanner:

1. Must be able to be assembled quickly and easily
2. Muse capture 8.5″ x 11″ documents perfectly (no cropping)
3. Must be able to be disassembled, and stored quickly and easily
4. Must be cheap (better yet, FREE!)

I searched for a few alternatives and found this really cool option by Kyle Koch.

He sells them for $15 here. This is an awesome idea and $15 is very fair price. But what fun would that be? I decided to try to build my own for free.

This is my finished prototype:

I place the document on the tray and the phone on the top supports with the camera application running. Then, I just press the “shoot” button and have a decent scan of the document. The key is to have the USB cable plugged in so that you can just grab them using the computer’s file manager. Also, the better the lighting, the happier you’ll be.

With a little bit of practice, I was able to get acceptable results on each documents first try.

Here are some of the document scans that I produced: (scaled down for this article)

Not bad for $0 and 20 minutes time.

Instructions for Building your iPhone Document Scanner

I know, you want to build yourself one of these handy gadgets, right? Well believe me, it’s very simple.

What you Will Need

Supplies: Utility Knife , Pencil, Ruler or Yardstick, piece of cardboard (15″ X 30″), scissor.

Instructions:

Print out and assemble the Templates diagram

Trace two Stand pieces on the cardboard

Cut out the Stand pieces using the Yardstick and Utility Knife (be very careful)

Trace and cut out the two Bottom Brackets

Trace and cut out the two Top Brackets

Cut the notches into the Stands and Braces as shown on the diagram

Insert the notches on top and bottom to assemble the Stand

Place the rectangular base into the stand

Place a document on the rectangular base

Turn the phone’s camera application on and place it on the top braces so that the document is in the picture

Take the picture.

Portable Document Scanner Video Tutorial

The following video tutorial shows you how to perform all of the steps necessary to make your scanner.

Overview: You will learn how to use Quix browser bookmarklet to Make a Super Bookmarklet for your browser.

What is Quix?

Quix is an exensible bookmarklet tool that performs the functions of several bookmarklets, extensions, and GreaseMonkey scripts.

What’s in it for You?

You can remove several extensions, GreaseMonkey scripts, and existing bookmarklets. This will get rid of some browser bloat (caused by extensions) and speed things up. It will also clean up your browser’s interface a little. Plus, you can add a lot of power and flexibility to your browser using Quix.

Removing Unnecessary Extensions

Before I added the Quix Bookmarklet to FireFox, I was running the following extensions: Ubiquity, Evernote Clipper, Delicious (among others).

I was able to uninstall them completely. This took two buttons off my toolbar and cut back on some ram. Not all of the big five browsers use extensions, but most support them in some form, so this will have a similar effect there too.

Removing Unnecessary Greasemonkey Scripts

One of the most handy FireFox extensions is Greasemonkey. Greasemonkey allows you to customize the way a webpage works using small bits of JavaScript. There are thousands of Greasemonkey scripts available that help you get more from just about any popular website or service. While these may be incredibly useful, they do come at a small cost.

I was able to remove a few Greasemonkey scripts that I no longer needed.

Combining Several Bookmarklets into One Button

Bookmarklets don’t place any processing load on your browser when they are not being used, but they do take up space on your toolbar. I was able to remove the following highlighted bookmarklets from my toolbar and replace them with functions in Quix.

How to use Quix

Just go to Quixapp.com and drag the Quix bookmarklet to your Bookmarks toolbar

Click the Quix bookmarklet and type a short command (1 – 10 letters).

The command above (bd) will bookmark the current page to your Delicious account.

Your browser performs a helpful task for you.

Here is a full list of Quix commands and what they do.

If you have some coding skills and like getting your hands dirty, you can even create you own custom commands.

Quix Bookmarklet Video Tutorial

The following video shows how to install, configure and use Quix to make your browser more powerful.

Overview: You will learn how to use Instapaper.com’s service to quickly clean, reformat, and save articles on the web to a convenient location for you to read later.

What is Instapaper?

When you are on the internet, you probably find important, interesting, or useful information. The problem is that just don’t have time to read it at that moment. With just one click, Instapaper reads, cleans, and stores the information for you to read at your convenience.

Allows you to easily save information from the web into a central location to be read later on in a clean, simple format.

Advantages of Using Instapaper

Here are some of the main advantages to using Instapaper:

• Clean formatting for efficient reading experience (plain text and simple images)
• Stores the URLs to the source material
• Easily share your saved material
• Great third party integration

When you have a busy page (like the one below) that may have Headers, Footer, Sidebars, Ads, lot’s of media, and other distractions. It is not the optimum reading experience. This can be exacerbated by being on a mobile device or in a hurry.

Just click the Read Later bookmarklet and save a copy for later reading. Check this article to see how bookmarklets improve your browsing experience.

This is what the Instapaper version looks like. A little easier to read, don’t you think?

If you want to see the original page, just click the View Original button at the top of the page.

See How it Works

Here is the whole process:

1. Create an account at Instapaper.com
2. Add the Instapaper bookmarklet to our browser’s toolbar
3. Enter your Instapaper credentials
4. Click the bookmarklet when you find a page that you want to read later
5. Go to Instapaper and read your stuff

See Instapaper in Action in the Video Tutorial Below

Where you can Use Instapaper?

You can use the Read Later bookmarklet in any desktop or mobile browser that supports bookmarks.

Many Twitter clients for iPhone have it built right in.

RSS Readers like Google Reader and some desktop readers.

See the full list of places where you can use Instapaper on their website.

Instapaper Alternatives

There are a few other services that offer similar features out there.

ReaditLater uses a Firefox plugin to save pages to a location where they can be read at your leisure. They have an iPhone app too.

Readability is another tool that works through a bookmarklet to strip out distractions and give you a cleanly formatted page to read.

For the old school types out there, you can try the PrintWhatYouLIke bookmarklet and send a stripped down, clean page to your printer that you can read later.

PrintLiminator does a similar trick and works really nicely.

What’s Your Favorite Tip?

If you have any other tips for cleaning and saving content from the web for reading later, I would love to hear them. Shout it out in the Comments below.

OVERVIEW: You will learn how to perform some essential steps on a new computer that will provide a more secure, problem free computing environment.

Protect and Care for Your New Baby

When you take a new computer out of the box, it’s like a new-born baby that needs to be protected and handled with care. There are some essential things that you should do before you bring your new baby out into the world. This article will show you how to dramatically increase the health and safety of your new computer.

The tutorial focuses on three main areas:

1. Updating your WIndows Software
2. Security Software
3. Routine Maintenance

Updating your Windows Software

Run Windows Automatic Updates before you do anything else on your new computer. This will go out to Microsoft and install any Windows updates that affect system security and stability.

Click the Windows (Start) button, then select Control Panel from the menu.

This will open the Control Panel. There will be several options accessible from the Control Panel that will allow you to view and modify settings on your computer.

Select Turn automatic updating on and off and make sure that Automatic Updates are ON.

Then, click Check for updates to download and install all of the appropriate updates. This may take a while, depending on how many are available. After this is done, your computer will restart and updates will happen automatically. (That’s one less thing to worry about.)

Security Software

There are many things that you can do to secure your computer, but I’m going to stick with some of the most basic and effective ones. You will need to set up the following:

• Firewall – Prevent people from getting into your computer.
• AntiVirus – Detect, Prevent, and Remove Viruses that can harm your computer.
• Spyware Detection and Removal – Detect and Remove Spyware that can harm your computer.
• Malware Detection and Removal – Detect and Remove Malware that can harm your computer.

Turning on the Windows Firewall

Windows XP, Vista, and 7 all come with a pretty good firewall already built in. The only thing you need to do is make sure that it is turned on. Go to the Control Panel again.

Click System and Security.

You will see a list of options. Select Check Firewall status under the Windows Firewall heading.

Make sure the the firewall is turned on.

Installing Antivirus Software

The most important security software on your computer is Antivirus protection. My favorite Antivirus software is AVG Antivirus, which happens to be free, light, and very good.

The first thing you should do after you install and launch your antivirus software is update the virus definitions. This is the latest list of bad stuff that it will look for. Click the Update Now tab and then the Update button.

Once you get the first batch of updates, it will get them automatically from now on. Click the Computer Scan tab to check your computer.

Installing Spyware Detection Software

Spyware is another threat to both your security and performance. Spybot Search & Destroy is an excellent, free spyware removal tool.

This is just like the antivirus setup. Search for the Updates and then Scan your computer.

Installing Malware Detection Software

Malware is yet another lovely type of crap that screws up your computer. MalwareBytes is a great free tool that will help you find and remove this scurge.

Yup, you guessed it! Install, Update, Scan, just like the last two tools.

Routine Maintenance

Just because your computer is protected from the evil doers out there, doesn’t mean that it’s protected from itself. The longer your computer runs, the more junk, gunk, and funk will creep into the works. I use two excellent tools to perform routine maintenance on my computer: CCleaner  and Defraggler.

Keeping your computer Clean and Lean

CCleaner is one of my favorite system utilities of all time. Small, simple, effictive, and free. Is that enough for you? CCleaner is a freeware system optimization, privacy and cleaning tool. It removes unused files from your system – allowing Windows to run faster and freeing up valuable hard disk space. It also cleans traces of your online activities such as your Internet history. Additionally it contains a fully featured registry cleaner.

Use the three panels on the left side to:

1. Clean junk files from your computer and browser
2. Diagnose and Repair Registry problems (This is a HUGE help.)
3. Uninstall Software (The right way.)
4. Control which programs run when Windows starts (You’ll be amazed at what junk is chewing up your power.)

You should probably perform these steps every week or two.

Defragment Your Hard Drive to Speed Things Up

After you start using your computer for a while your hard drive starts to get fragmented. This slows down your computer’s performance. Windows has defragmentation software build right in, but the free Defraggler works better and faster.

Just select your hard drive and click the Defrag button. (This will run for a while, so kick it off when you’re not busy.)

You should run disk defragmentation about once per month.

See the Video Tutorial

If you’re not quite sure about any of the steps that are covered here, watch the following video tutorial to see and here how they work.

Getting All of That Software in One Shot

I just covered several applications that you will need to download and install on your computer. See How to Create a Bulk Software Installer in this tutorial. You will see just how easy it is to install tons of great free software on your new computer in just a few clicks.

What are Your New Computer Security and Maintenance Tips?

If you have any other good tips on what to do to a new computer, I’m all ears. Enter your best tips in the comments below.

OVERVIEW: You will learn how to install dozens of awesome, free applications on your computer in 5 simple steps. No money, 200 Point IQ, or Back-Breaking Labor required!

Once you get past the excitement of getting a new computer, then the aggravation sets in. You have to download and install all of the software that you need. This can take hours and hours even if you’re organized.

You can spare yourself so much of the pain involved with this process by using a bulk software installation tool. I recently found a tool that creates an installer that automates the process of installing multiple applications.

Ninite.com gives you a selection of close to 100 free or open source applications that can be added to a 1-click installer. Some of these are my absolute favorite apps of all time. (Firefox, Skype, Digsby, Notepad++, DropBox, Evernote, and many more.)

Follow the steps below to create and run a Bulk Software Installer.

Creating the Installer

Open your browser and go to http://ninite.com.

You will be able to select from a large collection of free/open source applications that are grouped into several categories.

Select the checkbox next to all of the applications that you want to include in your installer.

After you select all of the applications that you want to include in your installer, scroll to the bottom of the page and click the button.

You will see the Download page. This page will display all the icons for all of the applications that you selected for inclusion in the installer. The click here to change apps link will return you to the previous page, where you can add or remove applications.

Your download should begin automatically. Use the click here to retry the download link if your download does not begin right away.

You can use the permanent link to get a link to the installer download page. This is convenient if you want to share this collection of apps with other users or computers.

Installing Your Collection of Applications

You can either save the installer file to your computer and launch it, or let it run automatically from your browser.

Saving the Installer to Your Computer

The installer’s file name will include the applications that you selected.

Double click the installer file when it has finished downloading.

Automatically Running the Installer When it Finishes Downloading

If you elected to automatically run the installer when the download finishes, you will see the following window.

Click the button to launch the installer.

This is actually the last action that you are absolutely required to take. Everything else runs on its own.

Monitoring the Installation Process

The installer file does not actually contain each applications installation files. It downloads them when it is run.

Click the Show details link to monitor the progress of your installation process.

You will see the list of applications that you included in the installer. You will be able to follow along and see which applications have been downloaded and installed.

When all of your applications have been installed, you will see the following confirmation.

Click the button to exit the installer.

That’s it, all of your applications are installed and working as if they were each installed manually.

Printable Instrucitons

Click to Download a Printable Version of these Instructions.

See How it’s Done

The following video tutorial shows how to Install Multiple Applications using a Bulk Software Installer.

What Applications Do I Bundle?

I put a huge list of applications by category at the bottom of this article. (I didn’t want to break up the flow with a huge list.) You can also check out one of my lists of my favorite free applications:

22 Most Useful Free Applications for your PC (2009)

26 Best Free Mac Applications (2009)

32 Free Applications that I Could Not Live Without (2008)

What Applications Would You Put in your Installer Bundle?

I would love to hear what you think. Let me know what applications would you include in a Bulk Software Installer in the comments below. (List OS, then Apps.)

List of Suggested Applications to Include

Here is a list of some of the availabe applications that I highly reccomend:

Web Browsers

Google Chrome

Opera

Firefox

Messaging

Skype

Pidgin IM

Digsby

Mozilla Thunderbird

Media

iTunes

Songbird

Hulu Desktop

VLC

Winamp Lite

Audacity

Spotify

Imaging

Paint.NET

Google Picasa

GIMP

IrfanView

Inkscape

Documents

OpenOffice

Foxit Reader

CutePDF Writer

Security

Microsoft Security Essentials

Avast

AVG Free Anti-Virus

Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware

Spybot – Search & Destroy

Runtimes

Flash

Flash Player 10 for other browsers

Flash Player 10 for Internet Explorer

Java JRE

Microsoft .NET

Microsoft Silverlight

File Sharing

uTorrent

eMule

Utilities

ImgBurn

CCleaner

Launchy

Revo Uninstaller

Defraggler

RealVNC

TeraCopy?

CDBurnerXP

7-Zip

Dropbox

Evernote

Google Earth

Steam?

Developer Tools

FileZilla

Notepad++

OVERVIEW: You will learn how to do several basic and advanced tasks with a mobile phone running Google’s Android Operating System.

I Got My New Android Phone, Now What?

If you’re one of the millions of people who have a mobile phone with Google’s Android operating system, congratulations. There are so many things that you can do with your new phone that you might be a little intimidated. Don’t worry, I have a bunch of resources that will help you get up and running with your cool new gadget. Not to mention a few that will teach you some advanced tricks.

Here are some of the things that you will learn:

• Surfing the Web with Andriod’s Browser
• Finding Applications to Download from the Android Market Place
• How to Change the Wallpaper an Android Phone
• Create Custom Ring Tones for Your Android Phone
• Use Your Android Phone on an Airplane Without Getting into Trouble
• Plus more cool and useful tricks

Surfing the Web with Andriod’s Browser

Learn how to browse and surf the internet/web using your Google G1 T-Mobile Android smart phone. Adjust your Internet settings.The following video shows How to Surf the Web Using a Google Android Phone.

Finding Applications to Download from the Android Market Place

Search the Android Market from Your Android Phone – The Android Market has thousands of applications that you can downloaded for your device. You can search for applications, sort out those that are free from those that cost, and more.

The following video shows how to search through the Android Market Place to find the applications that you want to install on your phone.

How to Change the Wallpaper an Android Phone

When you first turn on your new phone, it can be a little boring. Learn how to personalize your Android phone by changing the Wallpaper across your Home screens. This will also allow you to configure your application launchers in a way that is most efficient for your tastes.

Create Custom Ring Tones for Your Android Phone

One of the cool things about Android phones is that you can create custome ringtones out of just about music. (Why my iPhone can’t do that puzzles me.) This video will show you how to create a custom Android ringtone from just about any audio file you have on your Android phone or your computer.

Use Your Android Phone on an Airplane Without Getting into Trouble

Airlines have rules about using electronic gadgets while flying. You also aren’t allowed to use cell phones while in the air. If you turn on airplane mode, however, you can still access applications on your phone but turn all wireless communications off. Perfect for if you want to compose an email, play a game or watch a movie while in flight.

Other Android Phone Tutorials

Here are some other good places to learn cool tricks for using an Android phone.

• HelloAndroid.com has lots of good tutorials and news on the Android Operating System.
• WhyAndroid.com has several good turoials on doing things with and Android phone.
• This article from Droidie.com has 8 very useful tutorials with videos.
• AndroidForums.com has a good tutorial on Syncing an Android Phone with Microsoft Outlook.

What Do You Think?

What other cool or helpful tips do you know of for using the Android Operating System do you have? Please write any suggestions in the comments below.

OVERVIEW: This article will show you how to take a regular mobile phone and give it many of the capabilities of a much more expensive SmartPhone.

Be Jealous No More

Just because you don’t have a SmartPhone, you don’t have to go without all of the cool, useful, and fun stuff that they can do. As long as you have a phone that can take pictures, send MMS, and access the internet (just about all phones made in the last 3 years), you can do a lot more than you think.

Let’s look as some of the key capabilities that make SmartPhones what they are:

• Personal Information Management (PIM)
• • (Calendar, Contacts, Notes & Memos)
• News
• • (Sports, Finance, Weather, etc.)
• Web Browsing
• Social Networking
  
• Instant Messaging

Let’s take a look at how you can approximate many of these features on any phone.

*Some of these options are not free. I know that’s a major departure from how I usually roll, but if you want all of these features for free, you’ll have to pay for a SmartPhone any way.

Personal Information Management (PIM)

Calendar, Contacts, and Notes syncing have always been the main features of SmartPhones. If you’re willing to fork over $15 – $30 you can get those features on your phone. Here are two excellent applications for syncing your computer’s PIM data to just about any phone.

Susteen’s DataPilot – You can sync information between your computer and all sorts of phones.

Mobile Action’s Handset Manager – Pretty similar to DataPilot in that you can sync between your computer and phone.

Just install their software on your computer, configure the settings, and plug your phone in using the provided cable. That’s it! All of your PIM data is synced to your phone.

Get Your News on the Go

The ability to keep up with some key pieces of news is a great capability. There are tons of services that have mobile versions of their pages or will even send news alerts to your phone. Here are a few that you can try.

Headline News – CBS Mobile News, CNN Mobile, Google News Mobile, MSNBC Mobile   

Sports – ESPN Mobile, Yahoo Sports Mobile, Sports Illustrated Mobile

Weather – Weather Channel Mobile, Wunderground Mobile

Finance – CNBC Mobile, Yahoo Finance Mobile, CNNMoney Mobile

Browse the Web with Style

One of the great things about SmartPhones is their ability to browse the web. Let’s face it, the standard browser loaded on a typical non-smartphone is just about unusable. There is an option that makes the internet much more usable on a mobile phone. Opera Mini is a JAVA based browser that can be installed on most regular mobile phones. This is about as close as you’re going to get to a real browsing experience on your phone.

Just point your phone’s crappy browser at: “m.opera.com” and follow the installation prompts. Now you can see all of that cool stuff you’ve been missing.

Social Networking

Do you want to be able to update your Social Networking sites from your phone? Well, there are a bunch of ways that you can do this. If you have instant messenger on your phone, you can use an IMbot to update any of your networks.

Ping.fm is a simple and FREE service that makes updating your social networks a snap! You can post to Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and over 40 others just by sending a simple Instant Message. Here is a full list of networks that you can post to.

Here are the ways that you can update your services through Ping.fm

Do you want to post your pictures and videos to services like Flickr, YouTube, and Twitter? Well, you can use PixelPipe.com to post media and messages to over 70 of your favorite social media sites. (Yes there are actually over 70!) Pixelpipe supports photo, video, audio, file, and text posts.

Upload your media from MMS & Email to your private upload address.

To use: Attach your file(s) to a new message and send the message to your personal upload address. Your personal upload address is boulder77banners@upload.pixelpipe.com

Tip: Add ‘Routing Tags’ (denoted by @service) to the body of the message to send to specific destinations or groups. For example, to make a post only on your Facebook and Twitter, type this into your message: “This is a post @facebook @twitter”  

HelloTXT will also let you post updates to many of your favorite social networking sites via a simple text message, email, or Instant Message.

One of the methods that HelloTXT supports is a service called Dial2Do.com . This service allows you to call in and speak commands and information to a virtual secretary. Dial2Do will then carry out your tasks. You can also create and/or hear emails, calendar appointments, to-do’s, texts, and more. That’s way cooler than a SmartPhone.

The following video shows you some of the amazing things that you can do with this service.

See a complete tutorial on using Dial2Do.com as a personal secretary.

How Do You Make Your Phone Smarter?

If you have any tips on making your phone smarter, I would love to hear them in the comments below.

OVERVIEW: This article links to several resources that will help your new computer go from the box to maximum usefulness as fast as possible.

So You Got a New Computer for the Holidays, Now What?

Just getting a new computer is only half the battle. Once you get that thing out of the box, that’s where the real fun begins. Here are a few guides and resources that will help you do all of the painful things necessary for making a mass-produced box of electronics into your very own PERSONAL computer.

Configuring Your New Computer

After you get your new machine up an running, you will need to perform a few vital configuration steps. Whether it’s a Windows, Mac, or Linux machine, these resources will get you going.

Set Up and Get to Know Your New Windows, Mac, or Linux Computer – The folks over at LifeHacker.com have a bunch of great tips on setting up a new computer. The didn’t cut any corners either; Windows, Mac, and Linux are all thoroughly covered.

Download Squad Guide to Making Your New Holiday PC More Kick-Ass! - DownloadSquad.com has lots of great tips on making your new Windows computer better. A lot of the tips center around getting the garbage software that the manufacturers are paid to install gone and replacing it with much better options.

Setting Up Your New Mac: The First 25 Things You Need To Do – If you got a new Mac, the team at MacLife.com take you through a series of steps to make it a workhorse in no time at all.

The Best Free Software for Your New Computer

After you configure your new computer, you need to install the right software to help you get things done. Here are some of my favorite free applications for WIndows and Mac.

22 Most Useful Free Applications for your Windows PC – These are some of the best Windows applications at any price, but when you consider that they’re free, how can you go wrong.

26 Best Free Mac Applications – Macs come loaded with a decent set of software, but here are some additions to put you over the top.

100 of the Best (Useful) OpenSource Applications – UbuntuLinuxHelp.com has a massive list of useful Linux applications in every category imaginable.

A Computer is Not All Function, I Can Look Pretty Too

After you have your new computer set up to work like a team of mules, you may want to make it look like a sexy supermodel. Check out a few of these resources.

Five Best Wallpaper Sites – LifeHaker.com has some great places to go get beautiful wallpapers to put your own style on that new machine. I’m going there myself, as soon as I’m done with this article.

Don’t Forget Your Other New Gadgets

Even if you didn’t get a shiny new computer for the holidays, you might have another fancy gadget that you want to set up the right way. Here are a few guides to help you out.

5 Sites to Help You Set Up Your New Gadgets – ReadWriteWeb.com has a few resources you can use to help set up your new gadgets. They are mostly sites that have video tutorials or Q&A message boards that are helpful.

Setting Up Your New iPod: The First 25 Things You Need To Do – Those helpful guys at MacLife have another good set of tips for you to get your new iPod or iPhone running like a champ.

What are your New Computer Setup Secrets?

Dont’ forget to leave any good new computer setup tips in the comments below.

5min.com Video of the Day

OVERVIEW: This video tutorial shows how to set up a collection of portable apps on a USB drive that can be used to diagnose and repair almost any broken windows computer.

The Difference Between Men and Monkeys is Tools

During the holidays I typically spend a great deal of time travelling to see freinds and relatives. As you may have guessed, I frequently get asked to "fix" everybody’s jacked up computers. When I’m not at home with all of my resources, it’s pretty hard to figure out what’s wrong and even harder to fix it. What if thier internet connection is down? There goes just about all of the things that you can download to fix any problems. These are the sort of catch 22’s that I’m usually up against.

Since I’m not about to carry my laptop and a bunch of other junk to a New Year’s Eve party, I decided to build myself a portable USB Rescue Kit that takes up no space in my pocket. Now, next time I get asked for help, I can spring into action, diagnose, and fix thier PCs in time to see the big ball drop. If you’re the "computer guy or gal" in your family, you can prepare yourself to handle these situations by investing about $10 and 30 minutes of your time building your own kit.

How to Set Up Portable Apps on a USB Drive

Here is a tutorial for loading portable apps on a usb drive that I wrote a while ago. It walks you through the process of setting up a portable application suite on a USB drive.

What Apps to Load on Your Rescue Drive

Now that you know how to set up your USB drive, you need to know which applications and utilities that you want to have in your arsenal.

I set myself up with the following applications (in no special order):

• Antivirus (ClamWin)
• Disk Defragmenter (JKDefrag and Defraggler)
• Archive Tool (7zip)
• FTP Tool (Filezilla, Putty, WinSCP)
• Remote Access Tools (VNC, RDP)
• CD / Disk Imaging Tools (InfraRecorder)
• Screenshot / Screen recorder – (Lightscreen and VTuteRecorder)
• Spyware Remover – (SpyDLLRemover and RootKitRevealer)
• Password Manager – (KeyPass)
• System Cleaner – (CCleaner and Revo Uninstaller and PC Decrapifier)
• Registry Tools – (Wise Registry Cleaner and Dial-A-Fix)
• Media Player (VNC and K-Lite Codec tool)
• PDF Tools (Foxit and PDFTKBuilder)
• Software Serial Numbers (ProdUKey)
• Communications – (Skype and Pidgin IM)
• Startup Management – (Startup Manager and CCleaner)
• Wi-Fi – (WirelessKeyFinder)
• Plus any Office, Internet, and Graphics tools that you may think you need.

ReadWriteWeb recommends a good list of portable apps and utilities that you can use to repair a computer. A Computer Repair Utility Kit You Can Run From a Thumb Drive (Just about all of them are included in my build.)

Where to Get Good Portable Apps

There are a few great sites that have all of the applications on this list and plenty of others.

PortableApps.com has a great suite of applications and a very nice launcher tool that basically makes your portable suite into its own operating system.

LiberKey.com has a 270+ applications in their extensive catalog. If you can’t find the right tool here, it probably doesn’t exist.

PenDriveApps.com has a large, albeit poorly organized collection of useful application and utilities.

LupoPenSuite.com has a collection that combines dozens of USB and Web-Based apps that can perform typical productivity, media, and maintenance activities.

Video Tutorial for Building a USB Recue Kit

The following video will show you how to install and configure your USB Rescue Kit.

What to do After Everything is Fixed

After you get that nasty mess cleaned up, you may want to do a little preventative maintenance. Set up this newly healthy machine with a few good tools:

• Antivirus Protection (AVG or Avast)
• A Good Browser (Firefox, Chrome, or Opera)
• Malware Protection (Spybot Search and Destroy, Malwarebytes, Microsoft Security Essentials)
• PDF Tools (Foixt Reader and CutePDF  Writer)
• Safe P2P Downloading (uTorrent and eMule)
• Zip Tool (7zip)
• System Cleaner (CCleaner)
• VNC Server (RealVNC so that you can connect to their machine and fix it later)

Before you balk at how much time this will take to set up, there is a great tool that will make this take just a few minutes. Ninite.com allows you to create a "batch installer" that will download and install dozens of great free applications in just a few clicks.

Set yourself up with a bulk installer of recommended applications and keep that on your USB drive to install once your done. Since they download the actual files at the time of installation the files will take up less than 200K on your drive.

My Holiday Gift to You

Here’s the prize for the diligent PC repairman who has read this far. On Christmas Eve (December 24th, 2009) I will select one random commenter to receive a 4 gig USB drive that I set up with everything mentioned in this article, plus a few extra goodies. The rules are simple: Just leave a comment about who you would help with this USB Emergency Kit. Good luck to all!!!