Here are links to some of my favorite software packages and utilities. I’ve left the obvious stuff off and tried to focus on the things you may not have seen before.

TrueCrypt
Home page

TrueCrypt is a very useful, and very stable, encryption package. It lets you create virtual drives, encrypt partitions, or encrypt entire physical disks. Why would you need this? It’s great for creating secure disk areas to store sensitive data, like your Quicken/Quick Books files, and for giving you some peace of mind in case your laptop is stolen. It’s also useful for encrypting USB flash drives, external hard drives, etc. which are very easy to
lose control of.

Beyond Compare
Home page

I use Beyond Compare to back up my systems and keep various drives in sync with one another. I’ve been using it for years now and just love it. It’s simple to use and makes the job of backing up folders and synchronizing various systems really easy. Highly recommended. You have to pay for this one (I think it’s around $30) but it’s got a free trial version and it’s definitely worth purchasing.

SyncBack
Home page

SyncBack is a great backup package for home users and small businesses. We use it on a couple of our computers at home and it makes automated backups a snap. If you’re looking for a basic backup program you can use to create scheduled backups from your PC to an external hard drive, for instance, this is perfect.

WinDirStat
Home page

Ever wonder what’s taking up all that space on your hard drive? WinDirStat gives you a very easy-to-understand visual map of what’s on your hard drive. It’s free and is extremely useful when you’re trying to free up space.

KeePass
Home page

KeePass is a feature-rich open source password database. I use it in my consulting work all the time, as it generates very strong passwords and is invaluable in keeping up with the dozens of accounts at different client sites. Even if you’re just trying to keep up with all of your own passwords for various web sites and software packages it is very user friendly and helpful.

Notepad++
Home page

This probably exposes what a geek I am, but I use a text editor basically all the time. If I’m working on a Linux systems I’m almost always in Vim, but on Windows boxes I really like Notepad++. It’s an open source package and is a great, full-featured text editor. It’s very good for scripting/programming tasks as well as general note taking.

AlZip
Home page

This seems to be a relatively undiscovered gem of a utility company. I love their free zip utlility (AlZip) and they offer a bunch of other utilities as well. I’ve been using AlZip as a replacement for WinZip and WinRAR for about 18 months now and have been very happy with it.

Audacity
Home page

Sadly Windows does not come with any good audio editing software (cough! – Mac / Garage Band – cough!) but Audacity is a good open-source alternative. Lots of podcasters swear by it and you can’t beat its features for the price. Highly recommended if you need a basic audio editing package on a non-Mac platform.

Paint.net
Home page

Paint.net is is the image editor that Microsoft should have bundled with Windows. MS Paint is so ridiculously underpowered and out of date it’s amazing. Unfortunately that’s what STILL ships with Vista. Paint.net is a free download and originated as a university project. It doesn’t give you everything that Photoshop does, but for most users will probably never tap all the functionality it offers.

Gnu Image Manipulation Program (GIMP)
GIMP’s Home page

GIMP does its best to be an open-source alternative to Photoshop. While most professionals probably aren’t quite ready to ditch Adobe and go open-source, it is a very powerful image editing program. With the latest release, GIMP really brings a lot of sophistication and power to desktop image editing, and all for free! If you need more than what Paint.net has to offer, or if you’re just curious about what GIMP has to offer, download it and give it a shot. The learning curve may be a bit steeper but the software is amazing and is incredibly powerful for a freely download-able package.

AVG Antivirus
Home page

Everyone needs antivirus right? AVG is a great choice for home users and people who have gotten tired of the two major players, McAfee and Symantec. It’s free, it works well, and it doesn’t seem to be nearly as intrusive or problematic as the other two products. I gave up on Symantec’s stuff a couple of years ago after my fourth call to overseas tech support. IMHO they really blew it… Give AVG a shot and see what you think.

Eraser
Home page

Eraser is a free, easy-to-use utility for securely deleting files from your system. In case you don’t know, just clicking “delete” on a file doesn’t actually remove it from your hard drive. I use this utility all the time to securely remove sensitive information that I’ve temporarily decrypted, e.g. client password files, to make sure there aren’t any bits of data that could be trivially recovered.

FileZilla
Home page

Most users need an FTP client sometimes, especially if you happen to do web development or work in IT. I’ve had very good luck with FileZilla. It’s free, open-source, and has been very reliable with various web hosts, Windows servers, Linux boxes, etc.

ScreenPrint 32
Home page

Good, free (for home users) screen capture utility. I don’t think it’s quite on par with SnagIt, which seems to be one of the leaders in commercial screen capture utilities, but ScreenPrint is great if you just need to take the occasional screen shot for a document or a presentation.

Free PDF software
Home page

There are a number of free PDF creation packages out there. Click the link above for the PrimoPDF package. CutePDF is another one I’ve liked, and I just started using PDF ReDirect. They all work in a similar fashion: you install them and they show up as virtual printers that you can access from basically any program. Just print whatever file you’re looking at and they’ll turn it into a PDF for you. Easy as that!