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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
My Rantings
***I will be changing my website host shortly so am trying to get some updating done on here so bear with me.
*The most important thing to do with your PC is to back it up and the best way to do that is online with carbonite or Acronis (see below)and also to have one copy in a different location than your computer that is updated ocassionally and another that is kept near your computer that is updated frequently.
*The second Tuesday of the month is update tuesday for Microsoft so if you don't do it then you may run into Virus thursday, which is about as long as it takes for the hacker types to decode the updates and find out where the vunerabilities were and exploit those who haven't updated.I know that most computers are set to do this automatically but its still better to check and after the update check again because its likely there is more.
- Windows 10 is coming out this fall and it will be free to anyone with XP, Vista , Windows 7, Window 8 for the lifetime of the computer you put it on so you would have to be not all there to not get it. I have been using it for some time now and it seem like this will be a great update to Windows. Also it will be the same on all platforms and will sync across all. Tablets, phones and PCs all working together, something to look forward to.
- * It's **
 ** to keep all your programs up to date so be sure to check for updates frequently- (use Secunia found below)
*Click on the button to go to their download page
I thought I would put a list of programs that I like and use and
they are all still Free and work as well or better than high priced programs.
The quality of some programs change over time so I use different ones at different times.
 -Personal software inspector- Alerts you to critical software updates -Excellent program for checking your computer for non secure or outdated programs, includes links for updates etc. If you use this program and do what it tells you to then you should have very few program problems.
Browser and Mail
 - IE is getting pretty good now and has tabs and add ons as well .-
 - Tabbed browsing and dozens of extras that can be added (called add ons)
Anti Virus ** To compare anti virus products for yourself go here >> 
These are all free and should work well for you (***If you keep them updated***)
*
 - NEW! LinkScanner® Active Surf-Shield checks web pages for threats at the only time that matters – when you’re about to click that link.
 - Another Antivirus with auto update.
 - Yet another free Anti malware with smaller downloads. May work better if your on dialup.
- Windows defender comes on Windows now and is a good starter point but if you want to be reall secure then you should probably go with a paid AV
Office
 - Works with all Microsoft office documents and is the complete suite
Spyware/Malware Control
Run this once in awhile to check behind you anti virus product
 -Malwarebytes has developed a variety of tools that can identify and remove malicious software from your computer. When your computer becomes infected, Malwarebytes can provide the needed assistance to remove the infection and restore the machine back to optimum performance.
Photo Work
 - A great Photo album from Google that I prefer over all the others.
 - Great program for converting and working with pictures,movies etc.
 - The free photoshop
Utility programs
 -EASEUS Deleted File Recovery is a fully functional freeware designed to recover deleted files from all types of media such as Hard Disk Drives, Floppy Drives, Smart Media, Compact Flash, Memory Sticks, and other types of removable media
 -EASEUS Todo Backup is potent FREE backup software providing system backup & restore, hard disk or partition backup & restore, disk clone to protect your system and disk.
 Open source DVD burning. It's a little confusing as to which buttons to use but once you get it figured out it does the job, and its free.
 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
 -Google Earth lets you fly anywhere on Earth to view satellite imagery, maps, terrain, 3D buildings, from galaxies in outer space to the canyons of the ocean. You can explore rich geographical content, save your toured places, and share with others
 -VLC media player - the cross-platform media player and streaming server VLC media player is a highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg, ...) as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. It can also be used as a server to stream in unicast or multicast in IPv4 or IPv6 on a high-bandwidth network.
 -Free calls, video calls and instant messaging over the internet. Plus great value calls to phones anywhere in the world.
 Revo Uninstaller scrubs an application and all its traces off your Windows system. It can also turn off programs that are starting up with Windows, and uninstall applications with a crosshair "Hunter Mode" that doesn't require you to know what it's named.
 - Glary Utilities is the #1 free, powerful and all-in-one utility in the world market! It offers numerous powerful and easy-to-use system tools and utilities to fix, speed up, maintain and protect your PC.
 - I love this little calendar, it works great if you need little reminders for birthdays etc without a lot of scheduling. A customizable desktop calendar Rainlendar is a feature rich calendar application that is easy to use and doesn't take much space on your desktop. The application is platform independent so you can run it on all major operating systems: Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. The appearance can be customized with skins and you can even mix different skins together.
It is possible to use Rainlendar with other calendar applications too. Rainlendar uses the standard iCalendar format to store its events and tasks so you can easily transfer them between applications. You can also subscribe to online calendars including the Google Calendar and edit your Outlook appointments directly in Rainlendar*
 _ Eraser is a secure data removal tool for Windows. It completely removes sensitive data from your hard drive by overwriting it several times with carefully selected patterns. Great to clean old drives before disposal.
 - The Belarc Advisor builds a detailed profile of your installed software and hardware, missing Microsoft hotfixes, anti-virus status, CIS (Center for Internet Security) benchmarks, and displays the results in your Web browser. All of your PC profile information is kept private on your PC and is not sent to any web server. 
 - MP3Trim is a utility that allows you to trim MP3 music files. Useful on files that contain unwanted sounds at the beginning or end, MP3Trim works by trimming precisely at MPEG frame increments. It can automatically detect digital silence and recover wasted disk space occupied by silent frames. In addition, it recognizes ID3 tags and cleans up missing or incomplete frames and WAV headers (for WAV-embedded MP3s). This version features a better error message when the disk gets full, changes the default threshold for normalization to -3dB, which gives a little volume headroom for the tracks with wide dynamic ranges, and contains an added check for tracks that end abruptly. Version 2.12 adds F10 key shortcut to open the option dialog window and colored text for abruptly ending files.
 - Convert is a free and easy to use unit conversion program that 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!ve
 - FreeMind is an open source mind mapping software that enables you to visualize ideas, projects, concepts, brainstorming, internet research or any other task that can benefit from a structured overview. You can create nodes with child and sibling nodes and add icons, clouds, notes and custom formatting for better presentation. The nodes can be expanded or collapsed, or interactively linked to local files, other maps, online resources and more. You can also insert encrypted nodes or create encrypted maps for sesitive projects. The finished maps can be exported to HTML, clickable XHTML, Open Office document, image file and other formats.
Paid programs that I use:
 Carbonite Online Backup-
 Were you aware that if you back up files and then delete the original that you now don't have a backup?, also if you store the backup the same place as your computer
it will go with the House if it burns down or maybe with the thief if you have a breakin. Just something to think about.
One of the more affordable and easy to use home backup solutions, Acronis, has a new Online Backup service. While local backups are important, having an offsite solution
is an integral part in your complete strategy. Acronis Online Backup offers 250GB of storage to safely store your important data securely and access it from anywhere.
At $49.95 a year for up to 5 pcs this is the cheapest .
 - Keep your hard drive defragged
 - compile, copy or burn for cds or dvds
*Please let me know if any of these links are not working or are outdated etc.
If you use a program that you really like let me know and I'll try it out and maybe list it here.
If you don't like any of these programs let me know why so I can check it out. Thanks Arne
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