Both work well and which one you use is mostly a matter of preference.

The Yahoo Toolbar’s Anti-Spy runs in less than a minute and catches 98% of all spy-ware. I use it the most frequent (about once a week)

Lavasoft’s Adaware SE uses reference files to find even very new spy-ware programs developed and has caught every piece of spy-ware I’ve seen. Reference files are updated weekly and you should always update them before scanning your computer. It scans deeper than the Anti-spy and can take quite a bit longer, but I run it at least once a month.

Editor’s Note: Another program I use that compliments Lavasoft’s Adaware is SpyBot Search & Destroy. One of its best features is ‘Immunize’, which blocks many of the holes Microsoft has left for spyware to exploit.

That wasn’t clear enough? 7-Zip handles all the archive formats you’ll encounter on the net. It also integrates nicely into your right-click menu allowing you to “Extract Here” on any compressed file.

DAEMON Tools is a virtual cd/dvd-rom emulator. It is able to emulate nearly all known copy protections on the market today. After installation and a restart, Daemon tools allowed me to mount an image and have it show up as a drive.

If you have the extra hard drive space, this seems like a really good way to play computer games without having to switch discs. Check their Games Database to see if you favorite game’s copy protection is supported.

WARNING: I tried this at home and my computer almost died. The forums have many comments about problems with this software, especially when installed next to Easy CD Creator. If you have XP, set a system restore point first.

Radmin is an award-winning multifunction remote control program. Radmin enables you to remotely monitor or work on one or more network computers right from your own workstation. It is a complete remote control solution with such features as File Transfer, NT security, Telnet and Multilanguage Support built-in.

If you don’t have Windows XP Professional, Radmin is better than VNC to control a remote PC. It only works with Windows PCs, but the increased speed and encryption is nice.

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Get winMd5Sum free.

Chicken and the egg question: How do you check the MD5 sum on this download without installing it?
Email hahaha

SCP, Secure CoPy, is a free program with a great user interface. It is customizable between an Explorer like window, and a “Norton Commander” interface with your local files are in the first column and remote files in the second. It allows for drag and drop movement of files, and even movement of files remotely, if that option is selected. Most importantly, it supports a secure transfer of passwords and files that will be the standard for getting files onto my server.

Get SCP or something like it, because ftp access is closing.

Having started work on Hooride.com the need for a good, free file transfer protocol (FTP) client arose and I settled on WS FTP. It’s free (for students and government workers) and it works infinitely better that the built-in FTP that MS Explorer uses.

If you are new to using FTP, you can take a look at this guide.

Enjoy

isSpell is a free IE browser extension that spell checks everything I enter into a form. Pretty handy when you have your own blog site or frequently contribute. Simply install the program, and the “Check Spelling” option appears in your right click menu for easy use.

Editor’s Note: If you haven’t switched from Internet Explorer to Mozilla’s Firefox by now, get with it.

I found Trillian and tried it out for a week before making this recommendation: It works and works well! This program will consolidate all the above messengers plus a few I’ve never heard of into one easy-to-use interface, which produces none of the annoying banners or pop-ups that the other messengers do. There are no ads or spyware included. I love it and want to share it - try it out.

Instant messaging rules!