PDFCreator is a handy little application that installs as a printer and creates PDFs from any file that you are trying to print. To convert a document to PDF simply open the document up the usual way, select Print and choose PDFCreator as your printer. PDFCreator then opens up a window that allows you to enter meta data for the file like Document Title and Author and then you hit Save to save it as PDF.

Here’s a tip on how PDFCreator can be used to help with filing expense reports. When you’re making hotel reservations or airline bookings while working remotely and without access to a local printer, you can print your reservation confirmations to PDFCreator and save them as PDFs on your computer. Now you can email the PDF version of the confirmation to someone who can print it for you and you have easy access to your invoices when it’s time to file your expense report.

PuTTY is a popular free, open source Telnet and SSH client. Being open source there are many PuTTY variations, one of the more popular being portaPuTTY which I have recommended as an essential portable app before. I found a new favorite called PuTTY Tray: It is another variation of PuTTY, but offers some interesting features including:

If your system is suffering with performance issues or is simply cluttered with old applications then Revo Uninstaller could save you time vs. a full Windows reinstall. Revo Uninstaller shows you all applications and components installed on your PC and allows you to remove unwanted apps. It does a scan before and after the uninstall to find files, folders and registry keys that may have been missed during the uninstall process. In Hunter Mode, you can uninstall programs with one click or by simply dragging application shortcuts on your desktop or quick launch bar to the Revo Uninstaller system tray icon. A portable app version is now available so you can now run it from a USB drive without installing it.

In addition, Revo Uninstaller also comes bundled with other useful utilities like the Autorun Manager which let’s you enable or disable programs that autostart at Windows startup and the Junk Files Cleaner which scans and deletes temporary files that should have been deleted.

Revo Uninstaller is portable, free and with no spyware or tricks – a great productivity tool just the way we like it.

Revo Uninstaller (Look for the Portable version download link)

Most people know that I am a portable app fan and that I would almost exclusively try to use portable applications or Web applications rather than “installs”. The problem with regular, non-portable applications is that they rely on the Windows registry and that they are typically distributed in many folders. So when you need to reinstall Window all your settings are lost and you need to completely reinstall the applications. In this post I would like to describe the reasons why I prefer portable apps and how you can manage them better. (more…)

WordWeb is a free English dictionary and thesaurus application, and can be used to look up words in just one click. This is a very handy productivity tool and it’s really fast. I found their “for free use” licensing agreement quite amusing (though I fail on both accounts!):

You may use the program free of charge indefinitely only if
* You take at most 4 flights (2 return flights) in any 12 month period
* AND you do not own or regularly drive an SUV (sports utility vehicle).

I also like that it can be installed as a portable USB application (under Advanced Options during install).

Via Lifehacker

You finally caved and got the first season of 24 or Lost on DVD. Now you’re hooked and you would use every opportunity to watch it. Then you realize: “Hey, my iPod! It’s perfect for traveling and for the gym, but how can I copy my DVDs to my iPod?!� . So you do some Googling, but you discover that there are hundreds of solutions out there and, worse, that copying DVDs has become a money making scheme! Besides that, nobody tells you that there are two big technical problems with copying or converting DVDs:

1) Most commercial DVDs are encrypted for copy protection;
2) There are many encoding variables (bitrates, aspect ratios etc.).

It isn’t publicized, but commercial DVDs are normally copy protected with encryption technology (including region codes) and most commercial DVD copy software does not allow users to copy protected DVDs. Without going into the legalities suggested in #1 above or the complexities suggested in #2 above, here is a free solution to copy DVD to iPod. It’s really very easy, but the first time will take a few minutes longer. (more…)

WinSnap is a great little application that can replace regular Windows screen captures. Previously mentioned FastStone Capture is great for scrolling screen captures like Web pages in browsers, but WinSnap is great for regular CTRL+Prnt Scrn replacement. It can be configured to automatically modify the image border to rounded corners or PhotoShop-style shadows.  This is particularly useful for us bloggers who like to capture images and post them to our blogs. Older versions are free (for personal, educational and non-commercial use) and as a bonus they have a portable version, so this application needs to be added to my list of essential portable applications. The free version is available here.

You know how annoying it is when you try to Copy & Paste formatted text from some applications like Web browsers and Word docs into other applications like Excel or Outlook and the formatting also gets copied!? PureText is a free and very light-weight productivity tool that pastes text as "plain text" without formatting.

If you are used to using command line tools for Copy & Paste, i.e. CTRL+C to copy and CTRL+V to paste then this little tool is a gem: You simply copy as usual using CTRL+C, but instead of using the CTRL+V hot-key to paste, you use the WINDOWS+V hot-key. (The WINDOWS key is the key with the Windows logo to the left of the [most-left] ALT key). PureText can be configured to use another hot-key combination, but the default makes sense and works for me.

PureText – plain text copy and paste app.

Everyday the Giveaway of the Day project gives away an application, that is otherwise licensed and costs $$, for free. For instance, today (which only has about 6 hours left on their clock) you can download DiskAnalyzer Professional.

DiskAnalyzer Professional is a disk space analysis and cleaning software. It helps you search, monitor and clean oldest files, big size files, duplicate files, zero size files, graphics files, video files, compressed files, temporary and junk files from PC.

Besides the typical productivity type software that they give away daily, they also have a game giveaway of the day and they recently released a freeware library. I find it best to subscribe to their RSS feeds to not miss that free app opportunity.

As a side note, their site is WordPress driven and a good example of how traditional sites can be more effective when published in blog style.

If you have multiple computers all connected to the same network and would like to access them from one mouse and keyboard, Synergy might be a good alternative to a KVM switch. With Synergy, you can redirect your mouse and keyboard to another computer and screen by moving the mouse to the edge of the current screen. Synergy can be configured to arrange screens the way they are physically arranged to become one big virtual screen. You can also copy & paste between computers and screensavers can be synchronized. It’s great for developers and system administrators that run multiple computers with different operating systems. Synergy is an open source project.

A friend of mine asked me to help because he had a very annoying “popcorn.net” popup. I suggested that he install Ad-Aware and Windows Defender, but he called back saying it didn’t help. So I had to try harder and I was surprised to see how much of a problem it is. Popcorn.net is not simple spyware and the removal process can be tough for non-technical people. PopCorn.net, also known as Movieland and MoviePass, is a P2P program that offers a free trial download for online users. PopCorn.net takes displays pop-ups to keep reminding you that payment is due. Anyway, we were able to remove it using a few free tools. (more…)

Looking at my Google Analytics reports I noticed that a lot of people are finding my site by searching for terms like “WinXP virtual appliance” and “windows live CD”. My guess is that they’re hoping to find a free download. Well, they are available – but, they’re not legal. Besides not being legal you shouldn’t trust them because it can’t be from a trusted source and who knows what’s installed on there. If it was a trusted source – like a friend – then it’s an illegal copy but hey at least you trust it

However, you can create your own VMware Windows virtual appliance or live CD if you had a windows installation CD. You really need a fresh Windows installation CD (with an unused license) to create a legal Windows VMware virtual appliance. However, you can legally create a Windows live CD from your original Windows installation CD using BartPE. But wait, you can run a live CD virtual appliance so then you do have a way to get a free WinXP virtual appliance! (more…)

The popular Sudoku game is avaliable at SourceForge in portable form so it requires no installation.

Sudoku Portable is a an addictive puzzle game originally created in France over 100 years ago. It features a 9×9 grid containing 9 3×3 grids. Within this you arrange the numbers 1 through 9. But, each number can only appear once in each of the 9 3×3 grids. And it can only appear once in each row and on each column. It’s a simple concept, but it can get addictive quickly.

Sudoku Portable – portableapps.com