William A. Leonard

Computer Consultant

Tools I Use

This my "Top-Ten List" of twenty-three tools I use on my own computers and which I recommend to my clients.

Use at your own risk. Some of these are "cleaning" utilities and, if not used properly, can clean your documents, photos, iTunes and even Windows right out of your computer.

Useful Utilities
Agent Ransack Free file searching utility. Finds files that other search engines miss - and does it VERY fast.
Always-on-Top You no longer have to worry about arranging windows side-by-side to copy-paste information from one window to another. Hit Ctrl-Space and the current window stays on top even if you click in another window.
Cyber-D's Auto Delete Cyber-D's Autodelete can delete old files in a folder (and subfolders) you selected. Simply select the folder you wish to clean (downloads for example), set the rules (older than 30 days since created) and how to delete (move, recycle, secure delete).
Evernote Evernote is a suite of software and services designed for notetaking and archiving. A "note" can be a piece of formatted text, a full webpage or webpage excerpt, a photograph, a voice memo, or a handwritten "ink" note. Notes can also have file attachments. Notes can be sorted into folders, then tagged, annotated, edited, given comments, searched and exported as part of a notebook
ClipX ClipX is a tiny clipboard (copy/paste) history manager, it can be recalled via a hotkey and supports both bitmap and text clipboards. ClipX is very unobstrusive and will change the way you think about clipboard operations.
I use this all the time. I can clip a number of items and paste them in any order - I'm not restricted to only pasting the last thing I clipped.
File Hippo Update Checker The Update Checker will scan your computer for installed software, check the versions and then send this information to FileHippo.com to see if there are any newer releases. These are then neatly displayed in your browser for you to download.
Flash Cookie View Flash cookies are a new way of tracing your movement and storing a lot more information about you than with normal cookies.
FlashCookiesView is a small utility that displays the list of cookie files created by Flash component (Local Shared Object) in your Web browser. You can select one or more cookie files, and then copy them to the clipboard, save them to text/html/xml file or delete them.
These cookies can be managed by the next item....
Adobe Flash Player Settings Control Panel The Flash Player Settings Manager lets you manage global privacy settings, storage settings, security settings, and automatic notification settings.
Technically, this is not an installable program. Instead, add the link to your favorites.
HOSTS File You can use a HOSTS file to block ads, banners, 3rd party Cookies, 3rd party page counters, web bugs, and even most hijackers. This is accomplished by blocking the connection(s) that supplies these little gems.
KeePass KeePass is a free password manager, which helps you to manage your passwords in a secure way. You can put all your passwords in one encrypted database, which is locked with one master key or a key file. So you only have to remember one single master password or select the key file to unlock the whole database.
MalwareBytes Anti-malware Utilizes Malwarebytes powerful technology to detect and remove all traces of malware including worms, trojans, rootkits, rogues, dialers, spyware and more. Use this to augment your resident anti-virus.
MalwareBytes StartUpLite StartUpLite provides a safe, easy, and efficient way to eliminate unnecessary applications that start when you turn on your computer.
Microsoft Security Essentials Microsoft Security Essentials provides real-time protection for your home or small business PC that guards against viruses, spyware, and other malicious software.
Microsoft's anti-virus product hasn't been around as long as some of the major players but is rapidly gaining respect as an effective anti-malware tool.
PC Decrapifier The PC Decrapifier is a free tool for you to use that helps remove programs, unnecessary startup items and icons that can slow down your PC. It takes you step by step, giving you recommendations on what to remove, many of which can be removed unattended.
Revo Uninstaller This is an alternative to the built-in Windows "Add/Remove Programs" control panel applet. The main feature of Revo Uninstaller is to remove unnecessary files and registry entries left behind by incomplete program uninstallation routines.
Secunia PSI The Secunia PSI’s unique security scanner automatically scans your PC and alerts you whenever your installed programs and plug-ins require updating.
SlimComputer Community-powered feedback is the key to SlimComputer's state-of-the-art cleaning. In real time, SlimComputer assesses your new PC to identify programs, toolbars, and startup entries that users vote "optional". You can then use this data to decide what you want to keep on your computer.
Smart Defrag Smart Defrag 2 is a free tool that provides extremely fast and efficient defragmentation to your hard drives intelligently for faster file loading and high disk performance.
Stickies Stickies is a PC utility created to cut down on the number of yellow notes stuck to the author's monitor. It is a computerised version of those notes.
It's tremendously useful. Use it for TODO lists, appointments, favorites, reminders.... Use it as you would the paper sticky notes.
SuperAntiSpyware Detect and Remove Spyware, Adware and Remove Malware, Trojans, Dialers, Worms, KeyLoggers, Hijackers, Parasites, Rootkits, Rogue Security Products and many other types of threats.
Sysinternals Autoruns This utility shows you what programs are configured to run during system bootup or login, and shows you the entries in the order Windows processes them.
Wise Registry Cleaner This freebie does a neat job of cleaning out the Registry junk. It scans the Registry, flagging orphaned or bad Registry entries, and shows you the name and values for each.
Wise Disk Cleaner This is a software program for freeing up disk space by deleting junk files and temporary files.


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