The Shameful Bleatings of a Cheap Bastard

Ahhh, free software. You know I remember when I was but a wee lad in my undergraduate days working in the lab at the State University that I attended. Free software was something to be feared and mocked... it caused more trouble than anything else and often caused Windows 98se or Windows ME (shudder) to have compatibility problems that often resulted in blue screen's of death... loss of data... hard lock ups... virus infestations... and I'm sure was responsible for a couple of people who couldn't afford better to get booted from the institution.

Yes friends free software was known to bruise fruit, abuse animals, and cause harm to small children... I knew that free software was gaining in acceptance and quality when Microsoft... some years back... alluded to it being anti-capitalist. Anything that Microshaft paints as hurting its business model definately needs to be investigated.

Sooo.... on with the free software picks...

Foxit PDF Reader - Adobe Acrobat reader is free, but it still sucks a big fat donkey shlong. The fricken download is like 70 megs big... adobe insists on wrapping itself as tightly to your Windows installation as any virus program. It's also slow, bulky, crash happy, and unnecessary. Fox it reader is small (about 3 megs) uses almost no resources and is fast, fast, fast... hey did I mention it was fast? Download it... love it.

DriveImage XML - I like Norton's Ghost. I hate how much it costs. Enter DriveImage XML. Free for private non-commercial use. This is the BEST Back up software I have ever used and it has saved me on more than one occasion. I make weekly back up images of my entire hard drive to an external SATA drive. It only takes an hour or two and is a good bet against disaster.

K-Lite Codec Pack - You know what I hate more than Windows ME... Windows Media Player post version 6.0... The software is crap-fucking-tacular. In fact Media Player is so bad I can't really think of a way to describe what a truly putrid peice of dog shit it is. If you are a power user or a friend of mine (which you must be if your reading this blog)... then you must free yourself from the shackles of Media Player and download a truly potent and useful series of codecs that comes with its own player (Media Player Classic - an enhanced version of Windows Original Media Player).

Auslogics Disk Defragmenter - Windows Disk Defragmenter sucks. Windows Vista's disk defragmenter sucks worse than Windows XP's. Windows XP's Disk Defragmenter is actually a neutered version of Disk Commander - licensed from Acronis. Auslogistics disk defragmenter is solid, fast, small, and customizable. Just use it.

Aus Logics System Information - Need more detailed information about your hardware? Sick of using Windows XP System Information? Need more information than you can get from System Information... sick of having to constantly start and then screw around with SANDRA? Then by GOD!!! Download this right now... generate a comprehensive report and delve into your systems innards... You know I just realized that I am really fucking boring... sad face.

CCleaner - Software that dost not sucketh the holieth hand grenade. Use this in conjunction with DriveImage XML, Threatifre, Windows Defender, Spybot S&D, and Auslogics Defragmenter and your system will be healthy, wealthy, and wise. This software cleans up all the cruft... missing dll's, extensions that are broken, registry entries that are orphaned, crap files from that porn flick you downloaded two months ago... good stuff... get it now.

Benchmarking software - You know there are times when I want to upgrade my systems. I'm a huge over clocker and have been over clocking my systems since 1998. I like to tweak and tinker with my system to get optimum speed and performance. Sometimes you make a change and your not sure if it really makes a difference... or it makes a difference but your not sure if the tweak justifies the spike in tempreture or instability. That is where benchmarking software comes in... now you could spend a lot of money on very expensive system benchmarking software... but I would rather just download the software to test the components I want stressed. So here is my list of benchmarking software that I think every geek needs to have installed or have handy.

Prime 95 - This program is ancient but still very very relevant. It actually is used to find new Prime Numbers; however it also has a torture test option that lets you benchmark your computers processor, RAM, or both. This is the perfect software to test the stability of your over clocking adventures or if you think you have a proc or RAM on the way out this is also a good way to stress test those components and see if they are on thier last legs. If you have dual core processors then you have to open two instances (or four instances)of Prime 95 (one for each proc) This is done by simply copying the .exe file from installation directory and creating a new folder and placing the .exe file into the new folder. When I test I usually set it to run for 24 hours... if it can survive 24 hours your overclock is damn stable... so you can over clock some more!!! WooHoo!

HD TACH - From Simpli Software... free Hard Drive testing, through put... random reads, short bursts, long reads, etc, etc, etc... Go ahead... see if your hard drive's performance is efficient or if you have room for improvement.

There's more but I gotta goooo... l8r.