RAINLENDAR

www.rainlendar.net

Across-platform calendar software, Rainlendar is chockfull of all those much-needed everyday features like to-do lists, alarms, search capabilities, and printing support, apart from the expected calendar. The software uses the official standard for calendar data exchange set by the Internet Engineering Task Force Calendaring and Scheduling Working Group, called iCalendar, so you can easily import and export entries between

STEGANOGRAPHY TOOLS

Steganography software is the digital equivalent of invisible ink. It lets you embed data inside other files. Secret data, of course. So why use steganography—why not just ZIP your files with password protection ? Well, when you have a password-protected file of any sort, here’s something to be explained if and when someone (like your mom or boss!) notices it. (“Hmm. So you’re using passwords these days, are you? Tell me more…”) Besides, passwords aren’t completely safe. With steganography,

UPDATE CHECKER

www.filehippo.com/

updatechecker If you like to have ll your software updated down to the last decimal, this little tool is mostcertainly for you. Update Checker runs a quick scan on all the programs on your computer, then opens up a Web page and tells you which ones can be upgraded. It’s not magic: the Update Checker Web site maintains a version number database of programs along with download

AUTOHOTKEY

www.autohotkey.com

Now if you need macros for just about any action, you need AutoHotkey. You could use it to replace blocks of text, but going beyond, you could do things like open your browser and several sites under tabs, make multiple directories, and shut down your computer after a download or copy action—in the blink of an eye. AutoHotkey, as you can see, takes macros to a new level. The program incorporates another one called Auto- ScriptWriter, which allows you to record macros. These can then be replayed. So you start up this program, press Record, do various actions, and press Stop. Then, playing back the macro will

LAUNCHY

www.launchy.net

Here’s a lightweight open source program to quickly open any file on your computer. It’s as unobtrusive as possible: it’s invisible. Press [Alt] + [Space] and it pops up. So here’s the idea: say you want to open an Excel file buried where no mouse has gone before, begin entering the name of your desired file in the Launchy window, and possible matches will come up. Home in on your file

TEXTER

http://tinyurl.com/2ww36b

Those things in Word like “December (Press Enter to Insert)” are more of a pain in the behind than anything else. What you need is Texter to enter oft-used text (hence the name). So just assign a word like “addr” to a block of text—like your address—and  hen you type in “addr”, your address is all typed out for you. This saves time, and  more importantly, relieves thefrustration of doing mindless  things. For the programmers out there: apart from basic text replacement,