Utilities for the Holidays

1. Software Gift Guide

Guy Thomas, our Windows expert from across the pond, has some great holiday gift ideas if you need to buy the geek in your family some new software.

Fed up with getting socks for Christmas?  Here are several handy utilities to ask your relatives for instead!

Lo Jack for Laptop Protection

The idea is that you install a Lo Jack client into your computer's BIOS firmware (3 clicks and you are done). The Agent in your computer then maintains daily contact with the Absolute Monitoring Center.  If your computer gets stolen, all you need to do is let Lo Jack know, much like you would with a car. After notification, the monitors ramp up contact to once every 15 minutes, which should enable the police to catch the thief.

If it's the sensitive nature of the data in the wrong hands that worries you, then Lo Jack can delete data on the laptop remotely. Check out the Lo Jack site.

Manic (Maniac?) Time

Frighten yourself; record your computer usage.  Manic Time is handy for keeping to your new year’s resolution of spending less time in front of the computer. Download ManicTime

KeyTweak

KeyTweak seems like a tool for an April 1st prank.  However, I can see 'business uses' if you have international connections.  Download KeyTweak

NotePad ++

Guy cannot see the point of this program, whereas his friend 'Mad Mick' swears by it.  Guy says, 'If the normal built-in notepad cannot get the job done, then I go to one of two extremes, buy a proper script editor, or just use Word for Windows'.

Mad Mick says that while 'NotePad ++ is a good-enough versatile script editor, the reason he likes it so much is that Notepad ++ is just so much more fun and techie than any other text editor.'

We both say, it's free and make up your own mind.  Download NotePad++

Try the Orion Network Performance Monitor

What I like about SolarWinds is their mantra of 'built by network engineers for network engineers'. If you get a chance look around their site and seek out the head geek videos. Josh Stephens is that rare geek, someone with network skills, who can also lucidly explain on camera what is going and how to configure the settings. Now I must confess to an impure thought, Josh is so slick on the videos that I wondered if he was in fact an actor, but no, Josh is the real deal, a techie who talks the talk AND walks the walk.

As my website indicates, over the years I have dabbled with tweaking computer performance.  However, I regard Orion Network Performance Monitor (NPM) as the 'big tackle'.  Big in the sense that has the power to zoom into network trouble spots, and big in the comprehensive range of checks that it manages.  If you are reviewing performance monitors, then take advantage of Solarwinds offer to download a free trial of Orion NPM 9.5.

MacAfee Site Advisor

Make an online check of any site.  You probably don't really need this utility very often, but if you are curious about a site, here’s a free way to test one. Test now.

Network Utilities from Tools4Ever

Tools4Ever provide not one but a host of handy network utilities.  They have a professional stable of products like SpaceGuard Disk quota manager, Self Service Password Reset, and my favorite, FreePing.  Tools4Ever uses the popular internet utility model where you download a trial version and return and buy the full version if you like it.

Check out the network utilities from Tools4Ever.