System Update Readiness Tool (CheckSur)

"System resources, such as file data, registry data, and even in-memory data, can develop inconsistencies during the lifetime of the operating system. These inconsistencies might be caused by various hardware failures or might be caused by software issues. In some cases, these inconsistencies can affect the Windows servicing store, and they can cause software updates not to work. The System Update Readiness Tool tries to resolve these inconsistencies."

For Vista, Server 2K8, and Windows 7.

This has been helpful in the past for failing installations of .NET and related patches. Takes quite a while to run.

OutlookTempCleaner

OutlookTempCleaner is a support tool for Microsoft Office Outlook. It gives you easy access to the Temp folder that Outlook uses to open attachments. It further allows you to automate maintenance to it via Windows's Scheduled Tasks.

Main Program Features

• Easy access to Outlook's SecureTempFolder used for opening attachments
• Determination of the current size of the folder
• Empty the folder
• Command line options to perform maintenance to the folder via for instance Scheduled Tasks and logon/logoff scripts

Secunia Personal Software Inspector (PSI)

"Used by millions of home users around the world, the Secunia PSI is a free security tool designed with the sole purpose of helping you secure your computer against vulnerabilities in programs."

Free for personal use. Both Microsoft and non-Microsoft software. Windows only.

Sumatra PDF

"Sumatra PDF is a slim, free, open-source PDF viewer for Windows. Portable out of the box.

Sumatra has a minimalistic design. Simplicity has a higher priority than a lot of features.

It's small and starts up very fast.

It's designed for portable use: only one file so you can run it from external USB drive. Doesn't write to registry."

Microsoft Exchange Remote Connectivity Analyzer

“The Remote Connectivity Analyzer is a web based tool that's designed to help IT administrators to troubleshoot connectivity issues with their Exchange Server deployments. It allows administrators to test connectivity to their Exchange domains remotely from outside of their organizations internal networks. In order to use this tool, you must enter the credentials of a working account from the Exchange domain to be tested. To avoid the potential risk of working credentials being exploited and therefore compromising the security of your Exchange environment, we strongly recommend that you create a test account for the purpose of using this tool, and delete this account immediately after you have completed the connectivity testing.”

Ubuntu "Extras" to Add After an Installation

Ubuntu can play many non-free media formats such as Flash, MP3, Quicktime, WMV, DVD, etc. These formats are not supported "out of the box" due to various conflicts in licensing philosophies but they can be installed with a simple command entered in a terminal window:

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras

This link indicates that this is for Ubuntu 9.04, 8.10, 8.04 but it worked for my 9.10 version as well. There is an alternate 9.04 / 9.10 installation option on this link as well but I have not tried it yet.

Additional extras such as Google Earth, Real Player and video codecs can be installed via Medibuntu (Multimedia, Entertainment & Distractions In Ubuntu). "Medibuntu is a packaging project dedicated to distributing software that cannot be included in Ubuntu for various reasons, related to geographical variations in legislation regarding intellectual property, security and other issues."

To add the repository:

sudo wget --output-document=/etc/apt/sources.list.d/medibuntu.list
http://www.medibuntu.org/sources.list.d/$(lsb_release -cs).list &&
sudo apt-get --quiet update && sudo apt-get --yes --quiet
--allow-unauthenticated install medibuntu-keyring && sudo apt-get
--quiet update

Full installation instructions are here, in the Ubuntu documentation.

The Medibuntu repository is deactivated by upgrading to a newer Ubuntu version so you will need to run the command again after upgrading.

Note that Medibuntu no longer provides Acrobat Reader (acroread). Instead, enable the Canonical partner repository under System->Administration->Software Sources->Third Party Software.

ASSP

"Stop Spam with the Anti-Spam-SMTP-Proxy (ASSP)

Want to put an end to SPAM? Try the deadly poison of ASSP!

Congratulations! You have just found the absolute best SPAM fighting weapon that the world has ever known! When it comes to killing SPAM nothing is as deadly as an ASSP! Check out the ASSP project site at sourceforge.net! "

http://assp.sourceforge.net/

VirtualBox

"VirtualBox is a powerful x86 and AMD64/Intel64 virtualization product for enterprise as well as home use. Not only is VirtualBox an extremely feature rich, high performance product for enterprise customers, it is also the only professional solution that is freely available as Open Source Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL). See "About VirtualBox" for an introduction.

Presently, VirtualBox runs on Windows, Linux, Macintosh and OpenSolaris hosts and supports a large number of guest operating systems including but not limited to Windows (NT 4.0, 2000, XP, Server 2003, Vista, Windows 7), DOS/Windows 3.x, Linux (2.4 and 2.6), Solaris and OpenSolaris, and OpenBSD.

VirtualBox is being actively developed with frequent releases and has an ever growing list of features, supported guest operating systems and platforms it runs on. VirtualBox is a community effort backed by a dedicated company: everyone is encouraged to contribute while Sun ensures the product always meets professional quality criteria."

15 Free Stock Photo Sites

http://sixrevisions.com/resources/15-best-places-for-designers-to-get-free-stock-photos-online/

"I’m not sure if you’ve ever had a look at the prices on some non-stock photography sites (pictures of Gummy bears for $769.00 anyone?), but they reach far beyond the budget of the typical designer/developer. However, many places online allow you to obtain high-quality stock photos for free, giving the average starving artist a chance to create wonderful works of art/design without having to use next month’s rent on stock photos."

KeePass Password Safe

KeePass is a free, open source, light-weight and easy-to-use password manager.

What is KeePass?
Today you need to remember many passwords. You need a password for the Windows network logon, your e-mail account, your homepage's FTP password, online passwords (like website member account), etc. etc. etc. The list is endless. Also, you should use different passwords for each account. Because if you use only one password everywhere and someone gets this password you have a problem... A serious problem. The thief would have access to your e-mail account, homepage, etc. Unimaginable.

KeePass is a free open source password manager, which helps you to manage your passwords in a secure way. You can put all your passwords in one 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. The databases are encrypted using the best and most secure encryption algorithms currently known (AES and Twofish). For more information, see the features page.

Used and recommended by my friend Tony.