It’s the moment you haven’t been waiting for: a big post about Windows software! I happen to think most of this stuff is pretty rad. I know the appeal isn’t universal, though, so I’ve organized this post in descending order of mass appeal. It’s a five-star scale, with five-stars being “everybody try this” and one-star being “you might find a use for this”. Some of these things may be multi-platform, but if you don’t use Windows, you may as well skip everything after the 5-star section. If something in that section is Windows-exclusive, it’s up to you to find an alternative for your OS! A few ways to do that: the Lifehacker app directory, alternativeto.net, or Google.

Side note: this is partially inspired by the website The Setup, which interviews smart people about how they do what they do. I’ve learned some neat things there, but it may not be worth going through the archives unless you use OS X exclusively. Other main reason: I want to tell people about neat and useful things!

***** 5-star software *****

f.lux
Available for every platform ever created, f.lux takes your geographical location and calculates the sunrise and sunset in local time. Then it tints your screen to simulate the natural cycle of the sun. The red hue at night seems weird at first, but it’s something you can’t live without once you get used to it. If you use your computer in the dark, do yourself a favour and try it. I find that I sleep better, my eyes hurt less, and I actually get tired later in the evening. I actually wasn’t using f.lux for a while - it wasn’t in my startup folder for some reason. I realized something was wrong when I was on my PC at 3 AM, fueled in some way by that disturbing blue glow, trying to read all of the things there ever were. After turning it on again, I got to see the benefits all over again. So yeah, download this.

LastPass
LastPass is the closest you can get to real password security these days. It’s infinitely better than your browser’s built-in password manager, and I want you to use it. Please? I don’t even know my passwords anymore, and I don’t need to! Life is good.

AutoHotKey
What to say about AutoHotKey? It provides a sky-high programming language to easily manipulate things that would be painfully complex any other way. The corollary to this is that it’s a programming language, so you’re limited by the problems you want to solve with it. My current uses:

• a hotkey to “keep on top” any window
• handling a drop-down terminal like in Quake or an Elder Scrolls game
• turning the right Alt button into a Ctrl key
• remapping Alt+N to Ctrl+Backspace in order to delete whole words without reaching for the backspace key

Lifehacker has a ton of posts about AutoHotKey, though. So look there for some inspiration.

Rainmeter
I love Rainmeter. I love it violently, with every fiber of my being, every second I use my laptop. A quick look at the most popular skins on DeviantArt is all the explanation you’ll need. Exciting new features are on the way: Rainmeter 2.3 brings the option to define a margin around the screen that’s reserved for Rainmeter - maximized windows can’t use the area you define as part of the DesktopWorkArea. This is a fantastic addition, and it’s something users have needed other utilities for until now. Rainmeter is everything I want in software: sexy, lightweight, and highly configurable.

WorkRave
WorkRave is a neat tool I found recently that I highly recommend if you spend hours at your PC. WorkRave lets you set a certain length of time for taking short breaks to rest your hands (I do 15 seconds every 10 minutes) and longer breaks to stand up and stretch/exercise (I’m doing 5 minutes every 55 minutes). It’s partially a health thing, and partially a time-management tool. Did you know you’ve been reading stupid crap for an hour? Do you actually want to be doing that? Go for a walk, stretch your legs, think about what you’ll do after your break. I actually found it quite helpful during Reading Week, and I was grateful for the breaks whenever I was working on a tough problem. Instead of breaking my flow, it helped me focus when I was actually working. Definitely check it out.

**** 4-star software ****

Anki
Anki is, put simply, a digital flashcard program. But it’s also a tool for spaced repetition of anything you happen to want to learn. Spaced repetition may be the second best way to learn, topped only by applying your desired skill in some useful way. One of my professors introduced it to the class as a way to study, and I’ve gotten into it since then. I’m using it for most of my classes, and the Anki decks will accompany my class notes in the future. Your mileage may vary, though - creating the Anki cards is part of my studying, too. I know what the cards are actually trying to say, and I rehearse background info that’s not on the actual card. It doesn’t cost me anything to export my decks, though, so why not? Here’s an article with some guidelines for using Anki, particularly outside an academic/testing related setting.

Microsoft OneNote
This is the only paid software on the list, oddly enough. I’ve posted about OneNote in the past, and I still love it. OneNote has a ton of features-you-never-knew-you-wanted that make editing a little bit faster - they’re simple but appreciated. My notes export to PDF and MS Word documents in a decently attractive format, so I can share them for your viewing pleasure, and for the benefit of students with disabilities that make it difficult for them to take their own notes. I’ve never tried Evernote, but I’ve never wanted to - OneNote is perfect for my needs.

*** 3-star software ***

QTTabBar
I use QTTabBar so frequently that I don’t remember what options I actually use. I can’t use Explorer without it anymore. Download it and look through all the sweet, sweet options it provides. Its most noticeable feature is tabs: how can you live without them? But it adds lots of other useful things, too. Double-click the folder background to go up to its parent folder, hover a file to preview its contents, and many more. Using a light Windows theme, I recommend the Firefox 3 theme if you use a light Explorer frame, and my personal pick to go with the dark background of my Explorer is a mix of two styles: the background image from Adagio and the tab image from NOOTO. Using the settings provided by NOOTO’s creator, I think.

RescueTime
It requires some self-discipline, but using RescueTime definitely helps keep me on task. Although I may have cheated a little by defining my hours of Emacs research as “very productive”. Lifehacker has a brief-ish guide on how to set up RescueTime in a way that works for you. Try it out for a bit - my one recommendation is not to get too attached to the premium features. Unless you need to distinguish between 5 hours spent in MS Word and 30 minutes spent in 10 different documents, a free account is still great. Bonus for laptop users: it’s quite light on resource usage.

Dropbox & Dropbox Folder Sync
I started using Dropbox to access shared files from the DM of the Cognitive Science D&D group, but I stayed because I can easily make backups of things like Rainmeter skins and other tweaks I’ve made. The Public and Photo folders have their uses, too. While the option is still available, you can score some free, permanent space upgrades by testing the photo upload feature. I got 5 gb from it when it first came out, so I’ve got plenty of space - unlike every other Dropbox user, I’m not pimping my referral link!

** 2-star software **

WriteMonkey / Q10
“Distraction-free writing programs” that offer minimal features and, more importantly, minimal UI. WriteMonkey is more frequently updated and provides more features, but I couldn’t quite get it to calculate things like page lengths correctly. They’re worth trying if you get distracted when you want to write, but they don’t have the pure text processing power of other programs.

Soluto
Soluto is occasionally useful, but it’s worth installing to look at your boot times. I’m not sure how the “delayed start” feature works, but I’ve had no problems with it. Soluto doesn’t solve the problem of slow boot times, so much as it highlights the actual culprits for you: all that terrible software you installed with the default options checked.

* 1-star software *

KatMouse
This is a small utility, but a useful one. It only does one thing: makes your mouse scroll whatever it’s currently hovering over. Saves you from having to put a window into focus. I know, you might not have this problem, but if you ever do!

Miranda IM
My multi-client IM program of choice. Best for masochists with hours to waste tweaking. I almost wrote a quick-start guide for it, but then realized nobody would care. Let me know if you care! I still use it over Pidgin almost entirely because of a contact list theme called Malice Tab that gives me a small visual dock for my contact list. Sexy, lightweight, and (with enough blood, sweat, and tears) configurable.

PhraseExpress / Texter
I don’t actually want to recommend either of these pieces of software. PhraseExpress is a resource hog, but it does work. Texter is, disappointingly, the exact opposite (it will break, inexplicably, after prolonged use). But text expansion is extremely cool - being able to type common words and phrases with a few keystrokes would be great for taking notes, or any other situation where there’s common vocabulary/phrases. There are good options for other platforms, but nothing that works for me on Windows (on a desktop, you might like PhraseExpress - but configuration is rough). Check Lifehacker’s posts on text expansion if you’re still interested - I think there’s are some good options on OS X, and maybe something workable for Linux.

Ultimate Windows Tweaker
This is a great tool that bundles many useful registry hacks (both enable and disable) in one convenient UI. It works on Vista and Win7. Check it out, for sure. Personal highlights: disable automatic restart after Windows Update (“Security Settings”), everything under “Additional Tweaks”, especially removing arrows from shortcut icons and removing the ’-Shortcut’ suffix on new shortcuts. Take ownership and ‘open command window here’ are occasionally useful, too, and also under “Additional Tweaks”.

Right-click menu editors
I have two categories of tools here: one for Firefox, and a handful for Windows (Fast Explorer, ShellNewHandler, the somewhat inferior ShellMenuNew, ShellMenuView, ShellExView, and OpenWithView). It’s the same idea either way - remove the useless clutter from the right-click menu. I don’t use LibreOffice file formats, so I don’t need the right-click “New” menu to offer me six file formats I don’t even use. You may not care! But I enjoy this level of control.