Toolbox

I was doing maintenance on my laptop the other day and thought I should post the tools that I use all the time that ensure the smooth performance of my computer. I defrag about every couple weeks (although I should probably only do it every month or so) and use Autologics Disk Defrag. It works a lot faster than the one built in to Windows and does just as good a job. At the end, it even gives you a percentage of how much faster your computer is since defraging. Another good one is called Defraggler. I have that one installed on my flash drive. I also use Secunia PSI RC3. This looks at all the programs you have installed and checks to see if there are updated versions. This is really important for security and a lot of people overlook it. Nortan will only help you once you get infected (and even then, Nortan sucks). If I was trying to attack someone, I would scan for outdated software with known vulnerabilities. So Secunia looks for new versions of everything and then provides a direct download link to the new installation. When I have to uninstall something, I no longer use the built in windows uninstaller. I use Revo Uninstaller. It finds the program, then runs the uninstaller it came with, and then scans the registry and program files for left over stuff. For backups, I use Personal Backup. It basically compacts everything into a zip file. I was able to back up my entire C:/ that is something like 150gigs in a 55gig zip file that I store on my external drive. I usually do this about every month. I also backup my email. I don't have my own site yet, so all my mail is on Google's servers. That means that if Google doesn't want to let me in my account, I can't get any of my email. So I use something called Gmail Backup (clever name) that logs in to my account and downloads every single email in there. That way if I do get locked out, at least I have a copy of all the emails I have recieved so far and will only miss new ones. My antivirus is Avast, which is in my opinion, the best one out there. The best thing is always to run multiple vendors scanners to have the highest chance of finding stuff. So I also have ClamWin on my flash drive that I scan with every once in a while. I also have a bootable cd called Dr. Web that you boot into and it scans the entire volume. For audio editing I use Audacity. I sometimes like to write BAT files to automate stuff, and there is a nifty little program called Bat to Exe. Guess what that does? I also use ResHacker like I mentioned in the previous post to edit dll's and stuff. For dvd ripping I use DVD Catalyst and for disk emulation I use Daemon Tools lite. Later I will post all the awesome tools I have on my flash drive that I use for portable testing and troubleshooting.