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Turns out the most popular, and arguably most important, use of the Internet is not the World Wide Web, but rather email. When you figure the sheer volume of email messages sent and received—even if you factor out all the junk and spam—it's just a huge number. We're always looking for a better email client. "If only it would just do 'x', then I'd be so happy…"

eMailaya may be the tool you're looking for. A Windows application, it's a small email client with a ton of features. Sure, you can send and receive email, but there's more going on than just that. First, it's small enough and so self-contained that there is no installer. That means you don't clutter your system up with a bunch of extra junk, with DLLs shoved into obscure directories, changes written to the Registry, and all that. It also means you can install it on a USB drive, for example, and carry the tool along with you.

You can compose both plain-text and HTML-formatted messages. It supports both POP and IMAP email systems, with multiple accounts, so you don't need to have different tools for different accounts. Each account is individually configurable, so you can check for new messages at different intervals. It also incorporates an RSS reader, so you can cut down on the number of apps you need to have running at any time.

eMailaya is a free download.

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UberNote is an all-in-one web-based notes application. Since it's on the web, there's no installation necessary, and it is available from anywhere that you have an active Internet connection and a web browser.

It's easy to create task lists, contact lists, bookmarks, or freeform text entries, like shopping lists. Enter a note at work, act on it at home. As a real time saver, you can even update notes via email. This means that you could, for instance, add to that shopping list or event plan by shooting it an email from your mobile phone. Now that's convenient. You can create an unlimited number of notes, so you're never going to run out of space.

UberNote is a free online application. It should be compatible with any system running IE version 6 or better, or Firefox ver 2 or version 3 of Safari.

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Everybody needs a calculator now and then. Sure, you can set-up spreadsheets to do everything that a calculator can do, but in some ways that's like using a hammer when a fly swatter might be more appropriate. It takes time, brainpower, and, of course, you also need to own a spreadsheet app.

FreeCalc does everything that Windows' built in calculator does, and then some. Sure, you can resize it and give it pretty colors, but there are functional differences as well. Giving it a simulated "tape" can help you when you do the math and the numbers just don't add up—nothing like looking up and seeing you multiplied by 10 instead of 100 to let you know where you went wrong. You can also display the contents of memory at any given time, rather than relying on your own memory to recall just what exactly you squirreled away in there. You can also configure it to run on startup, so that your calculator is always there, sitting in the System Tray, just waiting for you to activate it.

FreeCalc is a free Windows application. It's compatible with any 32-bit Windows platform, from Win9x up through Vista.

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No matter how fancy things get on your system, there's just some stuff that is best accomplished with a command line utility. Pretty GUI applications notwithstanding, being able to run commands as part of a batch file, for instance, can let you accomplish a lot without having to dig through a bunch of extra junk on your screen.

With NirCmd, you can read and write values to the System Registry, tweak INI files, mount or eject volumes, create shortcuts, show and hide windows, dump the contents of your clipboard to a file, the list just goes on and on. An extensive online help page gives you a huge list of the functionality you can invoke with this tool.

NirCmd is a Windows tool. It'll run on any 32-bit system from Win9x/ME up through Vista, although there is some functionality that is only available in NT/XP/Vista.

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How do you get that job you really want? Well, it helps to be qualified—academic background, training, experience in the field—they all go into it. Interviewing well helps too. After all, you can't sell yourself and your qualifications if you don't show them what you've got. But how do you get that interview? Do your homework, do your networking, keep your ear to the ground. And once you're zeroing-in on where you want to interview, you need to let the hiring authorities know you're looking for them. Here's where a good resume comes in.

A resume, no matter how good, will never get you a job. What it will do, however, is get you an interview. Once you're in the door and talking with them face-to-face, you can impress them with your grasp of the important issues that face their company, and let them know how you are uniquely qualified to help them solve their problems.

Instant Resume Templates has dozens of resume templates for you to download, customize, and send off to potential employers. They're all available as DOC files, so you can customize them with Microsoft Word or any other tool that can edit DOC files. With resumes designed for professional, business, or academic settings, there's sure to be one that will help you to land that job. Whether it's basic resumes, chronological resumes, or even informal resumes, all you need to do is to download one of the templates, fill it in with your information and qualifications, and send it off to your next employer. It's not time to open the Champagne just yet, but who knows…

Instant Resume Templates is a free service. You can grab the templates with any web browser, and edit them with a Microsoft Word-compatible word processing program.

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Mom just got a new computer. Dad just upgraded to a new operating system. Kids at school can't figure out how to tweak their systems to work the the college's network. Sound familiar? And what about the panicked phone call asking you in all your glorious geekiness to fix their problem. Sure, you can try to talk them through the process, but what about the "picture worth a thousand words" thing? Wouldn't it be easier if you could just turn the crank for them, or at least watch over their shoulder while they do the work?

TeamViewer allows you to share a computer desktop, and even to drive a system by remote control. Now instead of having to rely on repeatedly asking the "what do you see now?" question, you can actually see what is happening on the remote system in real time.

TeamViewer is free for personal, non-commercial use. It is available for both Mac and Windows systems.

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You're a pretty savvy guy (or gal). You've got the latest gizmos, and you're not afraid to use them. You don't carry your laptop with you everywhere you go—you just grab your USB drive and use that to shuttle data from here to there. You're on top of the world.

Until you come back home. Take that thumb drive, plug it into your desktop or laptop system, and then start looking. Where the heck is it? You've got to fire up Windows Explorer and then start hunting for that drive. Not if you use Desk Drive.

Desk Drive is a cool little application that puts an icon on your desktop that automatically points to your portable drive. Plug the drive in, and the icon appears; eject the drive, and the icon goes away. You can also use it with other removable media like CD-ROMs, or even network drives, so you'll always have a clear indication as to which devices are mounted, and you'll be able to get to them pronto, without having to dig through Explorer.

Desk Drive is a free Windows application. It requires WinXP or later, and requires version 2.0 of the .NET Framework.

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So you've got a huge picture that you want to make into a poster, but don't have a huge piece of paper to print it on? How about a smaller image that you want to blow up into a larger-format piece? Not so easy if your printer only handles 8 1/2 x 11 paper.

PosteRazor can help you solve this problem. It takes your picture and chops it up into page-sized pieces and outputs it all as a PDF file. Take your favorite picture and make a wall-sized image from it. In fact, you can blow it up to over 15 feet if you want to. Choose your method: absolute image size to specify the end result, size in pages (to specify how many pieces of paper you want involved with your project), or image size percent to scale your image by some specific factor.

It supports most of the usual suspects in terms of image formats (BMP, GIF, PNG, PSD, TIFF, etc.) and colors from monochrome to 48-bit RGB and 32-bit CMYK. You can set how much each tile page overlaps with its neighbors, to allow you to get cleaner edges when you paste pages together.

PosteRazor is available for Linux, Mac, and Windows systems, or you can geek-out and grab the source code and build it yourself.

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Planet eBook is a great way to grab electronic versions of many works of classic literature. They've got dozens of great works of literature that you can download for free. These volumes are items that the copyright has lapsed on (George Orwell's 1984), or works that are in the public domain (Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol). they run the gamut from Grimms Fairy Tales and Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment and Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche.

All of these eBooks are free to download and use in whatever way you see fit, as long as you don't make any changes to then and you don't charge anybody for using them. Read them yourselves, share them with friends, burn them to CD, print them and distribute them to your English Lit class, just go nuts with these selections. There is no sign-up required to download any of the titles, and if you've got a suggestion for additional books to publish, they're more than eager to hear from you. They've got a mailing list, so you can be notified when new volumes are added to their library.

Planet eBook is a free service. All titles are downloaded as PDF files, so you need Adobe Reader or any other tool that can open and read PDF files.

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Could you stand to lose a few pounds? Everybody's concerned about weight control, but it's not always easy to get all the nutrition information you need to make informed choices about what to eat and how much to eat.

CRON-O-Meter is dieting software, but it's designed with a specific purpose in mind. Calorie Reduced diets are based on a theory that dramatically curtailing caloric intake may have a beneficial effect, beyond that of merely losing weight for an "overweight" person. Because of restrictions in food intake of these types of diets, it is even more important that proper nutrition is maintained, with a good mix of vitamins, minerals, and protein incorporated into the diet.

Incorporating data for over 7000 individual foods, CRON-O-Meter can help you to make good choices to reduce your intake while at the same time making sure you still get the nutrition you need. A recipe editor allows you to add your own creations to the stock information provided. It also includes tools to track your weight, blood pressure, and other vital personal statistics.

While this application is aimed at Calorie Reduced diets, you may find it helpful with plain old "I've got to lose a few pounds" diets as well. And as with any weight reduction program, you should check with your doctor or other medical professional before starting any program that could affect your health.

CRON-O-Meter is a Java application, so it will run under Linux, Macintosh, or Windows operating systems.

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