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If you need to move files across the Internet, you need FTP. FTP—File Transfer Protocol—is popularly used as both the name of conduit via which you upload and download files from your local machine, and as the program you use to accomplish this, more properly an FTP Client. (The FTP server is what is at the other end of the connection.)

When you upload new pages to your web site, you're using FTP to get them there. When you're downloading media files from many locations, you're using FTP to get them back here.

Prompt FTP Client is a tool that can help make your FTP file transfers run more smoothly. It boasts an easy-to-use connection wizard, making it easy to configure, so you can get on with your files, rather than having to spend a lot of time on the care and feeding of the tool. It also features an integrated editor that lets you edit remote pages without having to download them and them upload them again.

Prompt FTP Client is a Windows application.

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Sometimes you've just got to stop. You know the drill: you're running some app that's going to do great things, you get all set up to run it, you press the button, and then you see that you didn't check the right box, or it's going to overwrite some important data with its result files, or some other calamity-in-the-making. And of course, this app is now grabbing all kinds of system resources and making it impossible to press the "cancel" button. In these desperate times, desperate measures are called for.

KillBox may be the tool you wish you had. Its purpose in life is to help you delete in-use files. It does this by killing their associated processes and then deleting the files. In some cases, such as DLLs or services, even it can't delete those files directly; it will, however, set them for Windows' "delete on reboot", so that Windows itself will rid your system of them on the next restart.

KillBox is a Windows application.

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Everybody's got a blog these days. You do, I do, your grandma does. While the technology has come a long way, the various blogging platforms aren't necessarily the easiest thing in the world to work with. This may or may not cause a problem for you and me, but it definitely might get in grandma's way.

BlogDesk is a tool that helps to minimize the time and pain involved in posting to your blog. Running as an offline client, it lets you write your posts, format them, and even include images. Posting to multiple blogs? No need to re-enter your text: you can publish your posts to multiple blogs. And BlogDesk understands many of the most popular platforms, so your posts will conform with their individual idiosyncrasies. With a WYSIWYG editor, you'll never have to struggle again with HTML markup in your posts, although you do have the option of tweaking things manually to get them "just right."

BlogDesk is a Windows application. It runs under any flavor from Win98 up through Vista.

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Archive files are a handy way to deal with multiple files, or with bulky documents, allowing you to store a lot of data in a relatively smaller space. By taking advantage of clever algorithms that compress your data, you can pack a lot of punch into a small space.

Zipeg is a file compression and archive tool that helps make it easy to archive your data, or to retrieve data from archive files. It supports an alphabet full of file formats, including ZIP, TAR, RAR, GZIP, ISO, and a whole host of others. You can look inside of archives without unpacking them, so you can verify that you've got the right one, before expanding it onto your system. Not only do you get a chance to examine the file list, but you can even open individual files in your applications—look at an image in Preview, for example.

Unlike many archive tools, Zipeg keeps track of Mac-only meta data, such as resource forks, file permissions, and Finder attributes. You won't lose anything by archiving your Mac files.

Zipeg is available for Mac as a Universal Binary, meaning that it will run under 10.3.9 or later. You can also grab the Windows version, which runs under XP and Vista.,

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Backups are a good thing. Whether it's your critical data, or some interesting tool that you downloaded that isn't available any more, it's always good to have a copy of your important "stuff" tucked away in a safe place.

One approach is to write down a list of what you've got, and try to make sure you remembered everything when you back things up. Another approach is to just squirrel-away a copy of your system's whole hard drive. That's a big pile of stuff, but at least you know you haven't forgotten anything.

Reflect is a disk imaging tool for XP and Vista. With its built-in scheduler, you can set it up to create backups on a regular schedule, making it harder for you to "forget" to take care of business. Images can be saved off to network drives, DVDs, or removable drives (USB and FireWire). Images can be password-protected for the security of your data.

Reflect is a Windows tool, and is available for both 32-bit and 64-bit platforms.

Download Macrium Reflect

More recent versions of Windows and Microsoft Office incorporate Outlook-style buttons in their file dialogs called the "PlacesBar". It's a way to navigate quickly around your hard drive, with links to locations like "My Documents" and "My Computer". It might be handy to be able to add to this list, and create the links you really want here, so that Windows and Office work the way you do.

Placesbar Editor lets you configure and tweak the entries in the PlacesBar, and to do so easily. While you could probably go in and mess with the Registry, you always put your system at risk whenever you break the metaphorical seal with "no user serviceable parts inside" printed on it. You can do some amazing things with the proper Registry tweaks; you can also brick your computer pretty fast, too.

PlacesBar Editor lets you configure the places that will appear in the PlacesBar. If you're always jumping off to this directory or that one, why not be able to go there directly? Whether it's downloads, a folder full of your latest project, or even just the Favorites folder, you can choose how to make those buttons work. And don't worry about breaking anything: a simple push of a button restores the system to its default state, so you can start again.

Placesbar Editor is a Windows application. It's compatible with Windows 2000 and later, and also works with Office 2000 and beyond.

Download Placesbar Editor

Have you ever needed to convert some media file to another format? It might be images, audio files, or some video thing. There are just so many different formats, and most applications are limited in the formats that they support. Having an all-in-one solution might come in handy.

SUPER, the Simplified Universal Player Encoder & Renderer, claims to be just such a solution. With a huge number of different formats supported, it shouldn't require Herculean effort any more to convert between any of the supported formats. All the necessary codecs are built in, so you can spend your time converting files, instead of looking around for more plug-ins and add-ons to really make the software work for you. You can even rip video files to audio, grabbing the sound for your MP3 player.

SUPER, the Simplified Universal Player Encoder & Renderer, is a Windows app, and it's compatible with most systems.

Download SUPER, the Simplified Universal Player Encoder & Renderer

Is bigger always better? Sure, sometimes having all the bells and whistles at your beck and call is a good thing. The latest kitchen gadget slices and dices; heck, it's a floor wax and a dessert topping! But what if you need simplicity? Less may be the way to go.

Off By One is a web browser that seeks to be less. It is smaller, less complicated, and faster than almost any other graphic browser out there. It doesn't support Flash, JavaScript, or other cutting-edge technologies. It's really only HTML 3.2 compliant, but what it lacks in bloat, it more than makes up for in speed and small size. It's compact enough that you can run it from a USB drive or CD-ROM, or even over a network. It doesn't require installation, so you don't have junk strewn all across your system. It's entirely self-contained, so you don't heed to have IE installed or anything like that.

You can easily tweak User-Agent information and dump cookies, so your anonymity is enhanced. SSL support is included, so you can visit HTTPS pages. You won't be plagued by pop-ups and junk, because they just aren't supported here.

Off By One is a Windows application. It will run under any system beginning with Windows 95.

Download Off By One

What happens to your computer when you walk away from it? Nosy neighbors coming over to take a peek? Music just keeps playing? Here's a quick and easy way to put an end to all that.

USB PC Lock Pro is a little application that makes your USB drive into a key that locks your PC when you unplug it. Plug it in, and everything runs like usual; unplug it and you effectively lock your computer, including MSN Messenger, stop streaming audio, mute your speakers, and all that. Now you don't have to remember to do all those things individually, or worse yet, just forget them all and hope for the best.

USB PC Lock Pro is a Windows application. And of course, you need a USB drive as well.

Download USB PC Lock Pro

It's a busy world out there. Whether it's submitting your expense report, getting the kids to soccer, or backing up your hard drive, there is no lack of things to remember to do. The problem is, with that many things to remember, it can be easy to lose track of things, and nobody benefits from that. You need a reminder that will help you remember all the stuff you're responsible for.

Kana Reminder may be just the tool for you. Along with being able to remind you of things on an hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly basis, it goes one better. Not content to just pop-up a reminder, you can actually do things with Kana Reminder. Need to run a backup on Friday afternoon? Why not have the reminder actually do that. You can run apps on a schedule, so that routine things like backups can be automated. In addition, you can schedule system events as well–log off, shutdown, reboot–they can all be scheduled in advance. You can set Kana Reminder to start with Windows, so it's always there, watching your schedule for you. Reminder windows can auto dismiss after a specified time, so you don't feel like you're being nagged. And they can be password-protected, so just because a reminder pops-up on your system, not everybody in the office needs to know what you're being reminded of.

Kana Reminder is a Windows application. It's designed to run under most any flavor of Windows from Win9x on up.

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