File Managers like Microsoft Explorer ?

For sure: Total Commander.

Short message. That tool is simply great. Much better than Microsoft Explorer (Exploder).
It can do most of the simple tasks you need (from compressing, to FTP, encoding/decoding MIME and UUE, and support plugins).

Very stable, and light weight. Nothing else you need.

A MUST HAVE. It is a shareware. But you can live with it for years. Although I recommend supporting the guys there, they deserve it.

Get it here: Total Commander

Alarms and Clocks

It is almost embarrassing how we might be sitting by our PC then we turn to the cell phone to adjust the alarm.... right ? Here I will suggest a few freeware applets that release us from this bad feeling :)

One might say, Well Microsoft Outlook can do that for me. May be (not all features however). But it is bloated. End of discussion.


First: what are the features that are really valuable?

1. Working. Really rings when I want it.
   
2. Spyware free (general features)
   
3. Adware free (general features)
   
4. Able to Wake the machine up from a sleep (If it can't wake the machine, no way I will wake up)
   
5. Customizable to play MP3s or whatever. (If can run applications as well, that will be great, but the scheduler can do that)
   

I found several of those without item 4. For me that's the most important.
For example:

• Speed Up Alarm
  
• Alarm by bluefive.pair.com
  
• And many others: can find a bunch of them at http://www.softplatz.com/freeware/alarm-clock/
  
• Alarm Me (v3.3) 600K in all, Contains Timer, Coutndown, Diary, Keeps birthdates, bla bla. DOES NOT WAKE the machine up. But the interface is quite poor.
  
• Great Budget Alarm Clock Elite: Mainly for organizing your work day. But it is essentially an alarm. DOES NOT WAKE the machine up.
  

Anyhow Indulge yourself in the list over here:

http://www.topshareware.com/guide/hot/alarm.htm

Send us which one is the most capable.

Welcome All

There a lot of blogs, websites, etc dedicated for software reviews. Here, we focus only on simple things. Quick reviews: Good/Bad kind of reviews with short comments.

Many minor tweaks a computer can do that will turn his machine upside down and give it a huge performance and style boost. This is the type of things we are talking about. And as far as I am concerned, all my suggestions will be free :)

So, come on guys (and gals of course), tell me what you made to your machine that makes you worth being called a geek :)