IrfanView: Great for beginners and experienced users, IrfanView is a freeware graphic viewer that has many unique and interesting features. This application supports a plethora of file types including Adobe Photoshop filters. For the incredible price of free, it’s hard to find a better option for the last majority of your photo needs (pictured above).

VirtuaWin: The vast majority of us no longer work in one application at a time. All too often we find ourselves switching between a few browser windows, an email client, photo editing software, and maybe even word processing documents. If this is the case using VirtuaWin to create virtual desktops is a great solution. Similar to Spaces on Mac, VirtuaWin gives you up to 9 virtual desktops to help reduce clutter on your screen.

Fences: On your PC the desktop tends to get cluttered rather quickly. While some go out of there way to keep their desktops clear, for most this isn’t practical. Instead of trying to remove everything from the desktop, use Fences to keep everything organized. Fences helps you create logical groups of the different icons floating around your desktop.

Force Empty Trash: If you use your computer long enough, you will inevitably run into the problem where you can’t empty your trash because a file is supposedly in use. If you have seen this then you know the frustration that it brings. Fortunately there a nifty little program called Force Empty Trash that overrides your system to empty the trash. Just make sure you know what is in there and that you are not trying to delete important system files.

Alfred: An incredibly useful productivity tool, Alfred allows for you to navigate and search your Mac as well as web apps within seconds. Alfred also allows for quick keyboard shortcuts to increase the speed at which you can navigate your machine. A great replacement for Quicksilver and Spotlight, Alfred is one of the best productivity tools available for Mac.

Laundry: Desktop backgrounds help set your computer apart and give it a unique style. Unfortunately, no matter how awesome your background image, after a while it becomes old and boring. Instead of letting this happen, liven up your desktop by using Laundry to rotate your desktop background in predetermined intervals. Laundry is able to pull from RSS feeds or even from Flickr to keep your desktop images lively and exciting.

Flickroom (Windows, Mac, Linux): Unlike GeeMail, Flickroom does not mimic the user interface of its web app counterpart. Instead, Flickroom takes an opportunity to enhance and redefine the user interface for Flickr. Just like Flickr, you can view and search for photos, but Flickroom adds a nifty and well designed photo stream for enhanced viewing. With Flickroom you have all of the functionality of Flickr on the web with an enhanced and redesigned interface.

GeeMail (Windows, Mac, Linux): Needless to say there are a lot of GMail users out there. And while having your email in the cloud is great when you are not at your own computer, its always nice to have a native client that doesn’t require sorting through multiple tabs just to find your email. GeeMail is a free application that gives Gmail a home one the desktop. With zero configuration and the same user interface as the web based version of Gmail, this desktop app is sure to be a hit for any avid email user. Also, with offline support, no need to remember to send that draft later. Hit send while offline and next time you have a connection, GeeMail will automatically send your email for you.

NoteSync (Windows, Mac Linux): Google Docs is great for storing documents in the cloud. But if you want to just take a quick note and save it to your Google Docs for later it s a pain. Typically you have to log in to open your browser, login to you Google Account, and go to Docs before uploading or typing what was supposed to be a quick note. With NoteSync you can now quickly open up your native app, type the note, and then it automatically syncs to your Google Docs for viewing and editing later.

Desktop apps that are extensions of your favorite web apps can be very useful and powerful. If you have a website that you would love to use as a desktop app then check out Fluid or Mozilla Prism for a quick and easy way to create native apps.

By Jesse Leikin.

DropTunes: Playing audio files from your Dropbox account is already something that can be done. However, DropTunes takes the pain out of clicking each individual file and creates playlists from the music folders that you store in your Dropbox. Additionally, DropTunes give you a nice user interface to adjust volume, pause, and even click forward and back tracks.

Host A Website: One of the more clever ways to use Dropbox is as a free hosting service. All you have to do is copy an HTML file into the Public folder of your Dropbox. Once you do this, right click with the mouse on the file and select “Copy Public Link.” Now you can paste the web address into the browser and you now have a live website hosted for free. This is a great way to test simple sites before investing in a real host. And if this simple Dropbox site is enough, then you can simply purchase a domain name and forward the address to the link for easier to remember URLs.

DROPitTOme: If you ever need to receive file that are too large to email, then DROPitTOme is a perfect solution for you. All you need to do is give somebody the custom URL and the password encryption (if you choose) and they will be able to upload large files directly to your Dropbox. No more having to deal with email attachment limits. You know have your own private server that people can upload important files to.

By Jesse Leikin

1. Run a default virus scan: Deep virus scans are thorough, but if you have a lot of data, they can take a lot of time. They can last anywhere from a few hours to over a day, so use the default level scan unless you really want every nook and cranny of your machine scanned.

2. Free up space on your hard drive: The more data the virus scanner has to check, the longer the scan will take. Delete anything you don’t need, and try to keep the apps to a minimum.

3. Run scans selectively: Instead of scanning all of your hard drives, program your software to scan only one hard drive per scan. The other hard drives can be scheduled for scans on other days. That way, you are only scanning one hard drive per scheduled virus checkup.

4. Run scans on your main hard drives: If you use a multiple USB hard drives which aren’t plugged in all of the time, then you can keep scan time to a minimum by running the scans only on your main hard drive. Periodically, you should scan also those hard drives, say every two to three weeks.

5. Pause your scan: Start your scan when you go to bed on a week night, pause it when you get up if you have to use the computer, then start it up again once you leave for work. This gives your computer time to scan pretty much everything.

By Range.

(Image: HD Free Wallpapers)

It started where it always does, with me wishing for more time. Since 24 hours a day is all any of us get, I’d need to be more efficient. Enter RescueTime, software that records, in a very Big Brotherish way, where you spend your time on your computer. As you use Word or Excel, shop at zappos.com, or play Farmville on Facebook, RescueTime is running in the background, mercilessly recording ever minute of it.

Initially I thought it was cool. The very first day, RescueTime awarded me a blue ribbon and told me I was in the top two percent of users—oh, the rush! But it turned out I hadn’t properly launched the program the day before, and those stellar results were only for the previous five minutes.

I have several computers I use throughout the day for different projects. Every time I returned to the computer on which I’d installed the software, RescueTime demanded to know where I’d been. The default responses include “Leisure” and “Other work” and the program allows you to customize. (I created a category called “Doggy management,” since I have a high maintenance dog.)

Often it was tough to be accurate. On a normal day, I might be away from my main computer for four hours, during which I’ve worked on a client’s project, thrown meat in the crock pot, and played tennis. There’s no way to log those activities individually, unless you remember to return to your computer between each one.

Furthermore, I sometimes found myself responding to the constant “where have you been, young lady?” like a recalcitrant teenager, clicking on the “None of your business (don’t log this time)” button, even when the time had been spent productively. While this tactic was personally gratifying, it did not help my productivity score.

To its credit, RescueTime did curtail my Facebook habit. I work alone and Facebook is to me what the water cooler is to office workers. RescueTime noticed when I lingered there too long (something you can set in the preferences) and notified me. I learned how to go to Facebook, skim my friends’ status updates, comment on a few, and leave. No more disappearing down the rabbit hole!

That worked great until a friend emailed me a link to Superwolf Ogles, a Facebook page written by a cat who is in an open relationship and has political leanings (Meo-ism).

Impossible to resist, right? I took a quick peek. Soon I was looking at a picture of a young woman named Steffani sitting on the Great Wall of China, and then at wedding photos of another complete stranger.

RescueTime waggled its Big Brother finger at me, but, already on my way to the video clip of Jim and Pam’s wedding dance (on “The Office”), I just sneered. The only one who can rescue my time is still me.