Software

I confess to being something of a software junkie. When I bought a new computer in summer 2006, I was horrified to diescover over 50 programs that I use on a regular basis, all of which had to be reinstalled. I have all the standard programs -- Word, Word Perfect, Adobe Photoshop, Dragon, etc. But there are other, more obscure, software programs which I'm addicted to. After continually writing to friends about this or that program, I've decided to include some of them here, along with links to their sites if people want to download, and promise to keep this site updated as new programs come to my attention. Some, such as DT Search or Abbyy Finereader, are expensive but well worth the price, but the majority are fairly cheap.

• Abbyy Finereader: an OCR program I never see discussed, far better than OmniPage at reading text, including from over 25 languages.
• Beyond Compare: compares files or folders side by side. Excellent synchronization, especially across multiple directories, but Word's ability to compare versions of individual files is more useful.
• ClipMate: Can keep track of literally hundreds of things you've cut, and paste them into virtually any application, regardless how many cuts and pastes you've made since then. This gets mixed reviews. It's handy, but if I load it at startup the machine takes a long time to boot, and on my computer I have to exit it before shutting down if I want a clean shutdown.
• DTSearch: Takes a few minutes to index your disk, then can find any text, anywhere on the disk, in a matter of seconds. Can also be used to index websites.
• Foxit PDF Reader: an Adobe Acrobat Reader lookalike that permits you to edit PDF files (and fill in text for forms) and copy portions of the document. Also loads very quickly The free version doesn't require installation, but also doesn't let you save changed pdf form. The $39.95 pro version is installed in windows, and has more capabilities, including saving forms.
• Image Rescue: Can recover images from memory cards, even if the card's been formatted or there's been an error on the card. Not foolproof -- using a card I'd just formatted, it found 220 images, but could only recover 24. Better than nothing, and great if you catch the problem it quickly. NB: they speak of Compact Flash -- but it works on all memory cards.
• Snagit: by far the best screen capture program I've found. Has graphics manipulators, can capture scrolling windows, even converts text-based graphics (such as directories) to editable ascii text.
• Startease: this Windows Start Menu add-on is a little dream, listing all the programs on your computer alphabetically, making it easy to locate the program you want. I resisted installing this for several weeks, worried about losing my normal Start menu, but it exists side by side and seems to know its place. Available from PC Magazine's untility menu for a small charge.
• Word Menu: an innovative means of finding the right word, unlike anything else I've seen.
• Word Web Pro: a small memory-resident program which provides a dictionary and thesaurus, and more. An very useful add-in can be purchased which gives anagrams, proper names, movies, scrabble words, medical and horticultural dictionaries, etc.