A quicker free word processor is Abiword, and there is always Google Docs.

I’ve used PE for some time now and only just realized it was acquired by MS and had an upgrade. I upgraded to 10.21. As I opened the program I heard my PC running like it was putting all of its energy into opening and running PE. I opened Windows Task Manager and it showed PE’s PEAK MEM USAGE as the highest, at 382,588k and its MEM USAGE as 43,632k (still, after running PE for 15 min). I never noticed this before with my prior version (which I still have, thankfully). With V9.25, the WIN TM shows PE’s PEAK MEM at 14,600k and MEM USAGE at 14,536k. For such a small program that allows one to (among other uses) control MEM usage, it’s ironic that it uses HIGH MEM itself.

I have read other posts and do not see. NET on my PC. In fact I am sure I uninstalled it recently.

http://revision3.com/forum/showthread.php?t=234

However, for ’simple’ Tif & Jpg editing i use and recommend paint.net!

Nice GUI, short load time, ACDSee-like interface and working way, hundred of filters like crop, resize, brightness, etc.

And the best feature IMHO is batch processing, perfect for batch resize, rename or anything else. An AWESOME program.

For all what I dislike M’$oft, Word and Excel are very fast. I still happily use the Office 97 components where I could remove the splash screens! For my purposes I have yet to find a reason to upgrade. There might be cheap second hand copies of Office 97 for sale (completely legal!).

Generally google for the program with program name, and if need be authorname and other sensible keywords). Few URLs are given.

1. First of all you need a decent file manager: try xplorer2 (includes FTP client)

2. You will need Un/Zipping various formats: try 7zip

3. You always need System Info Details when you dont have documentation handy: Try “System Info for Windows” by (Gabriel Topala)

4. For Images I use IrfanView. For more editing I use a fast, pre-bloatware version of Paint Shop Pro (up to V. 7), which is powerful for almost everything. I don’t know of any fast and capeable freeware raster graphics editor.

On my system Image double-click is IrvanView, right-click “Edit” is PSP 7.

- For Powerful Graphics Editing: try the Gimp!

- For Vector-Graphic: try Inkscape

- For lossless JPEG manipulations: try JPEGCrops

5. To set file associations painlessly but with plenty of power: Try “WAssociate”

6. If you want to burn fast: try DeepBurner

7. If you want to check CDs/DVDs: try CDCheck (http://www.kvipu.com/CDCheck/)

8. For fuss-free and fast viewing of fonts (installed or not): try The Font Thing

9. For FAST Adobe Acrobat doc Viewing: try Foxit Reader

10. An excellent Notepad replacement is included with xplorer2 – if you need syntax highlighting try bloat free Notepad2

11. As standby Hex-Editor: try mirkes.de tiny hexer

12. For playing mp3s/Oggs in the background try the fast TrayPlayer (it basically does only this, but very well – what media players in general is concerned, all of them seem to be bloated crap, or have extremely crappy interfaces!)

13. Instead of the good Thunderbird you might want to try Foxmail as alternative mail client!

14. As a small footprint instant messaging client: try Miranda IM

15. As dictionary try “WordWeb”

16. For a multitude of functionalities try “PowerPro” (http://powerpro.webeddie.com/)

this is one small download for:
- Virtual Desktops
- Keyboard/Mouse Shortcuts
- Past from Clip Collection
- disable Shift key
- Windows on top or not
- Launchbars (which I generally don’t use)
- and tons and tons more

Needs some intelligence to set up.

17. If you need to know time-zones, etc.: try “WorldTime from Pawprint

18. If you need virtual CD/DVD drives: try Virtual Clone Drive from SlySoft

19. As downloadmanager: “Down them all” for Firefox, or FlashGet (for free now!)

20. For a graphical overview of your harddrive: contents try “SequoiaView” (far more useful, than this toy seems to be in the beginning!)

21. As a better Task Manager: try SysInternals Process Explorer

22. Configurable OnScreen Clock: try Digital Timepiece.

23. Complete set of functionalities with regards to measuring stuff on your screen: Meazure

24. It might be from Microsoft, but it is free and also very helpful for many often requested tweaking tasks: TweakUI !

(Tip: once you have done the idiotic Microsoft install routine, u can use the file TweakUI.exe forthwith and transfer it to different computers without requiring any installation – you can even place it wherever you want)

25. Finally, my contribution to the Browser War:

- Opera works better out of box, offers more for users that do not want fiddle around a lot but like to have a broad set of capeabilities without fuss.

- Firefox is for tweakers who want to bring out the best of their browser by adding sensibly selected Extensions

This was my 25 cents worth of freeware sense. I hope it helped some ;)

Find+Run Robot:
http://www.donationcoder.com/Software/Mouser/findrun/index.html

Process Tamer:
http://www.donationcoder.com/Software/Mouser/proctamer/index.html

Screenshot Captor:
http://www.donationcoder.com/Software/Mouser/screenshotcaptor/index.html

URL Snooper:
http://www.donationcoder.com/Software/Mouser/urlsnooper/index.html

Thank you.

L.

I’ve a addition: i always used irfanview, but after i discovered faststone image viewer i barely use irfanview any more. Only for quick viewing (doubleclick) i use irfanview. For other tasks (like cropping: faststone is marvelous!) i recommend faststone.

At least, give it a try.

As a photographer i shoot a lot of raw. IrfanView is the fastest, and second is faststone.