Here is a list of my favourite tools I use to enhance my computer experience.

1.        FolderShare - lets you synchronise folders between multiple computers. If you’re like me a have multiple computers at work, home and on the road this will be one of the best applications you download. This is one of my favourite tools, it is so simple and unobtrusive.  You save into a local folder and it uploads onto all computers.

2.        Klipfolio – This cool little toy is an RSS feed aggregator. It is a desktop dashboard that gives you instant access to all your RSS feeds. Look at feeds such as Digg, Reddit, SlashDot, MyEbay, Weather and Dilbert. I have all my information feeding directly to my computer. It is digital utopia. 

3.        Knoppix - Knoppix is a CD/DVD bootable Linux OS. A few minutes after booting you will have a fully functional computer system with all of the most common applications you can think of. It is great for system recovery.

4.        PSPad - This is my notepad on steroids, there is a few around. It is a text editor with all the features you need for coding. Syntax Highlighting, Document Change Comparison and fast to load.

5.        OneNote 2007 - OneNote is one of my favourite desktop enhancements. All around offices you see people with post it notes and noted pads people use for writing quick notes. I always wanted a digital notepad and OneNote is the answer. No more notepads for me. It sits in your tray until you need it. There is no need to save files, just open it up and type a quick note. You can also use Alt-S to take a screen shot of a selected area. OneNote 2007 automatically performs OCR on screen shots.

6.        SlickRun - I found slickrun to be a great replacement for the run command. It is the best windows launcher around. You can basically setup shortcuts/alias to applications. In the options you can map this to your run command. For example I can setup an alias to run IE7, once it is setup I hit Start-R and type ‘ie’ and IE7 is launched.

7.        Google Desktop - Google desktop is a great application that index’s your whole computer including Files, Emails and Network Directories. If you have ever used the search in windows/outlook you will know that it is painfully slow.

8.        PowerShellAnalyzer – A great IDE for the new windows CLI. If you do not know what PS is read my article at http://gazeek.com/programming/part-1-introduction-to-windows-powershell-move-over-bash.html

9.        Parallels Desktop for Mac – The best virtual machine for running windows under intel macs

10.      Quicksilver – Is the best application launcher ever designed. It is fast, feature rich and user friendly. If only it was available on windows as well as OS X.