This app didn't impress me.

To upload a file, you can't just drag & drop it from a file window. You can't even copy and paste the file's path. No, you must pick your way through the app's tiny folder-tree. Every time.

And when you finally find the file you want to upload, you can't drag it from there onto the server window, either---nor can you even right-click the file, then click "Upload". You must use a toolbar button, or type "Ctrl U".

Sorry. This is an old-fashioned app.

Wow, this is the best defragmenter I've ever seen---and it's free. What a gift!

It's very fast (much faster than Windows' defragmenter---but then, what isn't?). And despite the "beta" designation, I've found it reliable and effective.

The most remarkable thing about Defraggler is how it lets you select and defragment specific files, not just entire drives or partitions. So, for example, if you have some huge video files, you can defragment everything EXCEPT those. Then you don't have to sit around waiting for giant files to be moved around.

The file selection process is very easy: You can sort the file list by name, file size, and even number of fragments (so, if you wish, you can defragment only the files that need it most).

You can use the handy checkboxes to select or unselect files, or use the usual Windows methods for selecting multiple files: hold Ctrl and click to add or remove selections; or click one file, hold Shift, then click another file to select a range of adjoining files. You can also right-click the list to use several handy selection commands.

Well, I'm babbling, aren't I? But I'm just excited about this great free app. I hope you'll try it!

KeyNote has many, many great features---but even if you use only its most basic features, you'll find it's a wonderful, easy-to-use Personal Info Manager (PIM) that outclasses most of its non-free competitors.

KeyNote's most outstanding feature may be the way it lets you keep multiple outline "trees" in the same file.

Most PIMs limit you to a single outline at a time. I don't know about you, but I have way too much info for that! If I had to keep everything in one outline, it would be gigantic, and I'd spend all day scrolling around looking for things. (Sure, I could create outlines as separate files, but I'd have to open each one whenever I needed it... Come on, guys, this is the 21st century!)

When you add another outline to your KeyNote file, it appears on its own tab, like webpages in a multi-tab browser. This lets you divide your info into major categories (for example, Personal, Work, To Do, Media, PC Stuff), each with its own outline. It's so convenient having EVERYTHING in one file, so easily accessible!

KeyNote is quite stable, too. I've used it for years and have never lost any data. If you're paranoid, though, you can set it to keep backups of the last "x" versions of your data (and "x" is up to you).

IMHO, KeyNote is one of the best free apps around---and one of the best PIMs, free or otherwise.

P.S.: The previous reviewer was disappointed that KeyNote files got too big when he or she added images to them. PIMs are primarily for storing text-based data, not images (that's why they call them "information" managers). You can add images to KeyNote, but that's not really what it was designed for. It's much more practical and efficient to keep your images as separate files, and use an image manager (like Picasa, also free) to organize and view them.

I'm sure this is quite a capable app, if you can manage to understand it. Unfortunately, it's quite unintuitive, and the Help and tutorial are awkwardly-written and full of errors. I admire Info Handler's lone developer for being so ambitious---but it's rare to find one person who understands programming, usability, *and* documentation enough to produce such a complex app that doesn't baffle 90% of the people who try it.

Wow! This easy-to-use, easy-to-understand program makes the bloated Acrobat Reader 7 load lightning-fast, by temporarily deactivating the dozens of unnecessary special feature plug-ins that most people never need. It includes explanations of what each plug-in does so you can easily decide whether to deactivate it or not. And of course you can undo your changes at any time. Highly recommended.

It's very slow. I had to wait for pages to render, even on a fast PC. You can't set the zoom; viewing size is limited to (too) small or (too) big (in my opinion). It doesn't support the standard PDF keyboard shortcuts. Foxit Reader is much better---it too is free and needs no setup, but it's much faster and has more features.

This be a useful app. I found it could open some RAR files that other programs couldn't. Be warned, though---there are some very strange things about it.

First, you can't run it like a normal program. Instead, it adds commands to your Windows context menu and can be accessed only from there.

And when you run it, it hides itself from Task Manager and other process monitors. So if something goes wrong, you can't kill it.

Sound creepy? I'm just getting started. Here's why I've decided not to use this program anymore.

Tonight I used it to open a RAR file (containing some fonts, no programs). It went into an endless loop and showed an error message I couldn't close. I couldn't kill its process, of course, so I restarted Windows XP.

But when I logged back on, ICEOWS was STILL running, and still stuck. (Does this mean it actually RUNS each time you log on? If so, it does so secretly---the startup utilities I use never showed it.)

I quit Windows again, rebooted in Safe Mode, and uninstalled ICEOWS. When I rebooted in normal mode, my anti-virus program wouldn't start! I had to uninstall and reinstall that, too.

Sorry. Too weird for me.