We’ve written a lot about protecting your computer while browsing the Internet, and now we thought it was a good time to cover an application that quite a few of you have recommended.

While online applications have turned into the next “big thing,” taking them offline seems to be just as big. ThinkFree has just announced that they are taking their Online Office Suite Offline with ThinkFree Premium Edition.

Google is taking applications offline with a new project called Gears. It’s an open source browser extension that’s available for Internet Explorer or Firefox that enables online applications to come offline. The first example of this is Google Reader. For Opera and Safari users, they’re workin’ on it, but it’s not quite ready yet.

The Desktop Window Manager introduced with Windows Vista has opened the doors for developers to create a lot of great applications for those running Vista with Aero enabled. One of the best applications that I’ve come across so far that takes complete advantage of DWM is called Switcher.

Zimbra has launched their Desktop Web 2.0 Application for download, and what’s special about it is that it offers both online and offline functionality which means you can work no matter where you are.

I've had several people email me in the past week telling me what a great application Launchy is, and I realized that which is why I wrote about it back in September of 2006.

Paint.NET is an photo and image editor that is about as feature intensive as you can get while still keeping it a fast (and light) application.

Last week I wrote an article on freeware applications that let you arrange your windows in a more organized, and productive fashion. Then in the comments Everton mentioned an application that he found that lets you minimize windows to the System Tray.

A few weeks ago I started a topic in the forum asking what the first few programs are that you install on your Windows PC. It was fun to read the posts so I thought it was finally time for an article on it that summarizes your responses.

It seems inevitable that PC's easily get full of clutter and junk whether it be from the user or from applications that don't properly install/uninstall themselves. I reformat my computer every two months or so just to keep things tidy and running quickly but it doesn't hurt to do some maintenance from time to time.