There is something nice about finding an application that focuses on doing one thing, and doing that thing very well. That's how I feel about the Default Programs Editor app. It accomplishes a task I feel should be better managed in Windows itself, but with this no-install/portable program I start to forget about this shortcoming in Windows.

I don't reboot my computer that often because it can be a bit inconvenient, and sometimes I go weeks without having restarted it. My reasoning is typically that I have too many apps open and don't feel like restarting them all, but other times it's because I'm on the way out the door and just throw my machine in standby so that it is ready for me when I go to use it again.

Evernote is one of my most used applications on all my machines and mobile devices because it has all of the data I access on a regular basis. One of the reasons why I love Evernote so much is because I can take a photo of a receipt or document, and their servers will perform character recognition (OCR) on it so that I can search the text it is able to find.

I'm not real big on full-screen writing applications, but I know quite a few people who use Q10 on a regular basis. This is considered to be a distraction-free way to write stories, articles, or just about anything that is text-based. It isn't a feature-packed app like Microsoft Word, but it includes a lot of the things that writers really want including spell check capabilities.

Every year Donation Coder holds an event called "New Apps for the New Year" (NANY) where developers do some cramming in order to whip up small but useful apps.

I've never been a big Opera user. I have tried it on several occasions over the years, dating way back to the time that you either had to pay for Opera or get the ad-supported version. Its lack of extension support has always been its Achilles' heel in my opinion. At long last, this issue was addressed when Opera 11 was released a few weeks ago.

I've never been much of a journal writer, but when I came across the free RedNotebook software I knew it was something I had to try out. It's a simple way to manage a daily journal on your computer without having to think about things such as actually saving your entries since it is taken care of automatically.

There are all kinds of great video players out there such as VLC and GOM, but when it comes down to appearance I have to give Splash Lite the credit it deserves. You can see what I'm talking about in the screenshot above, but that only gives you a glimpse of how polished the app actually is.

A few years ago I used to keep spindles of blank CDs and DVDs next to my computer because I was frequently burning discs, but over the last year or two that has drastically changed. Now I have my discs tucked away since I barely burn one or two discs per year.

Do you have a bunch of photos that aren't geotagged and haven't found a free program that makes it easy? Let me introduce GeoSetter to you. This awesome app makes geotagging your photos a breeze and also lets you change other EXIF information on images.

I've tried all kinds of hard drive space analyzers because I hate having excessively large files laying around for no good reason. We've already written several articles on some of the programs out there that will help you crack down on large files and folders (including this long list of apps), but we've got another one to show off.

I'm a huge fan of the free WinMerge app because it's a fast way to compare two text files (or folders) and find the differences between them. There are also online options such as Quick Diff if you don't want to use a dedicated app, but I recently stumbled upon an alternative to WinMerge that is a bit lighter.

Some people don't realize that the performance of their hard drive can be affected by how fragmented the files are on it. That's why sometimes after doing a fresh Windows installation I will take a baseline benchmark for the hard drive that I can use down the road to see if my computer's declining performance is related to the hard drive fragmentation.

One of my favorite applications on my computer is definitely Evernote, but there are a lot of people I talk with that don't like the complexity it has to offer. They just want something simple that they can use to jot down a phone number or other basic information. For them I typically recommend Simplenote since so many different apps have been created to sync with this free online service.

Have you ever wanted to stress test your PC or server to make sure it handles itself well under heavy usage? The first thing that probably comes to mind are the benchmarks that you've run on your PC, but stress testing isn't exactly the same thing.

A couple of weeks ago I covered a great find/replace feature that most users aren't aware is in Notepad++, and today we want to go through my favorite TextFX features that you've probably got installed but haven't played around with. When going through the setup process Notepad++ by default will install some plugins, one of which is labeled as NPPTextFX.

Several years ago we wrote an article covering some different ways you can assign a drive letter to an FTP site, and now that some time has passed I decided to check been in on a few of the apps that we've mentioned.

Over the last year I've become a heavy digital note taker. Evernote is definitely my go-to app when it comes to longterm note storage, but what about those quick little snippets that seem worth saving but aren't necessarily something I want cluttering up Evernote? That's where QuotePad comes in form me.

One of the features in Windows 7/Vista that I use quite regularly is the ability to click on the time in the System Tray to reveal a month-to-month calendar. The only problem is that some of the systems I use on a regular basis are stilling running Windows XP, but in situations like that I fallback to a solution I've been using for years... a customized wallpaper for the desktop.

As a geek I always find myself firing up Notepad because of how fast it is, plus it's nice not being flooded with toolbar buttons. A free utility called Nocs will cater to those that feel the same way about Notepad, but also want some sort of synchronization with Google Docs.