I guess I am a self confessed geek. I absolutely love technology, gadgets, gizmos, software, tools, websites, games. You name it, I want to know about it, try it love it. I regularly look for new and cool gadgets and other software or technology. I have often loved others lists of their favorite utilities. Mine changes regularly based on what I am doing and or working on but some have stayed on the list over time but not many. So take a look at my list, try them and let me know what I missed.
WinDirStat
http://windirstat.info/
its just cool. Find out what is taking up space on your disk.
Speed switch
If your primary machine is a laptop and you want to get the most performance possible from it you need this tool. Especially if you run VPC as often as I do.
http://www.diefer.de/speedswitchxp/index.html
Free Defrag by Dave Whitney
Defragmentation is key to a great system and keeping it running fast and smooth. This tool is great and best of all its free!
www.whitneyfamily.org
Process Explorer
One of the best tools for looking into what is running on your system. Mark is a GOD.
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/Utilities/ProcessExplorer.mspx
PSTOOLS all great tools from the old sysinternals
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/utilities/pstools.mspx
especially PSLOGLIST
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/utilities/psloglist.mspx
and PSinfo
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/utilities/psinfo.mspx
and Pslist
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/utilities/pslist.mspx
Try them all, they are a great toolset.
IEDeveloper Tool Bar
I used this extensively, especially when we were working on skinning our MOSS Site. Check this out
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=e59c3964-672d-4511-bb3e-2d5e1db91038&displaylang=en
AVG AV
Everyone needs anti-virus and if you are not into paying for it you should check this one out. I have tested and used a lot of AV software so many are overkill and slow the computer down too much. But I have found this one to be easy to use, and effective so I love it.
http://www.digitalriver.com/v2.0-img/operations/grisoft/site/370619/370619_avg75.html?cat1=homeoffice
Quest® Discovery Wizard for SharePoint
http://www.quest.com/discovery-wizard-for-sharepoint/
This tool will help you scan and discover your SharePoint server I have tested it out and found it very useful.
CodePlex This place is cool.
www.codeplex.com
Find and contribute to all sorts of cool stuff. It is my 3rd favorite web site. I am there at least every other day
Messenger plus
http://www.msgpluslive.net/
I love this add on to MSN Messenger, especially the tabbed chats.
Runners up
I have been starting to or trying to play with some more but they don't quite make the list
Monk from Lewis and Clark it services. I just have not gotten it to work right.
Moss Enhanced wiki edition off of codeplex. Some good potential there. But not quite there yet. Do you have cool tools or websites let me know, I am a true geek and love to find new stuff