I think we’d all agree that whatever we can to save energy is not only good the environment but also for our pockets. Many of us will their power settings so that the monitor switches off after so long. Of course, you don’t want this to happen just because you’re having a good think about something you’ve been typing, so it likely to be after 10 minutes or more. And that’s not handy if you’re going off for a few minutes to make a cup of tea.

At work, they demand we lock our PCs when we leave (ctrl/alt/delete and then “lock computer”). However, if you set up a screensaver (to go blank, for example) you can set it sign you off – essentially locking the computer.

So, wouldn’t it be much easier to have a big button you can press everytime you leave your desk that would not only lock the computer but turn the monitor off too?

A-ha, and I’m sure you could sense this coming, there is an answer…

First of all, download the free NirCMD program. This lets you, via command line parameters, to do various thing with your PC.

Place nircmd.exe into a folder of your choice.

Now create a new file, possibly best in the same folder, named Monitor Off.js. It should contain the following code…

var wsh = new ActiveXObject('WScript.Shell');
if (wsh) {
wsh.Run("\"[pato to]\\nircmd.exe\"screensaver");
wsh.Run("\"[path to]\\nircmd.exe\"monitor off");
}

Where [path to] should be replaced with the path to your folder. Each backslash should be repeated, so a folder of C:\Program Files\Monitor Off should be translated to C:\\Program Files\\Monitor Off

If you don’t wish the screensaver to cut in, but just turn the monitor off then you simply need to remove the “screensaver” line in the above code.

Then simply, create a shortcut to the above Monitor Off.js file. Bob’s your uncle.

And if you read up some more on the NirCMD site, you’ll find there’s a whole host of other things that you can get it to do – all at the click of a button.

They’re free and they’re damn handy. Yes, here, in alphabetical order is my list of the 10 most handy freebie programs for Windows…

Audacity
A free audio editor. What else can I say? It works. Record with it, manipulate with it. It’s a god send for the audio recording on the BMTG site.

FileZilla
An FTP utility which, erm, does just that.

Firefox
Ahh, what top 10 freeware list would be complete without this? For me the plugin ability is what sells it.

IrfanView
This is an image viewer with some editing capabilities. I use it for quick re-sizing and cropping.

KeyPass
A very secure password manager. I run it from a USB key. It will also create very secure passwords for you – I just have to remember one to access KeyPass and then it does the job of remembering stupidly difficult 20 digit passwords for my bank access, etc.

PDFCreator
Sets up a printer which is actually a PDF generator – then whatver output you’d put to a printer you can send to this to create your very own PDF. It makes fantastically well and, again, has been extremely useful for the BMTG website.

Picasa
Google’s own photo organiser and editor. The editing facilities are relatively basic but the red-eye reduction works very well. The organising is also excellent, with great links to other Google facilities. I just wish they’d allow us to easily link to other non-Google sites. Having said that, you can upload photos straight to one of many different localised photo printing firms such as PhotoBox, Snapfish, etc.

PowerMenu
Chances are, you’re not heard of this one. It sits in your system tray and doesn’t do much. Click on a windows title bar, though, and you’ll find some extra options – changing priority, transparency, etc. The two that I find the most useful are the “Minimize to (system) tray” and “Always on top”. There are similiar applications available, all of which I’ve tried, but I’ve always returned to PowerMenu.

SEO Note
This is a tabbed notepad utility. So, a bit like Notepad, in that you can create simple notes (having said that you can apply a lot more styles than you can in Notepad) but you can group them in altogether in pages and sub-pages, organising them via a tree-structure.

SyncToy
There are other, better backup tools available, but this is mine of choice. It will synchronise files between two locations – you can specify how, which folders and even run it from command mode (so I have automated backups going).