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).

I like these “Best” lists that you find on blogs, so I thought I should at least start contributing my own. And to begin with, my own list of swizzy Firefox add-ons that will help the humble developer.  They’re all Firefox 3 compatible and they’re all free.

In no particular order (other than, erm, alphabetical. Which is an order)…

Firebug
A Yahoo provided plug-in that allows you to edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page. Once installed you can couple this with YSlow, a plugin for Firebug, which puts into practise Yahoo’s very own website performance principles - displaying how well the page does and providing a breakdown into what makes up the page download.

IE Tab
With a click of an icon you can switch Firefox’s rendering engine to IE and back again. Useful for those quick cross-browser tests.

LinkChecker
This scans the current web page and highlights each link it finds according to whether it was valid or not - a great way to quickly check link validity on a page.

Live HTTP headers
Allows you to see the header information sent by a web page - particularly handy for checking on compression, caching, cookies and the like.

MeasureIt
This is a quick and simple measurement tool. Normally, I’d recommend standalone apps for this kind of thing so they’re not restricted to the browser, but this does this particular job so well, it’s still a requirement.

RankChecker
When it’s time to keep an eye on your SEO, this is invaluable. You type your chosen search terms into the RankChecker screen and it will display, for a number of popular search engines, where your site came in the results. Great for monitoring whether your SEO is working or not.

Screen grab!
This does a single job but, god, does it well. It takes screen shots from the browser. You can either take an area, the current visible portion or the whole page (whether currently on screen or not). You can then save the results or stick it on your clipboard.

SEO For Firefox
This displays various SEO information about the site - PageRank, links, etc

Split Browser
This is a new one that I’ve come across when I had a specific requirement. Basically, this lets you split the Firefox screen into multiple “windows” into which you can load different pages. In my case I found this invaluable when comparing two pages side-by-side (an existing version of a website and a new, modified version).

Web Developer
What more can be said about this? If you could only have one add-on, this should be it, with links and tools to everything you could imagine. My most-used part of it is the ability to switch off web page components, such as JavaScript and images. Brilliant.

Both yesterday and today I’ve been having a bit of a play with applications for the N95 as well as internet access via the phone.

First all, it’s REALLY easy to convert a Wordpress blog like this into a mobile application. The free WordPress Mobile plugin is rather good. It comes with a plug at the bottom for the author, plus 50% of any advertising revenue goes to them too - unless you pay a one-off fee of £25. As I don’t advertise, this isn’t an issue

So, if you now visit my site via your mobile phone you’ll find it display as appropriate for that format.

The screenshot of this is to the right and was created by a very simple free Symbian app.

Now, whilst playing with the aforementioned Mobile plugin, I noticed that they offered a QR barcode to add to each page - scanned by an appropriate mobile phone or PDA, this would link back to the URL of the page. Now, I’d noticed the barcode scanner function on my phone but couldn’t see the use.

Instead of adding one for each page, I’ve instead put one in this blogs sidebar - scan that on your mobile phone and it will give you the general URL of the site - far quicker than typing it in! I can see other uses for this (it can hold all sorts of information, not just URL’s) and I’ve already seen it used in magazine adverts.

There are a number of a QR code generators on the internet, so there’s really no excuse not to dabble!

N95 application wise, I’m also trying out the Nokia Step Counter (yes, yes, I know). What I’m really excited about, though, are a number of apps by a chap named Samir - at the moment they’re all in a closed beta, but he intends to make them freeware once complete. These includes utilities to perform actions if the phone is turned over or shook (I love the idea of turning the phone over at night and it automatically going into a silent profile!).

Lastly, I’ve recently taken delivery of an ultra-slim Bluetooth keyboard, made by iGo. It’s superb and a really good price too - less than half the price of most others. Now, ignoring the fact that they’d decided to put a sticker on it running from front to back, and not one that easily comes off, or the fact that the manual that comes with it is next to useless, it’d heartily recommend it.

However, there are no N95 drivers for it, so you have to use those that are available for the N73. I contacted iGo to find out when they might be available and it would appear that they never will be as the keyboard is no longer being made. So snap them up whilst they’re cheap! And still available!

Today my new phone turned up.

My provider rang me yesterday asking if I wanted to end my current contract early, and they’d send me a new phone. Well, offers like that I can’t refuse. Especially when they provide me with free internet access on it too.

So, I’ve moved from a Sony Ericsson K800i to the Nokia N95 8Gb, replete with Wi-fi connection and 5mp phone. Hmmm.

Now, if you get one of these, I’d recommend heading to play.com where they do a splendid leather case for it, along with car power cables and the like for just a few points - cheaper than you can get them on eBay.

One thing I have had problems with was my wi-fi connection at home. The connection keeps dropping out. Thankfully a quick Google found my answer, thanks to a forum post. It would appear this is - erm - side effect of having a Netgear modem. It can be worked around though.

Lastly if, like me, you use Google to organise your life I’d like to recommend GooSync, which enables you, free, to sync your Google Calendar with your phone (and not just the N95 - many others). For some cash (about £2 a month) you can get them to sync multiple calendars plus (crucially for me) your Google contacts.

The aforementioned problem with my router also affected GooSync working too - however, as the sync problem occurred first I didn’t initially know I had a much wider issue. However, GooSync have an excellent contact system, as well as forums. I’m always grateful when products such as these come with good support. In the end, though, I found out the above router fix before I got a response, but ended up posting the above to their forums as well (you never know, it may affect someone else too).

I’ve earned a bit of extra money recently from some web ventures, so I’ve been able to buy some thing that I’ve planning for a while.

First of all, it’s my wife’s 30th birthday in a months time. I’d planned to get her an Asus EEE PC. Stock seems to be quite variable, so when I saw one in stock at a reasonable place I ordered one.

I’ve also been after a new scanner too. My eye was on an EPSON V350, which has a film loader built into the lid.

After cocking up delivery, and accidentally ordering next day, instead of free (and a cock-up that cost me £8. Grumble) I received both yesterday (the former now hidden away, naturally).

So, what do I think?

First of all, the EEE PC. It drew quite a crowd and work and everybody loved it. I have no intentions to install Windows on it, but leave the standard Linux install on it instead. I’ve performed updates to the existing software and set up the default settings. It reads all my USB keys and SD cards (including SDHC), including the Windows files that are on them. To my surprise it read a key formatted as NTFS (this is not usual in Linux). So, once home, I tried to get it to access my NTFS formatted NAS drive… it worked! She will now have access to a half Terabyte drive wirelessly, including my entire CD collection. Fantastic.

The Asus is easy to type on and incredibly easy to use. The only gripe is that every time you restart the machine it doesn’t automatically re-connect to your wireless network - you have to go and select it again and re-connect. After such a quick boot up time it’s disappointing that you’re then way-laid by such a simple thing.

The box doesn’t have a huge amount in - CD’s and DVD’s with manuals and Linux builds on, a really smart power supply (with the transformer on the plug, rather than a box half way along the cable), and a black slip-case.

Recommended? God, yes.

Now onto the EPSON V350 Photo scanner. What can I say? It’s a scanner. However, it does have a neat film feed in the lid which will perfectly scan 35mm film. I’ve not tried it yet but reviews say it’s excellent. However, I did get a chance to scan a single item - something my previous scanner struggled with. It’s a certificate in a sealed frame. My old scanner had problems with reflections in the frames glass. The EPSON? Perfect. And damn quick too.

Lots of software too including a copying facility that, matched with a printer, will turn it into a photocopier.

My only bug-bear (and there has to be one) is the amount of power it consumes when not in use. The alternative is to have it turn off with the PC, but that means the scanner making a noise and calibrating each time I turn the PC back on again. My solution was simple - leave it unplugged. But I’d like to think that manufacturers can think of better alternatives to this.