Every once in a while I try some new pc utilities that I think could be useful. Most of the time I end up uninstalling them after a while because they don’t increase my productivity, but hey – that is part of the fun. Here is some of the latest stuff:

– Mozilla Firefox browser – Highly recommended, one of the things that might survive for a while. Many of IE’s add-on features come standard, and if they don’t, the Extensions feature makes adding them easy as that.

– Google Deskbar Search – search Google from the taskbar. The best about it is the miniview, a small fast-opening window that makes it unnecessary to open a browser.

– Desktop Sidebar – cool looking tool that brings much of the common information needs together, such as a newsreader, system information, email, weather updates, quick launch and system toolbars. Already uninstalled it because it is heavy on cpu and kind of annoying in the way it sits on the desktop.

– TweakUI for XP – Microsoft add-on that allows for changing some extra settings in Windows XP. One of the things I use it for is to limit the number of types of ‘new documents’ that can be made by rightclicking in a folder. I never use this feature except for folders and Notepad textfiles, but it always takes a lot of time to unfold the menu.