Low Cost Web Tools

Free (or Mostly Free) Web Tools
Version 1.0.0
Jon Upton


Added on 4-16-2009
All these are courtesy of PCWorld Magazine. May 2009. (All I've done is summarize and categorize)
http://www.pcworld.com/
Article: The Best Free Stuff You've Never Heard Of
Authors: Preston Gralla and Adam Pash

I do not claim to have used any of these sites. If anyone here has please feel free to let everyone know how you feel about them.

Streamlined Social Networking

Digsby - http://www.digsby.com
Aggregating your online social life. Wraps social networking, IM, and email into one package.

NutshellMail - http://www.nutshellmail.com
Consolidates messages from Facebook, Twitter and secondary email

Ping.fm - http://www.ping.fm
Allows status updates to multiple sites.

Pipl - http://www.pipl.com
Search that scours the net for everything from that person. Reverse look-up by username, email.

Spokeo - http://www.spokeo.com
Searches social networks to "keep tabs" (a.k.a spy) on what people have been doing on those sites.

TweetDeck - http://www.tweetdeck.com
Tweeter on steroids

Google Latitude - allows you to "monitor" (a.k.a spy) on the location of your friends, family.

Engineer A Better PC Experience

Wubi Ubuntu Installer - Easily installs Ubuntu linux on your PC as a Dual boot Option.

RocketDock - Adds a Mac Like dock to a Windows PC to provide quick access to commonly used apps

StartUpLite - Streamlines your PC's startup function with just a few mouse clicks

360Desktop - Structures your desktop as a 360 degree band that provides lots of space

Ultimate Windows Tweaker - Contains 150 ways to tweak Windows Vista through one interface

Vista Services Optimizer - Kills unneeded services running in the background in Vista.

Business Apps

OpenOffice.org - http://www.openoffice.org.
Full service office suite. Excellent free option in place of Microsoft Office

Flowgram - http://www.flowgram.com
Web based multimedia presentations

Gubb - www.gubb.net
Tracks to-dos, projects, phone calls and more

Primo Online - http://www.online.primopdf.com
Create PDF files without software

Remember the Milk - http://www.rememberthemilk.com
Reminder service compatible with many clients such as Gmail, Blackberry, IPhone, etc

Google Docs - http://docs.google.com
(This one not in article I added it, and it is what this was typed up on)
Web based office suite. Allows access to documents as long as you have Internet and browser. Easily share documents.

Security (http://find.pcworld.com/62671)

Avast Home Edition - http://www.avast.com/eng/avast_4_home.html
One of the best free virus scanners out there. (This program I do use and recommend to all the casual computer users out there, great protection for free)

AttackTrace - http://find.pcworld.com/62670
Service that lets you see if your site has been hacked

Comodo Easy VPN Home
Create Secure peer to peer networks over the Internet for sharing information, etc.

EULAlyzer
Looks for hidden terms that may be a license for spyware.

Online Armor Personal Firewall
Firewall service that is easy to use and has some good features for being free.

a-Squared HiJackFree
Anti Spyware Program to use as a secondary tool to your main one

SpywareBlaster
This program works a little differently than others and trys to prevent spyware before it happens. Blocks some Active X and tracking cookies

Super AntiSpyware
Good program overall but does not offer real time protection.

Clever Ways to Connect, Smart Phones, and Mobile Apps
(http://find.pcworld.com/62678) (http://find.pcworld.com/62683)

Google Labs Tools - http://find.pcworld.com/62677

Affixa
Sets Web Based emails as your default program for email.

Deferred Sender - http://www.deferredsender.com
Um... this one tricks the time stamp basically and lets you say what time it was sent. Say you don't want your boss to know you finished that project at 3 a.m.

Postbox
Organizes messages and attachments

Skype 4.0
A lot of people know about skype so I'm not sure why its here but it allows you voice over IP. Can be cheap way to contact family, boss, etc if on business trip overseas.

TrapCall - http://www.trapcall.com
Sick of those Unknown numbers on your phone.... well trapcall can help

Shazam - http://find.pcworld.com/62672
Analyzes song to tell you the name, offers link to buy

Box.net
File storage management for iPhone

Evernote
Sync your creation to the web and desktop

Google Mobile
Seach engine for the mobile device. Android and iPhone versions support voice search

Pageonce
Like your personal assistant. Tracks things such as checking balance, minutes left on mobile service, etc. Blackberry version is a 2 week free trial.

Remote
iPhone app that lets your phone.... well become a remote.

CheckPlease
iPhone app that splits the bill for you.

Open Table (http://find.pcworld.com/62676)
Finds restaurants and can make reservations

Yelp
Has a browser version but now there is an app for the iPhone. Find restaurants, read reviews, etc.

Google Sync
Sync google mail and calendar with your phone

Dropbox - (http://find.pcworld.com/62689)
Simple file sync between computer and web

LastPass - (http://find.pcworld.com/62689)
Password manager

PortableApps.com Suite - (http://find.pcworld.com/62689)
Open Source Apps that can run directly from a thumb drive. OpenOffice, Pidgin, etc

Qipit - http://www.quipit.com
Take picture send to site and it will make it a pdf

Slydial - http://www.slydial.com
Service that allows for call to go straight to voicemail, in case you want to leave a message rather than talk to the person

Tatango - http://www.tatango.com
Allows you to send email or message to voicemail to a group of people

TripChill - http://tripchill.com
Forward airline itinerary email to this smart service gives back real time alerts by email or text message

System Utilities (http://find.pcworld.com/62679)

Advanced SystemCare Free
Powerful tool to keep system clean and running speedily

Clipboard Help and Spell
Clipboard on steroids, offers more tools than regular clipboard on windows. (Note: Installs Yahoo toolbar, so uncheck box at time of install or registration if you don't want it.)

Recuva
Recovery software (Note: Installs Yahoo toolbar, so uncheck box at time of install or registration if you don't want it.)

ScreenToaster - http://www.screentoaster.com
Records what your doing on your screen. Can be helpful if you are trying to show someone how to do something and they are not there.

DeFraggler
Defragmentation program that is faster and has more capabilities than windows built in disk defragmentation tool.

Drive Manager
Identifies drives and shows type, capacity, etc. SMART Enabled drives you can see things like temperature, model and serial number.

Photos, Videos, and Music
(http://find.pcworld.com/62684) (http://find.pcworld.com/62681) (http://find.pcworld.com/62682)

PhotoPerfect Express
Point and click editing of photos

Jing
Easily get Screenshots and video screencasts with this service

PhotoFunia - http://www.photofunia.com
Google service that lets you put your face on things

Skitch - http://www.skitch.com
Annotate images either from screenshots or photos you drag in

Sumo Paint - http://www.sumopaint.com
Web Based photo editor

DVD Flick
DVD Burning Program

Embedr - http://www.embedr.com
Creates embeddable video playlists

HandBrake
Converts DVD to PC and mobile friendly versions

KickYouTube - kickyoutube.com
Converts youtube videos on the fly so you can save to your pc or run from your portable device

RerunCheck - http://www.reruncheck.com
Checks if the shows you are currently watching are re-runs or new ones

Splicd - http://www.splicd.com
Link directly to the part of the video you want people to see.... say the funny part at 5:20 of the video

TV.com - http//www.tv.com
CBS owned t.v programming can viewed here. They are ramping up to try to compete with Hulu.com

Wowbrary - http://www.wowbrary.org
Monitors your list of favorite books, cds and dvds to let you know when they are released.

XBMC
Robust media player originally designed for the XBOX. It can run on Linux, Mac OS X, Windows and XBOX.

Songbird - http://www.getsongbird.com
Open Source downloadable media player

MixTape.me - http://www.mixtape.me
Create, listen to, and share playlists

Mojo
Share your iTunes Library

PimpMyNews - http://www.pimpmynews.com
Converts blogs to podcast for reading on the go

RockBox
Firmware to rejuvinate the soal of that old mp3 player

SharePod
Alternate to iTunes for your your iPod management. (I have used this one it like it 300000% more than iTunes management of the iPod)

TuneUp
Cleans up your messy metadata from iTunes. MAC or PC

Productivity & Scheduling

Windows Live Sync - http://sync.live.com
Install on pc's you want folders synced on and it will sync them when you log on.

Drop.io - http://www.drop.io
Create a folder, drop files in, and allow sharing to people you want to see it.

5min - http://www.5min.com
The do it yourselfer's dream, 5 minute how to videos

GreenPrint World - (http://find.pcworld.com/62685)
Scans pages for wated items such as pages with one line of text. Can take out un-needed images etc. Also can track how much paper and money you saved by using this service

LiveMesh - http://www.mesh.com
Sync files remotely, control devices, etc. Can be confusing but powerful once you get used to it.

PrintWhatYouLike - http://www.printwhatyoulike.com
Anther green paper saving tool

SkyDrive - http://skydrive.live.com
Microsoft service similiar to Drop.io above

Zemanta - (http://find.pcworld.com/62686)
Firefox add on to help juice up your blogs

Zoho Mail - http://mail.zoho.com
Web based email program. Often overlooked because of the mainstream ones such as yahoo mail, hotmail, and gmail.

Zumbox - http://www.zumbox.com
Get offers etc that you  normally get by post office mail (snail mail) delivered to your email. (Participating businesses)

Google Calendar Sync (http://find.pcworld.com/62687)
This service will sync your google calendar and your outlook calendar

FreeConference - http://www.freeconference.com
Schedule and make conference calls

MyHours.com - http://www.myhours.com
This one is for the sales person or consultants out there (although others may find a way to use it). Track Billable hours and create useful reports and timesheets

Zoho Planner - http://planner.zoho.com
Track appointments, to do lists, etc.

Browser Add-ons and Such (http://find.pcworld.com/62694)

List.it - (http://find.pcworld.com/62680)
Notepad type utility for you to jot your notes down on. FireFox 3 add-on

FeedsPlus
IE add-on. Allows you to read all your news feeds in one location.

FireFTP
FireFox add on that lets you FTP right within the browser

Google Preview
FireFox add on that lets you view thumnails of google pages

IE7Pro
IE add on that anyone who uses IE should have

Minimap Sidebar
Drag a physical address to this bar and you can see a map without leaving the site - Firefox add-on

Video DownloadHelper
Come across video you want save, this Firefox add-on will download the clip for later viewing

Qitera - http://www.qitera.com
Save web site contents and share with others

Glue - http://www.getglue.com
Firefox add-on that lets you see what people think of the website as you surf the web

KidZui - (http://find.pcworld.com/62691)
Child oriented browser helping to create a safe exploring environment

Zigtag - http://www.zigtag.com
Tag favorite pages and share your tagged list with others