Tweak Guides Updated

Eric (a.k.a. TweakHound) has updated his excellent guides to installing, tweaking and optimzing Windows XP and Windows Vista in preparation for his Windows 7 guides. I used his guides to set up Vista on my laptop and I've been very happy with the results.

TweakHound's Blog is also one of my favorite RSS feed subscriptions - highly recommended.

Read More: Tweak Guides Updated

Adsense Cool Tools

AdSense Earnings Tool - You can see your earnings for today, yesterday, this month and since last payment all from a nice little unobtrusive application right on your desktop and in your system tray.

Update: The link is dead. If I can't find an alternative I'll upload the zip file and make it available myself.

More Google Adsense Tools, Tips and Resources from Smashing Magazine.

Free Windows Utilities

AVG Antivirus - AVG provides basic protection against viruses and spyware. It's compatible with Windows 7, Windows Vista and Windows XP.

CCleaner - A system optimization, privacy and cleaning tool. It removes unused files from your system allowing Windows to run faster and freeing up valuable hard disk space.

7-Zip - A file archiver with a high compression ratio. The program supports ZIP, CAB, RAR, ARJ, LZH, GZIP, TAR, ISO, MSI and more.

Tray It! - Saves Taskbar space for minimized windows. For each application which applies TrayIt! it creates a small icon in the System Tray. It is particularly useful for background tasks you typically keep running on your PC all day, like your favorite E-mail client.

ERUNT and NTREGOPT - Registry Optimization, Backup and Restore for Windows.

Tweaking Windows Vista

I've been using Windows Vista for about three months now. It came pre-installed on my Dell Inspiron 1525 laptop and to tell you the truth, in spite of all I've heard, I haven't had any problems with it. In fact I like it quite a bit, it's a nice looking OS if nothing else.

The only thing I can find against Vista is that uses a lot of memory, and the solution to that is more memory. I also found and highly recommend this excellent tutorial on tweaking Vista from TweakHound. Tweaking Windows Vista. TweakHound is "My Favorites" link three.

A Word to the Wise... Backup.