RoboForm also comes in a Pro version for a PC at $US29.95 (plus versions for Palm and PocketPC). Meanwhile, Geoff is also dating its cousin, GoodSync ($US29.95), which synchronises and backs up emails, photos, MP3s and other important files … when he's not conducting an affair with StorageCrypt2 ($US29.95 from tinyurl.com/2yoflw), which can encrypt a 100GB portable hard drive, flash memory disk etc in a few seconds.
We proposed to turn a blind eye to his other assignations – including one with Account Xpress, a personal finance manager that at $US29.98, is a lot cheaper than Quicken, and gives you a quick view of your expenditure by category or payee, and also allows you to set up a budget plan with comparison reports of actual expenditure versus the budget figure – but he also included a list of eight freeware, umm, companions, including a free competitor to the SnagIt screen capture software we mentioned last week, called FSCapture, from faststone.org. Frankly we're thinking of setting up a bulk software dating software to cater for Geoff's appetites.
Another user, Robin, is clearly the more faithful type. He seems to be very attentive towards Startup Inspector for Windows, a free program at tinyurl.com/29zu9r which tracks and manages programs that run when you start up Windows. It tells you if the program is a system necessity y, or if its spyware, and it can remove harmful or unnecessary programs that can slow your PC's performance.
He's also fond of TrueCrypt (truecrypt.org) which is free software that does much the same job as StorageCrypt2, and even provides two levels of what it calls "plausible deniability", in the event "an adversary forces you to reveal the password", and the free DriveImage XML at tinyurl.com/22yepj which allows you to back up logical drives and partitions to image files, which the user can browse to view and extract files and restore the contents of a drive. He's not the sort of person who consorts with just anyone, however. He checks the character of his companions at Tech Suport Alert, which lists "the 46 best-ever freeware utilities" at tinyurl.com/2adgs

Matt, who is an audio professional, has found a common interest with the free version of Audiobook Cutter (audiobookcutter.com/en/), which is a great way to quickly and easily split MP3 audiobooks and podcasts to into smaller files. He lives two lives, however, and on the Mac, he consorts with a program called Pssst (tinyurl.com/2ykhtq) which mutes or quietens that irritating boot-up sound, Senuti (tinyurl.com/zhfru) which backs up the music on an iPod to iTunes, and Speed Scheduler (tinyurl.com/59jys), a plug-in for the Azureus BitTorrent client that enables scheduling of Torrent downloads.
Anthony is similarly smitten with Launchy (launchy.net) – a free Windows utility which indexes the programs in your Start menu, and can launch documents, folders, bookmarks etc with a few keystrokes.
FileZilla, a free, open source, cross-platform FTP program at filezilla-project.org, allows fast files transfers between computers over the Internet, seems to be a perfect companion for Peter, when he's not recovering precious hard disk space with a program called NoClone 2007 (noclone.net), which finds and removes duplicate files.
Rob seems completely faithful to NoteZilla 7.0 ($US29.95 at tinyurl.com/2lu57u), which allows you to create and retrieve virtual sticky notes on your Windows desktop and organise them in folders. You can stick the notes to Websites, documents or windows so they pop up when you access them, reminding you of To-Dos, etc. We're going to have to use it to remind ourselves that we've had so many recommendations, we'll have to go through the exercise again some time in the future.