In Desktop Utilities, Part 1, I quickly breezed through some of my favorite programs for everyday computing, and offered a review and a link. In this post, I’m continuing the saga.

1. AdFree 3.2.
This is a teent-tiny little program that takes charge of your HOSTS file. If you go to the website, you’ll see that the creator is not supporting AdFree anymore, because the Firefox browser has some ad-blocking features built in. However, what if you use Internet Explorer? The intrusive and sometimes obscene ads are the main reason I left IE and never went back. However, some of my family members still use IE, and for them I have AdFree.

It downloads on your computer and reconfigures your HOSTS file. Your HOSTS file in your computer is the first thing Windows checks before getting an IP number. If your computer receives information to block (not show) a certain IP number, it won’t. In this way, AdFree (and other such ad-blockers, like AdBlockPlus in the Firefox browser) tell your computer to block certain IP numbers– the IP numbers of ads on a webpage. Most ads on a webpage are “third-party” ads, which means that they are coming from another site, usually an advertising company site. Think of it as Flickr or Photobucket. You insert the IP (in the form of html code) in your own website to enable your reader to see your photo.

The website MVPS has an excellent, if complicated, explanation. This website also offers a free ad-blocker that does the same thing as AdFree. For novices, I recommend AdFree. Since AdFree isn’t being updated anymore, you can add IP numbers yourself. AdFree program gives you this capability. You can even block entire websites.

Ad-blocking is a science, but it’s not rocket science! A little reading around can help you immensely. Check out AdFree and experiment with it. I has made our internet experience much more pleasurable.

2. Pop-Up Stopper
Scroll down the page and look for the “free” version. The name explains it all, sweet and simple. Firefox and Internet Explorer say they get all the popups, but I beg to differ. I get popups when I surf. This is a handy-dandy little program that has protected my kids countless times. It’s very easy to configure. You can set it up as you like. I have it set to “high” to block all popups unless I hold the Shift key down on my keyboard. It’s small, and it will start up when you start up your computer. I’ve had it for many years.

3. PDF995 Creator
Need to create PDFs? Not willing to shell out $200+ for behemoth Adobe? Here’s a free suite of programs that will enable you to do all sorts of things with PDFs. I have all the programs, because I make a lot of my own worksheets. The most popular is the conversion program– this will make your regular documents into PDFs. It does it through the “print” feature of your word processing program, so don’t be alarmed if you see no program icon in your desktop. Think of it as a widget for your word processor.

Note: be sure to download both the “PDF995 Printer Driver” and the “Free Converter” for the following to work:

To use it, let’s say you’ve written a letter to your Aunt Marge and you want to convert that document (.doc, for example) into a .pdf. In your word program, go to File and look for Print. The print popup window gives you a choice of your printer in a drop-down menu. Click the drop-down menu and look for your pdf995. Choose that, go through the “OK” motions, name your document, and you’ll have a .pdf document saved.

PDF995 is not free, not exactly. You can pay for it, or you can continue to use it forever with a nag screen everytime you use it. The nag screen is a little irritating, and it opens up an Internet Explorer browser to the website sometimes, but I endure it. I’d rather endure this than the fees, even though the fees are not extravagant at all.

PDFEdit995, another part of the PDF995 suite, enables you to extract individual PDF pages from a big PDF document of many pages. It’s handy of you need a copy of one page in a set of many.

It’s a great bunch of programs.

4. EssentialPIM
This is a wonderful, simple Personal Information Management system. It is fun to use, it looks great, and it can handle your most crammed schedules. You can have To Do lists, it will print your data, and will even encrypt your data. I have tried other organizers, but I like this one the best. It’s colorful, too, so it’s fun to use.

5. FreeRAM XP Pro
This program has received good reviews from CNet, and I have used it on all my computers, too. It’s a great program to beef up your computer and give it a little speed, until you get some real RAM in there. It is customizable, too, but you have to know what you are doing. You can always leave it at the default settings. It made a difference on my computers that didn;t have enough RAM, until I installed more memory.

This is the end of the second series. Stay tuned for Part 3!