“Can You Run It?” from system requirements lab is a free web service that compares your PC specs against a large, constantly updated database of games and can tell you whether your computer is  sufficient to run any game that you are interested in. It can also give you a breakdown of individual components and tell you exactly where your computer stands in relation to the recommended and preferred specs and what areas or components to change or upgrade.

Duplicate Cleaner is a free program that identifies duplicate files in user-specified folder by matching file content (i.e. calculating the unique CRC32 value for files), file name, date, size, or any combination thereof. It also provides a range of sophisticated tools to select and/or view the resulting file list and to move, delete, or clone (hardlink) the duplicate files.

Desktop Takeover is a free program that can place images on your desktop wallpaper either as individual images or "channels" of images that refer to a combination of pre-set list of images, folder(s), or URLs. Channels and background wallpapers can be individually set to rotate/shuffle at a user defined time interval.

A simple, casual free game that involves running around and blasting robots. It employs an interesting twist whereby whenever you die, you get to replay a level alongside the past incarnation of yourself (your previous playing sequences preserved and re-played, resulting in many of your guys simultaneously unleashing a whole lot of firepower).

Window Ruler is a free on-screen measurement "ruler" tool that offers a number of interesting features, including portability, the ability to "snap-to" any on-screen object, and the ability to automatically resize to a number of common predefined size profiles.

Hexagora Performance Monitor is a light and customizable freeware application that displays four important system load values – CPU, memory, disk and network traffic. It requires no user input to work out of the box and is portable.

Microsoft Photosynth is a program that can combine multiple images taken at or around a single location from multiple perspectives into a single, unified whole. The resulting synth can be viewed as a single object from different perspectives and browsed in and out of, and it incorporates many of the details that might have been contained in the various source images.

Slowmousion is a small free memory resident app that slows down mouse movements whenever the user presses keyboard hotkey. It is useful whenever the user needs heightened control over mouse movements such as when using the mouse for drawing or illustrating purposes.

ThumbWin and miniMize are two free memory resident apps that allow you to minimize open windows and programs to the desktop as thumbnails. You are then able to maximize and access these windows/apps again by clicking on the thumbnails on the desktop.

You might have noticed that I’ve not been able to post for a few days. The company I work for flew everyone in the office from Seattle to NYC for a company function on Thursday, and it was an opportunity to take my wife and kids along for a long weekend in the big city.

WinExt is a free horizontal bar docked to the top or bottom of your screen that can give access to your files, folders, and programs as cascading menus or as shortcuts placed on the bar itself. It also offers an optional “infobar” with status indicators for CPU, memory, battery, and hard disk drive usage.