Several software exists for you to control a pc remotely. Microsoft for instance  has remote desktop connection. RealVNC and TightVNC also exists. For several years, I’ve used RealVNC and TightVNC to remotely control desktop pc’s both at home and in the office. Just a year ago, I have switched to an ISP that uses a fixed IP and that the modem itself is preconfigured that no matter how I control my router I could not do any port forwarding and port triggering. A friend introduced to me to TeamViewer. As long as you have an internet connection, you can remotely control a pc. I have outlined the steps below on how to use TeamViewer.

Requirements: You need to download the TeamViewer software. Two versions exists, a portable version and the other an installable version. You’ll also need an active internet connection for 2 pc’s.

If you want an alternative to the built-in explorer of Windows, then I would say use this software. What you'll get is an explorer that works with tabs - no need to clutter your task bar with several folders when copying files from one folder to another. Also, you set this to show hidden system files, good for virus hunting in removable drive. I can sort my folders according to total file size inside the folder. Good for freeing up space in hard drives. I usually forget where I place my very large files and I use ExplorerXP to track these down and have it transferred to another media or totally deleted from my drive. On the down side, this does not work with Vista.

About 5 months ago I started using PerfectDisk 2008 with my new Vista machine. The software is actually a competitor of Diskkeeper, another disk defragmenting software that I reviewed ages back. So, here is the review.

First Impression: Well, I kinda hate the office like interface. A very poor copy of the office interface cause you could not hide the ribbon - very dull that is. You can not even change the color, it's always blue. Doing a manual defrag was at first stupidly difficult, probably because I was used to using Diskkeeper. I almost hated the software when I first installed it, but I still gave it a try.

Setup: Well, installing the software and have it running was never an issue with my Vista 32bit pc.

Configuration: Difficult at first but when you have it done, it's quite rewarding. Configuration is all about setting the Autopilot. In my case, I don't want to run scheduled checks so I had Full Auto Schedule created and Screen Saver Schedule instead. What this does is it defragments my drive every 5 days as well as defragment my drive when my screen saver shows up. This works for me because I usually leave my pc turned on even when I am asleep.

Experience: Well, it's as if I am running nothing in my background. I get the performance I should get with my machine and after I am done doing my work, disk defragmentation kicks in, not interfering with my work. I almost forgot I have a disk defragmenter running in background. People at PerfectDisk got this right - a disk defragmenter not interfering with your work or game when using your pc. However, using PerfectDisk to automatically defragment my external hard drive gave me a minor problem. After having my screen saver shown, trying to eject the external hard drive was next to impossible. Probably PerfectDisk was still accessing the drive or something that's why I had the option turned off. FYI: It's turned off my default.

Conclusion:  Considering the interface and the minor glitch with my external hard drive, I give this software a rating of 8 out of 10. If you want a disk defragmenter that will work in the background without interfering with your work ,then this is the software for you.

CCleaner is a free software that I use for maintaining my temporary Internet Explorer folder cleaned. I've seen the software progress for from than 3 years now and every release is better than the previous. So, what can it do? Well, it will give that one click ability to clean unnecessary files in your pc. I usually did the cleaning of temporary files, such as log files, temp files, and Internet Explorer files, using a batch file in Windows 98, now why do that in my machine if I have CCleaner. Aside from that, using this software I was able to delete .NET framework which the Add/Remove Program that came with windows would not allow me to remove. This software is a must have for people who want to have an easy way to clean and maintain their pc. Also, it has this registry cleaner that I find sufficient for computer maintenance. All in all, the rating that I would give for this software if 5 out of 5.

Diskeeper is a software that can automate the defragmentation process of your pc and is provided as trialware. Unlike the regular defragmentation procedure of Window's built-in disk defragment program, diskeeper can do a lot better with its Set-it and Forget-it option. Upon installation, you can set the software to defragment drives, including external hard drives, every time it has reached certain level of file and folder fragmentation. What you will see is a small disk icon in your system tray indicating that diskeeper is defragmenting your disks. You can also set the software to continuously defragment your drive in a scheduled time. Now this option is different from that I previously mentioned with the fact that for the indicated time, diskeeper will keep doing the defragmentation job once it has finished. There are a lot of other options, such as boot time defragmentation and manual defragmentation.

Pros: Good defragmentation threshold gives this software ultimate functionality as a maintenance tool while using minimum resources. Also, the Set-it and Forget-it option will make setting the software one-time hussle and the rest is fully automated.

Cons: Because the software automatically defragments your drive, there are cases when you will notice machine slow-down especially when playing games, and I even had an experience when WW3 crashed when I was winning the game because it has to defragment my drive. And since this is trialware, you have to pay for it after the trial period, but this is a good software worth paying for.

Conclusion: Good maintenance software for most users. If you have a machine that it say 10 years old, this is not the software for you. LoL

Autoruns is a piece of software which gives pc users the ultimate control to choose which applications will start with windows. It can be downloaded as a single application or part of a suite called SysinternalsSuite, together with other useful applications. You can search the web for this software and download it for free.

What can it do? Well, to begin with, this will give users ultimate control to choose which applications will start with windows. Say Yahoo! Messenger, once YM has been installed in a pc, every that pc starts, the smiley-like icon near the clock (system tray) will appear even if internet connection is not available. So what, if I can stop these applications from running with windows? For starters, you don't want applications to load when you start windows because this will cause your pc to take more time to load. The more icons in the system tray, the more applications are loading with windows which means the more time it will take to load these applications, which will eventually translate to a slow pc. If you want to make your pc run faster, then I would suggest you stop non-essential applications from starting with windows. You can do this by using autoruns. Other than this, you can also use autoruns to hunt for viruses. I have outlined a complete method of scviihost.exe removal because of autoruns and I have solved most virus infections to pc's which are brought to me with the aid of autoruns.

How to use autoruns? The first time novice users open autoruns maybe quite intimidating. Users will be presented with the complete list of applications, dll's and even scheduled tasks which load with the pc's start-up process.

Of all the options that has been presented, which are safe to play with? For first time users, I would suggest to stick to the sections mentioned below:

• HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run. This section lists applications that are not mission critical to your pc's operation. Here you will find, those applications that will run when you start windows. This is true for all user accounts in your XP machine.
• C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Startup. Here you will have the control to stop those applications that you can see in Startup when you click start-All Programs-Startup.
• C:\Documents and Settings\[Current User]\Start Menu\Programs\Startup. This is similar to the option above but this time, this applications will only run on the interface of the current user, other user accounts may or may not have the same applications listed in here.
• HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run. Same with the first section but the applications that are listed in here will load only for the current user.

Generally speaking, all these applications will load with windows when it starts. The difference is that these applications are being called to load with windows from different registry points. The thing is, most - if not all, of these applications can be safely disabled from loading with windows, thus making your computer's load time shorter. And because these applications have been stopped from loading with windows, then, your pc's resources will be available for other processes.

So, how will you disable applications from running with windows? This part is very easy. Notice that for every application in the list, a checkbox is placed before each icon. The checkbox is used to select which application/s are permitted to load with windows. Say, you want Yahoo! Messenger not to load with windows, you can uncheck the checkbox for Yahoo! Messenger. And during your next reboot, you will not see that gray smiley in your system tray.

I dont' want to use autoruns to disable applications from loading with windows, is there another way? Yes there is, but this can be quite annoying. Windows offers msconfig to do this. To access the list of applications which loads with windows, click start then Run, type msconfig. Select the Startup tab. There you can find the list of applications that will load with windows. Same with autoruns, you can check or uncheck each application in the list. The difference with msconfig and autoruns is that, for me, autoruns gives the best functionality with the least nag screen. LoL =D

NOTE: When you use autoruns, changes will take effect once your pc has been restarted. And to be safe, the first three entries in the autoruns list must remain checked, or else, you will forever regret why you have played with it in the first place.

"What is RK Launcher?
RK Launcher is a free application that will allow the user to have a visually pleasing bar at the side of the screen that is used to quickly launch shortcuts. (Mine is on the top side of the screen as you can see below). With support for themes, PNG's and ICO's and with smooth amazing animations, RK Launcher is a versatile and great taskbar replacement - and amen to this!"

RK Launcher is free for download from various sources in the web. Previously, I used YZ Dock but when I found out about this software, I never used the other again. It is relatively easy to use, efficient, and gives users a lot of control. Say, you want to add Mozilla Firefox short-cut to RK Launcher. You can do this by left-clicking and holding the Mozilla icon either from start menu or on your desktop and dropping it to RK Launcher bar - it's that easy. And you can also categories your shortcuts in RK Launcher by adding a separator. Settings for RK Launcher is only a right click away - right click RK Launcher bar and you'll find all the settings there. You can set the bar to hide automatically and be transparent. You ca do more things that you could ever imagine, it's like having the nice Mac icon below it's monitor placed on Windows OS.

How to install? Just download the file, unzip, using WinZip or WinRar or any software that can open the file and copy it somewhere in your pc, c:\Progrom Files\RK Launcher is a good place to place the files. If you want RK Launcher to start when Windows starts-up, right click RKLauncher.exe and select copy and go to Run and type this C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Startup. A folder should open and then you can right click on the empty space of that folder and select Paste shortcut. What we did was to actually add a shortcut to RK Launcher in the Startup programs, this way, RK Launcher will open every time Windows starts.

On a personal note though, RK Launcher might use a lot of your processing power so make sure to tweak it properly. Having the Quality Normal and Magnification transition not set to smooth in the Performance tab is generally a good idea. And also, uncheck in the Behavior tab the option to Minimize to RK Launcher, this way, you won't be blaming me why are your windows missing when you minimize them.

Hope you enjoyed the review. You'll find more on this blog. I'd be posting more of the software that I like and most of which are for free.