My last post was about the all-in-one tool Glary Utilities and I have another free all-in-one tool that is my personal favorite.  The program is called CCleaner.  The following information comes directly from the CCleaner site.

“CCleaner is a freeware 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.  It also cleans traces of your online activities such as your Internet history.  Additionally it contains a fully featured registry cleaner.  But the best part is that it’s fast (normally taking less than a second to run) and contains NO Spyware or Adware!”

I have personally used CCleaner for over four years.  There are a number of reasons why CCleaner is my favorite all-in-one tool.  It’s extremely lightweight, fast, and easy to navigate and understand.  I use the program when I feel my computer needs to be cleaned but used to run it once a week.  When you open up CCleaner it will give you some of the specification of the computer.  There will also be four tabs on the left hand side.  These tabs are cleaner, registry, tools, and options.

CCleaners built-in cleaner allows the user to erase tracks from Internet Explorer, Windows Explorer, System, and the various programs installed on the computer.  Under the Windows sub tab of cleaner, I only have three boxes that aren’t checked.  Under Internet Explorer, the last box is not checked.  Under System, the last box is not checked.  The last box of Advanced is not checked as well.  Under Applications, there probably will be different programs here, it depends what’s installed on the computer and I didn’t mess with any of these settings.

The registry cleaner will scan the computer for invalid registry entries and allow the user to delete these entries.  CCleaner will allow you to conduct a backup before erasing the registry entries and I think this is necessary just in case something gets deleted that shouldn’t.  I’ve never had to restore any of the registry entries.  I have every box checked under the registry tab.

The tools tab makes it easier to uninstall programs, cleanup system startup, and restore the computer back to an earlier date.  I only use the tools tab to optimize my computer startup.  From here, I can disable programs that I don’t want to start with my computer and this will increase the computers boot time.  The only programs that start with my computer are the security programs.

The options tab is where the configuration settings are for CCleaner.  I personally don’t use this section because I don’t feel the need to change any of the option settings.  CCleaner is a program that I believe every computer should have.  It’s lightweight, fast and easy to use.  Whenever I work on computers, CCleaner is one of the first programs I install.  If you have any questions feel free to comment or contact me via the contact page.

The following page has been moved to Software Knowledge.

Over the past few months I have been having driver issues with my Dell Inspiron 1525 laptop.  The problems have mainly been with my network drivers.  I would boot up my laptop and I would be greeted with a message saying that my Dell wireless adapter has malfunctioned, if the problem keeps happening please contact technical support blah blah blah.  I then would have to run a diagnostic on my driver just to connect to the Internet.

This can be very annoying if it happens frequently (this was me).  I got sick of this error so I went on mission to find a program that would update my drivers (for free of course).  I came across a free program called Device Doctor.  Device Doctor is a program that will allow a user to update any of the drivers on the installed computer.

There is no need to go searching for unknown drivers anymore.  Once the user creates a free account, the program can search the computer for known drivers and proceed to tell the user what drivers need to be updated.  Here are some of the key features of Device Doctor:

Device Driver Database

• Provides drivers for every major computer hardware and device manufacturer
• More than 3 terabytes (3,000 GB) of drivers currently in the database
• We cache all drivers so downloads are quick and work every time
• Fast hardware scan takes mere seconds

Consistent Updating

• Constantly updated to include new driver versions as soon as released
• Every driver is human reviewed using specialized compatibility tools
• Learns from other users to recommend better drivers every day

Future-proof with Windows 7 and 64-bit Support

• Designed for Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7
• Thousands of drivers coming in weekly for Windows 7
• Full support for 64-bit systems, as well as 32-bit systems

Other Big Deal Functionality

• Provides device names for unknown devices before updating drivers
• Can be used offline – scan results are saved so you can move them to a connected computer and download there
• Updates WHQL (Microsoft certified) and non-WHQL drivers
• Yes, it is completely free with no adware or malware!

After installing the program, I proceeded to scan my computer drivers to check and see if I needed to update any.  Low and behold, the network adapters needed to be updated.  After I updated the driver I no longer received the annoying wireless driver error.  This program is extremely helpful and most importantly the program is free.

If you need to update any drivers this program is the way to go.  My main reason for downloading the program was to try and get rid of the wireless adapter error.  I found out that I needed to update other drivers and Device Doctor has made this process very easy.  Device Doctor can be downloaded from HERE.

Today’s article is going to be on a program that I use to write all my blog posts. When I first started blogging I was using Microsoft Word to write my articles. Microsoft Word is a good product but I have been using one that has taken its place. The program is called Windows Live Writer. Windows Live Writer is easy to setup and best of all is free to use.

Windows Live Writer is a little program that is used to do multiple things with your blog. When Windows Live Writer is setup, it will look exactly like your blog page and it’s easy to see how your post will look when someone is reading it. It is also easy to add pictures, video, and keywords.  Windows Live Writer also has the ability to check for grammar and spelling errors, and the ability to check the word count of the article.  Here are the features of the program

• New border treatments (including Instant Photo)
• Crop and tilt photos
• Insert multiple photos
• Toolbar alignment commands enabled for images
• Insert and upload Windows Live photo albums
• Insert and publish video to YouTube
• Additional spell checking languages: Arabic, Basque, Bulgarian, Catalan, Croatian, Czech, English (Australia), Estonian, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Indonesian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Malay, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Slovenian, Turkish, and Ukrainian
• Server-side tagging (for supported blogs)
• Type-down filtering in the Open dialog
• Twitter, Digg and Flickr Plug-ins
• Improved blog account setup
• Lightbox and Windows Live Spaces inline preview support
• Improved category control: adding categories, type-down filtering
• Tabbed view switching
• AutoLink glossary
• Smart quotes/typographic characters
• Word count
• Support for bidirectional languages (like Hebrew and Arabic)
• Tabs for view switching
• Updated look and feel

Windows Live Writer also has a ton of plug-ins that will help Live Writer be more efficient for you. I have been using Windows Live Writer for a few weeks now and have found it to be very useful when I want to publish a blog post. I am still in the process of downloading plug-ins that will fit my needs. This is a very good free program that I will definitely be using on a regular basis. If you are a dedicated blogger and likes to be able to publish posts quickly, then this is the program for you.  Windows Live Writer can be downloaded from HERE.