Hey-- Technoids:
Two sharewares I'm liking, both for PC. Like to hear your opinions--or suggestions for better:

A multiple world clock thing--similar to those in airport movies from the 1930s where dc3's land in the fog and worried cameras scan the art deco mise en scene... You can run any time zone as a round, analog clock, or reduce the size by using digital numerals, or just make the task bar hide until moused over. $15 for two licenses. Been looking for this! http://products.wrconsulting.com/zonetick/en/

Encryption: every laptopper should do this, because any idiot can steal your laptop, reset the bios and get past the password and get your stuff. Try Truecrypt, which is free. Or spend $30 & get Steganos, which I use. Set up a protected drive and put all yer data in it. You won't be sorry.

http://truecrypt.sourceforge.net/
http://www.steganos.com

(There are probably mac versions of these apps around, for those who must...)

These are some very good tips, thanks!

Truecrypt is a great product! The open source movement hosted at Sourceforge is truly remarkable, and I make my money via MS products!

The best spam filter around is a Sourceforge member too -- Spambayes. Free, killer app, and puts anything else to shame because it learns what you do. ^

What do you folks think of making a sticky thread with links and tips to other share/freeware applications??

Thanks Cyllabus, a good tip about encrypting the laptop. Never thought of losing my laptop, but it could happen. I'm going to give truecrypt a try. Figure if someone goes to the trouble to steal it, I might as well make it a pain in the *ss for them.

The one I'm liking a real lot lately, and will certainly upgrade from the free to the pay version (though the free is doing everything I want, just has a few limits I may outgrow soon) is foldershare (foldershare.com)

You install it on two or more computers, and then designate directories you want to share on those machines, and it goes about it's business synching them up.

I don't plug the laptop in the office to get files when I need to run out with something anymore, I turn it on, wait 10 minutes for it to bring all the files over on the guy's next door's wireless, and it's done. I have my palm files at home synched with the ones on the desktop, so no matter where I add something, it's the same in a minute or two. I don't need to carry the palm with me if all I'm doing is visiting the office.

Need a large file at home? Drop it in the foldershare directory when I leave, it's here when I get here, and when I save it it's back everywhere again.

It's a really cool tool.

Great idea ^

Found this quintessential freeware list recently via Forever Geek - one of my personal favourites.

Lotsa nice freeware there.

This is appears to be very similar to a Product from Novell name ifolder. Essentially keeps designated folders synced across the internet. I've been using it for a couple of years. Also I heard that Novell released the code to the Open source community??

That's an excellent idea. And those are good tips, above and below this reply.

Here's a few more wares to share--I can't imagine laptopping without them:
--PDFMachine by www.broadgun.com. Basic version is free, converts files to pdfs, does the job!
--notepad2, freeware found at http://www.flos-freeware.ch/notepad2.html. Basically a happy little text editor--faster than wordprocessors, better than basic Notepad. I keep it handy in my taskbar.
--Everyone knows about efax by now. Free in-bound faxing, comes to your email address. Perfect for roadwarriors. Has saved zillions of trees by avoiding fax-paper. Did I say--Great shareware! www.efax.com

Best--
--Cyllabus