Sumatra PDF Viewer is one very cool, lightweight PDF Viewer, and it’s open source.

If you’ve been using either Adobe Reader or Foxit PDF Reader over the years and you need only a PDF viewer, try Sumatra PDF. Minimalist features, but customizable where you want it to be.

SFX Compiler is a free tool to create a SFX file (.exe) and extract it to the directory of the user's (or the author's) choice. Its' interface is simple and not complicated.

ArtRage is a digital paint program developed by Ambient Designs (they did a lot of work on Kai's Power Tools).  That would be selling it short, however, so let me elaborate:

You have some art tools, and all the canvas and paint you could ever need.  Of course, this doesn't sound like much more than all the MSPaints and Pixias of the world.  What makes ArtRage great is how it feels and how the paints and other tools interact with the canvas and the other tools.  From the radical interface to the ways in which the paints mix and smear, everything clicks.

As soon as you begin painting you will see that this program is something special.  The paints have depth on the screen with bumps and valleys, shadows and highlights.  Mistakes become an opportunity to blend colors together with the palette knife.  The canvas becomes another tool as you use the grain and a light touch of chalk.  You can even set an option that gives you a little glass of water to rinse your brush off between strokes (this can be set so that your brush is auto-magically cleaned whenever you let go of the mouse button as well).  When you're done, you can export you image into numerous formats, including a layered PhotoShop file (if you have the $20 paid version).

ArtRage is an outstanding program.  I used to love to draw when I was younger, and I have tried many computer graphics programs in an attempt to rekindle that interest.  ArtRage is the first that has succeeded.  This program was the driving force that led to my recent investment in a Wacom tablet.  Even with the mouse, however, the program is amazing.

I have successfully introduced the free version of the program to children as young as 5 years old, and they are producing amazing work with it.  The full version is really wonderful, and at only $20, it is a great value.  The community on the ArtRage forums is helpful and welcoming, and offers constructive criticism to any works that are posted there.  The development team posts frequently in the forums, and is willing to investigate bugs and other issues.

qst for excel ninjas...
is there any way (addin) to do ctrl + tab (first in, first out history) with excel sheets?

Any tips for navigating sheets? I find it a pain to have tabs on the bottom. No way to put them on top, or to the side in a tree form it seels.

I have seen this navigator, but why are excel addins so pricey?

A possibility would be some hack that converted all sheets to independent workbooks, (then you can ctrl tab through them). Later, it could merge them back to a single workbook.

All I want from an image organizer is -

1. Fast and reposnsive. I'm working with over 10k pictures
2. Ability to select a folder in the tree view and see all pics in that and its subfolders
3. Tagging support for XMP and IPTC. Import and export
4. A proper way to organize/filter views based on tags
5. File monitoring for new folders/pics
6. A nice UI with support for multiple zoom levels

Thos of you who have heard about Filemon and Regmon but not the newer Process Monitor need to check this out.  Process Monitor is a great tool for watching what processes do in the background..

Process Monitor is an advanced monitoring tool for Windows that shows real-time file system, Registry and process/thread activity. It combines the features of two legacy Sysinternals utilities, Filemon and Regmon, and adds an extensive list of enhancements including rich and non-destructive filtering, comprehensive event properties such session IDs and user names, reliable process information, full thread stacks with integrated symbol support for each operation, simultaneous logging to a file, and much more. Its uniquely powerful features will make Process Monitor a core utility in your system troubleshooting and malware hunting toolkit.

http://www.microsoft.../processmonitor.mspx