Z-Cron is a freeware (for personal use) and powerful task scheduler. Although Windows does come with a task scheduler but you would hardly call it user friendly and it isn’t nearly as powerful as Z-Cron.
Z-Cron has a large list of tasks that you can schedule, but here are some of the highlights:

• Copy, Move & Delete Files - Useful for backup devices
• Kill - Closes a file
• Download - Downloads a file via HTTP
• Mail - Send an email with SMTP
• Ping - Pings an IP address to test for connectivity
• Reboot - Reboots the computer
• Remote Shutdown - Remotely shut down a computer
• Wake on LAN - Remotely power up a computer
• Connect/Disconnect - Connects or disconnects a dialup connection
• Watch - Monitors a program. If the program “dies”, it will be restarted
• And more, here is the complete list

An example of what you could do with Z-Cron is to get it to start a backup on a remote computer and have it email you when it finishes; or, if you were in a job that managed many computers on a network, you could set a master computer to turn on all the computers in the building in the morning and shut them down at night. There are many possibilities.
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Most software is easy enough to install. You just open the setup file, press next, next, next, finish and your done. However, what if you want to install software on hundreds of computers? or multiple applications on a single computer? Computer Technicians frequently encounter these situations and write their own scripts to automatically install the software by making using special switches.

However, its hard to find out what those special switches actually are, this is where Universal Silent Switch Finder comes in.
Universal Silent Switch Finder is a small, standalone application designed to find out what switches can be used on a certain installer. From there, you can create your own .BAT files to automate the install process.
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EndItAll is a small utility designed to close or kill all non-essential processes on a system.
This tool is great to use on slow computers which are slowing down your computer repair tasks. It is also great to use before a virus scan because it frees up more system resources for the scanner, and it can kill currently active viruses and trojans. Some other great uses for this application is to free up resources for high-end games or dvd burning.

A nice feature of this application is the ability to protect processes that are non-essential, but you want to keep open anyway.
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SysInspector is a standalone, portable utiltity designed to show you information about your computer with a emphasis on finding viruses and malware. Like many other system information tools, SysInspector will show you your running processes, network connections, running services and specifications.
However, what makes SysInspector different is that it has a slider which filters the risk level. On the lowest setting it’ll show you everything (for example, known good processes), but as you slide it to higher risk levels it only shows you items that it finds highly suspicious.
The lowest level shows everything, the middle levels show only third party objects and other items that dont come with Windows. The highest level shows items that could be potentially dangerous such as unknown items that are set to start during bootup, and other unknown items in strange areas.

This is a great tool to help you spot viruses, malware and other nasties on a system.
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Explore2fs is a tool for accessing Linux’s ext2 and ext3 filesystems under Windows in a Windows Explorer like interface. This application can run on all versions of Windows and is able to read Linux virtual volumes. This is a handy tool to have if you work with Linux.
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Ok, this one isnt exactly a repair tool, but it is very useful to have this in your kit. As some of you may already know, the new Microsoft Office 2007 no longer uses the .doc format for documents. By default, it now uses a new extention called .docx.

Saving in the new format isnt a problem if you actually have Office 2007, but when people using older copies of Office try and open a .docx file, they cant. The Office 2007 compatibility pack allows those with older versions to open, edit, and save documents, workbooks, and presentations in the file formats new to Microsoft Office Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007.
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Check Flash (aka ChkFlsh) is a small, stand alone, portable utility designed to check the health of flash drives. The most useful part of Check Flash is that it can run a read and write test on the drive. During the read and write test it fills the flash drive up with a temporary file to make sure the flash drive is the size that it says it is. This is an issue as many fake flash drives like the cheap ones available on eBay are hacked to report to Windows that they are 8GB or so, but are really only 64mb.
Check Flash also has a “drive map” section which will show you any bad sectors on your flash drive.

Check Flash can also run a readability test on the drive and save/load an image of the files on the drive for backup purposes.
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WinBubble is a small, portable utility that is Vistas answer to TweakUI. It is a extremely well featured application allowing you to tweak just about anything you would want to tweak in Vista. There is too many tweaks to mention here so its best that you look at the many screenshots to get a full idea of what it can do. Here are some of the highlights:

• Easily change the OEM/Manufacturer information
• Add useful options to the right click context menu
• Show My Computer, Network, My Documents, Username Folder etc.. on the desktop
• Edit the screensavers hidden options. Edit the WEI score. Edit all of your Vista Icons
• Access hidden Vista tools
• Lock down the system by disabling various parts (usb, task manager, control panel, new folder option, hide drives etc..)
• Optimize Vista using various speed tweaks
• Edit IE information such as the Title/Start Page/Clear History and Cookies etc.
• Easily edit the right click context menu

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In the past we have posted a tool called Dead Pixel Buddy used to detect dead pixels. Now, we’re posting a tool that can actually FIX dead pixels. “Dans Dead Pixel Fixer “is a very small, stand alone, portable tool that is based on the concept that flashing RGB colors over a dead or stuck pixel will “unstick” it. Many technicians have had great success with this tool. Including myself.
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Hijack Reader is a freeware, portable utility that can analyze Hijack This! logs and output the results to a HTML file. Most computer technicians already know about the websites online that can analyse Hijack this! logs for you such as such as HijackThis.de and Prevx.com.

But, what happens if you don’t have access to the internet? what happens if the malware has damaged the network connection? This is where Hijack Reader shines. Hijack Reader works OFFLINE.
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