good portion of these are freeware. great to download for a laugh (or in the case of cave story, complete obsession).

simulate colorblindness when designing web pages. sadly, requires the adobe air runtime. we'll forgive it, though, in the name of accessibility.

good place to get any version of any ipod or iphone firmware. direct links to apple, too.

since going over to the dark side, the sheer amount of applications is a little ludicrous. in addition to using appminer to track apps on sale, these are some other comprehensive trackers.

windows server's remote desktop functionality is pretty damn good as it is. apple's had a version of it, and it sort of comes free with mac os x 10.5. this is how to enable it without paying $300 for a 10-person license!

nero or roxio too much or too expensive for your cd burning purposes? i've had infrarecorder on my portable usb drive for a year now, and it does a much better job than the giants, but any of these should do the trick.

open source acrobat reader replacements. get rid of the bloat! windows users - my personal favorite is foxit, which is not on this list, but still very free and very fast.

itunes seems to be the new realplayer. follow the links in the article to get rid of everything that sucks about itunes.

amazingly comprehensive installer that contains every version of internet explorer in standalone packages so they can run side-by-side. a treat for hardcore web developers who need to ensure that their markup stands up against every iteration of the absolute shittiest web browser in history. also includes the developer toolbar, which helps with very basic css/script debugging, but isn't nearly as comprehensive as firebug for firefox or webkit/safari's web inspector.

planning on building a new slipstreamed windows install cd? this page allows you to download security bulletins straight from the source, based on a timeline from when you need them. also lets you know if certain patches have been replaced by better ones.

while directed at windows users, this is pretty much what i'd do to a brand-new computer from the get-go - with a few exceptions - written in a very polite way to a new user.

a few password crackers for the budding, young it security professional.

all the sysinternals freeware utilities for direct download in one spot - run directly from any windows machine connected to the 'net.

highly recommend pretty much everything on here, especially the crapware section. it's sad that articles like this have to exist, but taking control of your box is paramount to not hating it.

good starting point for wannabe hackers. check the comments for alternatives.