So maybe it’s the coming holiday season that’s got me all warm and fuzzy and ready to share goodwill and tech tips toward men – or maybe it’s just the desire to clear out the writing cobwebs, stretch my literary legs and throw up some blog fodder to try and begin to work out that new-blog smell.  Either way – and without further distraction I present 4 pieces of awesome I found last week that make my life better on a daily basis.

Desktop Software

For this first made up category I chose Windows 7.  For those of us living under a rock – it’s the latest & greatest in the Microsoft Windows dynasty.  It works, it’s fast, and it’s a (just now) solid competitor to Apple in the OS game.  I recommend it to anyone (especially those still on Vista) because it’s optimized, stable, and best of all it’s easy to use.  Until January 2010, students can buy Win7 for $30 here.

Online / Desktop Utility

Made up category number two’s winner is Dropbox.  It’s a hugely useful utility that lives in your system tray (on PC and Mac) as well as online.  You get 2 gigabytes of free storage in the form of a folder called “my dropbox.”  Anything you put into this folder magically and (almost) instantly appears on all your other computers and mobile devices you’ve installed dropbox on.  It even has an iPhone app.  As a web developer working with a web designer, it’s supremely easy for us to have a shared dropbox folder – rather than using email or flash drive transfers.  Check out the iPhone app on iTunes, and this video for a better idea.

New Computer Configuration Utility

Ninite is a new free service that allows you to download a customized installer that runs in the background 100% handsfree, installs the apps you choose after a quick and easy checklist, it checks your PC’s language and 64-bit support to install the latest, best versions of each app, and it will never install spyware or browser toolbars.  Perfect for admins, IT, or really anyone who wants to get their computer quickly set up after a fresh clean install of Windows.

Honorable Mention

Launchy is by far the app that has saved me the most time on a day-to-day basis.  If I started backseat driving on the screen you’re looking at right now, and asked you to open up a program, you would (presumably) click the START button, then click on all programs, scroll around a bit, then click on an icon.  Or even worse another folder within a folder to find the program you’re looking for.  That’s 3+ clicks, which is far too many to get where you’re going these days.  Launchy sits in the background using very little system resources, and when launched appears with a flashing cursor.  As soon as you get three or four letters into the program or document you’re looking for Launchy is showing you a list of icons as well as possible matches.  Your program is usually one button press away.  For bonus points:  if you have one of those nifty keyboards with the customizable buttons, Launchy is even better when you map it to a hotkey.  It takes a day or two to get into the habit, but now that I’ve seen the light I can’t go back.