Useful Software
Monitor and Control Bandwidth Traffic with NetLimiter
NetLimiter is a great application that displays bandwidth usage on a computer or server. It’s really useful when you want to see how much bandwidth a specific process is using.
You can use NetLimiter to set download/upload transfer rate limits for applications or even single connection and monitor their internet traffic.
Along with this unique feature, Netlimiter offers comprehensive set of internet statistical tools. It includes real-time traffic measurement and long-term per-application internet traffic statistics
There are 3 versions, all can display the bandwidth usage of applications as well as history graphs but only the shareware/full versions can limit bandwidth of processes (the shareware versions costs, while the Freeware version is free).
Monitor and Control Bandwidth Traffice with NetLimiter
Bitvise WinSSHD, an easy to use SSH server which includes Secure remote access
Bitvise WinSSHD is an easy to use SSH server which includes Secure remote access via console (vt100, xterm and bvterm supported), Secure remote access via GUI (Remote Desktop or WinVNC required), Secure file transfer using SFTP and SCP (compatible with all major clients) and Secure TCP/IP connection tunneling (port forwarding). If you’re worried about security or want to harden your existing setup, then adding SSH on top of your RDP connection is the way to go. By default RDP is not entirely secure because the encryption it provides is only half-way meaning that it does not encrypt usernames and passwords. With SSH, you can encrypt the entire connection!
There are other SSH server’s on the market, but they are very complex to set up.
WinSSHD is free for individual/personal use and requires license purchase when used in a commercial environment.
You can download it at http://www.bitvise.com/winsshd
Bitvise Tunnelier – an easy to use SSH client
Bitvise Tunnelier is an easy to use SSH client “which includes state of the art terminal emulation, graphical as well as command-line SFTP support, an FTP-to-SFTP bridge, powerful tunneling features including dynamic port forwarding through integrated proxy, and also remote administration for the SSH server, WinSSHD”.
I’ve used Putty in the past and putty was confusing, but this application makes connecting to SSH a breeze. You can even generate Public/Private keys!
Tunnelier is free for individual use and requires license purchase when used by more than 1 person.
You can download it from http://www.bitvise.com/tunnelier
freeFTPd – free and most secure sFTP Server available
FTP by itself is very insecure. Passwords are sent in plaintext over the internet; there is no encryption. You can set up FTP with an SSL certificate, but it can be complicated.
This is where sFTP comes in. sFTP is FTP encryped with an SSH layer. freeFTPd is a free sFTP server. It’s very easy to set up the server, set up users, view logs etc.
Its a lot more secure than FTP. To give you an example of how much more secure it is, the strongest SSL certificate is 256 bits. With SSH you can go all the way up to 4096 bits!
freeFTPd is freeware and compatible with any Windows NT based system (eg. Windows NT, 2000, XP, Vista, 7, 2K3, 2K8).
You can download it from http://www.freesshd.com/?ctt=overview
Startup Delayer- delays the startup of applications when windows loads
Startup Delayer does just what it says; it delays the startup of applications when windows loads.
By default when windows loads (after you log in), all your programs load at the same time. This can seriously slow down the load time as all the applications are competing for CPU and Hard Disk accesses. Startup Delayer solves this by allowing you to setup how many seconds after Windows has started to load each program.
Startup Delayer is freeware and compatible with Windows 98/ME/2000/XP/XP64/Vista
You can download it from http://www.r2.com.au/software.php?page=2&show=startdelay
QTTabBar – extension that gives Windows Explorer windows a tab bar
QTTabBar is an extension that gives Windows Explorer windows a tab bar (similar to Firefox/IE Tabs). Rather than using a separate program that displays multiple views, you can keep on using your Windows Explorer! This is very useful when dealing with multiple folders since you can have them all in the same window and switching to them is easy.
There is some tweaking you will need to do to get it to display. Once you install it and log off, go to Internet Explorer. Right click the favorites bar and select “QT TabBar” and “QT Tab Standard Buttons”. Once these are visible in your Internet Explorer, they will be visible in Windows Explorer.
QTTabBar is freeware and is officially compatible with Windows XP and Windows Vista. I have personally tested it on two Windows 2003 Server boxes and it works fine with no problems.
You can download it at http://qttabbar.wikidot.com
Speed up the start time and performance of Adobe Acrobat with Acrobat Speedup
Acrobat Speedup is small application that speeds up the start time and performance of Adobe Acrobat. Adobe Acrobat has a lot of features and as such can take longer to start up. Most of those features you dont use, so this application speeds up performance by disabling those features.
Of your course you can always use another PDF viewer like FoxIT PDF, but the problem is that other PDF viewers might not be able to view certain types of PDF Files, so using Adobe Speedup will make your Acrobat as fast or nearly as fast as other PDF viewers and you will still be able to view most types of PDF files.
Acrobat Speedup is freeware and is compatible with all versions of windows.
You can download it http://software.bootblock.co.uk/?id=adobereaderspeedup
PeerBlock – an IPBlocker
PeerBlock is an IPBlocker that let’s you control who your computer can communicate with on the internet. You can block communications with advertising or spyware oriented servers, computers monitoring your p2p activities, computers which have been “hacked”, even entire countries! PeerBlock is the successor to PeerGuardian (the original IPBlocker).
To give you an idea of just how powerful PeerBlock is, my PeerBlock is configured to block Hijacked, Hacked and P2P IP’s and in total 911,675,868 IP’s are blocked for me!
PeerBlock is freeware and compatible with Windows 2000, XP, Vista and 7 (32bit and 64bit).
You can download it at http://www.peerblock.com/
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PeerBlock
BlueScreenView – analyzes crash dumps and informs you
BlueScreenView is an application that analyzes Blue Screen crash dump files and tells you information about the crash. It’s very useful since it can tell you the driver or module that possibly caused the crash. This can save a lot of time since you dont have to scour the internet for the answer to your crash.
BlueScreenView is compatible with Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista, and Windows 7 (as long as Windows is configured to save minidump files during BSOD crashes). It’s also compatible with 32-bit and x64 systems.
BlueScreenView is freeware and you can download it at http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/blue_screen_view.html
HLSW for Server Admins – manage your game server
HLSW or Half-Life ServerWatch is an awesome administration tool to manage your game server. It’s primarily a tool for admins, but regular players can use it too (as a server browser).
With HLSW you can chat to players on your server without ever entering the server! You can execute RCON commands, change the map, etc.
HLSW supports many games aside from Half-Life 1 and Half Life 2. Some of the more popular ones are; Battlefield 2, Call of Duty (all games), Crysis, Neverwinter Nights and more. You can see the complete list at http://hlsw.org/hlsw/supported_games/
HLSW is freeware and compatible with Windows 2000 SP4, XP and Vista.
You can download it at http://www.hlsw.org
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HLSW
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