allSnap — www.cs.utoronto.ca/~iheckman/allsnapallSnap is a utility that allows all of your open windows to snap to other windows, the edges of your desktop or the center of the screen. I’ve been using allSnap for quite a while now, but I’ve been hesitant to suggest it as really helpful. I’ve now changed my mind, as I realize it provides a service I’ve always wanted, but never attained. When on other machines without it, I miss it—and that’s a sign that I crave functionality. I use it mainly for lining up windows. Often, I line things up to give my desktop a cleaner (and therefore more manageable) look, but it’s also useful for lining up Firefox and Internet Explorer windows when you’re checking for accurateness across the browsers, or “docking” a smaller window to the bottom of your screen where it’s out of the way, but still visible. This is a hard app to sell, but I’d suggest checking it out. The worst it will do is snap your windows in place when you do not want them to be—and that’s when the Uninstall feature can be utilized.Texter — lifehacker.comTexter is a brand new text replacement app, put together by those crazy cats over at LifeHacker (a fantastic blog that should be in everyone’s feed list). It just came out yesterday (March 2nd, 2007) and has all ready made it into my home and work life. It’s main purpose is to allow you to assign short pieces of text to be replaced by a big chunk of text. For example, for this post I’ve been using a string I set up of ‘aah’. Once I type this, if I press space, that text (aah) is replaced by an anchor tag (<a href=”"></a>) and it moves my cursor position inside of the quotes, thereby allowing me to more easily create HTML links. I also have one set up for my address and even one that allows me to generate an entire template for an XHTML 1.1-compliant web page with proper tab-spacing and reference to a stylesheet. It has already been a huge time saver, and will only get better as I add more rules to it. The best part is that it replaces text where ever you are typing: OpenOffice.org, Notepad++, Firefox, Thunderbird, anywhere!TrueCrypt — truecrypt.orgFor on-the-fly encryption, TrueCrypt is amazing. It’s open source, which sounds strange for encryption software, but its encryption methods are plenty, and they are all sound. Setup took only a few minutes, and now I’ve got automated backup (using SyncBack 3.2) on my vital files running into an encrypted file that I can feel safe about.OttoBib — ottobib.comOttoBib is a web-based bibliogrophy tool. With just the ISBN, you can get a citation in MLA, APA, Chicago/Turabian or BibTex! When having to write a term paper (as I am currently doing), it’s saved me from the horrors of attempting to write my own ciations, which always appear slightly different on each paper.Snarl — fullphat.netSnarl is “a fancy notification system for Windows.” Essentially, Snarl has the ability to show a pretty little box on your desktop that gives you important information, whether that be what iTunes track you are listening to or what hardware just got inserted into your computer. The idea comes straight from Growl (for Macs). I should warn that this is in some of its earliest stages of development and is definitely only applicable for those who wish to tinker and play. I would suggset using the latest beta versions of the upcoming releases; they tend to be more feature-rich and let you play with all the brand new functionality.