Power to the People

The Windows registry is a mysterious place, but if you're comfortable editing it, you have the power to tweak nearly every Windows setting you can imagine. Here are 10 favorite registry tweaks that make life easier.

Get Smart

Ge.tt is a clever, instant file-sharing webapp that makes sharing files simple and fast. You can share a link to your file(s) immediately, without waiting for the upload to complete, and it doesn't use Flash, Java applets, or any other plug-ins.

Ge.tt couldn't be easier to use. You don't even need an account to use it (though you get extra benefits from registering). Visit Ge.tt, click the Select files button, choose one or more files you want to share (or you can simply drag and drop in supported browsers), and that's it. Ge.tt will begin uploading your files and instantly generate a unique URL for you to share.

You can share the link before the upload is finished—files will update on the download page in real-time, as they're uploaded, and the user on the other end can start downloading a file while you're still uploading it. In fact, you can also add files to the share after you've shared the link. Any new files you upload will automatically show up on their end without reloading the page.

Up and Coming

Some people avoid any and all update notices—and you can't always blame them, given how many occur on the average computer. Do you avoid update dialog boxes like the plague?

In comes Ninite and the almighty Windows Task Scheduler. Using a creative combination of the two, the update-avoiders will have their mess handled automatically and silently.

To pop open Task Scheduler, head to: Start\Programs\Accessories\System Tools\Task Scheduler

Simply pick the apps always used on your machine at Ninite.com, save the Ninite executable to a location, and schedule a task to run the executable every week.

This will keep you exploit free, for the most part.

Stocking Stuffers

Still not sure what to get the technology-loving person in your life (like me)?? Here's a great Holiday Gift Guide.

More Drops in the Bucket

Dropbox will boost your free account by a full 768MB if you're feeling social. Head on over to www.dropbox.com/free, sign in to your account, and you'll be given four tasks to complete. Each one is worth an additional 128MB and they're all pretty painless:

* Connect Dropbox to your Facebook account
* Connect Dropbox to your Twitter account
* Follow Dropbox on Twitter
* Provide a little feedback to the Dropbox team

The last one is actually pretty important. Dropbox is a fantastic service, and one way to make it even better is to offer up your two cents.

Clean as a Whistle

CCleaner just hit version 3.0 recently, but Piriform has already pushed an incremental update to the popular clean-up app. What's new in CCleaner 3.01? For starters, there's support for Adobe Reader X and Acronis True Image, better cookie detection for users of Firefox 4 beta 7, and improved handling of 7-zip, Chromium-based browsers like SRWare Iron, MMC, Silverlight local storage, and Adobe Reader 9. You also no longer need to reboot after CCleaner finishes cleaning up your Internet Explorer index.dat files.

CCleaner 3.01 isn't all about app support, however. It also starts up and scans faster, and both the uninstall tool and drive wiper have been improved. If you've got CCleaner set to check for updates, just fire it up and follow the prompts. Otherwise, you can download CCleaner 3.01 from the builds page.

It's All in A Name

Coming up with a good domain name these days is akin to finding a parking spot in New-York. Accordingly, tools for finding free domain names abound, and most of them offer some sort of a "brainstorming interface". The idea is to help you come up with a domain name nobody (including yourself) considered before.

Domize is one of the nicer attempts at this sort of thing. At its simplest form, it's a very fast find-as-you-type service for free domain names. As you type each new letter in the name of your domain, Domize quickly checks whether or not that domain name is free for .com, .net, .org, .co, .us and .biz.

But that's just scratching the surface of what Domize can do. Click Options and you can change the TLDs (top-level-domains, such as .at, .me and others), toggle the find-as-you-type functionality, and change the domain registrar used.

When you finally find a domain you like, hovering over the TLD shows a pop-up with price quotes from several different registrars, usually with significant differences in price. This is a beautiful tool.