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Managing inventory can be a difficult task if you don't have the right tools for the job. Chronos eStockCard Inventory Software packs a lot of useful inventory management features into an intuitive interface, making a complicated process easier to handle.

The program's interface is attractive and easy to navigate, with tabs down the left side for sales, purchases, inventory, reports, tools, and settings. Within each of these features are displayed in a format that is similar to a flowchart, which organizes the features in a way that makes a lot of sense. For example, the sales quotation icon … Read more

We encounter lots of programs that are either image editors or image organizers, but rarely do we see programs that do both. Kestrel GX is an exception, providing people with both a set of basic editing tools and a sleek way to organize and view images.

The program's interface is reminiscent of Adobe products such as Lightroom and Bridge, with a sleek black layout that's fairly easy to navigate. The image viewer portion of the program allows people to view and edit metadata, assign keywords and other identifying information, and search images using a variety of parameters. A … Read more

We tend to be somewhat dubious of time-management software. More often than not, the time spent creating tasks, dividing them into smaller tasks within tasks, assigning them priority levels, and setting reminders is time that could be better spent just getting your work done. Autofocus, however, is different. This innovative program relies on a simple process and your own intuition to keep you productive, and we think it's a great alternative to more structured time-management options.

In truth, the Autofocus system could be followed using a regular notebook, but the fact that there's a software version makes sense … Read more

No one wants to think about floods, fires, or theft, but these terrible things can and do happen. Having an up-to-date home inventory can make thousands of dollars' worth of difference when it comes to filing insurance claims after a disaster. Home Inventory Spreadsheet is a basic Excel spreadsheet that can help you make a list of your most important possessions and their worth. Although this isn't really anything you couldn't do on your own with Excel, the spreadsheet has a nice layout that makes it easy to get started.

The spreadsheet organizes your possessions by room, breaking … Read more

Annuities are a popular way to invest your money, especially if you're risk-averse and like the security of having a guaranteed income from your investments. Annuity Calculator for Excel is a simple Excel workbook that can help you determine exactly what you can expect your annuity income to look like.

Annuity Calculator for Excel comes as an XLS file and requires no installation; all you have to do is open it in Excel. Far from being just a spreadsheet full of numbers, the calculator has an attractive layout and enough explanatory text to give even beginners an idea of … Read more

Aviassin's EdgeSwap is a task switcher with a twist: you just move your cursor to the left edge of your desktop, select your window from a series of thumbnails, and EdgeSwap does the rest. It's portable freeware that runs in Windows 95 to 7.

Since EdgeSwap is totally portable and pretty small, too, you can stash its extracted executable file just about anywhere and run it with a click. We did, and EdgeSwap placed its icon in our system tray but gave no other indication it was working. However, we followed the program's instructions and rolled our … Read more

Style-7's Photo Clock-7 is a free analog clock screensaver for Windows that lets you use your own images as a clock face background. It has the usual analog clock options, such as removing the second hand, and editing things like font color, but the ability to use your own picture for the background makes it a more interesting choice, in our opinion, than other screensavers of the same type.

We installed Photo Clock-7, opened our screensaver properties, selected the program, and clicked Settings. A small dialog let us choose background and font colors, including custom colors via a standard … Read more

Chrome TV lets you stream international TV stations to your desktop via a browser pop-up inside Google Chrome. It draws its listings from an online database, which means you can't add your own channels or make other changes. Chrome TV's selections are nothing if not diverse--linguistically and geographically, at least. The programming leans toward news, weather, and sports broadcasts as well as what might be called cultural affairs programming, though we did find some movies, classic cartoons, and other pleasant surprises.

Chrome TV is free and installs easily, but it might require the Windows Media Player browser plug-in, … Read more

Windows supports text files natively and also incorporates a search function, but it doesn't go out of its way to put the two together. MuseTips Text Filter is a compact, portable, and free tool that can quickly and thoroughly search text files. It searches as you type and displays matching terms in contrasting colors. It also offers autosuggestions, full support for regular expressions, multiple query modes, and extensive filtering.

At less than 500KB unzipped, Text Filter is certainly lightweight, and since it's fully portable, it runs from any location, including from a USB drive or other portable device. … Read more