However, I did find a $0.99 app that is working quite well for me. Notes N More offers Notes, Tasks, Voice Memos and Pictures. I don’t really need the memo and picture part, but the Note and Task portion works quite well. All your items show up in a list together, with the most recently edited or viewed located at the top.

The Note editor is pretty good, but it looks like you could get another line on the screen when you view it in landscape mode. Hopefully that will change in the future. The editor is standard faire which is perfectly fine.

Tasks are nothing fancy, just a checklist, but that works for me. You don’t set due dates or show progress or partial completion. For that kind of tracking you would need something more powerful like, Simply Lists. However, for a simple checklist with notes associated with them, this works very well.

Notes and tasks can also have tags/categories associated with them. Filter and group your notes for easy viewing. Further, the app is very customizable when it comes to look and feel. You can change the background, not just to a color but to a texture, change the font color and style and change the color theme of the app.

It may not be a OneNote replacement, but for the low price of $0.99 this app does a great job! And it’s a universal app so its formatted for the iPad as well. If you’re looking to write down your ideas and organize a “to do” list then this is definitely worth looking into.

Notes N More website

If you like pipe mania style games this is definitely one to get.

Lemico Soft

Now, for something completely different: a really SAFE and FREE offer – for one day only Check Point is giving away ZoneAlarm Pro 2010, the advanced firewall solution designed to stop attacks that anti-virus alone misses. But that’s not it, to sweeten the deal and ensure consumers stay safe and secure during tax season, ZoneAlarm partnered with Intersections Inc. to offer Identity Guard^® Basic Protection^SM, a fundamental package of identity theft protection services and solutions.

The promotion will begin on Tuesday, April 13, starting at 6 a.m. PDT., and will last for 24 hours, running concurrently with Microsoft’s Patch Tuesday. Consumers can get this free protection, worth over $120, by going to: www.zonealarm.com/only24hours. ZoneAlarm will also offer an early promotion to existing and new Facebook fans at: www.facebook.com/ZoneAlarmFirewall.

First thing you need to do is go here and create an online account so you can sync your passwords. This is the same account you would make if you want to sync your passwords to your iPhone/iPod Touch (which I have also done).

With the account created sync your passwords.

Back on that same Roboform page, drag the Roboform link on the right to your toolbar.

Now, whenever you need to log in, click the Roboform button on your toolbar and your list of synced passwords will appear.

Pretty easy and very handy.

But wait! There’s more!

Roboform is having a Valentine’s Day sale. You cam get Roboform for 20% off which makes the price $23.95. Not a bad savings for this incredibly handy app! Plus you can get it working cross-platform no problem.

Get the full instructions on the Roboform Bookmarklet page

Plants vs. Zombies – $2.99

If you like your Diablo-styled action/RPGs, but always wished they had a more classical feel, Steam has a deal for you. From now through Thursday, February 4, you can pick up Titan Quest Gold for 75% off the regular price. That includes the original Titan Quest, chock-full of mythological Greek beasts to eviscerate, plus the Immortal Throne expansion that adds more of everything.

Titan Quest Gold – $19.99 — $4.99

Just I was about to remove it and write a pissed off email I can across the answer: Disable Quicken Registration Prompt

Simply put, hold down the left CTRL + Shift and click the Update button. You’ll immediately get a confirmation that you won’t get prompted to register anymore, but you can still get bank updates like you would expect. Hopefully this little trick will keep working (I just did it in the 2010 version). Registering so I can actually use a program I bought is just plain stupid.

Let me know about your successes.

Writing/Publishing
Microsoft OneNote 2007
Microsoft LiveWriter
Notepad++
Wordpress

I obviously use Wordpress on a daily basis for my blogs and Live Writer is one of the best tools for publishing articles. It might be a couple years old now but OneNote is one of the handiest apps I’ve used in a long time. Grabbing notes from the web and compiling research is a breeze with it. And Notepad++ is the best plain text editor out there.

Graphics
Corel Paint Shop Pro X2
Adobe Lightroom 2
Irfanview
FastStone Image Viewer

These are the graphics apps I use pretty much every day. Irfanview is my primary viewer and FastStone is a great folder viewer. For simple editing PSP is so easy to work with and Lightroom is amazing when it comes to working with photos.

Internet
Firefox 3
Digsby
Roboform
Internet Privacy Pro
Firebug
Web Developer Toolbar

Firefox is my choice in browser since it gets updated every few weeks versus the years it takes Microsoft to update IE. Digsby has become my choice for IM client since it connects to multiple services at one time and has tons of features. I really can’t live without Roboform these days. I now have hundreds of logins stored in it (and I have it on the iPod too!). Internet Privacy Pro cleans up all the cookies and left over temp files while Firebug and the Web Developer Toolbar let me debug web pages with ease. Everybody working on the web is using Firebug aren’t they?

Media
AnyDVD
CloneDVD
CloneDVDMobile
Handbrake

AnyDVD is the only way to get your DVDs on to your media center. CloneDVD just makes it all the easier. CloneDVDMobile gets DVDs onto my iPod with just a couple of clicks and Handbrake makes it easy to convert my AVIs to MP4s so I can play them on the iPod. Handbrake can convert from DVD to MP4, but my machine hasn’t had much luck with it.

Utilities
Windowblinds
ObjectDesktop
7-Zip
O&O DiskImage
O&O MediaRecovery

Windowblinds and ObjectDesktop offer tons of tools and enhancements to Windows. Make it look better, make apps easier to launch, tweak the settings and clean up the desktop. Some of it’s just for fun, but there is still a lot of power in the tools they make.

7-Zip is a great open source way to handle Zip and Rar files. For backups and file recovery, O&O makes some of the best tools out there. They’re small and fast and do a great job of imaging drives and finding lost/damaged files.

New Graphics Apps
DxO 6
Artisteer

These are some new apps I’m trying out this year. I got DxO at version 4 and thought it was pretty good, but seriously lacked some camera support. Version 6 seems to pick up the slack and offer lots of new cameras and bodies, as well as new features for adjusting pictures. I got it for a great price so I’m willing to give this new version another chance.

Artisteer is a new app I bought for making Wordpress themes. For the most part I have been very impressed with it. I made a bunch of themes for Halloween and even a couple for Christmas. Making themes is incredibly easy, but it does have a cookie cutter sort of feel to it. It’s a little on the expensive side, but it let’s me swap out themes whenever I want without having to spend hours searching the web. Plus, the code is easily modified so I can make adjustments where I see fit.

Like I said, this isn’t every software program I use, that list would be unruly, but these represent the apps I use all the time. When I build a new machine these are the first apps to go on. I’m sure some of you are using a few of them yourselves. If you’ve got a favorite app, let me know, I’m always on the lookout for useful utilities.