Burn Disk Images in Windows

Need to create a disc image, burn one to CD for free? ImgBurn for Windows supports all types of image formats such as BIN, CUE, DI, DVD, GI, IMG, ISO, MDS, NRG and PDI. Burn Audio CD's from AAC, APE, FLAC, M4A, MP3, MP4, MPC, OGG, PCM, WAV, WMA and WV. Even build DVD Video discs (from a VIDEO_TS folder), HD DVD Video discs (from a HVDVD_TS folder) and Blu-ray Video discs (from a BDAV / BDMV folder).

Website - www.imgburn.com

Free CD Burner Application for Windows

Need a CD/DVD burning application for Windows ? Check out CDBurnerXP, a free tool for Windows 2000/XP/2003 Server/Vista/Windows 7. CDBurnerXP lets you create Audio discs, Data discs, Copy discs, burn ISO images, even bootable discs. It's fast, easy, and also allows you to rip CD's, but best of all, it's FREE.

Website - CDBurnerXP

Edit, Convert, Organize images for free in Windows

Looking for some simple FREE applications to view, organise, edit, convert images/photos in Windows? There are literally TONS of applications for this. Although I tend to do all my media manipulation on Macs, there are times when Windows is all that is available. That said, here are my picks which are totally free & reliable for use in Windows.

First a classic, IrfanView. Irfanview supports MANY file formats. Great for batch conversions, cut/crop/resize, thumbnail preview/organization and more.

Next is XnView. A utility for viewing and converting graphic files, much like IrfanView. It supports over 400 file formats, batch resize, rotate, crop, color adjustments, batch renaming, and more.

Finally, and this one is more photography oriented. Google offers it's free software called Picasa. Organize and edit your digital photos. Additionally you can create online albums to share. If you like Picasa, you will be pleased to learn that it's also available for Mac and Linux.

• IrfanView
• XnView
• Picasa

Virtual Desktops in Windows

If you need the ability to use virtual desktops in Windows, you may want to check out Dexpot. You can make certain applications automatically appear on a different virtual desktop such as one for web browsing, another for email and im and so on. Dexpot creates and manages virtual desktops on Windows 95/98/ME and NT4/2000/XP/2003/Vista (incl. x64). It's Free for private use.

Dexpot -  Download

3rd Party Backup/Cloning Apps For Windows

Whether you're backing up your desktop(s) for archival, preparing for disaster recovery or just re-formating a PC, it's inevitable that you will need a good backup solution in your Windows environment. Here's a short list of common ones you may want to look into:

• Norton Ghost
• Paragon’s Drive Backup Express
• Acronis True Image
• DriveImage XML
• XXCLONE
  

Depending on your needs, some of these have personal free or demo downloads available. Although, I've used or seen most of these in action, the 2 most widely used i business/corporate with support for both multicast & unicast are Ghost and Acronis True Image.