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Thunderstorms can be beautiful and relaxing, as long as they're not the precursor to weather that's going to require you to hide in your basement. Amazing Thunderstorm Screensaver lets you enjoy sounds and visuals of a thunderstorm from the safety of your computer screen.

Once Amazing Thunderstorm Screensaver is installed, it can be accessed from the desktop's Display Properties menu just like any other screensaver. There are a few settings that can be adjusted: you can set the volume of the screensaver's sound effects, and the display mode for the video adapter can be changed. The … Read more

There are a lot of fish-related screensavers out there, and we tend to like them; they're generally calming and nice to look at. So we were rather taken aback when we launched Aquarium Fantasia Screensaver, which may be the ugliest screensaver we've ever encountered. It's impressive, but for all the wrong reasons.

Frankly, Aquarium Fantasia Screensaver looks like the final project of someone taking--and failing--an introductory interactive design course. Where do we even begin? What we suppose is meant to be sand in the bottom of the aquarium looks more like beige Berber carpet. The "stones&… Read more

Context menus, often called pop-up menus, keep functionality high and clutter low in operating systems like Windows. RBSoft's Right Click Enhancer bundles five free tools for customizing context menus. My Computer Manager adds nondeleting files or folders to My Computer or the Control Panel, while Right Click Tweaker adds up to 10 entries to context menus. Send To Manager let us add new destinations to the Send To command, and Right Click Shortcuts Creator adds shortcuts to files and folders to context menus. The Right Click Cascading Menu Creator is a little bit more sophisticated than the other tools. … Read more

If you're looking for a way to keep track of the time in cities around the world, then Moo0 WorldTime may be the application for you. This free tool offers a simple spreadsheet of time in major cities worldwide, and it lets you see the time gap in relation to your location. While far from exciting, it works.

WorldTime's functionality is limited; there are no bells and whistles...at all. Still, the program's spreadsheet-style interface got the job done for us, and with little fuss, too. All you'll see is a very basic, no-frills spreadsheet that … Read more

Vertex42's Paycheck Calculator for Excel is a free spreadsheet template that lets users calculate where their paycheck goes every month. It calculates deductions, withholdings, and allowances, including state and local taxes, FICA, 401(k) contributions, and more. It requires Microsoft Excel 2002 or later; we also recommend having the necessary financial records on hand, such as pay stubs or tax forms.

We extracted Paycheck Calculator's zipped download and clicked it, which opened it inside Excel. It's a cleanly configured Excel spreadsheet with a variety of simple fields for entering data, which were filled with helpful example entries. … Read more

Windows7Theme offers a variety of free themes and desktop backgrounds for Windows 7 in self-installing theme packs. The high-resolution images are presented in a wide-screen format (1,920x1,200 pixels) and can be scaled, shuffled, and selected via the standard Windows Personalization page. We took a look at Windows 7 Colorful Theme, which emphasizes vivid colors.

As with other theme packs we've tried, the download unpacked and installed automatically, replacing our previous wallpaper with the first image in the series, an abstract image of pastel layers that strongly suggested lemon and raspberry sherbet (a good start, by the way). … Read more

VivSoft's Video Wallpaper promises to install video clips as desktop wallpaper. It requires Microsoft .NET Framework, Windows Media Player, and up-to-date codecs, which some XP users may lack. Windows Vista 32-bit has the required codecs, and the program worked in that operating system and version. However, it created different problems in 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows 7.

Video Wallpaper downloads as a zipped file and installs normally. It has an extremely simple interface with four buttons--Set, Reset, About, and OK--and a check box for muting the video's sound. The program is very easy to use, too. We … Read more

We encounter a surprising number of programs that are designed for business use but are themselves somewhat unprofessional. Unfortunately, QZ School Management System Free is one of these programs. Although it seems to have a lot of features at first glance, it has several drawbacks that undermine our ability to take it seriously.

The program's interface somehow manages to be both sleek and cluttered; it has a modern look to it, but each of its tabbed menus contains a whole lot of icons. Once you familiarize yourself with it, however, it's not too difficult to navigate. The program … Read more

Start Menu enhancements are numerous, but most complaints about the Windows Start Menu boil down to this: there's too much stuff in it, and you have to click through folders to get to your programs. ChemTable Software's Handy Start Menu addresses these two issues by grouping Start Menu items together by category and by replacing folders with shortcuts that open the application in question with a single click. You can quickly toggle back to the regular Start Menu, too. Better still, it's free.

Clicking Handy Start Menu's desktop icon opens a dialog with an About section … Read more