Free task scheduler for Windows XP

AutoRun is a full-featured, open source task scheduler for Windows XP/Vista. It can easily automate the tasks you need to frequently run and can autostart with Windows.

Best Freeware DVD decoder for Windows XP/Mac and Linux

The best DVD decoder in my opinion is VLC media player which is a freeware multi-format player. Used alongside an install of the Combined Community Codec Pack you should be able to open most, if not all codecs and formats found on the web.

If you would like to convert DVD to a movie file on your computer then try the one click DVD ripper (link goes to review and download from Lifehacker.)

How to find out your computer specs

System Information for Windows is an information gathering tool which will output various software, hardware and network information about your a computer to a CSV, HTML, TXT or XML file.

Free e-mail checker with webmail support

POPPeeper is a freeware e-mail checker with support for both POP accounts and many online web-mail services including Hotmail, Yahoo and Gmail.

View media information from video and audio files

MediaInfo will analyse many audio and video formats to give you media information such as codec, bit-rate as well as author/artist information.

Edit startup programs on Windows to speed up computer

Autoruns is a Microsoft-supported freeware utility that allows you to view and edit the programs that start up with Windows or on boot. This is a better way than msconfig to speed up your computer. This works well in conjunction with CCleaner as a routine system cleanup.

Test your site in different versions of Internet Explorer

IETester is a free web-browser tester that has Internet Explorer 8, 7, 6 and 5.5 built in for Windows.

Freeware open source encryption utility

Truecrypt is a free on-the-fly encryption system for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.

Freeware file recovery

Recuva is freeware utility designed to rescue files that you have accidentally deleted.

Clean your temp files and cache

CCleaner is a great freeware system cleaner that will clean your registry, remove unnecessary files as well as clear your cache and web history. Also try Defraggler, a freeware defragmenter by the same company.

Free web server with ASP support

Baby Web server is a freeware Microsoft IIS alternative with native ASP support.

Free HTML editor / notepad replacement

HTML Beauty++ is one of the best free notepad replacements for HTML editing that I have found. Supports code colouring and browser integration.

Burn any movie format to DVD

DVD Flick is a free, open source DVD authoring program that will convert many video formats easily. There is a guide to using it here: Lifehacker DVD Shrink guide.

Universal file format video converter

MediaCoder is an open source (freeware) video and audio converter. I find I have had success using it with video conversion where Super(C) will not work.

Free SuperPNG Photoshop Plugin

SuperPNG is a free Adobe Photoshop plug-in for using PNG ("ping") files. It is faster than Adobe's own PNG plug-in and saves considerably smaller PNGs.

PNG is an open source file format that supports tight lossless compression. It can be read on any platform by most graphics applications and is fully supported by all modern web browsers.

Free online tools for evaluating web design

SixRevisions.com has a great article on 7 tools that you can use to measure the effectiveness of your web design.

Free codec pack for Windows XP

The Combined Community Codec Pack is a frequently updated codec package which will cure most video/sound codec issues - click here for a list. It comes with two utilities - Media Player Classic and Zoomplayer which are both freeware media players.

From the CCCP FAQ: "the CCCP was created to replace the video playback packs provided by several anime fansub groups in favor of a single reliable pack capable of decoding practically any groups' files - without breaking compatibility for other formats. Since then it has grown into a pack that can decode more or less anything that you will run into during your travels on the internet."

Freeware Windows Explorer alternative

ExplorerXP is a fast Windows explorer replacement which allows you to browse directories in different tabs, save folder groups and mass-rename files according to wildcards. (PC/Freeware)