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Free Tune-Up! Accelerate Your Apps by Jim Boyce
Part I
If you find using Windows too much of a button-clicking job, you should check out RTVReco. The utility from RTV Software (http://www.clearlight.com/~rtvsoft) does much of the clicking for you, as well as automating other tedious tasks.
You create tasks associated with specific window and dialog box names, and RTVReco executes the task in the window when it appears. For example, you can set it up to automatically click on the Connect button in Windows 95's Connect To dialog box (used for Dial-Up Networking).
RTVReco can automate any window or dialog box you can identify by name. If you always click on the same button when a particular dialog box pops up or always choose the same menu item when you first open a specific program, you can set up tasks in RTVReco to click or pick automatically.
Technically, RTVReco is freeware, but after using it for a while, you might even want to pay the suggested $10 registration fee.
Part II
Microsoft Office suite users can pick up free add-ons (http://www.microsoft.com/msdownload) that can help speed up creation of Web pages.
Internet Assistant add-ons for Word and Excel make it easy to convert existing Word and Excel documents to HTML format for publishing on the Web.
Free viewers for Word and Excel let you take a quick look at these apps' documents without opening the programs. The viewers open faster and take less memory than the full applications, and they also allow you to view documents even if you don't have Word or Excel. They offer a great way to distribute documents across a workgroup or company without the expense of providing the native applications to everyone.
Microsoft Camcorder, another free utility available at the Microsoft Web site, lets you record and play back actions from your screen. It's great for recording clips for training purposes and to supplement custom-built help documents.
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