You don't have to use GIF images to create your animations; you can use JPEGs and BMPs and the program will convert them into GIFs automatically. You can also convert AVI files into animated GIFs.

Virus protection is important for any computer system; it doesn't matter if you use a corporate workstation or simple home PC, any computer can be infected by a virus. However, not all of us can afford to buy a top-brand antivirus package and keep it updated. As a solution to this problem, Computer Associates distributes a personal edition of InoculateIT at no cost. If you're willing to submit some personal details to Computer Associates to register the software, you can also have access to regular free updates.

Using InoculateIT it is as simple as selecting a particular drive, folder or file and clicking Go. A pane at the bottom of the screen reports on the scan's progress and notifies you if a virus is detected. You can control the manner in which infected files are dealt with and reported. There is also a handy email option that sends an alert message to your IT administrator. Real time protection is provided by a background program that sits in the system tray to protect you from infected email and files downloading from the Internet.

SANDRA stands for System Analyzer Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant. It is a set of diagnostic and benchmarking tools designed to help you keep your computer running at peak performance. SANDRA provides diagnostic, benchmarking and performance tune-up tips for hardware devices such as CPUs, modems, drives, graphics cards and memory. It supports all the latest devices and drivers, and SANDRA gives you the opportunity to compare your system's performance with others. The shareware version included on the CD contains 50 testing modules; the professional version has an extra 20 modules. You select individual modules from SANDRA's control panel-like interface or you can perform each test in a preformatted sequence. After each test is performed, the results are clearly displayed, along with a number of tips to help you get the most out of your system. To make things even easier, you can make use of the report wizard and performance tune-up wizard.

If your Windows desktop has become too boring for you or you're looking for something more original and elegant, give WindowBlinds a try. WindowBlinds allows you to customise every facet of your desktop's appearance to suit your tastes. The style of title bars, toolbars and buttons can all be changed by assigning the desktop a personality. WindowsBlinds ships with a number of predefined personalities, and you can easily install more or create your own. Mac lovers can make the Windows interface look more like the Macintosh interface. Selecting a complete personality does not lock you into using every element of it; you can still customise particular elements of it that don't meet your tastes. You can choose which elements of the desktop are to be customised, and exclude certain applications from taking on the new design when the new personality is loaded. WindowBlinds will provide a cooler interface than the standard desktop, but if you have a very low-end system, it may be wiser to stick with the old desktop because the sophisticated desktop personalities that WindowBlinds is capable of creating will use up a lot of system resources.

Windows Commander is an alternative file browser to Windows Explorer. Windows Explorer and Windows Commander use very different file navigation styles and the latter offers a number of additional features. One of the best of Windows Commander's features is that it allows you to explore many compressed archives (ZIP, TAR, ARJ and so on) as if they were subdirectories, which vastly simplifies the process of managing them. There is an in-built FTP client as well as direct access to your Network Neighbourhood. Windows Commander also allows you to split large files into a number of smaller ones and rebuild them again -- this is particularly handy if you need to transfer a large file on low-capacity disks. The twin frame layout of Windows Commander not only allows easy drag-and-drop file management but also allows you to compare the contents of the two directories. The Compare Directories command is accessed from the toolbar menu along with plenty of other options.