My Pick: 1. Free widgets for blogs/sites, 2.Free useful utilities

Net activities like Blogging, posting web articles, comments on forums, participation in similar activities at social networking sites, matrimonial sites and other related activities have become so linked with the life of the majority of the people that they can't stay away from them for very long. All these activities were seen earlier as time pass but now have become a source of earning too. Changes are taking place so fast in that it really becomes difficult to keep pace with. If you are among these people, you may need some programs/utilities in form of software.If you own a blog or a site, you need free widgets to provide an attractive look to your site. Few must have widgets for your web page are listed and some more will be added whenever I find them useful.

1. Clock:

Each and every web page needs a clock either on left or right side bar. It depends on the individual choices whether one like digital or analog clock for a web page. One can find hundreds of clocks on the web but all would prefer an analog clock with their country flag as its body frame. Local time, time zone, date and name of the city etc can be easily customized in this widget provided by http://localtimes.info website. An analog with Indian flag is shown in the right side bar.

2. Currency exchange rate widget:

Majority of viewer may not be in need of this information but many of them would like to have an idea of exchange value of their own currency.From this point of view one should use this widget on a webpage. Important point to keep in mind concerns with selection of widget. An Indian should select a widget which gives the exchange rates of an Indian rupee in different currencies. Again I prefer this widget provided by http://localtimes.info

3. Calender widget:

Time and date are important foe everyone in this world. Hence, calender is also a must have widget for each and every web page. Free calender widget is available at localtimes.info and calenderlabs.com. I found calender widget more customizable from http://calenderlabs.com site One can use own image as a background image and display holidays in the calender. Such information is very useful for visitors.

4. Traffic widget: There are several widgets available for mapping traffic to your webpage. My pick in this regard is the widget provided by "feedjit' . It gives information about the location of the visitor to your page. Even visitors can have an idea about the nature of traffic to the site. A snapshot shows the traffic information displayed by the widget on Indian Teachers & Researchers Forum (ITRF), a website created by author of this hub and display of these widget onhomepage.

Free Utilities

I am listing here different types of free software that is often required to do several activities like capturing some photographs displayed on your monitor screen, converting PDF document to text, searching meanings of different words of English, and finding information on a topic of your interest etc. Even your kids may request you download a free game for them or your friends may request you to play a movie or play some music. The software and utilities I have listed below are freeware but of 'must have' nature.

Disk clean and registry cleaning utilities

Our computer becomes very slow after its use for sometime. This is because links, short cuts, temporary files and registry information remains stored in the memory of the computer and cleaning of these items is required at short intervals. You can purchase few softwares to keep your computer clean but same work can be done by the free utilities listed below with similar efficiency.

BeClean:

BeClean 1.4 is a very useful tool and complete suite of utilities. It is a free and full packaged application. It can be downloaded from net and time taken for download is also less as it is a small program. But don't be mistaken by the size of the program. It includes several cleaners like registry cleaner, internet cache cleaner, history cleaner, temporary files cleaner, start menu cleaner, desktop cleaner, empty recycle bin and custom cleaner. It can silently work and easily customized to your needs and, "of course, it is free", it does not cost you.BeClean can be configured to run at Windows start and perform a silent cleaning of the above mentioned locations. Some Windows programs leave behind a list of files that have been previously opened and these can be eliminated from History tab by checking the corresponding boxes.

Free window registry repair:

It is also a very handy tool. I never faced any problem using this tool. It repairs corrupt registry entries and removes empty registry entries. You can restore your computer to an early date or precleaning state as this program create restore points before removing useless registry entries.

EasyCleaner:

Besides removing unnecessary registry entries it performs several optimizing tasks like removing most recently used (MRU) links, duplicate files, finds and removes unnecessary files, cleans invalid short cuts, clears IE temporary Internet files and several other optimization tasks. I recommend use of this free program to run your computer fast.

Free screen capture utility

MWSnap v.3.00.0.74: It is a screen capture camera and very useful for taking snapshots of any area of the screen. This version is compatible with windows platform. I have used it for hubtivity. Utility is available at net and you can click this MWSnap v,3 link to download. Best way to use it is to minimize the camera in the system tray and select free area after right click on it when you wish to capture anything displayed on your computer screen.

Dictionary

Word Web 5.2: Although MS Word has inbuilt dictionary but I found Word Web more useful and easy to use tool.Despite being freeware, following resources are available with the free version and I found this much help enough for hubbing.

i. Definitions and synonyms

ii. Proper nouns

iii. Related words

iv. Pronunciations

It has 150 000 root words and 120 000 synonym sets

It has provision to look up words in almost any program

Click to download Word web 5.2

Media Player

Winamp 5.5:

My favorite MP3 and Media player is Winamp 5.5. The best feature of winamp that I like most is continuous play of MP3 files. You can select files or folders. Its add file & add folders feature is simple to use. In windows media player a user faces the difficulty in selection of song.

Users may drag and drop media directly into a Playlist from Windows Explorer or the Media Library. They can rip their favorite music CDs into AAC, MP3, WMA, WAV or FLAC, and burn favorite music compilations to Audio CD.

Lovers of TV and radio can easily tune into user created Internet TV and Radio stations. Hundreds of Winamp Music and AOL Videos are available for viewing. Other integrated features include: In2TV, Games, Winamp Remote, and more. It can play many major video formats (AVI, NSV, WMV, MPG, etc.) with ease

Winamp 5.5 comes bundled with the latest version of the ground breaking AVS (Advanced Visualization Studio) and Milkdrop visualizers and you can enjoy over 100 bundled visualization presets created by users and select from the dozens of EQ presets to tune the sound.

Click Winamp 5.5 to go to download page.

PDF utilities:

PDF Text Reader 1.1 is a free utility for non-commercial use. If you have a file in PDF format and you wish to edit this file and use text in word document, you will need to convert PDF file in a text format. You can either convert PDF to text page wise or you can convert entire PDF file with a single stroke of key into text form and save it as text file in your computer.

It may be downloaded by clicking this "Download" link .

Cute PDF Writer:

This is very useful utility. IF you wish to save your file in PDF format, use Cute PDF Writer as printer. Actually it will not print your file but save it as PDF file in your hard disk. It has to installed once and thereafter it would be available in printer options after you give print order.

Blueberry PDF form filler:

There are two ways to deal with PDF forms.

1. Print the form and fill with hand

2. Purchase Adobe Acrobat

However, there are other way outs also for PDF form filling. There are few sites like PDFescape which allow you to fill PDF forms online after registering with the website. There are free softwares also like Blueberry's PDF form filler which is a freeware and good utility for PDF form filling. You can easily fill PDF forms, save them and print also using Blueberry PDF Form Filler.

Download Blueberry PDF Form Filler for free. File size is 3.68 MB

Mobile video format to Windows media format

Mobile video player format files are usually 3gp files. To view these files you have to convert these files to avi, mpeg or mpg format. There are several free softwares to convert these file formats to compatible formats. A list is provided here.