Lifehacker - Lifehacker Pack 2009: Our List of Essential Free Windows Downloads - Lifehacker Pack 2009 (Windows) We feature downloads of all kinds every day at Lifehacker. Today, however, we're bundling all the best free downloads for new computer owners, re-installers, would-be geeks, or anyone who wants to save time installing the best stuff out there. This is our 2009 Lifehacker Pack for Windows computers.
Use Caps Lock for Hand-Friendly Text Navigation (Windows) After we showed you how to disable the Caps Lock key, reader Philipp wrote in with his unbelievably geeky use for the otherwise pointless key-by using it to help navigate while editing text.
Opera 10 Beta Adds "Turbo Mode," Visual Tabs (Windows/Mac/Linux) A new beta of the speedy, innovative Opera web browser is available for download, bringing a visual, expandable tab bar and tab previews, server-side compression for slow connections, and many more features to your desktop.
Prey Phones Home to Help You Recover Your Stolen Laptop (Windows/Mac/Linux) Your laptop is missing. You're completely out of luck, right? Not if your laptop can phone home. Prey is a cross-platform security application that sends home pictures and location data when your laptop goes missing.
CardStar Creates Scanner-Friendly Bonus Cards on iPhones (iPhone/iPod Touch) The (currently) free CardStar app replaces keychain tags and wallet-cluttering bonus/discount/rewards/"shopper's club" cards with scanner-friendly barcodes. If you've got the gumption to flash a phone instead of swipe your plastic, it could be a real space saver.
Synchronize Nearly Any Storage Device with iTunes (Windows/Mac) Palm's Pre smartphone has received fairly positive press coverage for claiming to sync "seamlessly" with iTunes. The Boy Genius Report blog points out that free software can do pretty much the same thing with any removable drive.
Chromium Releases Official Mac, Linux Browser Alphas (Mac/Linux) We've already seen unofficial Mac and Linux builds of the Google Chrome browser's open-source base, but now the Chromium team is throwing them out for real-even if they're also saying "DON'T DOWNLOAD THEM"
KillCopy Speeds Up Disk Transfers and Securely Deletes Files (Windows) It's no secret that the default copy handler in Windows is miserably inadequate. KillCopy runs circles around the default handler with tons of customizable options including a secure over write of moved files.
Taskbar Overlord Tweaks the Windows 7 Taskbar (Windows 7) Reader Jay wanted the Windows 7 taskbar to work more efficiently-so he rolled up his sleeves and figured out how to enable middle-clicking to close applications.
