The GUIguy uses lots of hardware and software products, and visits lots of websites. Only those that are exceptional in quality (functionality, manufacture, quality, ease of use, content, design) can make it to this list.

Axialis IconWorkshop is a well-written, fully-featured icon authoring tool with a Librarian organizer component. It is highly integrated with Windows and the shell. The included Help system is robust and richly illustrated; the screenshots are plentiful and annotated well. The application has good drawing tools, and you can also create an image in your favorite image editor (Photoshop, Fireworks, etc.) and paste it into the IconWorkshop or even import the file. During these processes, it does great job of maintaining image quality.

I did find some quirks, however, that were a bit unnerving. First of all, in many places in the Help, the underscore is used for emphasis. IMO, another method of emphasis should have been used since the underscore has become the ubiquitous indicator for a clickable link. The underscore as an emphasis indicator is quite passé. There are also some language inconsistencies in the writing that cloud the waters of full understanding.

Also in the way of quirks, there are some “non-standard” parts of the program: the ESCape key closes the icon librarian pane. The menus are not organized in a way that the typical Windows user would expect: the View menu should be next to the Edit menu, not next to the Windows menu. Some of the controls exhibit new visual behaviors. They also use terms like “Organize Desktop.” However, it is not completely clear whether they are referring to the Windows desktop or the application’s workspace. For those with a highly customized Windows desktop, finding out by experimentation is not really an option.

All in all, this is an excellent application that is worth working with and learning.

Color is a matter of taste and not just pure mathematics. And we should allow for user preferences and avoid hard-coding color wherever possible. That understood, the Color Wheel Expert helps you find "harmonious colors" that will work well in a web site or application. It enables you to preview text and background combinations as well as rectangular blocks. One of my favorite features is the ability to grab the color code from any color appearing on the screen.

One of the best navigational schemes for a web site is cascading menus. DHTML Menu Builder takes the pain out of creating these "popup" or "pulldown" menus. Support is personal and excellent. The developer actually cares about your success in using his product. Perhaps some other companies will catch wind of this approach and change theirs. (Intuit, are you listening?) The menus on this site were created using this tool.

ExamDiffPro is a File and Folder comparison tool. It is also an excellent diff program which is very useful in comparing version of source files. If you just want the file comparison tool, it is available as freeware. Check it out.

Renaming a file is not a very difficult task. That it, not until you have downloaded a large number of files and you want to convert their case, their attributes, date/time of creation, last access, or last save, or even name them sequentially. However, these are trivial tasks for FlashRenamer.

I first came across the application when I had to get the size of about 300 images. Doing it manually was unthinkable. So I used one of the features of FlashRenamer and pre-pended the size to each file name. Then it was a simple parsing of each filename to get the numbers I needed. (I used Excel).

FlashRenamer is incredibly flexible and powerful. Although I’d like to change a few things in the user interface (when does the GUIguy not want to do that) it’s a program that I highly recommend for anyone who likes to manicure their hard drives and really manage their files.

FTP Voyager is the perfect adjunct to web authoring tools, even if the tools have built-in FTP capabilities. It's a solid, efficient, highly customizable, easy-to-use application. A particularly convenient feature is the ability to synchronize local and remote directories. Unique to this program is the ability to navigate up and down the directories of your local machine and have the remote directories stay in synch with the local ones. It also works the other way around.

Extending this notion, when a remote file or folder is renamed or deleted, the local file or folder is renamed or deleted automatically. And when a local file or folder is renamed or deleted, the remote file or folder is renamed or deleted automatically.

There are only two shortcomings that I have found. The first is that there is no ability to make a copy of a site definition. This would be very handy especially if you are using the same IP address, login, and password but are just changing the default directory. A workaround is to export to a CSV file, add the records you want, and then re-import it. Clumsy, but it works. The second is that, even though FTP Voyager sports a Windows Explorer shell in the local folders view, it does not support the thumbnail view. While not a serious flaw, it's a feature that should be added.

FullShot is designed for any Windows user who needs an effortless, effective way to work with "snapshots" of Windows screens. It's perfect for images you want to include in manuals, training handouts, presentations, marketing materials, and web pages. The new Version 6 Enterprise edition includes Image123, a database for cataloging just about every conceivable graphic image, including .ICO and .CUR files. This database is an excellent way to store and retrieve files using descriptions, keywords and other criteria. As a visual tool it is not as strong as MediaCenter Plus, below.

Those who frequent this page will note that this page used to tout another font management program. However, MainType has actually "built a better mousetrap" so to speak, and is now the font manager of choice.

Beside having what you would expect, MainType also allows you to temporarily load a font rather than install it. What's the difference? Well, it's best to quote the application's Help file, which, by the way, is robust and well-written:

An installed font is both added to the system font table and to the font related part of the registry. All fonts in the system font table are available to all applications. Due to the entry in the registry an installed font is always available even after a reboot.

A loaded font (also known as a temporary installed font) is added to the system font table, but not to the font related part of the registry. Because all fonts in the system font table are available to all applications, loaded fonts (just like installed fonts) are available to all applications. However loaded fonts are no longer available after the system is rebooted.

The real kicker for the GUIguy is the ability to generate a web-based font collection. This Wizard creates a series of html pages complete with both screen and print cascading style sheets that allows a designer to presents fonts for consideration to a client. It eliminates a previously painful process that was almost a given for every new project. I just wish it were possible to stipulate the folder that the pages and stylesheets were saved to. Apparently, it's hardcoded, but it's certainly no reason not to make MainType your main type manager.

PowerArchiver is one of the best compression and decompression utilities around. It is an efficient application with an excellent GUI that is skinnable. It supports every conceivable compression algorithm and format, and integrates beautifully with the Windows shell.

It is highly customizable, so the user can virtually create an application that works the way s/he wants. Oh that all software were like that.

One of the first applications to sport the Microsoft Ribbon, it used to be freeware, but it is now shareware. It is more than worth $U$19.95 for a lifetime license.

Tired of filling out form after form on the web? So was I. Internet Explorer did a little, and Google's toolbar recently added an Autofill function complete with password protected credit card information. But there was still no complete at hand until I discovered RoboForm.

Frankly, I suspected it and didn't trust it at first. After all, it handles very private personal information (social security number, credit card numbers, etc.) and then some. I check with a colleague who is a "white hat" and he verified for me that the program does not send any information back to some anonymous server, etc. It does what it advertises: it makes filling out forms on the web (or on Windows applications) easy, simple, and error-proof. And it's unbreakable as far as he is concerned, even more so than the password-protected Word documents that so many of us use.

RoboForm works with three kinds of information: Identities, PassCards, and SafeNotes. It takes some getting used to understand the function of each, but once you get into the swing of it, you realize all the time you have wasted in the past filling out forms.

Even after the full-functioned trial expires, you are left with a limited version which is quite serviceable. Try it. You'll like it.

And support? They're amazing! They'll take on a problem and won't let it go until it's fixed! They get my vote!!!

Screen Calipers is one of those programs that, once you use it, you wonder how you ever did without it. Using the metaphor of a machinist's calipers, this little utility allows you to take measurements of screen elements in a variety of units.

Why would you want to do this? If you're a web designer/developer you can use it for on-screen layout. Sure you could do this in several steps with a graphics program, but why do it that way when there is a tool like this? The author of the program says that it is also being used by "engineers with CAD drawings, architects with blueprints, designers with illustrations, even an orthodontist who uses [it] to measure teeth on X-Rays."

SiteXpert is a tool that automates the process of creating site maps compatible with all available browsers. SiteXpert can also create a search engine customized for the site. The output is highly customizable, so even if your site is not quite as organized as you thought it was, you can still create a well-structured site map for your users. The site map for GUIguy.com was created with SiteXpert.

According to the author of the program, "Sizer is a freeware utility that allows you to resize any window to an exact, predefined size." According to the GUIguy, Sizer is one of those programs that you just have to have!

Back to the author's notes: "This is extremely useful when designing web pages, as it allows you to see how the page will look when viewed at a smaller size. The utility is also handy when compiling screen-shots for documentation, using sizer allows you to easily maintain the same window size across screen grabs."

Cascading style sheets give you control over the look and layout of web pages. TopStyle Pro gives you complete control over style sheets. If you use style sheets (and you should!), this program is a must. With each release it appears that the author, Nick Bradbury, has put everything you could ever want in the program. But with the succeeding release, he outdoes himself again!

Here are what I consider to be the best features in the new release, 3.0:

• Upgrade HTML documents to CSS by replacing outdated markup (like <font> tags) with equivalent CSS styling
• Full Screen Preview - Display your HTML or CSS documents in a full screen preview which can be split between Internet Explorer and Mozilla (Netscape Gecko)
• See at a glance which styles are related to the current HTML tag or CSS selector.
• Easily navigate your local files and network connections, and create links with simple drag-and-drop actions.
• Integration with tools like Dreamweaver and FrontPage
• Ability to import existing palettes from Macromedia Fireworks, JASC PaintShop Pro, Adobe PhotoShop (ACT format) and HomeSite
• A powerful HTML and XHTML editor (do you know how to spell "Homesite?")

All this, and in an excellent GUI as well. (And that kind of comment does not come lightly from the GUIguy!)

I don't understand how I managed disk space before I got TreeSize Professional. (I know--I didn't!) It's not that space is at a premium--it's not now that we have huge drives that are so inexpensive. But backing it all up was getting problematic.

TreeSize Pro is a hard disk space analyzer with an obvious, Explorer-like user interface. It is available on the context menu (right click) of every folder and drive. It displays complete information about your drives and folders (size, allocated and wasted space, number of files, last access date). You can print detailed reports or export the collected data to a Microsoft Excel workbook or a text file. I use it to find out where the most disk space is being used (hogged?) and where I can delete potentially useless files.

WhereIsIt? is a powerful program with an excellent GUI that is designed to help you maintain and organize a catalog of your computer media collection. It works on CD-ROMs, audio CDs, diskettes, removable drives, hard drives, network drives, DVDs, or any other media that Windows can access as a drive.

Little did I know when I started burning CD-Rs (several years ago) that I would end up with a cataloging mess on my hands. I just could not find where anything was stored. With features too numerous to mention, it's another program that I cannot live without any more.

People who frequent this site may notice that I have replaced AlarmWiz with a program called xReminderPro. I always had issues with the design, limitations in functionality, and lack of flexibility of AlarmWiz. xReminderPro, on the other hand, is a well-written, well-designed, highly customizable pleasure of a program. Not only has it replaced everything and anything that AlarmWiz ever did, but I have also been able to remove many kinds of alerts/alarms/to-dos from ACT. This program is definitely one you should consider.