Windows only: Free application ProcessQuickLink adds small icons to the left of every running process in the Windows Task Manager that—when clicked—tell you what that process does. The app looks up its information from ProcessLibrary.com, which provides a description of the process and recommendations for whether or not you should feel comfortable disabling it. When your computer seems slow and bogged down with running processes you can't make heads or tails of, ProcessQuickLink's seamless integration with Task Manager seems like the perfect way to hunt down and eliminate your unnecessary processes. For a full snapshot of all your running processes and their priorities, check out previously mentioned ProcessScanner. ProcessQuickLinks is freeware, Windows only.

Windows/Mac OS X only: Free screenshot and screencast sharing application Jing—which we first mentioned a year ago—turned one this week, and to celebrate they've significantly upgraded their free storage and transfer offerings. You now get up to 2GB of screenshot and screencast storage and 2GB of transfer per month on Screencast.com, which is 10 times the space and double the bandwidth. I'm a huge fan of Jing as the easiest cross-platform tool I've used to quickly share screenshots or screencasts (it's great for offering quick tech support). Anything you make with Jing can automatically be saved to Screencast.com, a local folder or network drive, an FTP server, or even Flickr (new since we first covered it) for quick sharing. Jing is freeware, Windows and Mac OS X only.

The second alpha release of the inventive Linux media player Amarok has hit the web, and while there's a new look and some cool new tweaks, there's really two big reasons to take a look—namely, Windows and OS X. You heard right: The next full release of Amarok, one of our readers' favourite media players, will be cross-platform. At the moment, only Linux users can reliably run the testers' release, so I loaded it up and decided to share some early screens to let you all glimpse at the other open source, extensible, innovative app that's coming soon.

Windows only: Free, open-source application MouseImp Pro adds drag-scrolling to your mouse in most popular applications, including Firefox, Microsoft Office apps, and Windows Explorer. That means you can scroll any supported document by clicking and dragging inside the window (like you often can with PDFs), by pressing and holding the right-click button (by default) and then dragging. The application has other features aside from Direct Scroll, but frankly, it's a little confusing. An AutoShrink feature, when enabled, is supposed to collapse windows to just the titlebar when they're not active to keep your desktop decluttered, but I couldn't get it working. Either way, the simple addition of right-click dragging and scrolling is a nice feature if you like it, and the app takes up a paltry 1.5MB of RAM. MouseImp is free, Windows only.
Thanks Prasanth!

Windows only: Computer activity logger TimeSnapper takes screenshots of your computer desktop every few seconds as you work throughout the day. Then, you can play back your computer activity to calculate the amount of time you spent on certain tasks—great for filling out timesheets or just getting the hard numbers on how much of the day you burned reading celebrity gossip or, ahem, productivity blogs. The Pro version of TimeSnapper (which is not free), lets you assign certain a productivity score on apps you work in, and will run reports that show your productivity scorecard. A free version of the software, TimeSnapper Classic has fewer features than TimeSnapper Pro, which costs $US20 for a single licence, with a free trial available. TimeSnapper is available for Windows only.

Windows only: Avanquest Connection Manager, previously a $US30 app, is now a free utility that could be seriously convenient for laptop users. The app lets you create profiles for your different wi-fi or LAN connections, changing email, printer, and network drive defaults depending on where you hook up, along with security settings and other concerns. The app's basic connection-chooser is also more user-friendly than Windows' own somewhat plain built-in version (though that might be what some road warriors like about it). The trade-off for its "free"-ness appears to be ads for other Avanquest software scrolling across the top, but I find them pretty easy to ignore. Avanquest Connection Manager is a free download for Windows systems only.

Windows only: Free utility HDDScan diagnoses whatever ails your hard drive. HDDScan works on ATA, SATA, and SCSI drives and (with some limitations) on removable drives such as USB and FireWire. Analyse drive temperatures, conduct S.M.A.R.T. tests, export and print reports to document changes in your hard drive's health with HDDScan, which is a free download for Windows only.

The CyberNet blog has posted a seriously helpful cut-and-paste script that anyone can turn into a shortcut to turn Windows' hidden file showing on and off. Normally, showing hidden files—like folders named with a starting "." and configuration files—is accessed through the options in Windows Explorer windows or shell extension tools, but this Virtual Basic script can be stashed anywhere and accessed from a keyboard shortcut. Great solution for those who alternate between showing and hiding hidden files.

Windows only: EjectUSB could be considered the nuclear option of USB drives that just won't property eject in Windows, because there's an "application or process" accessing it. Put EjectUSB on your thumb drive and run it, and the program will mercilessly kill every program, process, or anything else touching your drive, letting you safely remove it without any fear of data loss. It's obviously something you don't want to use when you've got important files open, but it's also a lot more convenient than restarting the computer. EjectUSB is a free download for Windows only; hit the via link below for a command line alternative for Linux systems.

Windows only: Free, open-source application Halite is a BitTorrent client with a focus on a small memory footprint. With Halite running and actively downloading on my system, I never saw the memory usage crest 10MB of RAM—which, as BitTorrent weblog TorrentFreak points out, is about half the memory consumption of the popular-for-its-small-footprint uTorrent. Granted, Halite doesn't have near the advanced features of uTorrent, but it does support most basic features, like encryption and selective file downloading. If all you want is a no-nonsense BitTorrent client that can grab your downloads with the best of them, Halite may be just what you need. Halite is free, Windows only.