Windows, Mac: There’s something delightful about the old LucasArts ScummVM games: The beautiful environments, the crafty puzzles and the incredible voice-overs (for the games that weren’t just text captions over moving mouths).

Windows, Mac: You probably have a few websites that you use all the time — perhaps a special CMS you need for work, a time-tracking site you use to track and bill hours for clients, or a web game you just can’t get enough of. If you’re tired of pulling up your browser each time you need to access it, you have an alternative: Transform it into an app.

Windows: The phrase “package manager” sounds a bit ominous, but if you’re smart, you’ve already used one to outfit your Windows PC with all the basics: Ninite. The site couldn’t be any simpler. You pick the programs you want, it creates one installation file for everything, and double-clicking on it installs everything you selected at once.

Windows/Mac: There are plenty of apps you can use to put on a little light show in your house (or geek den) if you’ve bought into Philips’ Hue ecosystem. My room is full of the company’s expensive colour-changing LED bulbs, and I’ve checked out a few of these apps, but generally don’t need to make my room look like an exploding volcano on a regular basis. These kinds of apps are fun for parties, but not all that practical for everyday use.

Windows: Even if you're the world's biggest Microsoft fan, you have to admit that Apple's "Quick Look" feature for macOS is pretty convenient.

If you're such a purist that you haven't even touched a Mac in the last decade or so, here's a brief introduction: You click on a file. You press the space bar. A preview of the item pops up - such as a photograph, the contents of a PDF, and so on.

It's a great way to take, well, a quick peek at something without wasting time loading an actual app.

Windows: Here's an incredibly useful extension that you'll want to grab from the Windows Store if you have any kind of device - cough Apple cough - that shoots and stores .HEIC images.

Windows: I'm sitting in Las Vegas as I type this, and little makes you want to launch yourself off the face of the Earth faster than running into a group of loud, yelling bros looking for that next sweet bar where they can fill up on Coors Light.

Windows: Most computer geeks know about WinDirStat, an incredibly useful utility that shows which folders and files are taking up so much room on your drive. It's a must-have app, because you'll be surprised - heck, I've been surprised - how many times you might find some random, triple-buried folder on your desktop that's using an unseemly amount of space.

Windows: There are a million little apps that feature some combination of the words "Wi-Fi" and "analysis", or something really close to either. Some apps are paid; some are free. And they all allow you see different combinations of information about your wireless setup (and the wireless setups of those around you).

Windows: Here's the problem: The HEIF image format, which Apple now uses in iOS 11 in the form of HEIC files, is a great alternative to JPEG. HEIC images eat up less space and support plenty of extra features, such as depth maps and 16-bit colour. Great. Wonderful.

Unless you're the world's biggest fan of Microsoft Outlook, odds are good that you don't use a desktop email client at home. You probably use a web-based email service, and your daily routine probably involves firing up your browser to delete, move, and otherwise ignore your messages. Third-party apps like Mail (for Windows or Mac) be damned.

Windows: No matter your poison - Cookie Clicker, Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms, or Kittens Game - there's something weird and fun about games that require almost no input from you to play.

This one's almost a cop-out, since all Windows users should know about WinDirStat by now. This app has been out for nearly 15 years, and it's one of the most helpful tools you can use to clean up your hard drive.

It's been nearly a decade since we last checked out Lockhunter, an incredibly useful Windows app that ensures you'll always be able to remove files and folders that File Explorer refuses to delete. Developer Crystal Rich Ltd continues to update the app with useful features, but sporadically: It took around 3.5 years to go from version 3.1 of the app to version 3.2.

This app isn't something you'll probably have to use very often -- we hope -- but it's a great tool if you're upgrading your system and need to move everything from an old hard drive to a new drive.