Part of keeping your system in ideal condition is knowing what's inside it, and that's where can help. It peers into your computer and gives you an exceptionally detailed report, including the PC's manufacturer, its serial number, the amount of RAM, the hard-disk space, and similar hardware info. Overall it offers far more than most users want to know, though the amount of detail is perfect for geeks; if you dig into it, you can see the part number of your RAM chips, all your installed printer drivers, the name and address of your ISP, lists of installed updates and patches, and plenty more.

Making sure that your machine has the latest software is important as well. The free scans your PC, finds all the installed software, alerts you about which programs need updates, and then helps you do the updating. It also warns you about which of your out-of-date programs represent a security risk, and it can even automatically update your programs after a little configuration.

Be sure to download some great free tools for handling media, too. One you absolutely must get is , a superb graphics viewer and basic image editor. It's fast, it's simple to use, and it's free/donationware--what else could you want? It views just about any image file type in existence, and does so with lightning speed. You can also use it to convert between file types, crop images, add effects, and perform other basic editing chores. It can show files as slideshows and play multimedia files, too.

If you're looking for a more powerful tool for photo editing, you'll want to download . That a piece of software this powerful is free/donationware is remarkable; you'll be amazed at how much functionality is built in. For a start, it offers a photo editor, a file viewer, a slideshow creator, a batch editor, and a screen-capture program. And each component is packed with features. For example, you can combine multiple photos into a single frame, and can even convert RAW-format photos--used by many digital cameras--into .jpg files.