My productivity stack for workflow transcendence. Ordered by blend of personal usage/general usefulness.
Have suggestions or alternatives? Submit an issue, especially for the following: Comic viewer (zips), image viewer, general file explorer, SFTP client, Adobe Fireworks.
- 'Maint' column shows if the project is actively maintained. Last checked maintained date. + means likely future updates.
My AutoHotKey Scripts
- Display Blanker - smooth display blanking via custom hotkey toggle for OLED monitors. When you want to leave your computer whilst not using the display. Disables on mouse movement and any keyboard press.
- Launch Calculator - allows only a single instance of a calculator to be launched. Bound to calc key.
| Name | Maint | $ | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| StartAllBack | 2025+ | $4.99 | Windows 11 taskbar/start menu replacement. Allows taskbar to be moved. No compromises, many customization features. |
| ClipX | -2008 | - | Clipboard manager. Add sticky & color picker (grab hex code colors from under mouse) plugins. Development discontinued many years ago but still works perfectly well and beats Window 11's built-in clipboard manager. |
| Everything | 2025+ | - | Locate files and folders by name instantly. Totally replaced my use of built-in search. |
| TrayWeather | 2025+ | - | Taskbar weather reporting, no fuss with some customization. |
| Greenshot | 2017? | - | Screenshot power tool, can edit/blur and upload directly to image sharing sites. |
| Notepad++ | 2025+ | - | General text/script editor, check ##Development for my current IDE. |
| KeePass 2 | 2025+ | - | Password/private data manager with many plugins |
| Process Explorer | 2025+ | - | Task manager for power users, drop-in replacement. |
| CDisplayEx | -2016 | - | Image viewer for zips and comics *WARNING* cdisplayex.com IS CRAPWARE, you MUST locate a clean copy elsewhere. |
| IrfanView | 2024+ | - | Image viewer, initally released in 1996 and still in active development. |
| Negative Screen | 2021+ | - | invert or dim your screen for those late night code sessions. Alt link - GitHub |
| SoundSwitch | 2024+ | - | Multiple audio outputs? Quickly switch default audio devices. |
| Bulk Rename Utility | 2024+ | * | Advanced file renamer |
| Name | Maint | $ | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| MPV | 2025+ | - | Media/video player, extremely customizable. Integrated with YT-DLP for streaming content. |
| XMPlay | 2025+ | - | Tiny audio player. Grab this skin as the default design is ugly. It also plays old school tracker music and has plugins for old game console audio files! |
| Adobe Fireworks | 2013 | $ | Discontinued bitmap/vector editing tool. The ultimate compromise between Photoshop and Illustrator. RIP Macromedia :( |
| Audacity | 2025+ | - | Free & open source multi-track audio editing/recording. |
| Adobe Audition | 2024? | $ | Defacto audio editing/recording suite. Spectral editing is quite impressive. |
| LiceCAP | 2022+ | - | Customizable Screen to animated GIF recorder. It's output is quite optimal and has beaten all competitors so far! |
| OBS Studio | 2025+ | - | Streaming and screen/video recording software, open source and ridiculously customizable. |
| Name | Maint | $ | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| WizTree | 2024+ | - | Disk space visualizer, stupid fast. |
| HWiNFO | 2025+ | - | Comprehensive live hardware monitor. |
| Driver Identifier | Yes | - | Find newer system drivers when absolutely necessary. |
| CPU-Z | 2025+ | - | Hardware identification |
| Process Monitor | 2025+ | - | Drop in 1st party replacement to Task Manager. Real-time file system, registry and process/thread activity. Not for the faint of heart. I recommend the checking out the entire Sysinternals utilities index for the various tools. |
| Device Cleanup Tool | 2024? | - | Remove non-present devices from Windows Device management. |
| Name | Maint | $ | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Visual Studio Code | 2025+ | - | IDE with many plugins |
| WinSCP | 2024+ | - | SFTP client |
| Name | Maint | $ | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| OneDrive | 2025+ | $* | Paid business cloud storage, consumes less resources than Dropbox. Wish there was an official way to have ignored folders. |
| qBittorrent | 2025+ | - | Extremely customizable torrenting application. |
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| YouTube Premium | I feel legally adblocking and supporting a service is critical to its long term sustainablity... with the drama that is happening on the platform maybe there will be a different option. |
| Spotify Premium | Music/podcast service. Premium because I hate ads and want to support artists. |
- Blackberry Hub / Calendar / Contacts
- True Phone Dialer - Phone
- Today Weather - Passive weather status in status bar, notifications, etc.
- Sync for Reddit - Reddit client, plenty of customization options and a major daily distraction! :)
Textra - SMS/TextingTransit - public transit/on-foot directions- Keepass2Android
- Solid Explorer - file/cloud manager
- Accubattery
- WifiAnalyzer
- Twilight - active/passive screen hue control
- Mouse - Zelotes C-18 Vertical. Only replaced the excellent SteelSeries Rival 500 to reduce wrist strain. Oodles of physical buttons and doesn't compromise ergonomics. See my detailed review here. Retired the Logitech G502 in May 2018.
- Keyboard - Wireless Logitech K520 (comes as combo with mouse which I never use). Practically placed media keys, damn cheap and battery lasts forever.
- Headphones - Beyerdynamic DT770 Pro 80ohm headphones - closed reference headphones with soft pads & readily available replacement pads/parts (Beyerdynamic rarely discontinues models unlike brands... like Audio Technica).
- Ballpoint pen - Zebra F-701 ballpoint Pen
- Measuring tape - Used way more often than one would think!
- Label printer - Ancient Dymo LabelWriter, any old model is fine without DRM.
- Monitors - one in landscape (1920x1080), another in in portrait (1200x1920). Can't go wrong with Dell.
- Bluetooth earbuds - Anker SoundBuds Slim with custom eartips. Cheap, good frequency response and isolation.
- WizMouse - Allows mouse wheel to work on window under the cursor, even if it's out of focus.
- VirtualCloneDrive - Load ISO files directly, newer versions of Windows have this built-in.
- SignNow - E-signing service, Was only worth it due to grandfathered pricing. Replaced by Microsoft Edge.
- Laravel Valet (Windows port) - PHP/Laravel development environment. Replaced by something terrible.
- Rainmeter - Custom desktop widgets. I use it for my World Clock and edited version of Do I need a Jacket 2.0. I rarely if ever end up looking at my desktop. No complaints, just no longer of personal use.
- AquaSnap Pro - (Windows 10) Tiling window manager. Snap, dock & tile windows. Windows 11 built-in management is sufficient.
- Dropbox - Cloud storage, transitioned away because the free version has become limiting (3 device maximum, constant annoying notifications) and it consumes more resources than OneDrive.
- Cmder - replaced by Windows Terminal. Command prompt manager. Setup in quasi-Quake console mode.
- Sandboxie - Isolate potentially pesky/untrusted applications, to be retired once Windows 10 built-in sandboxing UX has improved.
- sWeather - replaced by TrayWeather. Data source no longer exists. Weather reporting, no fuss with plenty of customization options. Pre-dates Win 10's broken mess by at least 8 years :P
- Audio Switcher - replaced by SoundSwitch. File available for reference.
- KatMouse - Scroll unfocused windows. Replaced by WizMouse.
- SpeedFan - Monitors voltages, fan speeds and temperatures and check drive SMART status. Not updated actively so it has been mostly replaced by HWInfo
- ScreenToGif - replaced by LiceCAP. Editor UI is nice but the exported gifs are large.
- DisplayFusion - Advanced wallpaper manager and misc. tweaks. No longer change my wallpaper frequently enough to care, although I do rarely use it to generate multi-monitor wallpaper.
- iRotate - Screen rotation hotkeys. I now have two monitors in both portrait & landscape, so I have no need for it anymore.
- WebMon - discontinued web page monitoring program, used it for checking web comics for updates. Likely to be replaced by a Chrome extension.
- MediaMonkey - Absolutely incredible media library software. Highly customizable. When my media disks and backup failed catastrophically years ago I never had the time to get things back in order. Maybe I will someday, I enjoyed rating music I listened to on a 0-5 scale which online services can't do.
- FullContact Address Book - Android contact manager, now crapware. AVOID.