Other resource saving resources

[Yeahman]

I've been spending some time cleaning up my bloated Windows and found some stuff that you may be interested in.

nLite makes a customized Windows installation CD. Remove all the components you don't need, apply hotfixes, make an unattended install, and even apply some tweaks. It cut my installation CD size down to nearly a third of what it was.
http://nuhi.msfn.org/

Very comprehensive list of Windows services and what they do so you can turn them off if you don't need them. Made a very big impact on speed and memory usage for me.
http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm

The mother of all video/audio codecs. You don't need anything else. It includes support for DivX, Xvid, AC3... Uses less memory and if you want some very advanced features, it can apply effects like resizing and sharpening and blurring... Greatly improves quality.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/ffdshow

The lighter, less annoying versions of Quicktime and Real. Look for Quicktime Alternative and Real Alternative.
http://home.hccnet.nl/h.edskes/mirror.htm

Adobe Acrobat Reader takes forever to load up and takes up way too much memory. Make it load a lot faster by removing most of the plugins. I only have the search plugin inabled. Get Adobe Reader Speedup.
http://www.tnk-bootblock.co.uk/prods/misc/index.php

I already made a thread about Gaim, the AIM alternative...
http://gaim.sourceforge.net/

Need to look at that Powerpoint 2003 presentation but don't want to install the entire program? Get the viewers. They let your view but not edit.
Powerpoint: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=428D5727-43AB-4F24-90B7-A94784AF71A4&displaylang=en
Word: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=95E24C87-8732-48D5-8689-AB826E7B8FDF&displaylang=en
Excel: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=C8378BF4-996C-4569-B547-75EDBD03AAF0&displaylang=en
Visio: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=3FB3BD5C-FED1-46CF-BD53-DA23635AB2DF&displaylang=en
Access: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=B73DF33F-6D74-423D-8274-8B7E6313EDFB&displaylang=en

[Yeahman]

Anybody know of a good alternative to Photoshop? Paint Shop Pro used to be good until it became as bloated as Photoshop. I don't do much more than croping, resizing and adjusting compression for jpegs.

[ism]

Gimp, I suppose, but it's pretty big. Looks like Paint.NET will be sufficient for your needs: http://www.eecs.wsu.edu/paint.net/index.html

[truMp]

This thread rocks. gj.

[Yeahman]

Gimp, I suppose, but it's pretty big. Looks like Paint.NET will be sufficient for your needs: http://www.eecs.wsu.edu/paint.net/index.html
.NET eww. But I'll still check it out.

OH I forgot to mention that if you're downloading ffdshow, get the alpha version. The stable version never gets updated anymore.

[yoMAMA]

I think the key is to get a ton of RAM.

:p

[Yeahman]

Found another one:
An alternative to Adobe Reader. It's MUCH faster and smaller.
Foxit PDF Reader (http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php)

And I'm using the Paint.NET program that ism suggested. It's all I need.