Freeware developer The SZ has shipped a new version of PortScan, its one-stop network toolkit for Windows XP and later. We last checked out the program way back in 2012, so the new release seems like a good time to look at it again.

The download is a compact 387KB, and there’s no installation required. Just unzip the single program executable.

Open source Registry editor Registry Finder has added the ability to find Registry keys modified within a date range.

This has many computer forensic applications, such as seeing the keys modified when a program was installed, or getting clues about what another user did on your PC last Wednesday.

It’s been ten long years since the last major release, but open source Windows clone ReactOS is still very much alive, and the latest release shows just what’s been achieved since 2006.

There’s finally support for NTFS read and ext2 read/ write, out of the box.

Your PC is misbehaving. Is it malware? Faulty software, maybe? Scanning for PC for digitally signed files can help to pick out trustworthy executables, and highlight unsigned files for more investigation.

Sysinternals’ Sigcheck provides a vast amount of information and options, but it’s also a console tool, maybe inconvenient if you don’t use it enough to learn the various switches.

Makagiga started life long ago as an open-source, Java-based RSS reader. But then the developer started to take it further. Much, much further.

The program now also has a capable to-do manager. A note taker. A simple image editor. And, via optional plugs, web searching, an OpenStreetMap viewer, a thesaurus, LaTex/ Markdown/ BB Code previews, screen capture, barcode generation and more.

You’re browsing the web, find some interesting text, copy and paste it elsewhere… And then realize it’s got all the original formatting, now entirely unnecessary. And maybe an unwanted image, too.

Copy Plain Text is a Firefox add-on which supports copying plain text only, and adds some handy text processing extras as well.

AlomWare Actions Lite is a scripting tool which allows even novice users to automate many PC tasks.

There are commands to launch applications, download web pages, send emails, type text, simulate mouse clicks, work with files, and a whole lot more, and these may all be combined to make up a single action.

You’ve been working on it forever, and had almost finished, but… Disaster. That all-important Word document no longer opens.

If you’re using some other viewer, try reopening it in Word. It may offer to repair the file, and this can fix a lot of problems.

Artists and photographers often need a clear understanding of the colors used in an image, but standard photo editor tools like the histogram do little to help.

Image Color Analyzer is a free Android app designed to deliver a clearer view of an image palette.

Exploring the structure of binary files can be very useful for identifying malware, and tools like PeStudio and HxD may help point you in the right direction.

But if you find they bury you in fine detail, when you’re more interested in the big picture, then you might like to try another approach.

It happens all the time. You’re working in Explorer, maybe opening or saving a file, but the current folder is so far away that you have to click, and click, and click to get there.

Quick Access Popup -- a new and improved version of Folders Popup -- is a freeware tool which ensures your favorite folders and apps are only ever a click or two away.

NETRESEC has shipped NetworkMiner 2.0, the latest edition of its powerful network forensic analysis tool.

The update does a better job of interpreting your network traffic, with new parsers for SMB2 and Modbus/TCP, file extraction from SMB writes, and improved parsing for SMTP, FTP and DNS traffic.

Copyfish is a free Chrome extension which can extract text from just about anything in a browser tab -- images, videos, documents, more -- and optionally translate it, too.

That’s great, but it’s just got even better, with new support for desktop OCR.

ActivTrak is a professional cloud-managed service which can help you covertly monitor activity on PCs and Macs.

The system is extremely easy to set up, very difficult for others to spot, and provides a range of usage reports which you can access from anywhere.

If you’ve tried your share of WordPad replacements then you’ll know they’re usually identikit me-too products with barely any interesting ideas of their own.

SSuite NoteBook Editor is a rare exception which manages to bring something a little more original to the standard text editing feature list.