Roundup of some more good Windows tools and tips

Here's some quick links to some tools and tips you may or may not have seen.

On Digital Inspiration, they pointed to a very small app that allows you to select a window in Windows and make it stay on top. This is particularly useful for those of us who are really annoyed by Windows' behavior when switching window focus, for example when starting new apps. I really hope that they change how Windows switches focus of applications in the next version, but until the day that they do get it right and stop bringing up apps to the foreground while we are working on something else, here's a tool that will help with that.

Dave Schwinn's blog has a good post on the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) you can use to point your networked clocks to to have them synchronize not just to one time server, but to a pool of servers. This is a lot better than just using a single time server since if one server in the pool is down, your system will use the next server in the pool instead. Keeping your systems time synced is particularly important in an Active Directory environment (or any environment that relies on Kerberos).

Having problems getting work done because you are always on that IM app, browsing for the latest sports scores or constantly checking your email? Greg Hughes has the perfect solution for you. An app, called Temptation Blocker,  that prevents you from using specified apps for a set amount of time. And they wonder why America is so productive (aside from our short vacations, long hours and cube farms).

For all you Windows admins out there, go over to the Lazy Admin and check out this DLL that adds some useful information to the view given by the Active Directory Users and Computers admin tool. While you are there, check out all the other very useful tips and tools they have. One of my favorite sites for learning about better ways to administer a Windows network.

Mark's (we)Blog has a link on how to circumvent the Windows file protection/systems checker, which is what prevents Windows XP users from removing certain software such as Internet Explorer and Outlook Express. Use with caution, not for novice users.

To those who said, in the recent discussion here on Exchange vs everyone else's collaboration/mail servers, that Outlook Web Access is not customizable, here's a shot accross their bows with this link to the Microsoft Exchange Group's weblog where they detail how to customize your Outlook Web Access pages.

Finally, some brain food, in a more humourous vein, for all you hard working IT people who have been up all night finishing that system upgrade or getting that critical applications server back online. Daniel Nicholas, on the waking ideas blog, shows us all how to make the perfect grilled cheese sandwich. Just what we could all use on those 12 hour gaming binges or 18 hour IT days from hell.