MakeUseOf.com - Though perhaps relying a little much on the "top 10 tools" genre, MakeUseOf does a great job of summarizing the top tools or tips in an area, while adding enough of a personal informed recommendation to make their frequent blogs very enjoyable and educational reads. Combined with an occasional longer instructional post, MakeUseOf is a terrific addition to the software blogging field, and well worth your attention. ps. They accept donations as well.

Wilders Security Forum - often outclassing the official web sites in terms of support and knowledge, Wilder Security Forums is the place to go to get your hardcore questions answered about security software. If you have a question about an antivirus or firewall tool, you'd have a hard time finding a more experiences bunch, and you'll find subsections for some of the more popular tools on the market, with better information than the official sites.

lifehack.org - perhaps one of the most under-rated sites of its kind. They offer up advice and tips on how to make the best use of your time and how to accomplish things without spending a fortune. They are also are platform agnostic and always recommend interesting and helpful apps for Windows, Mac, and Linux users to try out, though their focus is not on software. Content is upbeat, lively, and constantly changing. And when we say constantly we mean it, every day they seem to post yet another useful essay or article. Really great stuff, and written always in a straightforward non-hyped way, with almost no fluff -- these guys are serious about helping you improve the way you spend your time. Check out their site and sign up for the RSS feed and start hacking yourself!

NirSoft - In July of 2006, Microsoft aquired the SysInternals team who had demonstrated incredible knowledge of Windows with their small freeware utilities. It's been over a year since then and Microsoft should get on a phone to the NirSoft folks and make them a similar offer.

NirSoft is doing amazing work. Their power utilities for windows reach into the very guts of the operating system and do things no other utilities can do. And they are all free. Our only warning is that you please don't visit their site unless you have some serious time to kill. If you are one of those people who love to use programs that let you see what is really happening behind the scenes on your computer, a visit to the NirSoft site is going to be a bit like getting a visit from santa claus on crack.

Some of the tools NirSoft makes are completely unique and wonderfully surprising. Some of our favorites include OfficeIns, a tool for viewing and disabling Microsoft Office Add-Ins; ZipInstaller, an ingenius tool for "installing" programs that are packaged in zip files without their own installers; ShellExView, a tool for viewing and managing file shell extensions; ShellMenuView, for investigating and managing the right-click menu items in your system; Volumouse, a tool for controlling your sound volume using the mouse wheel; NirCmd, a great commandline tool that can do all sorts of useful things like shutting down windows, changeing sound volume, etc., (very useful for calling from other tool (we use it in FARR); SmartSniff, a tool for reconstructing network traffic conversations; and their newest utility, GDIView, which lists GDI resources in use. They also have a ton of password recovery tools, browser investigation tools, and much more.

Rarely if ever has a collection of such powerful utilities for Windows been gathered together in one place. And they are free! Unbelievable. What can we say besides Bravo to NirSoft, we salute you.

JayIsGames.com - Each month we choose a site that we think is deserving of special attention. This month's choice, JayIsGames.com, is long overdue for us since we post stuff we find on the site constantly. JayIsGames.com used to be a one-man site, but it's expanded in the last year or so and is now a multi-person blog that has gathered a real community behind it. While there are lots of places you can go to discover new flash games, (and an occasional installable game), very few sites provide such enjoyable and informed commentary on each game they post about. Not satisfied to simply be a review site for flash games, JayIsGames.com has actually been running flash game programming competitions, and the results have been outstanding, and of a much higher caliber than anyone had a right to expect, and are not to be missed.

Gizmo's Tech Support Alert website is long overdue for recognition from us. Gizmo is a great guy and his generous inclusion of some of our software in his freeware lists has brought some of the nicest people to our site. His list of Best Freeware Utilities is legendary, and his newsletter has developed a well deserved devoted following. Highly recommended for anyone who loves software!

ghacks.net is one of only a handfull of reliably good daily blog sites for software news and discovery. Rather than focus on one specific area, ghacks offers clear and useful advice on maximizing your computer experience, with tips about new utilities and games, optimization tweaks, etc.; anything that could make your computer experience more enjoyable, in nice short summaries that are fun and easy to read. We're always finding things to blog about that we discovered on ghacks -- it's a daily read for us, and we think you'll like it too. Our only quibble: Maybe it's time to upgrade the site logo?

freewaregenius.com is a relatively new site which started up strong about 6 months ago doing short bite-sized reviews of freeware programs. But we've been watching it closely looking for that typical 2 month burnout to set in. To our great pleasure, Samer Kurdi has kept up the pace and his short takes on freeware are wonderfully concise and useful. You can tell he enjoys testing software, and he only posts software he thinks is good, which helps cut down on the clutter. And we love the thumbnail-centric blog format of the site is great. Our only complaint is that the site doesnt acknowledge where he discovered each software program, which is something we kind of have a pet peeve about (proper web etiquette says you should give credit to the person or website where you heard about a program!)

The wonderful site we-make-money-not-art is all about technologically-related art projects and is updated multiple times every day with thoughtfull, beautiful, jarring, mind-expanding work from all over the world.

It's hard to know if the cybernetnews site is going to be able to keep up it's recent pace of interestings posts, but if they can - look out, they are going to be a force to be reckoned with. Just barely over a year old, they've been on fire lately with nice lengthy posts on developments in technology and software that are fun and interesting. Keep up the great work!

There are a lot of game development sites, but few are as professional about the process of developing computer games as Gamasutra. You'll find frequently added long feature articles on game design, and daily updated news from the game industry. All content is free. If you're serious about being a game designer, Gamasutra should be at the top of your bookmark list.

boingboing is an irreverent, eclectic blog updated every day with strange news and gadgets and website of all kinds. Although it has lots of imitators, few sites are as consistently good at discovering cool and unusual stuff as boingboing. It's a daily must visit.

Read/WriteWeb is a very well-written technology blog that has posted some lengthy essays comparing web2.0 sites, as well as some excellent opinionated commentary on the businesses end of these websites. A reliably informative and professional site which still manages to be fun to read.

43 Folders was one of the early sites to focus on efficiency tricks for geeks (life hacks, time management tips, gtd techniques, etc.), and it has a wondefully eclectic collection of posts on a regular basis. The only downside for Windows users is that the software focus is on Mac software.

For some interesting reading on 43 folders see: classic entries and the 43folders faq.

StumbleUpon.com

StumbleUpon may currently be the best place to discover new sites on the internet. While much of the charm of digg.com and its clones has faded as they become subject to more manipulation and mindless rating based on headline keywords, StumbleUpon has only gotten better and better as its audience grows. The premise is simple, using a toolbar installed in your browser, you can rate sites you visit with a thumbs up or thumbs down. Or click a button to be taken to a random page rated highly by others who have similar tastes as you. By clustering similar people together, StumbleUpon is able to do a great job of showing you new sites you are likely to appreciate.

Despite its large and growing user base, StumbleUpon still feels like somewhat of a class project.. It needs a major v2 facelift, and better organization of some of its social networking features. Regardless, some of the features are wonderful, like the ease of sending links you like to your friends via the stumbleupon network or email. We love StumbleUpon and we highly recommend you install the toolbar and give it a try. StumbleUpon makes money by providing an enhanced account feature you can opt to pay for ($20), which is nice but not essential, and by occasionally delivering you a page that has been paid for by a sponsor instead of the usual random page.

You can also read a mini-review of StumbleUpon by one of the members in our forum here.

betanews.com

It shouldn't be a surprise to find software addicts gravitate to BetaNews like bees to honey.. it's one of the few sites that treats Beta releases as special treasures. Betanews is one of the few software listing sites that has geniuinely expanded to provided original timely software news as well, and present it on a very well laid out web page. Another great feature of BetaNews is that it invites authors to submit a list of changes in the most recent version, which can be extrememly useful. One feature of BetaNews are not particularly fond of, and ironically it's one of the more popular aspects of BetaNews: The ability for users to rate and comment on programs. While this feature can be useful and informative, it does seem prone to abuse and manipulation, so we recommend you take ratings with a grain of salt. Overall BetaNews is clearly one of the top software listing sites for all you software addicts, and it's one of our daily must-visit sites.

digg.com

The concept of digg.com is very simple - users submit and rate stories found on the internet each day. The highest rated stories make it to the front page where they gain attention by visitors. digg proves what google proves - that a minimalistic display of good content is almost hypnotizingly appealing. Although digg.com has tons of competition, no site has managed to achieve the quality of top stories every day, and present them in such a clean and useful way. digg.com is a breath of fresh air and a must visit site every day.

Coding Horror Blog

Jeff Atwood's Coding Horror Blog is rapidly becoming one of our very favorite programming-related blogs. New entries are posted frequently, and they are consistently entertaining and insightful, with useful links and no filler, and excellent comments from readers. Most of the articles are not on hardcore coding techniques and non-programmers may find it the perfect peek into the mind of a programmer. Plus it's missing that uncomfortable self-aggrandizement and self-promotion found in some of the other programmer's blogs (we won't mention any names).

It's rare for a coder to be able to keep up such well written and consistently useful+entertaining blogging for so long.. Jeff may be suffering through some internal coding horror - but we're all benefiting from his struggles - keep up the great work Jeff!

samarost2

"A true masterpiece of interactive art"

People have done some truly groundbreaking things with Macromedia Flash.  samarost2 is not technically innovative, but it is one of the most lovingly and beautifully animated little games we have ever seen.  You will be mesmerized by the music and sounds, and the personality and style of the images and animations.  A completely engaging and sublime experience.

Thanks to m_s on our forum for bringing this to our attention; chapter two of the adventure is available only as a download for $10.  Other flash games on site are also good (see especially samarost 1 and The Quest for the Rest).

Make:

"technology on your time"

Unlike other technology news sites we love, Make is much more content rich, with orignial articles on tons of modern do-it-yourself projects that are alternately sublime, silly, and outright amazing.

Some content on the Make: website (their print magazine articles) are available online, but only to subscribers

lifehacker

"Lifehacker brings back simple and totally life-altering tips and tricks for managing your information and time."

Although lifehacker is a little mac-centric for most of our users, and it's a little heavy on the advertising, it's a gem of a site that never dissapoints and should be on everyone's short list of sites to visit every day. No other site is so friendly to eccentric little self-improvement articles, especially those that focus on ways to spend your time more efficiently. It's the perfect mix of technical and non-technical time management tips and tricks. And lifehacker has a perfect balance of ecclectic and eccentric articles to insure that the site is constantly entertaining.

pandora

"I'm absolutely stunned by pandora. have created all sorts of stations and am listening to all kinds of things. Makes me realize what i've been missing (of course, work is piling up like mad, oh well)." - dc member

Pandora is a very smooth free (optional upgrade to higher quality) online music jukebox that automatically fetches and plays you songs related to artists you have expressed an interest in.

Freeware World Team

We don't know of any other freeware listing site that is as active at discovering freeware programs as Freeware World Team.

They actively go out looking for programs and write up their own little mini summaries, and they do it day in and day out, and they find tons of interesting software, and they even spend some time on international freeware. Really a wonderful site to get your daily dose of freeware, and lately it's been one of our favorite sites and they are doing an amazing job lately. Keep up the great work guys!

The Great Software List

We're a little biased because we love Zaine Ridling, the brains behind the Great Software List, but it's hard to not fall in love with his site. For years the site has offered short concise reviews of software that zaine likes, neatly organized into logical categories, and always with nice clear screnshots. We've yet to find a better site for quick software reviews.

Every once in a rare while you come across someone who really cares about the stuff they do, who wants to help others be successful, who is generous with their time and praise when they find something that someone else has created that they like, and who doesn't keep silent when they see someone selling out and doing wrong by the average user. Zaine is one of those special people, and we count ourselves very lucky indeed that he participates in the DonationCoder.com forums. In fact, in many ways Zaine's site has been an inspiration for DonationCoder.com; Zaine is opinionated, honest, and committed to the idea of recognizing great software.

The Great Software List is also filled with little hidden gems, like Top 10 Lists for Developers and Users, Zaine's Personal Blog, and a notorious review of image viewers.