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AVG: – No longer recommended. Since version 8, it’s bloated and doesn’t catch the latest threats. Use Anti-Vir for free.
Avast: Another free Anti-Virus software. Just as good as AVG. However this one is more system intensive than AVG or NOD.
Bitdefender: Popular anti-virus software- Free of charge. (Free- NOT real time scanning -only manual scanning)
ClamWin: Small and non-intrusive anti-virus. Like Bitdefender (Free- NOT real time scanning -only manual scanning)
AntiVir: An anti-virus that has been around for a long time – still free for home use.
NOD32: The absolute BEST anti-virus protection. (I know, I clean scumware for a living). Enter "ramsinks" as a Discount Code and save 5%
Kaspersky: A very sweet anti-virus software with a 30day trial. Be sure to JUST get the AV, not the full suite of bloatness.

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TheCleaner: This finds/prevents trojan horses. This is on a 30day trial, however very recommended – try it.
DiamondCS: Many high-end programs for worm/Trojan detection, 30day trial.
Windowsecurity: Free online Trojan scanner.

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Ad-Aware SE: Great for getting rid of spyware and malware – the items that can cause annoying pop-ups.
SpyBot: Similar to Ad-Aware, however more aggressive. Clean up spyware and hijack attempts.
SpyCatcher: Active Protection. One of the most advanced antispyware solution available as a free service.
AVG AntiSpyware : Clean annoying malware such as spyware, Trojans and hijackers. Great compliment to an anti-virus.
MalwareBytes: Since programs like Ad-Aware have become.. crap, this is a GREAT replacement for cleaning.
CounterSpy: Probably the best shield against spyware. The best database cleaner there is. Period. 30day trial.
Comodo BOClean: This is more of a "real time" (run the the background) anti-spyware. Not a fan of TSR’s, but this works.
CWShredder: Takes care of many hijacking software – run if you get many pop-ups/redirecting pages.
HijackThis: Tool to find out if there is "hijack" software on your system. Use the logfile analyzer if your not sure.
Kill2me: Another stomper of spyware – bring it on.
KillBox: Very nice for taking care of "Abetterinternet" and other n00bish software.
a² free: This bridges the gap with anti-virus and malware. This free scanner cleans Trojans, worms, spyware (all malware).
SpywareBlaster: Active prevention against spyware, adware, browser hijackers and dialers.
HitmanPro2: Incorporates all major Anti-Spyware software and updates/runs them all for you. Too cool.
WinDiz: Windows updates with FireFox. Great if ActiveX is damaged by spyware.

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POPfile: Perfect/Free ani-Spam tool. Involved installation, but once it’s set – it’s good.
IHateSpam: For Exchange (V5.5, 2000 and 2003) was uniquely developed to be both user and admin-friendly. 30day trial.
Spamihilator works between your E-Mail client and the net. Useless spam mails (Junk) will be filtered out.
SpamBayes: is a tool used to segregate unwanted mail (spam) from the mail you want (ham).
SpamPal: Mail classification program that separates your spam from the mail you really want to read.
OSpam: A great and simple spam solution for any POP account.

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Caution: Do not install a software firewall. Great for testing security and diag if your a tech: - My clients – please ask me about it before doing it.

Sygate. Just bought by Symantec – now it’s going to be crap. Hurry and get this before it happens.
Tiny: Tiny is a free firewall. It is designed for the more advanced due to the heavy features included.
Comodo: Great little personal firewall. This is pretty new and robust.
OutPost: An Opensource based firewall. Works very well protecting against worms, trojans and hackers.
Kerio: Smart, easy-to-use personal security technology that fully protects PC’s against hackers and internal misuse. The best.
Protowall: Very small application that blocks IP address. Very cool.
Prevx: Stops the attacks that bypass anti-virus and firewall products.

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PowerCrypt 2000: Encrypted files, folders and E-mails. This free file lets you hide all your data.
PGP: "Pretty Good Privacy". Actually it’s probably the best encryption software out there. Free – PC/MAC
Cryptainer LE: Secure your data and ensure absolute privacy with Cypherix’s powerful 128bit encryption.
BitCrypt: A sophisticated tool allowing for encryption of plain text within a bitmap image.
EasyCrypto: Encrypt both standalone files and entire folders. Many cool options here.
Truecrypt: Free open-source disk encryption software for Windows XP/2000/2003.
MD5HashGen: Simple application that can generate one-way MD5 hashes – Great for password generations.
PerfectPasswords: GRC’s Ultra High Security Password Generator.
RoboForm: A free password manager and one-click web form filler. Just be carefull who uses your PC.
Password Safe: Allows you to have a different password for all the different items that you deal with – remembers for you.
CutePasswordManager: Form filling software that auto fill user/password. Stores info with 256-bit AES encryption – 1click login.
PIN’s: Storing of any secure information like passwords, accounts, PINs etc. 448 bit Blowfish. Does not install.

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Eraser: FBI just kick in the door? This little program will erase data to a level that the Dept. Of. Defense uses.
KillDisk: KillDisk conforms to US Department of Defense clearing and sanitizing standard DoD 5220.22-M.
AutoClave: Hard drive sterilization on a bootable floppy.
SuperShredder: Shred’s individual files. It’s stronger than DOD specs.
DBAN ("Darik’s Boot and Nuke") is a self-contained boot floppy that makes it an appropriate utility data destruction.

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Anonymizer: Installs a small toolbar into your browser. Moves your connection to proxies around the word. Slows connection.
Proxify.com Spoof your IP address without installing software. The paid version is much faster.

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SpeedFan: Allows you to see your CPU temperature. Good for overclockers and modders.
Motherboard Monitor: Like speedfan, reads temperature and fan RPM data – alerts you when there’s trouble.
Si Meter: Great/free/small application that does live monitoring on system resources.
TDIMon: Lets you monitor TCP and UDP activity on your local system.
InterMapper: Gives a visual in real-time view of traffic flows through and between critical network devices and links.
WinBar: A compact program that lets you monitor your system and provides easy access to frequently used controls.

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RegSupreme: Clean up the registry from old entries, speed up your system. 30day trial.
RegSeeker: Very tiny – does not install. I have tested this and trust it. Many tweak options with it.
RegscrubXP: A great free registry cleaner for XP. Fix those "weird issues" with Windows.
Beclean: is the complete suite of system cleaner. Registry to history – cleans many things.
CCleaner: Removes unused and temporary files from your PC – allowing it to run faster, more efficiently and saving space.
MyUninstaller 1.0: Uninstall anything,clean out old video drivers, uninstall programs that are not in "add/remove".
DriverCleaner: Made to fully clean out the drivers of ATI and NVIDIA.
MSconfig: Get rid of startup programs that slow your PC down. This would be for Windows 2000.
Starter: It’s better than Msconfig. Also works with Windows 2000, which is nice due to the fact that 2k doesn’t have msconfig.
PreFetch cleaner: A pre-fetch scrubber to clean out files that are used commonly – can be corruption or spyware hiding.

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Belarc: Takes a snap-shot about a PC (hardware-software) with a full profile report. This is very handy.
SIW: A small .exe that when ran – gives you all kinds of info about your PC and software. Need this on your tools disk.
PcpBios: Very tiny script that looks at all BIOS related information. RAM, CPU and motherboard instant info.
EVEREST: (recently AIDA32). Like Belarc, gives full system summary of hardware and software/keys.
SpaceMonger: A tool for keeping track of the free space on your computer. It shows a graph of files and sizes.
IP subnet calculator: A diagnostics tool to calculate your network latency and subnet information.
CPUid: A very small application that tells you about your specific specs. (FSB, core clock, dual channel etc.).
PC Pitstop: A good site to check how your doing on fine tuning your computer. It will also help you fix your issues.
PowerMax: Diagnostics for hard drives made by Maxtor. Download, put on a floppy or CD and test your HDD.
MemTest86: Diagnostics for your RAM. Download, put on a floppy or Cd and test your RAM.
Monitor Asset Manager: A Plug and Play monitor information utility. Provide detailed technical information about the target display.
ShieldsUP: Port scanning of all ports or custom scans. See how good your firewall is doing.
BandwidthTest: Test your internet connection speed.

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File Recovery: This is free software made by PC Inspector. Really, Really nice if you lost or trashed a file and need it back.
Smart Recovery: Recover data from flash drives: CF, SM, Thumbdrives, micro drives – etc.
Disk Investigator: Discover all that is hidden on your computer hard disk, recover lost data.
File Scavenger: Undelete and data recovery utility for NTFS volumes. 64KB or smaller files can be recovered with free trial.
CDCheck: Utility for the prevention, detection and recovery of damaged files on CD-ROMs and error detection.
Restoration: Tiny program that doesn’t install. Perfect if you trashed a file (even emptied the recycle bin) and you need it back.
RecoverOutlookMail: A little trick for recovering those corrupted .PST files.

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FireFox: Drop Internet Explorer and get a superior browser. Check out the add-ons.
Google Chrome: A great webkit based browser by Google. Very fast.
Opera: If you don’t use FireFox, use Opera. Now that it is free and Ad-free – it is now recommended.
Safari: Apples web browser now for Windows. Great web browser next to Firefox.
Reload Every: Extension for FireFox. Allows you to set reload times on your browser windows so you won’t be logged out.

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FileZilla: An FTP program that is superior to "Cute", and is Free.
WinSCP: Open source SFTP client for Windows using SSH and SCP protocol’s. Secure FTP.
FireFTP: If you use FireFox browser (like you should be) – use this plug-in for FTP functionality in your browser.
Hamachi: Setup two or more computers with an Internet connection into their own virtual network for direct secure communication. How-to’s
FolderShare: Securely keep files synchronized between your devices and remotely download your files from any browser.
LogMeIn: Easy to log into a PC from a PC, MAC or linux machine. No port forwarding involved! Just like terminal services but easier.
Avvenu: Remote connect to your PC from another PC or any web-enabled handheld. Perfect for getting those files you forgot.
Crossloop: Secure screen sharing utility designed for people of all technical skill levels. Basically, TightVNC but no port forwarding needed.
TightVNC: Remote control software- see the desktop of a remote machine and control it with your local mouse and keyboard.
RemoteDesktop: Microsoft remote desktop client side installer for older Windows versions.
RDPortX: A small app I made to change the defualt 3389 port that Remote Desktop ueses. Great for multiple RD servers on the same network.
eMando: Client/server package which you can use to control and manage a computer over a LAN or the Internet.
DirectUpdate: Get an Email of your WAN IP address changes even behind a router (for dynamic ISP’s). 60day trial ($15.00 – buy).
DynDNS: A full list of dynamic IP administration software tools.

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CDBurner-XP Pro: Just like it sounds, burning program for Windows. Free.
ImageBurn: A lightweight CD / DVD / HD DVD / Blu-ray burning application.
ISORecorder: Small program to burn images of CD’s. Once installed, right click an .ISO’s or a ROM drive and "create CD image".  
DeepBurner: A full featured Burning app for CD’s, DVD’s and ISO’s. Much like Nero only totally ~~Free

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LimeWire Pro : Great GNU file sharing application. Never pay for this type of software.
Shareaza: Like kazaa, however it combines all good P2P networks into one. This is an open source application (GPL).
uTorrent: A great torrent client to download "items". Offers multiple torrent downloads, queuing/priority systems.
Skype: Make phone calls for free (VOIP). Sounds better than your normal phone.
HFS: This is an instant HTTP web server. Very tiny. File server and web server – easy to setup GUI.
Pando: Personal P2P software that makes sending and receiving large files a breeze
OpenWengo: Phone calls and video chat from PC to PC. (for free). Also supports SIP.
Orb: Stream all your live and recorded TV, your photos and your music to any web-connected device. Secure login to your drive content.
iTalk2U: Basically like Skype, but with some advanced features. WebClick2Call is great for site admin’s.
Gizmo: Internet telephone. Like Skype however better quality and custom add-ons. More options and cheaper to call normal phones.
Trillian: Perfect for friends and family who use different instant messaging clients. This combines them all into one.
Pidgin: The Open Source AOL IM client -but without the ad’s. Combines IM clients all into one.
Jabber: Open protocol instant messenger. Setup your own internal server. Great universal client.
GoogleTalk: Much like GAIM and Skype. With VOIP and mail capabilities. (It will add a TSR for itself – fyi)
TeamSpeak: Talk to one another with voice. 1on1 or a bunch of people. Great for multi-player games.
AllSeeingEye: (ASE)- Find your friends playing any popular multi-player game.
XFire: Like "Messenger", however for gamers. Find your friends and join the game they are playing- all in real time.
Agent Newsreader: The best newsreader there is. free
Juice: Great "pod casting" software. Subscribe to some good audio. Don’t every pay for podcast software.
Miranda: A multi protocol instant messenger client. Very tiny – does not install. Great for portable USB drives.

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OpenOffice: Free Office suite and is back-ward compatible with Microsoft Office docs. (It’s better too).  Templates.  Templates 2.
OpenOffice Extensions: Tons of add-ons for OpenOffice. Why even use Microsof Office?
NolaPro: web-based accounting. POS system that is just great. Using open standards.
Palm Organizer: Now have the awesome Palm organizer for Windows. Easy to use and nice for free. (choose PalmV in the list)
7-Zip: A file archiver with high compression ratio. OpenSource GPL. Much better than WinZIP. Free no ad’s.
DOCX Convert: Convert the annoying proprietary X format to a nicer format. Ignore the "Tune up Your PC" – it’s spyware. *
IZark: IZArc is the ultimate archive utility supports many archive formats. Supports most formats. Bit bigger downlaod than 7-Zip.
PDFcreator: Create PDF’s. Download a ghostscript and the patch – print to PDF.
Foxit Reader: Reader/viewer/printer for PDF documents – has a size less than 1M, needs no installation and opens up immediately.
ThunderBird: ThunderBird replaces that Outlook mail client with a real mailbox.
SunBird: Want the nice calendar in Office 2003? This stand-alone calendar is very sweet. Or just get the Thunderbird calendar add-in.
TinySpell: A very small application that spell checks for you while you type anywhere – I need it.
Google Calendar: Online calendar that can be shared with clients, friends and family. Easy to print, share and modify.
AceMoney: A freeware personal finance manager. Like MS Money or Quickbooks – free.
ESBCalc: is a Freeware Scientific Calculator.
FireFox remiders: Tiny Firefox extention for easy reminders through the day. Very handy (aways on – no extra TSR).
Thunderbird minimize to tray: Great extension to make Thunderbird run in system tray- not task bar.

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BackRex: Outlook Express and Outlook backup tool. Most features in the free version.
Mozbackup: Simple utility for creating backups of Firefox, Thunderbird profiles. It allows you to backup and restore bookmarks, mail, contacts, history etc.
IMAPSize: A great tool to transfer Thunderbird e-mail to Outlook/Outlook Express (not sure why you would – but it’s here).
NasBackup: Is a great backup solution. Designed to be easy for end desktop users, yet scalable to enterprise setups.
DriverBackup: finds and collects the drivers for the hardware. After it collects them, the program backs them up to a specific folder.
CopyX: This little customizable backup/copy utility is in Windows by default – but this makes things easy.
Gmail Drive: If you have a Gmail account you can use this to create a drive on your system to drag-n-drop files for backup.
Box.NET: A free data storage that is online and can be accessed anywhere in the world. 1GB is free. Works perfect.
Cobian Backup: Backup program that can be used to schedule and backup your files – drives, directories and FTP.
SyncBack: Powerful program that backups and synchronizes your files to: same drive, different drive, CDRW, Network, Zip.
SyncToy: Customizable application helps you copy, move, rename, and delete files between folders and PC’s. Automated sync as in "RAID1".
Replicator: Automatically backup files, directories, even entire drives!
HTTrack: Download a web site from the net to a local directory, building all directories, getting HTML, images and files from the server.
Comodo BackUp: Easily create backup copies of files. Includes complete file and folder-duplication to local network drives and FTP servers.

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–Text–
Crimson Editor: is a professional source code editor for Windows.
jEdit: A mature and well-designed programmer’s text editor that has been in development for over 5 years
Vim: Highly configurable text editor built to enable efficient text editing. – voted best text editor
Notepad++: Source code editor and Notepad replacement, which supports several programming languages
–HTML–
Matrix Y2K: A free and very slick GUI Website builder like Dreamweaver.
Nvu: Web editing environment based on the Mozilla platform and its Gecko layout engine.
FirstPage: HTML editing software gives you unsurpassed freedom to create and edit web documents with absolute code control.
–Development–
Jitterbit: Client and server designed to configure, test, and deploy integration solutions. Connect ERP and CRM data -ect.
PHP DESIGNER 2006: A freeware IDE for coding PHP for both professional and novices.
Sun JSC: Sun Java Studio Creator development environment is the next-generation tool for Java application development.
Google WebToolKit: Java software development framework that makes writing AJAX applications (Google Maps,Gmail) easy.
Netbeans: Open-source project dedicated to providing rock solid software development products.
NSIS: A professional open-source tool for the development of Windows installers.
Zip2Secure: Create .ZIP into .EXE. Great for letting somebody download a self extracting zip. Even .ico icon settings.
MyGeneration: The free code generator / mapping and architectures tool.
SketchUp: Simple but powerful tool for quickly and easily creating, viewing and modifying your 3D ideas.
FreeMind: A mind-mapping software written in Java. Great for flow-charts, networks, layouts etc. (much like Graphviz).
Graphviz: A way of representing structural information as diagrams of abstract graphs and networks. Automatic graph drawing.
Maguma: Full-featured, modular Integrated Development Platform. Full feature set for PHP and Python, can be customized for your project.

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FSRaid: Want to read and reconstruct your PAR files? Get it now.
WiGLE and Jwire: WiFi Access Locators. Before traveling, take a look at access points you can get on for free.
Stellarium: Planetarium for your computer. It shows a realistic sky in 3D, just like what you see with the naked eye, binoculars or a telescope.

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QuickTime Alternative: No need to download and install "QuickTime", use this instead. Much smaller application.
RealPlayer Alternative: Don’t ever install "real one player", just use this instead.
MediaPlayerClassic: Slim down hacked version of old Media Player. Has pretty much all codecs – can play anything.
Democracy: Download and watch all the best internet TV shows and videos. RSS feeds including podcasts, video blogs, BitTorrent feeds.
VLC Player: VideoLan is a perfect DVD/Divx media player. Much like PowerDVD. The only video player needed for everything.
MediaMonkey: Very powerful media player. Much like iTunes, however this gives much more flexibility. Drag items back and forth from an iPod.
SongBird: A desktop Web player, a digital jukebox and Web browser mash-up. Supports extensions, built from Mozilla and open source.
iTunes: A digital jukebox with a download music store inside.
JetAudio: Play most all types of media files with internet broadcasting and a nice alarm clock.
MediaPortal: Turn your PC into a media center. Like Windows Media Center – but free.

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MP3DirectCut: Fast and extensive audio editor and recorder for compressed mp3. No need to recompress.
SLD codec pack: All Dvix, Xvid etc. codecs combined in one install. Great for using Windows Media Player for these file types.
K-Lite: KL is a large "all-in-one" codec pack.
HandBrake: Great DVD ripping tool for OSX and Winodows. Rip DVDs to the hard drive.
FormatFactory: a multifunctional media converter. *
FFmpeg: cross platform command-line encoding tool that powers many of the more popular graphical applications *
DVDFlick: Turn almost any video file and make it into a DVD to play on your DVD player (TV). Simple and easy.
CDex: A free tool allows you to Rip you CD’s into MP3’s.
DVDFab Decrypter: Rip DVD’s to your hard drive. This will decrypted DVD’s to files to be stored (as .VOB files).
DVD Shrink: Remove extra features and compress to fit a DVD (VOB file) to a single blank DVD.
DVDbackup: Free DVD backup tool.
dBpoweramp: Called the Swiss army knife of Audio. Rip and convert any CD into any format. Great app.
Super: A simple, yet very efficient tool to convert (encode) or play any Multimedia file. Easy-to-use with 1 simple click.
Bink Rad Video: Perfect tool to rip movie’s into an executable player. End-users don’t need special codecs to use.
VCDgear: Designed to extract MPEG streams from CD images, convert VCD files to MPEG, correct MPEG errors and more.
StaxRip: Easily convert your DVD’s, DVB or DV captures or almost any other source format.
Dr. Divx 2.0: Unofficially the Official DivX encoding tool to create DivX media files for playback on DivX hardware and software players.
MediaCoder: Audio/video batch transcoder. Capable of transcoding among different audio/video formats with many extras.
EphPod: Manage your iPod music and more.  Drag and drop music back and forth.  

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UnFREEz: Make animated .GIF’s very easily and free.
Movie13: .GIF animator with 98 animation wizards including text and actor wizards.
GimpShop: Want PhotoShop but don’t want to pay for it? Get GimpShop.
Paint.NET: Image and photo manipulation software designed to be used on computers that run Windows XP.
ArtRage: A painting package designed to provide a realistic and fun simulation of using paint on a canvas.
TuxPaint: It’s like Photoshop for kids!. Very basic however much more powerful than Windows "Paint".
Inkscape: Open Source vector graphics editor – a powerful and convenient drawing tool.
MWSnap: For snapping (capturing) images from selected parts of the screen. Does not install. Very powerful.
ColorCop: Sample color – programs like firefox have color samplers, but you’re limited to that program; with this you can select anything on your screen.
IrfanView: Modify, organize and add effects to almost any image format.
Picasa: Photo organizer that allows you to share photo’s easily online with others- very powerful program made by Google.
Artweaver: Program for creative painting, i.e. Artweaver makes all artistic effects, which you need for your work.

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Pivot: Make stick figure animations!. This is cool.Audacity: Audio/sound mixer, that is of course FREE.
AutoGK: Video compression and converting. Divx, Xvid and DVD support. (Like "Dr. Divx" as for understanding).
Wink: Make flash tutorials for websites or software "how-to’s". ‘Teach mom how to use OpenOffice by watching.’
Anim8or: A free "Maya" program. Very tight software that lets you make your own "Toy Story".
Blender: A free GNU 3D manipulation tool. Make movies and effects. Tutorials.
Avid: Perfect for students, DV camera owners, video enthusiasts or anyone exploring video editing.
Zwei-Stein: A non-linear, non-destructive video compositing and editing system which offers many advanced features.
DAZ|Studio: 3D figure posing and animation software package. Think Nvidia "Dawn" creation. (like).
ABC VideoRoll: Easy to use, free video editing. Company no longer exists and some experience bugs with it. Seems ok.
WAX: High performance and flexible video compositing and special effects software. Look at there other free software too!
VirtualDub: Great for capturing and editing your .AVI movies and converting to Divx. Many more features.
ZS4: Combine a variety of media types (currently photos, videos and audio files) into one (or more) output file(s). 
Movica:  a graphical user interface to edit .mpg and .wmv.  
Doom9 and Videohelp: Both are great sites to get any other software/help you may need for video encoding.

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