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Being a writer, distractions have always been problematic, their intrusion on the process of writing an annoyance that can often render a presumably easy writing task into one that occupies more time than you’d like.

CreaWriter is a very helpful tool that frees you of the many distractions that exist when using a word processor. Whether it’s that flashing icon in your task bar or the minimized Firefox tab that’s calling your attention, the modern experience of writing has become an endeavor hindered by our immediate access to other forms of information.

This tool wipes away all of those distractions, leaving a clean slate (literally!) on which to ply your writing.  As seen above, nothing else exists no your screen but the page to which you’re putting your words. You can further customize it, including the ability to add both background images and ambient sounds – both of which can be disabled, if you prefer just a white space.

In the digital age, distractions are inevitable, no matter how determined we are to avoid them. However, programs such as CreaWriter mitigate the frustration that results from them, making it a little easier to finish what you’re trying to compose.

This is a free program that’s available for Windows only, and you can grab it here.

In this era of social networking, where the internet has become our main channel of communication, sharing pictures has become a routine activity.

Finding hosts for those pictures is as easy as surfing to any number of free sites that offer storage and linking of as many pictures as you would like, where the simple generation of a fresh url allows you to link your image on whichever forum you’d like to broadcast the latest exploits you’ve captured.

Zscreen is an amazingly convenient tool that not only captures screens from your computer, but it also uploads those images to you the most popular image sharing services you on the net – TinyPic, ImageShack, Flickr, TwitPic, and others.  Additionally, those urls can be minimized with url shortening services like TinyURL and bit.ly.

Supporting more than two dozen services, Zscreen captures content and shares it, sparing you the hassle of having to visit a website to upload those images. Once the image link has been generated, you can share it with as many people as you’d like.

This is an excellent tool for those of you with a penchant for sharing pictures. It’s free and easy to use, but available only for Windows users.

If you’d like to make use of Zscreen, you can get it here.

Whether you’ve just encountered a catastrophic error that results in a system crash or find yourself upgrading to the latest operating system, reformatting your hard drive is an extreme measure that’s often unavoidable over the course of your computer’s life.  When doing so, it’s of paramount concern that you’re able to retain the data stored on your computer.

While backing up certain data is as simple as transferring it to another form of storage, many of your applications will require re-installation, a process that can often be hindered by the sheer number of apps installed on your PC.

Mitigating this chore is a helpful website that keeps a tally of the applications installed on your computer, allowing you – when ready – to re-install those items with the click of your mouse.

The site is called AllMyApps.com

For now, the only issue I’ve found is that it limits applications to those which are free, excluding commercial software (Microsoft Office applications, i.e.). While understandable, given copyright concerns, this does leave you to install those programs individually. Still, despite that omission, this site logs every other free application that’s installed on your computer.

To the surprise of many, I’m sure, our computers are host to dozens of free applications that we’ve installed over time. Many of these facilitate what are now mundane activities, such as Adobe Flash or AIM. By using this site, after having reformatted your hard drive, you’re immediately returned to the previous composition of your computer – excluding, of course, those commercial applications.

The unavailability of commercial software aside, this is a novel idea that is long overdue.

Should you have any other questions related to preservation of data on your computer, especially you think your hard drive needs to be reformatted, we’re here to aid you.