Mediaboss Marketing

In celebration of Earth Week, try four small, full-featured (and free!) software programs that don't use much disk space or memory.

Meson Player (32bit, 64bit, Mac)

Meson Player is a tiny music player without a conventional graphical user interface (GUI). The lack of a GUI puts the bulk of the application control in hot keys rather than the usual mouse and click. Using your keyboard's number pad, you can quickly skip tracks, turn volume up or down, and save and open playlists. Meson Player can handle a variety of audio file formats as well as Internet Radio playlists. Meson Player also supports the multimedia keys on some keyboards for advanced functionality.

Barely consuming any system resources, the software leaves a light footprint on your computer and declutters your computer screen. Just set it, forget it, and remember your hot keys. The only issue for users without multimedia keys on their keyboards is that they should be prepared to sacrifice their NumPads for controlling Meson Player.

Writemonkey

Self-dubbed as "zenware," Writemonkey falls somewhere between note-taker and word processor. It was designed to allow writers to dump ideas onto a blank canvases, quickly and easily. By removing all the distractions of standard word processors and providing a basic black background with yellow-green text, Writemonkey embraces the idea of "write now and edit later." Don't let it fool you with its basic interface, though--Writemonkey is a full-fledged word processor. Right-clicking will bring up the full context menu that allows a host of additional feature such as changing the look, color, layout, typeface, and size. My favorite feature? The option to hear old-time typewriter sounds when keys are pressed.

With intuitive and basic design, Writemonkey is a great app for distraction-free writing. It's light, fast, and portable--there's no installation required. Simply download and run the executable, and you've taken the next step toward writing that Hollywood blockbuster.

Tiny Burner

With the developments of smaller and cheaper USB drives and the ability to back up your data via online "cloud," CD burning doesn't have the same appeal. Every now and then, however, you'll find yourself reaching for a blank disc to burn family photos for that one relative who insists on keeping their Windows 98 machine. And more likely than not, your computer will lack any disc-burning software aside from the built-in Windows program. Tiny Burner is here to help users in such times. There's no need to fork out money for software you use once a year. Tiny Burner can handle all types of optical discs--standard CDs, DVDs, Blu-rays, and the now defunct HD-DVDs.

Load the disc you want to copy, and Tiny Burner automatically runs. Drag and drop files to create your own ISO. With Tiny Burner you have access to a large number of media-creation tools offered in paid suites. As befits the theme, it all comes with a minimum drag on your system resources.

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Leave a smaller PC footprint