Rapid Typing is a fast and useful application that allows you to improve your typing skills, both in accuracy and speed. The interface is fairly clear, although maybe you will have to disable the aquarium animation set as default in the background as it can disturb you when concentrating on your exercises. You can do that, in the option menu, ticking the animation option and if you wish, choosing a background colour, although the white one, is probably the clearer.

When you start the session, simply type the letters you see on the screen, without looking at your keyboard. Exercises are increasingly difficult and test you on specific letters each time, until you are able to remember better what’s where.

If you don’t know which is the correct finger to use to press a letter, press the Show/Hide Virtual Keyboard button, on the far bottom of the main frame. You’ll get a representation of your hands, telling you with which finger you should use to press the key.
At the end of each session the program tells you how many mistakes you made and how fast you have been, showing you a graph of your improvements.

With Rapid Typing you can improve your typing speed and accuracy when using your keyboard with increasingly more difficult exercises. Although it’s very easy to use, it lacks of an initial explanation on how to position and move your fingers, so two-finger typers might have to look for an alternative training method.

Download RapidTyping 1.9.9.6 in Softonic

For many people, the only reason worth upgrading to Vista if for the look since the functionality and basic framework really don't differ that much from XP.

If you think the same way, then you'll be more than happy with Vista Transformation Pack. Once installed, the program makes superficial changes to XP that give it the Vista look. The main changes are that it "Vistarises" your start-up screen, cursors, sounds, screen-savers, tool bars, clock, etc. The transparent effect in Vista is hard to emulate on XP machines but by combining with Windows Blinds, Vista Transofrmation Pack does a surprisingly impressive job. Be warned however that some users have complained the program changes driver DLLs in XP which make it difficult to remove, or at least, it leaves problems behind when you do so.

To be fair to them, the developers advise you to view their user discussion board before installing to be warned of any potential problems as they readily admit that they are not aware of all the bugs it may cause. Note that if you're simply updating Vista Transformation Pack, there's no need to uninstall the original - just install the patch. They've also added a user selection feature whereby if you log onto your PC as a different user, you can select whether you want to transform your XP desktop to Vista.

This is probably one of the best transformation packs out there although be warned that it's likely that you'll suffer conflicts with programs from time to time, and may have problems with XP when it's uninstalled.

Download Vista Transformation Pack 8.01 in Softonic

Most of the PC card games you play are probably limited to the Solitaire, Hearts of FreeCell that come bundled with Windows, so why not spicing it up and playing some poker instead?

PokerTH makes it really easy. This virtual card game enables you to play poker in its Texas Hold'em variety, one of the most popular poker-based card games in casinos and poker rooms worldwide.

The game's appearance and behavior is similar to other card games so you'll be playing in no time. You can play against up to six opponents, all of them controlled by the computer. If you want to face real human players you'll have to play a network game, either in LAN or via the Internet. Unfortunately the poker server didn't seem to respond during our tests, so I couldn’t' test online games properly. In any case my guess here is that the router at the office is configured in such a way that I can't access poker servers from work – I don't understand why.

PokerTH features a very complete settings menu that allows you to configure and customize the game any way you want. The only thing missing is having some background casino music, but you can fix that with your own MP3 collection.

PokerTH is a free Texas Hold'em poker game with which you can play poker against the computer, on LAN or via the Internet – that is, if your router is properly configured.

Download PokerTH 0.6 in Softonic

This popular customization program allows you to add skins, toolbars, and interfaces to fine tune your computer. While the trial version of Window Blinds offers a restricted number of skins, you can easily choose from the thousands available from wincustomize.com and Deviant Art, which load directly into WindowBlinds. The program barely takes any space in your hard drive and loads new themes or skins rather quickly. It is quick to install and very stable. Window Blinds also gives you a preview shot of what the design would look like.

The trial version is a bit limited as it does not allow you to use the in-depth SkinStudio, with which you can normally customize your skins by changing color, size, and background. If you’re feeling particularly creative, you can also create your own from scratch. Thanks to the new blurred glass effect you can make pretty original skins. We also found it quite easy to handle animations in the skins you created.

Window Blinds is great to create original skins of excellent quality for your desktop.

Download WindowBlinds 6.01 in Softonic

Actual Window Rollup is a small but powerful utility which simply adds an extra Roll Up title button to each and every window's title bar so that you can roll any window up/down in a single mouse click. Once minimised, your windows are no more than just the title bar which you see at the very top of your browser. If you use tabs regularly, then you won't really need this. However, if you have to use multiple windows, then it's a real bonus.

No longer will you suffer from your RAM getting overloaded or the confusion of having too many windows open. You simply double click on the title bar you want to expand and it fills your screen instantly. This definitely improves your productivity although you then have to deal with the problem of too many title bars! The difference is, they're a lot easier and more discreet to deal with than loads of windows. One extra nice touch is that you can customize the transition effects from a simple snap to a more gentle fade.

Download Actual Window Rollup 4.5 in Softonic