There are a myriad of really great tools out there on the web to solve many problems. Problem is, you need to have access to the web to use them. Given that, the tools below work. Now given that, there is a slight chance they may hose your system, especially if the bug in place doesn’t want to be removed. However, it’s their fault, not mine ;). If we come to your residence or business, then its our fault.

Free Antivirus

• Avast antivirus
• The standby AVG-Free
• The best (in my humble opinion) of the free is Microsoft’s own Security Essentials

Good spyware cleaning tools

• Spybot Search and Destroy -good tool but it can break your system
• Adaware – another standby
• Not a day goes by that I don’t recommend Malwarebytes Anti-Malware

Online antivirus scanning tools

• Housecall
• Kaspersky antivirus

Great free productivity software

• Open Office a darn good office suite. And free !
• Picassa – All most users need for image editing.
• From the I can’t believe its free! catagory, Google earth.

Don’t forget to turn up the detail in the options tab – as well as enable anti-aliasing.

• Ubuntu – You’ve heard the buzz – Dell can even sell you a computer with it pre-loaded. Try it with their live cd download.