OPTIMIZING YOUR PC, using a we beam dur¬ing online chats, or extracting zip files - these are some of the most common tasks you per¬form on your computer, Despite their repeated usage, these tasks still remain popular no matter how commonly they are used, But now there are some tools that give these a little edge by introducing interesting innovations, Read on and discover three useful apps that do just that.

Fine Tune Your System

Love it or hate it, but the need to maintain your PC and keep it running optimally is something you simply can't ignore, There are a myriad of useful applications available to tweak and optimize your system, But they often consist of just a few tools, If you ;",ant a more comprehen¬sive application for enhancing your system performance and giving it a fresh look, 'TuneUp Utilities 2008' fits the bill very well. It includes a treasure trove of tools for improving system performance, cleaning up junk files, and customizing Windows look and feel.

You can optimize your system easily with just a few mouse clicks, And there is abundance of advanced settings that expert users will find useful. Apart from the usual system optimization, it also comes with powerful features like hard drive defragmentation, data recovery and eraser tools, It also provides a useful utility ¬'l-Click Maintenance' that offers you the option to optimize the most common PC settings quickly and easily in one click,

But what makes it stand out is its support for customizing Windows User Interface like Icons, Visual Styles, Windows Boot and Logon Screen, If you are not satisfied with the options available, you can download thousands more from their site directly, Find a trial version in the 'Utilities' section,

Animate Your WebCam Experience Using your WebCam for normal video chatting has been possible for ages, Now you can throw in more fun and excitement with WebCamMax, It lets you add amazing video effects for video chatting with your friends, It comes with support for almost all instant messengers and you can even

TRANSFORM YOURSELF DURING video chats with the myriad of effects available in WebcamMax. Using it is a breeze and adding effects is just a few mouse clicks away, The effects you can add to your video range all the way from Back¬grounds, Transformations, Masks, Frames, Emoticons, to Text Effects, There are hundreds of them included with the application but if you want more effects, you can use the effects package which is downloadable from their site (also included on the DVD), Find a trial version in the 'Internet' sec¬tion, (You can also find a similar free alternative but with lesser functionality - ManyCam),

Streamline Zip FiLes

The problem with zip files is that while extracting them, we sometimes save them in different places and it is difficult to manage them efficiently, The perfect solution would be to create install and uninstall applications from the files extracted from zip files, This is what Ziplnstaller does for you,

It lets you extract all files from the zip file and in addition copy them to the destination folder you select; it also creates a shortcut in the start menu and on your desktop, And that's not all, it even adds an uninstall module to allow you to automatically remove the software in the future, Find it free in the 'Utilities' section,