This isn’t strictly a Crystal topic, but it is a website that immediately earned a warm spot in my heart.   I was working with a customer who needed a PDF printer driver for extra wide exports, and I suggested CutePDF.  But instead of going to their site he went to ninite.com.  He checked off “CutePDF” from a list of about 90 free applications, downloaded an installer and then installed it in one click. I was impressed.

So I looked at the list of free applications and noticed several tools that I use were on that list, along with a few I have been meaning to try.  So I went to Ninite.com myself, checked off a dozen or so items and downloaded my own automated installer.  That installed all 12 of the applications in one click.  Those that were already installed were automatically updated to the latest version.  I was even more impressed.  No extra clicks, no extra tool bars, no figuring out which version you need and it is all on one site.  And I can rerun the same installer next month to see if any of these tools have an update or a later version.  If so it will be installed automatically.  Simple, elegant, free and effective.

And, thanks to Ron Ross, a Software Engineering Specialist at SPK and Associates for the heads up on this site.