TechByter Worldwide 2015.08.02: Some of My Favorite (Free) Things; The Best Way to Speed a Computer; Short Circuits; and Spare Parts.

I'm a fan of applications that are provided without cost and I'll share a short list of some of my favorites. The best way to make a computer faster used to involve adding memory, but now maybe you should swap out the hard drive. In Short Circuits: Windows 10 launched this week and overall the upgrade process seems to be going well. Brian Krebs questions a new Windows 10 feature, but it seems to me that his concerns are largely without merit. In Spare Parts, only on the website: An on-line service can help you understand auto financing, why more large companies are moving to open-source applications for software development, and one of the big providers of high-quality optical disks plans to shut down by the end of the year.