Washington  - Zip files are a way of life. The compression method known as Zip can reduce files to a fraction of their original size, and it's used by people the world over. The trouble is, the major programs used to decompress Zip files - WinZip and WinRAR - are both commercial. Luckily, there's a free tool called 7-Zip that does just about everything the fee-based utilities do. Get 7-Zip at http://www.7zip.com.

Washington (dpa) - Ever need to create an exact duplicate of a hard drive? Most of the tools that do this will set you back a fair amount, but not XXClone (http://www.xxclone.com). This free tool will create an exact duplicate of a hard drive, regardless of whether it's to be used under Windows or on a Mac. You can use it to back up your work or to replace your existing hard drive with one that's larger.

Washington (dpa) - Microsoft Office 2003 users have a research tool at their fingertips, yet most don't know it. Located in the Tools menu of Word, Excel or another Office application, the Research command will look up words for you, provide synonyms, translations, and more. Although the tool will call upon resources on the Internet to help you, it won't launch a separate web browser, instead keeping you safely in your application.

Washington (dpa) - Need to take your Firefox bookmarks with you? With the Foxmarks add-on, you don't have to. Foxmarks (http://www.foxmarks.com) is a free utility that will store and synchronise your bookmarks among several computers. It's the most elegant and the easiest way of ensuring that your bookmarks are always at hand when you use multiple computers.

Washington (dpa) - Ever wonder how the performance of your computer compares to others? With Sandra Lite (http://www.sisoftware.net), you can. This program does an exhaustive test of your PC's processor, memory and graphics and then compares the scores with those of other current systems. This is a great way to determine the relative performance gain you stand to gain by upgrading particular components. (dpa)