Huffington Post put up this article yesterday naming 10 essential free apps you just have to have for your PC. The list was mixed at best: Yes, everyone ought to have CrapCleaner, but do you really believe Google Music is essential?

Two items on their list, though, are very much worth checking out: Soluto is a nifty little service that lets you monitor and improve system performance (you’ll love the way you can manage background apps and improve boot time) and easily install useful apps, and Ninite is a site that is integrated into Soluto, but also accessible separately. It lets you install a whole bunch of worthwhile apps in one swell foop. Both are well worth investigating.

Yul Brynner was born this day in 1920. Here he is on What’s My Line?

Want to be extremely successful? Just do it. Get off your butt. At least that’s the lesson from extremely successful people. Forbes reports.

It’s July 4. Which means it’s time to listen to Jean Shepherd tell the story of Ludlow Kissel and the Dago Bomb That Struck Back. (Here’s an alternate link.)

Yet another reason why you ought to be reading the News From Me blog is that from time to time it calls our attention to some pretty cool sites you need to visit, including Letters of Note, which recently posted correspondence between Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry and legendary writer Isaac Asimov. It’s fascinating reading for anyone interested in Star Trek, how to reply to harsh criticism, the television business or how writers try to balance the prominence of characters in a story or series.