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In Pictures: Top 10 productivity apps for Windows RT

11 Photos Networkworld Staff (Network World)

The apps that will help users get the most use out of their Windows RT devices.

  • The Windows Store may not be as massive or diverse as the Apple App Store or Google Play, but there are still many useful apps for Windows RT/8 users that run the gamut from games to image editors. Here is a collection of 10 great apps for Windows RT designed to enhance your productivity and add some useful features and capabilities to your tablet or convertible.

  • Remind Me The Remind Me app is a simple utility that allows users to set reminders in just a couple of taps (or clicks). The reminders can be recurring or one-time alarms that activate pop-up alerts anywhere in Windows. For those times when using Outlook's calendar is overkill, Remind Me is a great alternative that's much quicker and easier to use.

  • Bamboo Page Bamboo Page is a handy note-taking and sketch tool that works well with both touch and mouse input. It has a clean, easy-to-use interface that makes switching between colors and brush/paper styles a breeze, and offers rudimentary line-smoothing as well, which significantly improves the quality of quick, hand-written letters and shapes.

  • Team Viewer Touch Team Viewer Touch is a full-featured remote desktop utility that gives users the ability to access full-blown PCs from a Windows RT tablet. Simply install the Team Viewer connector app on your PC (available at teamviewer.com), install the Team Viewer Touch app on your Windows RT system, and input your credentials. The PC will be accessible from anywhere, provided you've got a reliable internet connection.

  • OneNote OneNote is a powerful note-taking app that syncs with the cloud, making your notes accessible across multiple connected devices. More than just a simple text editor, OneNote allows users to embed images or links, draw or sketch, and embed tables into notes, and the app offers easy sharing tools as well. Content stored to the cloud with OneNote is also accessible via a web browser, should you find yourself using a device or system that doesn’t have the OneNote app installed.

  • Code Writer Code Writer is a feature-rich text editor with active syntax highlighting that's just as useful for editing simple text files as it is for spotting problems in code. The app supports many document types, including HTML, CSS, JavaScript, XML, and Perl (among many others), and it offers a tabbed menu that makes it easy to edit multiple documents at once.

  • Toolbox For Windows 8 The Toolbox For Windows 8 app is loaded with a number of useful tools optimized for Windows RT/8's modern UI. The app is continually updated and offers a number of free or low-priced plug ins, and features an integrated calculator, currency converter, notification tool, clock, note-taker, and doodle apps, and even a voice recorder.

  • Adobe Photoshop Express Adobe Photoshop needs no introduction. It is arguably the most powerful, most pervasive professional image editor in existence. Adobe Photoshop Express incorporates some of the most-used features of Photoshop into a simple-to-use app, optimized for touch input. Adobe Photoshop Express doesn’t offer all of the features of its full-fledged counterpart, but if you need to quickly manipulate, crop, or enhance images, and want to leverage your tablet's touch-input, Photoshop Express will fit the bill nicely.

  • Skype Skype is one of the most popular VoIP applications available for Windows, or any other platform for that matter. The modern-UI version is optimized for touch input and works equally well, whether it's running full-screen or snapped to one side, while another app is running. In addition to making voice or video calls, Skype also offers instant messaging capabilities and gives users the ability to share photos or other file types (or virtually any size) with other Skype users.

  • Metro Commander One of Microsoft's most glaring omissions with its modern UI is its total lack of a file manager. If you've got files you want to move around on Windows RT, you have to do it in desktop view. Metro Commander addresses that situation, and offers an intuitive file manager that's optimized for touch input and the modern UI. Metro Commander allows users to create, open, preview, rename, copy, move, delete, search and share files and folders, and even integrates with SkyDrive for managing files stored in the cloud.

  • PC Monitor If you have to manage multiple systems, PC Monitor is a godsend. After installing the connector application on all of your systems, the PC Monitor Windows RT app lets you check the status of the systems at a glance. The app monitors hardware health, alerts users when system updates are available (and allows you to begin the update process remotely), and monitors other system resources, network performance, IIS, Exchange, and Active Directory and Hyper-V status as well, among a myriad of other system parameters.

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