Ever wanted an easy way to keep an eye on a number of programs that are running on your PC? Or have you ever wanted to set up a rolling demo to show friends, family, colleagues or clients a selection of programs that are running?

OK, so it's not the sort of thing that every PC user needs to do, all the time. But occasionally, such a facility can be useful.  Especially if you want to monitor those programs in full-screen mode rather than as minimised windows.

You could, of course, just sit at your computer and press the Alt-Tab key every few seconds to cycle through the windows.  Or you could use a simple free utility called AutoTab that does it for you.  It's a tiny download, it's free, it runs under Windows XP and above, and VirusTotal claims it's free of malware.  You'll find it at http://www.analogx.com/contents/download/System/autotab/Freeware.htm

When you run this utility, an icon will appear in the notification area. If the icon is red, it's disabled; to start it up, double-click the icon for it to turn green.

There are other useful purposes for such a program, too.  If you're keeping an eye on a handful of different web sites, for example, to check for incoming mail and news, just set up separate browser windows, set AutoTab running, and relax.