My latest addition, to my list of programs I use everyday is
Net News Lite. If you want to pay for it you can get extra features, but I don't need them at the moment. Net News Lite is a RSS or Feed reader. I have to say that I have been using it for a couple of weeks now and it already saved a lot of time.
How does it works; you subscribe to your favorite websites, in the preferences you select how often you want it to be actualized. Once there is something new to read in one of your websites it will let you know. If there is nothing new to read you don't need to go from one website to the next hoping for new content. I would recommend giving it a try. I can't recommend a windows one because I don't know any but I'm sure they exist.
Extra some journals like Nature and APL (applies physics letters) are implementing RSS feeds, letting you know when there is new articles, this is pretty useful for people trying to stay on top of the new advances in science.