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Following on from the top 10 list of applications/software thread I thought I start one for those of use that are tight ar*es 🙂
I’ll kick it of with:
VLC, Video/Audio player – http://www.videolan.org
Open Office, document editor – http://www.openoffice.org
Picasa 3, photo editor- http://picasa.google.com/
Firefox, browser – http://www.mozilla.com/firefox
ccleaner, system cleaner/tools – http://www.ccleaner.com/
Log me in, remote access tool – http://www.logmein.comGreat idea!
I’d like to mention Google’s Chrome browser which, while still in beta and low on features, is an extremely lightweight and fast piece of software and thus ideal for any netbook:
Google Chrome: http://www.google.com/chrome
Also, 7-Zip, a handy utility for archiving files: http://www.7-zip.org
CamStudio, a video capture tool: http://camstudio.org
Crimson Editor, a notepad replacement for editing source code: http://www.crimsoneditor.com
Fraps, a nifty framerate checking tool. There is a premium version which removes video capture restrictions, but everything else is in the free version: http://www.fraps.com
MP3tag, a useful and easy-to-use tag editor: http://www.mp3tag.de/en
Revo Uninstaller – Much better than Windows built in uninstaller, I use with Ccleaner just to make sure.
vso image resizer always comes in handy as it can be started via a rick click
winrar is also a top zip style compression
mymovies for those on vista allows dvd folders to be played from media center
mkv2vob – to extract mkv to h264
tversity for streaming to a games console like ps3
handbrake for converting video files
I would add…
skype – voip
daemon tools – running iso’s, can be very useful when you do not have an optical drive.
windirstat – nifty tool for seeing what is on your hdd
Here’s a few I usually can’t live without:
Unlocker – Ever get a situation where the OS doesn’t let you delete a folder or file for some reason? This unobtrusive little program runs in the background and adds an Explorer menu item for just such an occasion.
Foobar2000 – An excellent, lightweight audio player (with a huge audiophile following).
Pidgin – May AOL’s software never touch any of my computers again! Pidgin’s multi-platform IM functionality makes it a better choice, anyway.
Mozilla Thunderbird – Nice, free E-mail client from the folks who brought us Firefox.
Foxit Reader – Never suffer Adobe’s bloated, slow, resource-intensive PDF reader again! Foxit is fast, lightweight, and fully-featured.
JRE – Duh, you’ll (eventually) need this one (it has been so long since I used a pre-installed copy of Windows–does JRE come already installed?).
These are just a few things I always make a point of downloading. Incidentally, you can get them all at filehippo.com.
Revo uninstaller (already mentioned) also has tools built in which isnt obvious at first look.
Superantispyware is also nice
for fun DosBox and a search for abandonware will give you a taste of the old days (or is that daze?)
Pidgin is a lightweight (fast) alternative to yahoo messenger etc
I can recommend Powertoys for Windows XP
Paint.NET Graphic utility and editing
jZip for uncompressing/compressing files
BattStat The best battery status app. I’ve found so far, estimates time remaining, shows cpu temp, hd temp etc.
I just started giving GIMP another try and am really liking its capabilities and free-osity. Highly functional image editor/photshop thing.
Opera (web browser) – http://www.opera.com
Freemind (mind mapping software) – http://freemind.sourceforge.netCurrently I’m looking to use
GNUCash – For accounts
InfraRecorder – For Cd/DvD burning
MediaCoder – For encoding/decoding, etc
Mp3Tag – For
OllyDbg – For User level debugging
Opera – For Web Browsing
ProcExplorer – For A process explorer
PuTTY – For sshing
RadASM – For writing Assembler
Recuva – For recovering files
VLC – For viewing video (though I now prefer mplayer)
Winamp – For listening to musack, unfortunatley I like winamp 2.91 and have an installer for it that i’ve kept, I don’t want to post any links to version 2.91 here incase they contain anything nasty, go to google and search for it at your own peril.Mod Edit: Links need to have the “http” in ~Jez
Things I’ve found useful up to now.
Media:
CCCP (Combined Community Codec Pack) is fantastic, yet another codec pack but unlike others it doesn’t cause conflicts and screw everything up, bundled is MPC (Media Player Classic)
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If not
4oD and iPlayer if you don’t mind DRM
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TweakUI: A great way to get rid of misc icons that clutter things up, amongst other things
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Virtual Desktop Manager: Virtual desktops, disable desktop sharing and it gives you four separate desktops so window clutter isn’t an issue
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Alt Tab Replacement: Doesn’t really save space but it’s a great little utility, replaces the default alt tab behavior to something more sane (It gives a preview of what you’re switching to)
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ClearType Tuner: Set up cleartype fonts properly, pretty fonts, yay.
Gizmo’s list of freeware is a reference point I usually go to when wanting reviews / recommendations of free software:
http://www.techsupportalert.com/
Lots of recommendations divided by category.
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