HydrogenAudio

Misc. => Off-Topic => Topic started by: TrNSZ on 2003-01-11 23:40:41

Title: Essential Software
Post by: TrNSZ on 2003-01-11 23:40:41
[deleted]
Title: Essential Software
Post by: Infophreak on 2003-01-12 00:27:52
EMACS!!!

Just had to say it (editor wars, yay!).

A little more seriously: Thanks for that more advanced command interpreter. I find myself using the command line A LOT (all the time using Linux on other boxen has gotten to me ). For all those who don't know how much you still can do with the commandline in 2K/XP, try running cmd.exe and do a "cmd /?" and a "<command> /?" for all those built-in commands it lists. There is a lot of stuff hidden there, that you can tweak. To name one smart trick: I made perl script executable programs on the commandline, so I only have to write "script.pl <enter>", and it'll automatically run perl.exe on it.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: TrNSZ on 2003-01-12 00:46:56
[deleted]
Title: Essential Software
Post by: SometimesWarrior on 2003-01-12 01:18:06
Thanks for the informative (and huge) post! I'll start toying with some of that stuff right away. I get the feeling like my computing life is about to be "evolutionized". 

I've been messing with Emacs (for Windows), and after weeks of forcing myself to use the keyboard shortcuts only, I'm starting to feel more efficient when I use it. Talk about a vertical learning curve!

Another programming language I enjoy using: Ruby (http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/). It's kind of a cross between Smalltalk and Perl, I guess, and it's quick to learn and quick to use.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: Infophreak on 2003-01-12 01:19:19
Lavasoft is the creator of Adaware (http://www.lavasoftusa.com/), and NO computer running any flavour of Windows should be allowed to be connected to the internet without this. So much malware and spyware is out there, and this is pretty much the only guard against all that s***.

XChat (http://xchat.org/) is a great IRC client that is proving itself more and more interesting. The upcomming 2.0 release should have some nifty support for Python scripting. With that said, I am still using mIRC because I couldn't code C, C++ or Python if my life depended on it, whereas mIRC scripting is rather easy. I hope to have time to really learn Python some day, as the concept sounds really cool to me.

Pan (http://pan.rebelbase.com/) is a free (as in speech) usenet reader for GNOME, but there is also a Windows port in the works. IMO better than Xnews, and certainly a lot better when it comes to handling binaries.

BlackBox for Windows (http://www.desktopian.org/bb/). What more can I say? Well... if you want something fast and small to replace explorer.exe as your default shell, this is it. It does take a lot of work to get used to though, which is a definite minus. I tried it, and I liked it, but ultimately, it took a little too much time to set up. YMMV.

ActiveState (http://www.activestate.com/) - home of native Windows builds of Perl, Python and Tcl. Lots 'n lots of programming fun :D

POVRay (http://www.povray.org/) is a free (as in beer -- the source is available though) raytracer. Quite good too. It can be a lot of fun to toy around with, and the included sample files warrant a download alone, just to see what it can pull off. IRTC (http://www.irtc.org/) (the Internet RayTracing Competition) often features images made with POVRay or one of its derivatives.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: TrNSZ on 2003-01-12 01:33:03
[deleted]
Title: Essential Software
Post by: JohnV on 2003-01-12 02:47:51
Hey TrNSZ, very nice post!

Btw. you said you use IE. You should test MyIE2 (http://www.ruihehang.com/myie2/html_en/home.htm). It uses your IE-engine, but adds so much features.. Of course the most important are tabs-support (multiple page support, if unclear for somebody) and mouse gestures.

You use the same software which I'd have mentioned also first.. (4NT,Ultraedit,Kerio,IsoBuster..)
But here are some more free utilities I use.

Total Uninstall (http://www.geocities.com/ggmartau/projects/projects.html) should be the best uninstallation utility for win32 apps.

Dimension4 (http://www.thinkman.com/dimension4/) is probably the lightest time synchronization program considering all the options available (Doesn't work well with XP which has internal option for this). Also nice for modem users, since it detects when you are online.

Miranda ICQ (http://miranda-icq.sourceforge.net/) is very much more "lite" than ICQ lite. Latest nightly build available here. (http://miranda-icq.sourceforge.net/rich/)

Aida32 (http://www.aida32.hu/aida-features.php?bit=32) is a nice free (for personal use) system information, diagnostics and benchmarking program running on Win32 platforms. A bit to the same category goes Belarc Advisor (http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html) which builds a detailed profile of your inspected system's software and hardware and displays the results in your browser.

Other useful non-free software I use:
Remotely Anywhere (http://www.remotelyanywhere.com/) remote administration&remote desktop with (JAVA-support needed for remote desktop) web-browser, FinePrint (http://www.fineprint.com/) for my different printing needs, F-Prot 3.12c Win32 antivirus (http://www.f-prot.com) is very light and reasonably good, Beyond Compare (http://www.scootersoftware.com/) for all kind of file/folder/ftp/source code/etc comparison.

Well, there's more, but these came to my mind quickly.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: TrNSZ on 2003-01-12 03:20:50
[deleted]
Title: Essential Software
Post by: JohnV on 2003-01-12 03:44:45
Quote
About MyIE2: IE is just fine for me really, at least I think so.  I don't use my mouse much; In real-life I only touch my once maybe once or twice an hour so things like mouse gestures just scream useless to me.  I use software that covers my tracks and removes any personal information from my system -- automatic filling out of forms with stored data goes against everything I believe in!  I usually fill out forms with fake data anyway.  URL aliases are provided by a tool from the Microsoft IE Web Accessories for IE5 that still works fine for me in IE 6 SP1, and I use that feature maybe once a year.  I normally browse with all toolbars, explorer bars, and anything other than the status bar disabled - I only have the File/Edit/View/etc menu and the bottom status bar.  This also makes the auto-hide toolbar feature useless since I disable it always anyway.  The website isn't very informative of all features, and it's too slow to use right now, but is there anything else in there that might interest me?

Well, there are too many features to list here. Some that come to my mind are grouping (you can group sites and open those at the same time), you can disable many things with one click (like ActiveX content,Javascipt,images etc.), auto-scroll (heh), auto-refresh, a feature to show only all the links of a site, etc..really too many things to list. Good thing is that there's no install.. You just unpack and run the myie.exe.

Anyway, the biggest thing for me is the tabs-support. my nerves can't handle a browser without it anymore.. 

I know about the commandline time sync tools, but non of those had all the features I wanted.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: h on 2003-01-12 04:54:58
I personally can't live without my Gator, Comet Cursor or SaveNow!

Couldn't resist.

FileMon (http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/source/filemon.shtml) monitors every single file operation performed on your windows box, with powerful filtering capabilities.

RegMon (http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/source/regmon.shtml) does the same with the registry - priceless utilities.

PsTools (http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/pstools.shtml) for remote process manipulation - starting, killing, listing, etc. on remote administerable machines.

HeleCabCompressor (http://www.helesic.cz/en/helecabcompresor.php) for creating CAB files - high compression that can be decompressed on any windows box without 3rd party software.

FFdshow (http://cutka.szm.sk/ffdshow/) decompresses and filters various video formats.  Precious.

-h
Title: Essential Software
Post by: TrNSZ on 2003-01-12 05:10:18
[deleted]
Title: Essential Software
Post by: smok3 on 2003-01-12 08:05:29
just to mention few for windows:

- EditPad Lite http://www.editpadpro.com/editpadlite.html (http://www.editpadpro.com/editpadlite.html)
(general-purpose text editor)
- office http://www.openoffice.org/ (http://www.openoffice.org/)
(an office)
- total commander http://www.ghisler.com/ (http://www.ghisler.com/)
(file manager, ftp client, ect - previously windows commander)
- mbprobe http://mbprobe.livewiredev.com/ (http://mbprobe.livewiredev.com/)
(cpu temperature meter, ect)
- abyss http://www.aprelium.com/ (http://www.aprelium.com/)
(www server)
- getright http://www.getright.com/ (http://www.getright.com/)
(http, ftp download manager)
edit:
- trillian http://www.ceruleanstudios.com/trillian/fe...features-1.html (http://www.ceruleanstudios.com/trillian/features-1.html)
(my icq replacement)
edit2:
- catfish http://www.equi4.com/catfish/ (http://www.equi4.com/catfish/)
fast, simple, free disk catalog browser (almost forgot that one, only thing i miss is multiple search results)
any1 know a better free app?
---------------------------------------

toys:
- iZotope Vinyl http://www.izotope.com/products/audio/vinyl/vinyl.html (http://www.izotope.com/products/audio/vinyl/vinyl.html)
(Vinyl for DirectX)
- terragen http://www.planetside.co.uk/terragen/ (http://www.planetside.co.uk/terragen/)
('simple' landscape renderer)

<offtopic>
for the old real3d users, there is a new demo version to download:
http://www.realsoft.com/ (http://www.realsoft.com/)
</offtopic>
Title: Essential Software
Post by: h on 2003-01-12 08:21:13
I've been following ffdshow development, but I've been afraid to install it for some reason -- it scares me.

Well, all it does is install 3 DLLs and 1 AX file (none of which go into the windows tree), and register some CLSIDs for playback.  Worries me much less than installing say WMV8.

I use Microsoft MakeCAB for making my CAB files.  It does look like that other program you mentioned might compress better.  Does it support a command-line interface?

It's just a frontend for MakeCAB, there's no command-line functionality.

-h
Title: Essential Software
Post by: Volcano on 2003-01-12 15:57:38
Yo TrNSZ, very nice, thanks!  I also use quite a lot of the programs you mentioned.

Few additions:

Metapad (http://liquidninja.com/metapad/), a really cool text editor for Windows. I use it especially for quoting messages in forums that don't have a proper quote function, and for composing emails (very good for replying to messages with dirty quoting).

Proton Code Editor (http://www.meybohm.de/) for PHP scripting (and other languages if I were able to ). The HTML editor also available on that site simply rocks, but it's German-only.

Apache2 (http://httpd.apache.org/)/PHP (http://www.php.net/)/MySQL (http://www.mysql.com/) of course. (Haven't been put to much use recently though...)


Little, hardly known helpers:

ReadOnly (http://www.sente.co.uk/downloads.htm) for mass-removing Read Only attributes (because Win98 can't do this natively). It's a little buggy, on large selections it sometimes misses a few files.

Icon Sushi (http://towofu.s5.xrea.com/soft/e-index.html), a cool image editor.

WinTop (http://www.helmrohr.de/ftproot/wintop.zip), part of the MS PowerToys. Very nice tool that displays all running processes and reports their CPU usage correctly. (Important on Win9x, because SYSMON.EXE is very unreliable for CPU usage reporting.)

DelTemp (http://www.helmrohr.de/ftproot/Deltemp.zip), simple VB Script that deletes the TEMP folder on startup if it's safe to do so (if a setup wizard reboots and continues to install from that folder, DelTemp won't erase it).
Title: Essential Software
Post by: ak on 2003-01-12 18:31:10
Quote
ReadOnly (http://www.sente.co.uk/downloads.htm) for mass-removing Read Only attributes (because Win98 can't do this natively).

I think it can (attrib -r <path>\*.* /S), although it can take ages to complete.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: TrNSZ on 2003-01-13 01:35:52
[deleted]
Title: Essential Software
Post by: Andavari on 2003-01-13 02:56:48
Ad-aware:
http://www.lavasoftusa.com/ (http://www.lavasoftusa.com/)
http://www.lsfileserv.com/ (http://www.lsfileserv.com/)
http://www.lavasoft.de/ (http://www.lavasoft.de/)
Freeware version, contains no spyware or built in ads.
Just one of the spyware removal utilities that should be on any and all Windows systems to combat the garbage that infects our systems.

AVG Anti-Virus System:
http://www.grisoft.com/ (http://www.grisoft.com/)
Free edition, contains no spyware or built in ads.
I use the freeware version of AVG. Although the program in looks isn't my first choice of giving a good lasting first impression (unlike BitDefender) the interface however has become my favorite Windows antivirus scanner, simply because of its simplicity without having to worry about missing a vital configuration option. It's bare-bones basic, however it gets the job done, and its resident shield doesn't bog down Win98 by being over aggressive.

CookieCop:
http://www.pcmag.com/utilities/ (http://www.pcmag.com/utilities/)
Freeware, contains no spyware or built in ads.
CookieCop has been the mainstay of filtering out the excess garbage that I don't want in my Internet experience. Although it doesn't filter each and everything such as WebWasher, it has the major advantage of having one of the best event logs I've ever seen which comes in handy if one needs to know why a particular website doesn't work properly. Without CookieCop the Internet would be a burden full of distracting, spyware planting ad banners, and cookies that I don't want loading on my system.

CDStarter:
http://www.wentnet.uklinux.net/ (http://www.wentnet.uklinux.net/)
Freeware, contains no spyware or built in ads.
One of the easiest utilities (although not the prettiest) I've seen that can help create an autorun CD in under 5 minutes.

Defrag_to_shutdown:
http://medlem.spray.se/mokkelmannen/ (http://medlem.spray.se/mokkelmannen/)
Freeware, contains no spyware or built in ads.
The best launchers for the system default Win95/98/Me Disk Defragmenter I've seen, with the ability to shutdown, logoff, or restart the system it is more than handy. The ability to optimize hidden and system files (undocumented, maybe unsafe Microsoft defrag switches) is rather interesting.

Download Mage:
http://www.dlmage.com/ (http://www.dlmage.com/)
Shareware, commercial software.
Download Mage has been the best download manager I've ever used and actually purchased. Its ability to sniff out cryptic URL's and find the actual download file is most impressive, whereas some other download managers cannot download from such URL's.

FreeExtractor:
http://www.disoriented.com/FreeExtractor/ (http://www.disoriented.com/FreeExtractor/)
Freeware, contains no spyware or built in ads.
FE is one of the best self-extracting Zip archive creation programs I've ran across, and it is always one of the first utilities I re-install after Win98 needs to be re-installed. With the ability to create desktop shortcuts, extract to specific Windows directories (Desktop, System, Start Menu, Start Menu Program Group, etc) using parameters not specific directory names which will extract into the right area regardless of how someone setup their system.

F-PROT Antivirus for DOS:
http://www.f-prot.com/download/ (http://www.f-prot.com/download/)
Free for personal usage, contains no spyware or built in ads.
I really think F-PROT in any form DOS, or the commercial Windows scanner is a very good antivirus package. Although I use the DOS scanner which I have integrated into the Win98 right click shell it is still very useful for finding viruses, virus destroyed files, and suspicious files that other antivirus scanners would miss.

Inno Setup:
http://www.jrsoftware.org/ (http://www.jrsoftware.org/)
http://www.innosetup.com (http://www.innosetup.com)
Freeware, contains no spyware or built in ads.
Inno Setup without a doubt is one of the best installation creation programs I've ever used.

IrfanView:
http://www.irfanview.com/ (http://www.irfanview.com/)
Freeware, contains b3d.dll (BodyPaint 3D) as a plugin which some spyware detection programs see as spyware.
IrfanView is my main image viewer on my system. Win98 just wouldn't be the same without this little app that loads a plethora of image formats and still weighs in as a not being a bloated program.

Kerio Personal Firewall v2.1.5:
Google Search (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=kerio+personal+firewall+2.1.5&btnG=Google+Search/)
Freeware, contains no spyware or built in ads.
The successor of the freeware Tiny Personal Firewall. A power firewall by all means which allows me to surf the web without being paranoid about being attacked or hacked. If I didn't have KPF I wouldn't even bother having an Internet connection.

MetaPad:
http://liquidninja.com/metapad/download.html (http://liquidninja.com/metapad/download.html)
Freeware, contains no spyware or built in ads.
A good Notepad replacement. Has uses that are really lacking in the very feeble Notepad, hence the reason it is named Notepad.exe on my system.

Resource Hacker:
http://www.users.on.net/johnson/resourcehacker/ (http://www.users.on.net/johnson/resourcehacker/)
Freeware, contains no spyware or built in ads.
A neat little app that allows one to safely modify some executables. I've rearranged many buttons in programs to suit my needs, etc., want a bigger display window -- you've got it.

Speeks Frontends:
http://home.wanadoo.nl/~w.speek/speek.htm (http://home.wanadoo.nl/~w.speek/speek.htm)
Freeware, contains no spyware or built in ads.
Too many to mention. The best, easy to use frontends.

Spybot Search & Destroy:
http://security.kolla.de/ (http://security.kolla.de/)
Freeware, contains no spyware or built in ads.
Probably the most robust freeware spyware removal utilites I've seen. I think it outclasses Ad-aware.

Sygate Personal Firewall:
Standard free edition, contains no spyware or built in ads.
http://smb.sygate.com/products/spf_standard.htm (http://smb.sygate.com/products/spf_standard.htm)

TaskZip:
http://www.pb-sys.com/ (http://www.pb-sys.com/)
http://jupiter.drw.net/matpie/PBSystems/pr...skzip/TZip.html (http://jupiter.drw.net/matpie/PBSystems/products/taskzip/TZip.html)
Freeware, contains no spyware or built in ads.
TaskZip is a top-knotch zipping utility that sits in the system tray next to the clock and will automatically created backups in either the Zip format, or by simply copying them to a different drive/directory/partition.

Tweak Revisited:
http://www.jsware.net/ (http://www.jsware.net/)
Freeware version/Shareware version, contains no spyware or built in ads.
Probably the best utility I've used to change the system default crappy looking Win98 icons to my re-worked for Win98 support WinXP icons. It's one of the only robust system-wide modifying utilites I've seen that won't totally screw up Win98, so long as you understand what you're doing.

Ultimate Packer for eXecutables (UPX):
http://upx.sourceforge.net/ (http://upx.sourceforge.net/)
Freeware, contains no spyware or built in ads.
I'll just say I don't like compressed executables, .dll's, etc., therefore I use UPX to decompress all the damn compressed files I'm constantly running into.

WinRescue 98:
http://www.superwin.com/ (http://www.superwin.com/)
http://www.superwin.com/frescue8.htm (http://www.superwin.com/frescue8.htm)
Shareware, commercial software.
A Windows Rescue utility for Windows 98, need I say more. The closest thing to system restore that Win98 will ever see. Other versions are available for other versions of Windows, e.g.; WinXP.

WinRescue XP:
http://www.superwin.com/ (http://www.superwin.com/)
http://www.superwin.com/frescuex.htm (http://www.superwin.com/frescuex.htm)
Shareware, commercial software.
A Windows Rescue utility for Windows XP. Can help restore the registry to settings that System Restore fails to do.

WinZip Self-Extractor:
http://www.winzip.com/ (http://www.winzip.com/)
Shareware, commercial software.
Love the SFX Zips.

Edit 1: Updated some URL's that were dead links.
Edit 2: Added some programs. Removed some programs. Removed jv16 PowerTools free version since it times out and stops working.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: Sawg on 2003-01-13 09:11:12
Star Downloader (http://www.stardownloader.com/).  Never heard of it before, but a friend pointed it out.  A freeware download accelerator/scheduler.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: Cobra on 2003-01-13 09:40:17
TheBat! (http://www.ritlabs.com) - best e-mail client for Window$

TaskInfo2003 (http://www.iarsn.com/taskinfo.html) - TaskInfo2003 is combination of Task Manager and System Information Utility, It visually monitors different types of System information in Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP

System Mechanic (http://www.iolo.com) - good all in 1 tool. Has regcleaner, netbooster, uninstaller etc. tools.

Jabber (http://www.jabber.org) - free multiplatform communicator. I use PSI communicator.

RightWeb Monitor (http://www.right-soft.com/) - Tool for automatic searching for web & program updates. I set it to check latest versions of Foobar2000... If anyone find free alternative for Window$, tell me please.

AGSM (http://www.agsm.net) - "aGSM is alternative Game Server Monitor, a new way to quickly find and monitor multiplayer servers for many most popular games. It's a tiny 32bit multithreaded Windows95/98/ME/2000/XP program using WinSock2 (the new network connectivity standard). Our ultimate goal is to give gamers a complete toolbox for all their multiplayer gaming needs - a one small, fast, reliable, and handy freeware tool."
Title: Essential Software
Post by: ak on 2003-01-13 10:07:44
Never thought of software as essential, now I do...

Currently in my systray (honor to be loaded on startup means they're essential, I guess):

Miranda, mainly because it doesn't kill my system on startup

Keybord Ninja, sort of automatic keyboard layout switcher / on-the-go corrector with many handy features. When properly configured (not in my case) it can handle ~90% of typos or other types of mess coming out of keyboard (if you forget to switch language, accidental caps...). Well, as many automation tools it does little bit more than you expect, but I can live with it (but hardly without it, it appears).

Other residents:

Audio / video: it'll be bsplayer and fb2k for playback and lots of utils for manipulating.

CD burning: definetely Nero, since shipped with my drive, I have never used any other cd burning app for any considerable amount of time on my pc. Well, except EAC.

File handling: Flexible Renamer and CDCheck. Still looking for good file comparer, frontend for fc.exe with drag'n'drop and text output would be enough for me.

Browser: Phoenix. Now that i finaly managed to get completely flat and clean look with tiny icons out of it, it's just sweet.

DL manager: FlashGet, the only one I know that can cooperate with Phoenix, and because I get used to it.

Text editor: TxtPad all the way. It hasn't been updated for ages, I thought they dropped the development, just checked now, looks like they didn't. Me happy.

Misc: TrueLaunchBar (QuickLaunch substitution), mainly because of it's rocking and rolling MailMonitor plugin.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: roman on 2003-01-13 10:44:25
FAR Manager (http://www.rarlab.com/far_manager.htm) - file-archive manager with true NT orientation but TextUI and commandline. And, of course, his plugins (http://plugring.farmanager.com/index_e.html).
The russian answer for emacses! 
Title: Essential Software
Post by: Volcano on 2003-01-13 16:03:25
Add another one - the thread on virus scanners made me give an alternative to Outlook Express another try:

Kaufman Mail Warrior (http://www.kaufmansoft.com/). This really is a neat mail program. It has all I need (thank god it doesn't support HTML mails), and a *really* nice user interface. I'd definitely recommend giving it a try. Oh, and it's just 700KB large.

The only drawback is that its database files are very easily readable with any text editor, but OE doesn't do much better than that. The lack of SMTP authentication isn't that much of a problem for me because my email provider allows me to switch to SMTP-after-POP instead, but other users will think otherwise.

CU

Dominic
Title: Essential Software
Post by: smok3 on 2003-01-13 20:10:15
Quote
You should test MyIE2 (http://www.ruihehang.com/myie2/html_en/home.htm). It uses your IE-engine, but adds so much features.. Of course the most important are tabs-support  :)
good stuff, so far iam (ab)using 'undo close window(s)', tabbed browsing, no popups. tested phoenix also, very nice, still prefer the ie engine tho  B)
Title: Essential Software
Post by: Sachankara on 2003-01-14 00:17:14
Damn long lists you have...

Notepad, Winamp, cmd, explorer, JquickTrans, mIRC, Bullet Proof FTP Server, Miranda IM, Kerio Personal Firewall, Daemon Tools, The Bat!, OpenOffice.org , Windows Media Player 6.4, EAC, FLAC + FlacDrop, DeGlitch, WaveGain, PsyTEL AACEnc 2.15, Phoenix and Paint shop pro 5... That should be enough for now...
Title: Essential Software
Post by: tangent on 2003-01-14 05:23:53
I find UltraEdit indispensible. Are there any good opensource/free equivilents which are almost as good?
Title: Essential Software
Post by: TrNSZ on 2003-01-14 05:28:18
[deleted]
Title: Essential Software
Post by: yotsuya-san on 2003-01-14 17:25:05
Some freeware (& small) windows apps I've tried and corrently I'm enjoying:

DivXG400 2.7
http://www.tac.ee/~prr/videoutils/ (http://www.tac.ee/~prr/videoutils/)
Solve a small incompatibility between DivX ;-), MS MPEG4, WM7, WM8 codecs and Matrox G400/G450 drivers/hardware. If movie's width is not exact multiple of 32 (like 720x???), clip will be played back without using video overlay. If video overlay is not used, clips are looking choppy and DVDMax can not be used. And with it, you can Pan & Scan and correct aspect ratio of DiVX and DVD playback.

EditPad Lite
http://www.editpadlite.com (http://www.editpadlite.com)
EditPad Lite is a replacement for the standard Windows NotePad.
Above other things, you change between the open files by clicking on their tabs (like Mozilla).

Mp3Tag
http://www.mp3tag.de (http://www.mp3tag.de)
An mp3 (and ogg) tagger, I use it mainly because you can select your songs and directly search for their tags in freedb.org without leaving the program.

ProPort
http://www.tdupage.com/ (http://www.tdupage.com/)
A very simple "firewall", I use it mainly for its traffic monitor tool, where all the traffic from and to your computer is listed, and can be manually disconnected, so user can choose to terminate or add a connection.

QuickResNT
Since in Windows 2000 you can't access to resolutions and display property through a taskbar icon, here is the solution.

Renamer
http://www.albert.nu/Programs/Renamer (http://www.albert.nu/Programs/Renamer)
My favourite mass renamer

Switch-Off
http://yasoft.km.ru/eng/switchoff/ (http://yasoft.km.ru/eng/switchoff/)
My favourite utility to shutdown or restart computer, disconnect current dialup connection ecc.

Transparent
www.pobox.com/~jayguerette/transparent (http://www.pobox.com/~jayguerette/transparent)
This utility will turn your Windows 95 or NT desktop icon text backgrounds transparent; allowing your wallpaper to show through (like WinXp).

Wallpaper Changer
http://www.wallpaperchanger.de/ (http://www.wallpaperchanger.de/)
It's wallpaper manager that can change your background images  on every startup, once a day or at regular intervals. It features JPEG, GIF, PNG and BMP support. Best of all, Wallpaper Changer can analyze your picture and will determinate the best matching  background and the most readable icon caption color for every wallpaper you apply to your desktop. Another nifty feature is the ability to give your desktop icons captions a transparent background, so more of your wallpaper shows  through (like Trasparent).


By the way, in my Windows 2000 box the only things I can't give up using (but they are not free, I've tried a lot but still not found a better free windows replacement yet) are:

The Bat! for e-mail
Servant Salamander for file browsing
Nero for burning
Paint Shop Pro for creating and editing images
FlashGet 1.0 for downloading
Dreamweaver 4.0 for html editing
AcdSee 3.0 for images browsing

I know, it'a little embarassing with all the free alternatives out there, and Linux Red Hat 7.3 cd-set at about half a metre from me...
Title: Essential Software
Post by: Pio2001 on 2003-01-14 19:57:05
Winamp,
EAC,
ACDSee,
Command.com
Title: Essential Software
Post by: WaldoMonster on 2003-01-16 01:49:51
Quote
I've been following ffdshow development, but I've been afraid to install it for some reason -- it scares me.

I use Microsoft MakeCAB for making my CAB files.  It does look like that other program you mentioned might compress better.  Does it support a command-line interface?

Also, yes, all the SysInternals/Winternals stuff is great, but I don't consider it essential for my system.

CABPack is a stable working alternative.
No installation needed.
http://home.t-online.de/home/lars.hederer/ (http://home.t-online.de/home/lars.hederer/)

PS

I like the PerfectDisk defrag tool.
Now I can uninstall Diskeeper 
Title: Essential Software
Post by: dev0 on 2003-01-16 17:32:28
Many great recommendations here so far and most of the software I used has already been mentioned, so I'll just add to programs that made my life a lot easier here:

PuTTY (http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/) A free SSH/Telnet client
WinSCP (http://winscp.vse.cz/eng/) a freeware SCP (Secure CoPy) client for Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP using SSH (Secure SHell)
Title: Essential Software
Post by: penvzila on 2003-01-18 21:41:50
Great thread!  I've gotten several great programs out of it.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: Cobra on 2003-01-22 10:57:06
http://www.proxyplus.cz (http://www.proxyplus.cz) - best proxy for Window$, small and fast(est)

http://vcool.occludo.net/ (http://vcool.occludo.net/) - best utility for cooling AMD processors.

http://www.wiredred.com/ (http://www.wiredred.com/) - home of ABSOLUTLY BEST Window$ chat program for LAN (it supports also Internet). But it`s not free :(((
Title: Essential Software
Post by: Kblood on 2003-01-22 12:51:45
Hello,

Great thread!

I would like to add here:
- ConTEXT programmer's editor, http://www.fixedsys.com/context which is a freeware editor, in many ways similar to UltraEdit. Not as powerful, but very very nice.

- NoteTab Light, another text editor, there are three versions: Light, Standard, Pro. Light is free, and has some features disabled, but is very functional and also very nice. http://www.notetab.com (http://www.notetab.com)

All in all, with these two combined, I'm not missing UltraEdit one bit.

For Email, as free alternatives to The Bat!:
- FoxMail it's freeware, it can use Hotmail accounts as if they were POP, and it shows in more than one way that they try to look like The Bat. They are not quite there yet, but they are getting close. It's a tiny download, and has some powerful features that The Bat lacks. http://www.foxmail.com.cn (http://www.foxmail.com.cn)

- Sylpheed it's coming from Linux world, I believe. Open Source, very powerful and flexible, also reads News, but not very friendly interface (at least the looks... still have to figure out how to configure GTK library's look-and-feel more to my liking). It's in SourceForge.

- Mercury/32 I like running my own SMTP server in my machine, so I can see better where and how my emails get delivered. And this is a very powerful option, from the makers of Pegasus Mail (also freeware email client that I don't specially like...). http://www.pmail.com (http://www.pmail.com)

And finally:
http://www.pricelessware.org (http://www.pricelessware.org)
Great page to check for this kind of freeware.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: kwanbis on 2003-01-22 17:24:57
http://ultravnc.sourceforge.net/ (http://ultravnc.sourceforge.net/) - a VNC derivative with FILE TRANSFER!
Title: Essential Software
Post by: buzzy on 2003-01-22 22:44:37
Great thread!

My bias is reliable, easy to use, and free:

FTP
GuildFTPd (http://www.guildftpd.com/) - FTP Server Software.  Free.

Newsgroups
For downloading binaries from newsgroups, Agent is way more trouble than it's worth.  Get:
GrabIt (http://www.shemes.com/grabit/) - Free, easy, efficient
NewsReactor (http://www.daansystems.com/newsreactor/) - Well designed. Can use multiple servers to get 1 file.  Long trial

PowerPost 2000 yenc (http://www.usenetopia.com/YencPowerPostBuild3.zip/) - Can't be beat for posting

Video
Videolan Client (http://www.videolan.org/vlc/) - "for various audio and video formats (MPEG, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg, ...) as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols" - freeware, clean install

TMPGEnc (http://www.tmpgenc.net/e_main.html) Video utility, free for personal use

Misc
Audacity (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/) - Basic audio editor, freeware.  Get the stable version.

The Rename Program (http://download.com.com/3000-2248-8150565.html?tag=lst-0-1)

Directory Lister (http://download.com.com/3000-2248-10155695.html?tag=lst-0-1) - or here (http://freeware.prv.pl/)

md5 Summer (http://www.md5summer.org/)

Plus: winAmp, EAC, flac + speek's front end, mkwACT, WinRar, SmartPar
Title: Essential Software
Post by: Cobra on 2003-01-23 16:44:29
"Zebedee is a simple program to establish an encrypted, compressed “tunnel” for TCP/IP or UDP data transfer between two systems. This allows traffic such as telnet, ftp and X to be protected from snooping as well as potentially gaining performance over low-bandwidth networks from compression."
I also used it to secure IRC chat. I know that securing & compressing of web pages is also possible.

http://www.winton.org.uk/zebedee/ (http://www.winton.org.uk/zebedee/)

Maybe Dibrom consider using this tool to reduce (and secure) HA traffic (at cost of CPU power, but ZLIB & bzip2 are quite fast). Encryption can be turned off.

By Dibrom: (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=25&t=5914&st=0&#entry59595)
Quote
HA has used around 15-20GB/month I believe (...)
Title: Essential Software
Post by: _Shorty on 2003-01-28 21:57:25
POPFile (http://sourceforge.net/projects/popfile/) - Bayesian spam filter, though it calls itself an email classifier because it can be used for more than that.  I only use it for spam, and it works insanely well once you teach it for the first day or two. It's a POP3 proxy, doesn't interrupt things like Norton Antivirus.

Setup gets a little more complicated if you want to also use this with other tools that let you get webmail, like hotmail and yahoo, with a pop3 proxy, but it is indeed possible.  This way I get my spam filtered by POPFile and NAV can now watch my Hotmail for viruses. Currently I'm using HotPOP3 (http://sourceforge.net/projects/hotpop3/) and it seems ok on the whole.  I've had it crash a couple times, but that was when I was initially downloading the 70+ emails from my g/f's hotmail account for her, which hadn't been checked in a week or two.  Since then, with more limited amounts of email at once, I haven't had any problems with it.  Binary probably won't work with Outlook (works with Outlook Express just fine) because the default port it uses is 45012, and for some reason Outlook doesn't like ports with more than 4 digits.

There's also YahooPOPs (http://sourceforge.net/projects/yahoopops/) for getting yahoo email.  I couldn't, along with many others for whatever reason, get the latest 0.40 windows version to work, but I've been using the 0.39 version with just one problem.  I had to go to yahoo's email site with a browser and change the email preferences to show 200 emails per page, rather than 25.  If there were more than 25 emails on the page the proxy would crash. I set this one on port 45013, not for any reason other than it was close to the other proxy's.

There is yet another that I haven't tried yet, but it handles both hotmail and yahoo email, so I think I'll try it and probably switch if it works since it'll kill both with one stone.  That one's called MrPostman (http://mrbook.org/mrpostman/) and is a java app.  I found it on sourceforge too but the only downloads were on the project's own homepage.

Just a tip to get you going with the proxy layers if you do happen to try one of the webmail proxies along with the POPFile filter, set your email client up to access the POPFile proxy, and then let the POPFile proxy access the other proxy, so that POPFile doesn't get bypassed.  And if you have Norton Antivirus, which uses its own proxy, you don't have to do anything.  It will watch everything that passes through POPFile.

Did I mention I'm amazed at how much spam my g/f gets? hehe

<edit> whoops, forgot Hotway Daemon (http://sourceforge.net/projects/hotwayd/) in there. HotPOP3 is based on a very old version of HotwayD, but HotPOP3 hasn't been updated since July 2002 I believe. I haven't tried this one yet either, but I imagine it works just as well, and probably better since this one's been kept up, as HotPOP3.

<edit2> oh yeah, instructions for POPFile with HotPOP3. (http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?thread_id=777426&forum_id=234504)
Title: Essential Software
Post by: AtaqueEG on 2003-01-29 03:50:32
Quote
I don't believe in printers or printing.  I will not and do not own any printers, except for my NeXTlaser, which I don't have networked, once again, because I do not believe in printers.  If I have to print something, I use the Adobe Acrobat capture driver and take the PDF file to someone who does believe in printers.

You just reminded me of that guy in "Reservoir Dogs" that says he doesn´t believe in tipping.
Just out of curiosity, can you explain your lack of faith in the invention of Gutemberg?
Title: Essential Software
Post by: ckjnigel on 2003-01-30 05:33:19
Sorry cuz I'm too lazy to create hot links... Note that I use WinME.  This was the top 10 of 2002 I listed in my blog:
10) CoolPlayer 2.06 (search in www.betanews.com )
  9) Trillian Pro 1 (easier on system resources, faster & better looking than 0.74)
  8) Incredimail Xe  (Valentine's Day is close!)
  7) AOL Communicator beta (open to AOL members by keyword AC Beta)
  6) JV16 Registry Tools
  5) Steinberg Instant CD/DVD ver. 6.5 (easy CDs to 800mb + a CD-as-floppy that works super!)
  4) Cacheman 5.11
  3) AdSubtract Pro (filters web bugs, which std version doesn't)
  2) Proxomitron (I daisy chain with AdSub next hop feature)
  1) ZoomPlayer
But, if one stretches back 15 months, my absolute number one grief preventer is Roxio GoBack.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: Cobra on 2003-05-25 15:27:58
Hide-It! http://www.expocenter.com/hideit/ (http://www.expocenter.com/hideit/)
A quite old program to hide windows in taskbar (works on WinME). I hided my distributed computing application and proxy...
Title: Essential Software
Post by: The_Cisco_Kid on 2003-05-26 05:32:24
To list a few of them in random sequence:
- dBPowerAMP converter
- Irfanview and XnView
- OpenOffice 1.1 Beta
- Soundforge 6
- the Pegasus Mail Client
- FileZilla FTP client
Title: Essential Software
Post by: atici on 2003-05-26 05:57:49
A couple of utils:

Player (http://www.vuplayer.com/player.htm), a player that has CDDB2 support and cdplayer.ini import/export capabilities. Extraordinary for integrating EAC with CDDB2 entries (freedb entries are usually inconsistent especially with some non popular music). Do an export to cdplayer.ini with player and import with EAC, voila!

Junction Link Magic (http://www.rekenwonder.com/linkmagic.htm) (for hard linking directories), Junction (http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/source/misc.shtml#junction) (a command line util for hard linking directories),  Hard Link Magic (http://www.hlm.inc.ru/download/?hlm108.zip) (for hard linking files). These utils I use for organizing my collection (by album and by genre). They work on NTFS. The folders link to the same files eventually. Like:
By Genre-> Jazz -> Dave Brubeck -> Time Out
By Title -> Dave Brubeck Quartet - Time Out
Slick. 

And of course: Stardock Object Desktop (http://www.stardock.com/). WindowBlinds 4 rocks!
Title: Essential Software
Post by: ViPER1313 on 2003-05-29 17:24:38
I love my BonziBuddy!!!!!! He gives me so many great deals! And hes free! How could you not include this wonderful tool?

In all seriousness, I think that Ulead PhotoImpact Viewer v4.0 should be included in this list. It is, by far, the most useful image viewer / format converter that I have ever used. It's free, supports over 30 image formats, and is small at under 2mb. The only problem is that it is over 4 years old (it still works fine with Windows 95 - XP though.) If anyone could find a working link to this program, I would appreciate it.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: nyarlathotep on 2003-05-29 18:34:13
LeechGet (http://www.leechget.de/) is a powerfull and yet simple download manager, but most of all it's totally free and has no spyware unlike too many softwares of the same category. It's German but also does feature most human languages  .

XnView (http://www.xnview.com/) is a great competitor for IrfanView and AcdSee. It's free and can be used not only to view pictures but also highlight sounds and films. It's French  and features many other languages.

RamBoost XP (http://magic56.free.fr/) (only in French) and FreeRam XP can free RAM if your computer is a bit old. Mine is...

There's also IZArc (http://izsoft.cjb.net/), a great compression tool which can handle almost all formats and even the powerfull 7z format to make smaller archive files. Unfortunately the web link seems to be dead but it should be avalaible for download somplace else...

My other favourite sofwares are already quoted in other posts. Just to say a few (the free ones):
Proxomitron (by the way a new version 4.5 has just been released),
AdAware,
Spybot Search&Destroy,
Kerio Personal Firewall (new version on the way, beta version available),
Aida32 Enterprise System Information (new version too, 3.61),
jv16 Power Tools (new version soon).

And there's also Nero. What would I do without Nero? Don't forget Mausau (http://neroplugins.cd-rw.org/)'s audio plugins to give it all its full capacity.

But most of all, there's foobar2000, a wonder for my ears, my music and my computer. It made me forget all my audio nightmares and ever since I've been using it, I've stopped accusing my soundcard of every evil...
Title: Essential Software
Post by: Cobra on 2003-06-04 13:27:24
New proxomitron is out!
Title: Essential Software
Post by: thijs@rdb on 2003-06-04 14:20:14
very very useful thread... just a few of which i thought were not mentioned yet.

Freeware
Bulk Rename Utility (http://www.jimwillsher.co.uk/Site/Software/BRU_Intro.html) for mass renaming

TotalCopy (http://ranvik.net/totalcopy/) adds a resume to windows own copy function (great for copying large files over windows network)

ID3 Kill (http://www.headstrong.de/software-id3kill.shtml), app i use to get rid of id3v2 tags (if you know a better alternative for this please let me know)

NcFTP Client (http://www.ncftpd.com/ncftp/) is a nice command line ftp client.

DiscLib (http://www.lyrasoftware.com/disclib/) is like WhereIsIt, for organizing all those cds...

Mp3-Info Extension (http://odin.mutschler.de/mp3ext/) adds an mp3 tab to the properties windows of a folder. NB: just make sure you disable the icon handler

Shareware
RaidenFTPd (http://www.raidenftpd.com/en/) higly configurable unix-like ftp server for win32.

all others have already been mentioned.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: nyarlathotep on 2003-06-10 20:26:14
The Proxomitron Is Dead. (http://www.computercops.biz/article2475.html)

Considered by many as an essentiel software, this pop-up killer (which can even do much more) will no longer get development. So recent release 4.5 will the very last.

It's a sad thing... to see my favourite softwares either dissapear or changing so much in a bad way when they are controlled by a big company (I'll give no name...).
Title: Essential Software
Post by: robert on 2003-06-10 20:48:42
Windows:

Editor: TextPad (http://www.textpad.com)

Text Typesetting: MikTeX (http://www.miktex.org)
Title: Essential Software
Post by: Artemis3 on 2003-06-11 02:55:36
Essential? I think nobody mentioned VirtualDub (http://www.virtualdub.org/), this is one very important to me, but i wonder where are the nonwin32 ports!?!? Its GPL and all...

Spybot Search & Destroy (http://beam.to/spybotsd) to control the Ad/Spyware plague (i wish it had more support for those porn/casino hijackers i often see plaguing public machines).

Using Mozilla/Phoenix (they are becoming the same) i avoid any browser/email annoyances other MS products have. And there is not much need for other popup blockers or such.

I think i should use one of these uninstallers people seem to like, i could install CleanSweep...

I also use AVG Free Edition (http://www.grisoft.com/) as an antivirus to check the ocasional foreign file.

A third party disk defragmenter is also essential, i have norton speeddisk for that.

I also love the Norton Commander clones, i usually use Servand Salamander until i find something better (free) for win32 that supports all the F keys like they work in Midnight Commander which i'm so used to.

For video playback i still use Sasami2k, even with bugs, its just so convenient to use, with so many keyboard realtime controls for adjustments of audio and video levels/sizes/aspect. Too bad its not being updated, or at least the bugs fixed...

Locking the refresh rates in the DirectX games is also useful, there is this RefreshForce utility that do just this. I have a screen that can do 150Hz in 640x480, or 120Hz in 1024x768, its so annoying to have it at 60Hz... (being 19" don't help the flicker either).

All my instant messaging is done thru Jabber, using the PSI (http://psi.affinix.com/index.php) Jabber client. I hope people quit using Messenger, AIM, ICQ and Yahoo already and switch to Jabber (http://www.jabber.org), the open and documented alternative (and IETF proposal).
Title: Essential Software
Post by: sony666 on 2003-06-15 01:01:37
notepad, foobar, Visual Studio, IrfanView, windows explorer, cmd.exe, mIRC, Mozilla, mp3Trim, Nero (burn+encode), Encspot, Daemon Tools, Monkey Audio and flac, EAC, WinRAR, WinSCP, Cool Edit

<<<eMule>>> (no live without )
Title: Essential Software
Post by: dev0 on 2003-07-28 06:11:05
After returning to this thread for the nth time, I think it should be made sticky.

dev0
Title: Essential Software
Post by: ak on 2003-07-28 13:53:18
New entry here: type&run (http://galan.dogmalab.ru/bin/typeandrun.zip) (lol, I love the name). Man in russian, but english interface and settings are quite self-explanatory.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: CiTay on 2003-07-28 14:08:22
Quote
New entry here: type&run (http://galan.dogmalab.ru/bin/typeandrun.zip) (lol, I love the name). Man in russian, but english interface and settings are quite self-explanatory.

Ummm... and what does it do?
Title: Essential Software
Post by: ak on 2003-07-28 14:44:19
It's a *nix-console-like program, launches progs, files/dirs (file manager can be specified in config), web/email adresses (browser as well), dos cmds. Autocomplete. Called by hotkey.
Also has some built-in ones like /reboot, /shutdown...
So basically you create bunch of aliases for favorite progs/adresses, and get rid of shortcuts, quicklaunches and such.
That's how it looks here: screeny (http://4nykey.nm.ru/pics/t&r.png).
Title: Essential Software
Post by: Atlantis on 2003-07-28 18:45:15
CPU-Z

http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php (http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php)

CPU-Z is a freeware that provides some information on your system :

    * Processor name and vendor
    * Core stepping and process
    * Processor package
    * Processor current core voltage
    * Internal and external clocks, clock multiplier
    * Partial overclock detection
    * Processor features, including supported instructions sets.
    * L1 to L3 cache information : location, size, speed, technology.
    * Motherboard information : name, vendor, BIOS, chipset, memory, AGP.
    * Memory information : size, type, timings, specifications.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: TrNSZ on 2003-08-02 23:09:49
[deleted]
Title: Essential Software
Post by: vip on 2003-08-03 11:18:14
Hrm,

Firebird (http://www.mozilla.org) for my browser

and Thunderbird (http://www.mozilla.org) for my mail client

is there a irc server for this forum, or no??
Title: Essential Software
Post by: CiTay on 2003-08-03 11:38:24
Yes there is! #hydrogenaudio on irc.freenode.net
Title: Essential Software
Post by: WILU on 2003-08-06 11:50:44
Xteq Systems X-Setup ( www.xteq.com ) IMHO the best Windows tweaking utility, supports Win 9x/NT/2000/XP, 2003 support comming soon. There are available two modes: for power users and a wizard.
And it's freeware.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: TrNSZ on 2003-08-15 01:22:52
[deleted]
Title: Essential Software
Post by: Ookami on 2003-08-21 13:38:50
Don't know if it fits in "essential software", but I've tried to make a readable and useful list of multimedia freeware programs...

http://ookami.videoxone.de/ (http://ookami.videoxone.de/)

Of course the last update is quite old and many programs are missing, but it's better than nothing ;-) .

I hope no one gets mad at me for this blatant self-advertizing  .

Cheers,

Mijo.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: sthayashi on 2003-09-05 15:36:23
I didn't see this on the list, so I'll make mention of it:
SmartFTP (http://www.smartftp.com/) This is one of the best FTP programs I've ever used, and I still swear by it.  It's only annoying sometimes because it pesters you to purchase it.  It only does that during normal business hours.  There are different queues you can use, and it even caches directory listings.

I like Power Archiver (http://www.powerarchiver.com/) as my generic compression tool. It's only failed me once so far, when trying to unzip a much older compression format. It's pretty good for everything today.

hjsplit (http://www.freebyte.com/hjsplit/) is THE program to have for breaking up files into nice chunks for floppy.

On the other end of the file editor scale, there's Crimson Editor (http://www.crimsoneditor.com/). It's slick enough for me to program in.  BTW, I have an incomplete color schema for it for use in editing foobar display scripts.  Let me know if you're interested in it.

Avant Browser (http://www.avantbrowser.com/) is my browser of choice when I need a good pop-killing browser that also supports Java. It's basically IE with a few extras.  Once Firebird hits 1.0, I might start recommending that.

DVAssist (http://clabs.org/dvorak.htm) is the best program for those who use the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard (I do).  It allows you to switch between the two by setting a hotkey.  I've had people not realize that I type in Dvorak, simply because I hit Ctrl-Shift-F12 before they use my keyboard.

Tnftp (http://freshmeat.net/projects/tnftp/?topic_id=89) - To be honest, I haven't tried the most recent version of this.  It used to be called lukemftp, and it was quite slick.  It felt just as lightweight as your standard command line ftp-client, but it was more powerful.  I only used it for one feature: tab completion

I think that's it for now, but I'll edit this post if I can think of anything more

Edit: tags

Edit2: Added DV Assist and tnftp
Title: Essential Software
Post by: CiTay on 2003-09-05 16:39:25
Quote
hjsplit (http://www.freebyte.com/hjsplit/) is THE program to have for breaking up files into nice chunks for floppy.

This tool basically re-defines bad ergonomics. "How to make something simple more complicated". You even have to confirm when you want to close it.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: meatus on 2003-10-18 22:31:25
Quote
I find UltraEdit indispensible. Are there any good opensource/free equivilents which are almost as good?

Agreed.

From a web development perspective, UltraEdit is essential.  Editing directly from the FTP is cruical, but there's a load of other neat features in that program.  BBEditor for is a good equivilant for MacOS users.

I've found the FXP (FTP -> FTP file copy) functionality of FlashFXP (http://www.flashfxp.com) very handy.

IE users:  Google's toolbar (http://toolbar.google.com) is a good, free pop-up blocker.  Though now that I have used this new Firebird, I don't have any plans to go back.

WinEdt (http://www.winedt.com) is a great LaTeX editor, but it will cost you some $.

A cool little shareware utility is Babylon (http://www.babylon.com).  A built in dictionary/encyclopedia defines a word when you engage it (I have mine on "center mouse click").  I've grown very attached to it!

Maple or Matlab are musts for anyone who does a lot of number crunching. 

Trillian SubmitWolf (http://www.submitwolf.com) for website publicity. (99$)

GsView/Nero/SecureCRT/DC++ some other essentials.

Quite a list so far, thanks for all the good suggestions.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: zima on 2003-11-10 13:19:33
Apart from other useful things that were already mentioned...
TeamSpeak (http://www.teamspeak.org/) - initially meant for voice comm in games, but it's also very good in general use (btw, uses Speex among other codecs)
HydraIRC (http://www.hydrairc.com/) - perhaps not the most full featured client, but enough for my needs - and also very fast and lightweight
Media Player Classic (http://sourceforge.net/projects/guliverkli/) - media player in spirit of good old mplayer2, which still can be found in windows media player dir. Has some more features...and I especially like blister fast playback after clicking somewhere in the middle of progress bar for example and suppport for *.mov when coupled with Quicktime Alternative. I'm surprised this one wasn't mentioned earlier 
FileZilla (http://filezilla.sourceforge.net/) - this one popped out earlier in this thread, but I'd like to point out that apart from very fast and lightweight client, there's also basic, small, light server that caries the same name. For simple tasks, such as sharing something with buddies, etc. - perfect.
Comic Downloader (http://www.comicdownloader.com/) - if you can't live without User Friendly, Garfield, Sinfest or Dilbert, this one's definetely for you 
7-Zip (http://7-zip) - yes, right now its file menager has terrible interface...but if you're the kind of person that rather use context menus in explorer for archiwing tasks instead, you'll find this application usefull perhaps (not to mention being able to use 7z format)
Ghost-It! (http://home.rochester.rr.com/artcfox/GhostIt/) - has the ability to create "ghost windows" - the windows that not only are transparent and always on top, but your clicks pass through them. In some situations very usefull. Not to mention spooky
Virtual Dimension (http://virt-dimension.sourceforge.net/) - very good IMHO virtual desktop manager for windows
WackGet (http://millweed.com/projects/wackget/) - very light and unobtrusive download menager. Well, in realiy you can hardly call it download menager - it's very, very simple. But I find it very usefull. Uses wget under the hood.
Googlebar (http://googlebar.mozdev.org/) for Firebird. Can't live without it (it has some features that you won't find in original Google Toolbar). Don't use the experimental version

Image browser/viewer - I've been using ACDSee 3.0 for a looong time, but it's getting old. And currently I can't decide between Irfanview and SlowView (http://www.slowview.at/). Don't let the name of the second one mislead you, it's rather fast. And I like its features. Too bad I don't like the way its menus look...

Mail client - been trying to find something free and very light etc. Almost found it  - Scribe (http://www.memecode.com/scribe.php) is this kind of app, but its free version is able to use only one account...but if this limitation doesn't bother you, Scribe is really nice. Been thinking about its non-free version...but thanks to this thread I've found Foxmail and perhaps this is what I want...too bad English version is little outdated.

They have been mentioned couple times, but I feel I just have to give them attention 
foobar2000 and miranda (with jabber)
Title: Essential Software
Post by: kenji idle on 2003-11-15 18:40:24
powerpro (http://www.windowspowerpro.com/)
the best shellreplacement !! (officially an shell-addon only, but supplemented with a litestep or purels systemtray it has all you need). powerpro utilizes the windows API and makes your windows desktop just as powerfull as linux X and kde/gnome or whatever. replaces thousand stupid tools. it has bars,taskbar,menus,a powerfull scripting language (including lots of windowmanagement commands),hotkey,timers,virtual desktops,clipboradsaving plus everything else. it's a memory-lightweight. it's stable. it's relatively easy to learn (compared to other some scripting stuff). don't be discouraged by the ugly ugly screenshots, powerpro can look like anything or be invisible if u love hotkeys and menus.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: flipik on 2003-11-21 14:01:52
Hi there, I couldn't resist the temptation so here is my list.. ..I am sorry but I am too lazy to make hotlinks.. ..but if you use Google, you will surely get what you need..

For MP3 processing I use.. EAC (of course), LAME with RazorLame Front-End, and MP3Gain for volume normalizing.. (nothing new) but I don't believe that nobody mentioned MP3 TAG STUDIO (http://www.magnusbrading.com/mp3ts/) for Tagging & Renaming MP3 filez.. I tried too much taggers to know that every except this one missed some useful features.. Just try..

For E-Mail, well The-Bat (www.thebat.cz) seem to be very reasonable choice..

For Internet Browsing I just use Opera (www.opera.com).. I am sure you know that one, but is there any reason ou did not meantion it b4?  IMHO smallest and fastest browser with lots of functions.. MyIE or IE even Mozzila (but thanks Phoenix) cant do such great work..

AudioGnome (www.audiognome.com) for P2P file sharing..
WS FTP PRO - FTP Client
XNews - News Reader

Total Commander - file manager
Power Archiver - can handle ALL archive types.. really lovely utility..
RegCleaner, Registry First Aid, Registry Compactor - for registry managent

Security:
Tiny Personal Firewall - uaa I think far better that kerio.. (but is it?)
NOD32 (www.nod32.com, www.nod32.sk) - Antivirus (the best one for sure!!)
Ad-Aware - no comment
TauScan - Resident trojan seeker and remover (updated daily)
MRU-Blaster

BORGChat - LAN chatting
EtherPeek - LAN traffic mater (and more)..
Winamp 5.0, Foobar - MP3 players
nplayer, MV2Player - video players (MV2Player seem to be really good) and lets not forget XVid:) - very small and fast polish Video Player (not the same as Xvid Codec <g>)

CoolEdit Pro 2.0 - audio editor (again best one for sure)
Audio Converter PRO - for converting from one audio format to another

CD Burning:
NERO (no comment )
FEURIO - the best one for Audio CD (again for sure!)
CloneCD - for CD Copy, ISO Burning


*** Long paragraph about cracking and crack links removed by moderation, ToS #9 violation ***
Title: Essential Software
Post by: grbmusic on 2003-11-22 17:16:04
Audio:
EAC
LAME.exe
MPC Batch Encoder
MPC Scan
Monkey's Audio
MP3Gain
MP3Trim Pro
MP3Tag
EncSpot
Tag&Rename
Sony Sound Forge 7.0
Foobar2000

Burning:
BurnAtOnce: Data CDs
Feurio: Audio CDs
Nero 5.5: Multisession CDs

Security:
Kerio Personal Firewall
Norton AntiVirus 2003

Recovery:
Par 2

Games:
Need For Speed 4: High Stakes
Need For Speed 5: Porsche Unleashed
Need For Speed 6: Hot Pursuit 2
Need For Speed 7: Underground

Various:
MS Messenger 6.1
Messenger Plus
Winzip
WinRar
MS Office XP Pro
Webshots

By the way I'm my PC runs under  Windows XP
Title: Essential Software
Post by: morgentau on 2003-11-23 13:35:19
CD Check (http://www.elpros.si/CDCheck/) Quote from website:
" CDCheck is a utility for the prevention, detection and recovery of damaged files on CD-ROMs with an emphasis on error detection. With CDCheck you can check your CDs and discover which files are corrupted. CDCheck provides the following features: readability verification, binary compare, CRC file creation (and verification) and file recovery."

Fill CD (http://www.fillcd.com/) Quote from website:
"FillCD is a Windows program that allows you to make the most of your blank media. Provide a list of items you'd like to burn, a media size or type (CD and DVD sizes are among the presets) and the percentage you'd like to fill. FillCD does the work of calculating what to burn on each disk, and gives the option to move the data to a final destination for archival."

40tude Dialog (http://www.40tude.com/dialog/)
The best Newsreader (for Usenet) IMO. It has a nice UI tons of features and it's free for private use.

Directory Lister (http://freeware.prv.pl/)
Makes neat HTML or plaintext lists of selected directories. The info displayed in the lists is configurable, you can add filesize, attributes, CRC etc.

XOSL (http://www.ranish.com/part/xosl.htm)
My favorite Bootmanager. It's easy to use, has a windows-like UI and mouse support.

Acronis Partition Expert (http://www.acronis.com/products/partitionexpert/)
This is a retail app (not freeware/shareware). A tool for creating and managing partitions your HD. Supports FAT16, FAT32, NTFS, Linux Ext2, Ext3, ReiserFS, and Linux SWAP partition. It has a Windows XP-like User interface even when bootet from CD. (In contrary to most other tools which use a DOS based environment when booted directly, Partition Expert uses a Linux-based environment)
Title: Essential Software
Post by: airblaster on 2003-12-13 21:36:35
some stuff that hasn't been mentenioned yet:


- BoomBOX (http://www.jajsoft.com/products.html)
Using this tool you can search for internet radio stations and add them to your default audio players playlist (foobars of course  )

- Filzip (http://www.filzip.de/)
Yet another Compression tool like Winzip... Altough I've tried several dozens of similar programs I've decided to stay with this one (its not perfect, but pretty close to perfect if you put some small bugs aside)

- EasyPHP (http://www.easyphp.org/telechargements.php3)
A WAMP (Apache+MySQL+PHP for Windows) Installer that includes a convenient Administration utility. Its French, but translations are available.

- SciTE (http://scintilla.org/)
A small & universal Texteditor (including Syntax Highlighting, Code folding, etc)
You can get a Windows Installer at http://gisdeveloper.tripod.com/scite.html (http://gisdeveloper.tripod.com/scite.html)

- DivFix (http://divfix.maxeline.com/)
Detects corrupted Frames in .avi files and is able to remove them.
It also can rebuild an .avi's index

- Where Is It? (http://www.whereisit-soft.com/)
This one isn't free, but its definitly the best program for cataloging discs!

- Peace & Protection (mIRC Script) (http://www.kristshell.net/pnp/)
P&P is my favorite mIRC script... I've tested many other scripts, but imo this one has got the best Concept and User Interface.
Its been discontinued a while ago and some fans released a mod called P&P Plus (http://www.onemarq.net/pnplus/). Personally I still prefer the original, but this might be a matter of taste

- PasswordSafe (http://sourceforge.net/projects/passwordsafe)
This is a convenient tool to store a lot of passwords in an encrypted databes.
Not perfect but  Open Source and easy to use.

- GRUB (http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/)
My favorite Bootloader, as its verfy powerful once its been configured.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: sramov on 2003-12-21 15:53:34
7-zip
http://www.7-zip.org/ (http://www.7-zip.org/)

abyss web server
http://www.aprelium.com/abyssws/ (http://www.aprelium.com/abyssws/)

acrobat reader
http://www.adobe.com/ (http://www.adobe.com/)

ad-aware
http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/ (http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/)

burnatonce
http://www.burnatonce.com/ (http://www.burnatonce.com/)

code-genie
http://www.code-genie.com/ (http://www.code-genie.com/)

divx codec
http://www.divx.com/ (http://www.divx.com/)

Exact Audio Copy
http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/ (http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/)

filezilla
http://filezilla.sourceforge.net/ (http://filezilla.sourceforge.net/)

foobar2000
http://www.foobar2000.org/ (http://www.foobar2000.org/)

irfanview
http://www.irfanview.com/ (http://www.irfanview.com/)

nero 5 clean tool
http://www.nero.com/us/631938364095950.html (http://www.nero.com/us/631938364095950.html)

openoffice.org
http://www.openoffice.org/ (http://www.openoffice.org/)

opera
http://www.opera.com/ (http://www.opera.com/)

pagedefrag
http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware...agedefrag.shtml (http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/pagedefrag.shtml)

php
http://www.php.net/ (http://www.php.net/)

pngcrush
http://pmt.sourceforge.net/pngcrush/ (http://pmt.sourceforge.net/pngcrush/)

pngout
http://www.advsys.net/ken/utils.htm (http://www.advsys.net/ken/utils.htm)

regcleaner

r-genie
http://www.code-genie.com/rgenie.html (http://www.code-genie.com/rgenie.html)

wackget
http://www.millweed.com/projects/wackget/ (http://www.millweed.com/projects/wackget/)

zonealarm
http://www.zonelabs.com/ (http://www.zonelabs.com/)
Title: Essential Software
Post by: deejemon on 2003-12-31 20:00:27
I haven't seen anyone mention Mac software, so I'm gonna:

Audio
iTunes (v4.2) (http://www.apple.com/itunes) - Mac and Windows. AAC support on both platforms, powered by QuickTime (http://www.apple.com/quicktime), great organizer, burner, player. Free.

SparkME (v2.81) (http://www.tcworks.de/home/content/en/PRODUCTS/spark/SparkME_X/sparkmedown/registration/render_doc?reg_product=reg_app_sparkME) - Mac ONLY. Freeware version of their Spark editor. Has been discontinued, so hurry and get it before they realize you can still get to it at the link I've attached.

SoundStudio (v2.11) (http://www.felttip.com/products/soundstudio/) - Mac ONLY. Waveform editor, ships with some consumer Mac models. Shareware.


Video
DivX (v5.1.1) (http://www.divx.com/divx/mac/) - Mac and Windows. Think we all know what this does. Free.

ffmpegX (v0.0.9a) (http://homepage.mac.com/major4/) - Mac ONLY (but powered by multi-plaform binaries), encodes video into various formats, including SVCD, DivX, XviD, etc. Donation-ware.

0SEx (v0.0110a01) (http://www.cs.buffalo.edu/%7Eafaversa/test/) - Mac ONLY, extracts stuff off DVDs, ready for processing by ffmpegX. Free.

VLC Media Player (v0.6.2) (http://www.videolan.org/vlc/) - Lots of platforms, plays DVDs, CDs, VCDs, DivX, WMA, MP3, Ogg Vorbis... only complaint is that it's still a touch buggy and needs an update soon. Free/open-source.

BTV Pro (v5.4.1) (http://www.bensoftware.com/btvpro.html) - Mac ONLY. Works great with my iSight cam, has lots of options for capturing video or still images. Shareware.


"Productivity"
Microsoft Office X (v10.1.5) (http://www.microsoft.com/mac/) - Mac ONLY (but compatible with the Windows version). Yeah, I know what people say about Microsoft and about Office, but I get it for free since we're site-licensed for it, so I can't be bothered looking into anything else. Nor is it really worth my while... Commercial.

SubEthaEdit (v1.1.5) (http://www.codingmonkeys.de/subethaedit/) - Mac ONLY. I love this. You haven't edited text until you've done it collaboratively over the network. Supports Rendezvous (aka ZeroConf), hydra:// (its previous name) URLs, and has a live web preview via WebKit (aka the Safari KHTML-based frameworks). Free.

BBEdit Lite (v6.1.2) (http://www.barebones.com/products/bblite/index.shtml) - Mac ONLY. Recently displaced as my editor of choice by SubEthaEdit, but still very good to have around. Discontinued, but remains on some mirrors/archives - do a search and you should find it. Might even be on the barebones.com FTP server. Free.

vi/sed - I grew up on vi and never really got introduced to anything else (except pico), so have stuck with this. More recently, discovered sed as a useful way of enabling shell scripts to modify files. Free.

Dreamweaver (vMX 2004) (http://www.macromedia.com/software/dreamweaver) - Mac and Windows. Like Microsoft, I get it for free due to our license. I can write raw HTML in a plain text editor, but sometimes I really can't be bothered, particularly when I want to use some basic Javascript behaviours, but I do keep the Split view open. Commercial.


Graphics
GraphicConverter (v4.9.2) (http://www.graphicconverter.net) - Mac ONLY. Versatile image converter, viewer, browser, editor, slide-show viewer. Converter has a useful batch mode so you can set a bunch of images being resized then cropped then saved to a format... Does stuff Photoshop doesn't. Shareware.

Photoshop (vCS) (http://www.adobe.com/photoshop) - Mac and Windows. I don't live in Photoshop like I know some people do, but there are plenty of things I use it for. Commercial.


Internet
Mac OS X Mail (v1.3.2) (http://www.apple.com/macosx) - Mac ONLY. I've played with lots of different email programs (Mozilla, Eudora, Thunderbird, Entourage...) but I keep coming back to this one, since it's fast, has good spam detection and doesn't use up the whole screen. Built into Mac OS X 10.x.

Mozilla (v1.5.1) (http://www.mozilla.org) - Multi-platform. I have Safari installed of course, but it doesn't do a bunch of things that Mozilla does (Mozilla's image, cookie and pop-up blocking is first-rate). A bit "heavy", but still reliable. Mozilla Firebird (v0.7.1) (http://www.mozilla.org/products/firebird/) looks interesting but still seems immature. Free/open-source.

Camino (v0.7) (http://www.mozilla.org/products/camino/) - Mac ONLY. Mac OS X up front, Mozilla in the back. Gecko embedded in a Cocoa application. Great browser, would be nice if it got some of Mozilla's blocking features. Has gained features in the nightlies, but an official release hasn't happened since March 2003. Needs to be officially updated. Free/open-source.

iChat AV (v2.0) (http://www.apple.com/ichat) - Mac ONLY. Prefer to the official
AIM (http://www.aim.com) client. I'm disappointed in some of those multi-protocol apps like Proteus (http://www.indigofield.com) and Fire (http://fire.sourceforge.net) (the Mac equivalents to Trillian, etal) due to their bad support (ie: non-existant) for firewalls and proxies. iChat looks good, works good, is integrated well, and it was free with Mac OS X 10.3. Built-in to Mac OS X 10.3/Commercial (sold separately for 10.2.x users).

Transmit (v2.6.2) (http://www.panic.com/transmit/) - Mac ONLY. Great Mac OS X FTP client. Better than Fetch. Looks and works like a Mac OS X application should. Shareware.

Conversation (v1.4) (http://www.conversation.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/) - Mac ONLY. I've been using IRC for 10 years, and me and BitchX get along just fine. But I think this is just such a cool idea - puts an iChat-style face on IRC. Free.


Utilities
Terminal (http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/unix/) - Mac ONLY. Keep it open all the time. It's my command-line, my SSH client, my some-time FTP client... wouldn't be without it. Built into Mac OS X.

Toast Titanium (v6.0.2) (http://www.roxio.com) - Mac ONLY. Burns lots of different types of CDs and DVDs, including PC-compatible discs, and the clever custom-hybrid type (separate Mac and PC partitions on the one disc). iTunes and Finder are good for knocking up quick discs, but Toast is the champ. Commercial.

StuffIt Deluxe (v8.0.2) (http://www.stuffit.com) - Mac and Windows. Handles every archive format you can throw at it. Discovered it lets you browse TAR files, just like you can with SIT, SITX and ZIP files. Commercial.

Carbon Copy Cloner (http://www.bombich.com) - Mac ONLY. THE tool for making Mac OS X image files. The same guy also makes NetRestore (http://www.bombich.com), for restoring image files through NetBoot. Indispensible for imaging and integration. Has a forum and some work instructions for a variety of integration-related issues. His software is free for education users. He's so smart he now works for Apple.  Free (for education).

Virex 7.2.1 - Mac ONLY. Comes as part of a .Mac membership, but we get it through our corporate NAI license. In 14 years of Mac computing, I've never once had a virus on my Mac, but I've no complaints about Virex (except the fact that only administrators can update the DAT - yes, the DAT itself should be protected, but the update mechanism should not). Commercial.

Mactracker (v2.0.6) (http://www.mactracker.ca) - Mac and Windows. Specs on every Mac, Mac clone (yes, they did exist) and Apple-branded Mac-compatible peripheral from the original 128k Macintosh up to the iBook G4. Helps me maintain the illusion that I know everything about Macs. Free.

Apple Remote Desktop (http://www.apple.com/remotedesktop/) - Mac ONLY. Couldn't support and manage all the Macs that I do without it. Commercial.

Remote Desktop Connection (http://www.microsoft.com/mac/) - Mac ONLY. The Mac equivalent of Terminal Services Client. Good for managing Windows servers from my Mac, or running some Windows-only software from my Mac workstation. Free.


Other
Mac OS X 10.3 (Panther) (http://www.apple.com/macosx) - Mac ONLY. Love this upgrade. Expose, Preview (who needs Acrobat Reader?), iChat AV, Finder, improved proxy support, better layout of many apps (eg: Network Prefpane, the Internet Connect application), upgrades to practically everything (including the UNIX/BSD layer), speed improvements all around - wouldn't go back to 10.2 for anything. And the new ActiveDirectory plug-in makes network auth/home directories a lot easier than trying to learn LDAP from scratch. Plus it has all the usual UNIX stuff (it _is_ the world's highest volume shipping UNIX) like built-in Apache, Samba, PHP, Java 2 (1.4.1)... out of the box, and Apple's free Xcode IDE for developing apps in Java, C++, Objective-C, etc (think MS Visual Studio, but free). Commercial.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: Berto on 2004-01-01 03:50:23
I am absolutely loving the new Google Deskbar.

http://toolbar.google.com/deskbar/ (http://toolbar.google.com/deskbar/)

This is different than the Google toolbar.  The Deskbar adds a Google search box to your task bar and displays your results in a mini-browser.

You don't need to have a browser open to use it -- in fact it's great to look up something quickly when you are in another application.

It might still be considered Beta, but it seems to be getting along perfectly well with my Firebird browser.

"Tommy likee"
Title: Essential Software
Post by: kerminen on 2004-01-16 09:11:41
Alcohol 120%

http://www.alcohol-software.com/ (http://www.alcohol-software.com/)

The BEST software to:

- copy cd's or cd-roms, much better than clonecd

- excellent virtual dvd-drives, support for all image file formats, much better than nero virtual drive or daemon tools. No need to burn image-files to cd-r:s anymore
Title: Essential Software
Post by: Cobra on 2004-01-21 18:08:44
http://raks.com.pl/ (http://raks.com.pl/) - "Mój Serwer".
It is Polish application, but it ROCKS!!! It is web server which generates web pages from files and folders. It is something like FTP via WWW.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: stripe on 2004-01-25 05:27:00
Perhaps it was mentioned here already but Crimson Editor (http://www.crimsoneditor.com) is a freeware code editor that stacks up quite well against UltraEdit32.

The other program which will become indispensible to those of you with full hard drives is the spark of genius known as Scanner (http://www.steffengerlach.de/freeware/) (also freeware). [span style='font-size:8pt;line-height:100%']XO is fun too.[/span]

stripe/ben
Title: Essential Software
Post by: RIV@NVX on 2004-01-25 12:43:32
jEdit (http://www.jedit.org/) - great text editor (written in Java, but it's cross platform because of that), with support for lots of various encodings (incuding Unicode) and everything I have seen in much more expensive programs. Opensource and completely free.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: Cobra on 2004-02-08 19:55:20
http://www.xi-soft.com/download.htm (http://www.xi-soft.com/download.htm) - NetTransport - great Flashget clone!!! It is free...

It is great app
Title: Essential Software
Post by: Jospoortvliet on 2004-02-10 17:16:05
Konqueror, the fastest webbrowser in the world (yep still beats firefox)
actually it isnt only a webbrowser, more like a swiss army knife ;-)
And K3B to burn my CD's - what to say about K3B, its recognized as the best burner for linux (and probably the world )
Kaudocreator for rippin' - too easy ;-)
Juk for playing audio - far from perfect, I'm waiting for a perfect app... there are thousants of music players for linux, but most suck, and the few which dont suck, arent very good. maybe XMMS (winamp clone) but it doesnt really fit in KDE, imho.
Kmail, embedded in Kontact - best mailclient in the best groupware client for linux I know of (and it's just a few months old)
Kopete for chatting on msn, irc, and icq (tabbed interface, yow!)

actually all other things are so integrated in KDE I dont really can list them here. ftp? you whoulnt even know the textdoc you're editting is on an ftp server (try that in windoze!!! hahahaaha) download accelerator? whoulnt improve anything... etc etc...
KDE (http://www.kde.org) as desktop (you've guessed it) - the apps above belong to the KDE standard apps.
aMule (http://www.amule.org) for p2p

It took me some time to go Linux and abandon windoze, but I cant stand windoze anymore. you feel so... restricted... when using it, esp if you know the power of linux.

thanx to the whole community for creating it!
Title: Essential Software
Post by: apecat on 2004-02-12 13:18:57
i don't think anyone has mentioned PowerDVD yet. yeah, it's a bit unstable (even v. 5) but compared to the alternatives WiMP9, WinDVD etc, it's really feature-packed, at least the more expensive  versions. As a poor student i cant afford a big Hifi-system but PowerDVD on my PC combinated with my Audigy2 is just the best you can get.  Lot's o' DSP's like  SRS Trusurround, Dolby Virtual Speaker  and  that can be useful to boost up bad speakers, but my favourite is Dolby Headphones.

For mp3's I use winamp 5, mostly becouse of the cool plugins (Enhancer 0.17, DSP stacker...). i like that wonderful, trippy thing Milkdrop 
Title: Essential Software
Post by: yourtallness on 2004-02-12 17:41:32
PowerDVD 4 which came with my Plextor PX-116A would simply not work on my
PC (constant crashing). I'm using Intervideo WinDVD 4 (bundled with my Radeon)
instead.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: rajas on 2004-03-15 20:39:34
To this gigantic list I can add:

SequoiaView: http://www.win.tue.nl/sequoiaview/ (http://www.win.tue.nl/sequoiaview/)
An excellent way to manage disk space, gives a visual map of your disk.

Process Explorer: http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/procexp.shtml (http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/procexp.shtml)
A gives a tree-list of processes, and also what dll's are loaded by which process. Very useful while debugging.

www.sysinternals.com has many other excellent utilities. Highly recommended for developers.

rajas
Title: Essential Software
Post by: plonk420 on 2004-03-20 10:40:40
Quote
Winamp,
EAC,
ACDSee,
Command.com

heh .. i converted someone to ACDSee classic after he'd used Irfanviewer for years because it was faster. also maybe proved that it was around first, not that that's a biggie

Quote
md5 Summer

DAMN's Hash Calculator (http://www.damn.to/software/hashcalc.html) does MD5, 4 SHAs, RIPEMD-160, HAVALs, "Good old CRC-32". drag n drop, too

@deejimon:
OSX firewalls be damned, what good are they without OUTGOING connection protection?? Little Snitch (http://www.obdev.at/products/littlesnitch) is a must....

@sramov
i liked xerver (http://www.javascript.nu/xerver) better after trying all or most of the simple freeware ones out there...

i also liked The Font Thing (http://members.ozemail.com.au/~scef/tft.html), a freeware font viewer, but after installing some opentype fonts, found it wouldn't read/use them... any of you use a good, free one?
Title: Essential Software
Post by: David Racho on 2004-05-08 05:13:26
Internet Time Adjuster
http://www.dougknox.com/xp/utils/xp_inet_time.htm (http://www.dougknox.com/xp/utils/xp_inet_time.htm)

I don't like XP synchronizing only once a week, I put mine at least daily.


Free Windows Update CD
http://www.microsoft.com/security/protect/cd/order.asp (http://www.microsoft.com/security/protect/cd/order.asp)

All updates for (almost) all versions of windows until October 2003.


McAfee Command Line Virus Scan
http://vil.nai.com/vil/virus-4d.asp (http://vil.nai.com/vil/virus-4d.asp)
http://vil.nai.com/vil/stinger/ (http://vil.nai.com/vil/stinger/)
ftp://ftp.nai.com/pub/antivirus/datfiles/4.x (http://ftp://ftp.nai.com/pub/antivirus/datfiles/4.x)

The Daily one is , well, updated daily. Stinger is an emergency killer (like the recent SASSER worm). the datfiles work with the evaluation version. Command line also available for Linux and other operating systems. I've always liked command line since DOS.


ProtoWall
http://bluetack.co.uk/pw.html (http://bluetack.co.uk/pw.html)

Combine with your firewall. Blocks unwanted people.




David (http://www.geocities.com/david_racho/) Racho (http://davidracho.blogspot.com/)
Title: Essential Software
Post by: jormartr on 2004-05-27 21:57:17
Allsnap (http://members.rogers.com/ivanheckman/): a tool that stays on tray, and make windows align between them(like winamp does with its windows for example) and the borders of the desktop.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: Garf on 2004-06-12 17:15:37
Quote
jEdit (http://www.jedit.org/) - great text editor (written in Java, but it's cross platform because of that), with support for lots of various encodings (incuding Unicode) and everything I have seen in much more expensive programs. Opensource and completely free.


1) Does not properly recognize binary files & provide hexediting possibility
2) Ugly fonts by default & some weird things like adding visible line terminators (they look like dots, which is evil idea when editing source).
3) Uninstaller requires reboot & leaves shit behind

"Three strikes and you're out"

Quote
Perhaps it was mentioned here already but Crimson Editor is a freeware code editor that stacks up quite well against UltraEdit32.


Quoting from "Functional limitations"

2. Crimson Editor is not adequate to edit a file containing more than 65536 lines.

Don't make me laugh. Neither tool comes close to UltraEdit.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: dev0 on 2004-06-13 10:42:53
To add to the Win32 texteditor war:

SciTE (http://www.scintilla.org/SciTE.html) is a really nice editor.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: rajas on 2004-06-22 20:58:18
Quote
1) Does not properly recognize binary files & provide hexediting possibility
2) Ugly fonts by default & some weird things like adding visible line terminators (they look like dots, which is evil idea when editing source).
3) Uninstaller requires reboot & leaves shit behind

"Three strikes and you're out"

1) There is a Hex plugin. Not as good as a standalone Hex editor, but it's there nonetheless.
2) ?? It uses Courier New AFAIK. It's the standard fixed width font used everywhere (Visual Studio IDE etc.) In any event you should try your results with turning on font smoothing (Via Global Options | jEdit | Text Area | Smooth Text ).
3) Agree with you on the uninstaller completely though. Requiring a reboot is completely unwarranted and it does leave shit behind.

The dot marking the end of line is hated and loved. I guess once you learn to recognize it, it's a good visual indicator for the end of line (esp if you code something like Python).

The good side of jEdit is the huge collection of free plugins available. The Java specific plugins are especially good (including the in-process Java debugger and intellisense like autocompleting) and the Visual Diff plugin is better than most other visual diffs available)

(On a side note, I hardly use jEdit any more having moved to a company which develops exclusively using Visual C++)
Title: Essential Software
Post by: zeetee on 2004-06-29 13:26:01
The one thing I use that I haven't seen mentioned yet is rxvt (http://cygwin.com/faq/faq_toc.html#TOC51) for cygwin (http://www.cygwin.com/). It's like having a real x-window, instead of a gimpy dos/x-term-ish poop monger.

edit: HTML -> BB Code
Title: Essential Software
Post by: Go2Null on 2004-06-29 21:10:26
Quote
2) Ugly fonts by default & some weird things like adding visible line terminators (they look like dots, which is evil idea when editing source).


Menu Utilities\Global Options\jEdit\Text Area: Unselect "End of line markers" to get rid of the "evil dots"  or change the color from red to whatever turns you on.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: smok3 on 2004-07-01 17:47:30
Quote
SequoiaView: http://www.win.tue.nl/sequoiaview/ (http://www.win.tue.nl/sequoiaview/)
An excellent way to manage disk space, gives a visual map of your disk.

pretty cool, i know what kind of files to blame for being fat now    (shame that file management is kinda lame - 'open in explorer' ..)
Title: Essential Software
Post by: dewey1973 on 2004-07-10 15:56:19
Here are a few I use that I have not seen mentioned:

Sync2IT (http://www.sync2it.com/bms/default.php) - This great program/service syncs my bookmarks over multiple computers and adds a task-bar favorites menu for easy access to my bookmarks.

ieSpell (http://www.iespell.com/) - This is a free spell checker for IE and those browsers that are based on IE (like myie2.)  GREAT for us forum posters who can't spell worth a damn!

RoboForm (http://www.roboform.com/) - I love this password keeper and form filler.  It lets me generate random passwords for websites and keep them on a USB thumb drive to use on multiple computers.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: rutra80 on 2004-07-15 11:37:59
C4U - a program that will see for you if there are any changes on the web pages you normally have to browse manually. Very useful to check if there are new drivers/software versions available etc. It can detect text changes, new links, new images, new email addresses, can search for keywords, and be automated. It's free, but the problem is that its development is dead since a couple of years now, and it doesn't have its web-site anymore, so you have to google it. Latest version is 1.3 (build 164).

P.S.: If you know of similar free program, let me know.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: Blitze on 2004-07-15 21:28:48
This thread is excellent, nice to see so many good tools being recommended
Quote
BlackBox for Windows (http://www.desktopian.org/bb/). What more can I say? Well... if you want something fast and small to replace explorer.exe as your default shell, this is it. It does take a lot of work to get used to though, which is a definite minus. I tried it, and I liked it, but ultimately, it took a little too much time to set up. YMMV.

This one really got my eye. I have used some of the other programs people mentioned, but didn't know Black Box was available for windows systems.

I visited the link you provided, and did some reading. Checked other links and discovered a version called bbLean. Got it working in five minutes, very easy to run for a quick 'get to know'.

Impressed, a day later I have converted to using it as my default Windows XP shell. A nice feeling not seeing 'Explorer.exe' in my tasklist.

This version is a fork of the BlackBox windows project, and can be found at http://bb4win.sourceforge.net/bblean/ (http://bb4win.sourceforge.net/bblean/) .

Thanks Infophreak!
Title: Essential Software
Post by: henrikf on 2004-07-19 07:44:20
Quote
C4U - a program that will see for you if there are any changes on the web pages you normally have to browse manually. Very useful to check if there are new drivers/software versions available etc. It can detect text changes, new links, new images, new email addresses, can search for keywords, and be automated. It's free, but the problem is that its development is dead since a couple of years now, and it doesn't have its web-site anymore, so you have to google it. Latest version is 1.3 (build 164).

P.S.: If you know of similar free program, let me know.
[{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a] (http://index.php?act=findpost&pid=226165")


I use [a href="http://www.markwell.btinternet.co.uk/webmon/]WebMon[/url] instead. It is an nice free and small program that I use from an USB drive. If you add some command line parameters it does not touch the registry. It checks for updated web pages or parts of web pages at custom intervalls.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: phelix on 2004-07-20 04:12:27
Here's another contender for the ubiquitous text editor category:

    Notepad++ :    http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/ (http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/)

What I really like about this one is launching speed.  Launches twice as fast as Ultraedit.  I never gave that much thought until I tried Notepad++.

Some noteworthy features:

Syntax Highlighting and Syntax Folding (for Java, C++, Perl, HTML, PHP ,etc...)
Regular Expression Search supported
Zoom in and zoom out
Bookmarks  (in a text file, not website bookmarks/favorites)
Title: Essential Software
Post by: jormartr on 2004-08-25 22:58:02
IpCop (http://www.ipcop.org): it is a linux based firewall. I use it instead of the router for my home lan. Has very good features. Actually version 1.4 is on RC1 stage, and is very promising. It stealths completely your computers from internet. Very friendly to use, and provide one of the best uses you can give to your old 486/Pentium computer.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: mavromatis on 2004-09-16 22:43:57
My list. Sorted randomly. I'm sure that I forgot something but I don't know what. 
Title: Essential Software
Post by: dewey1973 on 2004-09-17 04:49:54
Quote
  • QuickTime Alternative

  • Real Alternative


What do you mean by "alternative"?
Title: Essential Software
Post by: B on 2004-09-17 08:24:21
Quote
What do you mean by "alternative"?
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=242274"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

These are alternative packages that only install the codecs, not the bloatware programs, so you can use them in media player classic (for example). Google for them, they are easy to find. I don't know if it's allowed to post links, since the packages are not official.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: CiTay on 2004-09-17 11:36:10
Quote
What do you mean by "alternative"?
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=242274"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


He means the ones from here: [Link redacted]

Very useful. Allows you to play those files e.g. with Media Player Classic, without having to install Quicktime or RealOne Player 

edit: Oops, should've read the next page as well...
Title: Essential Software
Post by: dev0 on 2004-09-19 21:10:05
jIRCii (http://jirc.hick.org/jirc/index.prl) has recently become my IRC client of choice.
While it looks and acts a lot like a modern GUI client (think mIRC or X-Chat), its true power shows when looking at the scripting capabilities (http://jirc.hick.org/cgi-bin/jirc.cgi?ACTION=VIEW&PAGE=docs) featuring an easy to use (and fast to learn) perl-like language called sleep, which is tightly integrated into the client.. Don't be scared because it's written in Java, it's a very fast and responsive client (and snappier than XChat2 on Win32).
Fans of Openchat/2 or ircii based clients (BitchX or ScrollZ) should feel right at home.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: Andavari on 2004-09-22 11:17:05
A couple of new entries.

CCleaner - Crap Cleaner (http://www.ccleaner.com/):
- Freeware, does not contain any spyware or ad's.
- A tool for removing junk files, temporary files, and Internet cache. Also contains a registry cleaner for removing obsolete registry entries.
- Supported OS: Windows 95 and above.

X-Fonter (http://users.pandora.be/eclypse/):
- Freeware, does not contain any spyware or ad's.
- A font manager and viewer with the capability to install and uninstall fonts. It can also repair font entries missing in the registry so that those non-registered fonts can be used again.
- Supported OS: Windows 95 and above.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: Andavari on 2004-10-24 10:16:31
TCP Optimizer (http://www.speedguide.net/downloads.php):
- Freeware, does not contain any spyware or ad's.
- Optimizes your Internet connection. Makes it easy to find the best MaxMTU value, test latency, and tweak broadband related registry parameters.
- Supported OS: Windows 95 and above.

Before using the program make a backup:
Run TCP Optimizer, click File->Backup current settings.
It probably wouldn't hurt to also make a System Restore Point on ME/XP, just as an added precaution.

If anything goes wrong, restore your backup:
Run TCP Optimizer, click File->Retore backed up settings.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: smok3 on 2004-11-25 08:49:02
if you are shooting to jpg:
http://www.betterjpeg.com/ (http://www.betterjpeg.com/)

Main Features:
    * Lossless Transformations - Rotation, Flip
    * Lossless Crop (free, fixed aspect, fixed size, predefined and user-defined aspects and sizes), composition guidelines (diagonals, golden mean, rule of thirds)
    * Highly Customizable Lossless Date/EXIF Info/Text insertion (position, font, size, color, background, language, format, etc.)
    * Advanced Lossless Red Eye Removal (anti-aliasing, adjustable size, sensitivity, darkening)
    * Copy/Paste to external editor and back for local retouching without full recompression (lossless)
    * Batch image processing
    * Multi-level Undo/Redo
    * Metadata preservation
    * Compression optimization
Title: Essential Software
Post by: CiTay on 2004-11-25 14:04:53
Quote
if you are shooting to jpg:
http://www.betterjpeg.com/ (http://www.betterjpeg.com/)
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=256090"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


Pretty nice... a shame that it's not freeware...
Title: Essential Software
Post by: LoFiYo on 2004-11-26 15:59:02
Quote
if you are shooting to jpg:
http://www.betterjpeg.com/ (http://www.betterjpeg.com/)

I have been looking for a freeware BMP-to-JPG encoder that is considered the best. I love IrfanView, but the default JPG encoder that comes with it is not very good qualitywise in my opinion (even when I use the highest quality = 100). I do have Adobe Photoshop, and I think it might produce better JPG, but it is just too cumbersome/heavy for what I do.

Are there better freeware JPG encoders out there?
Title: Essential Software
Post by: Baba on 2005-01-08 21:24:51
one of the best programs out there: Deep Freeze 
Title: Essential Software
Post by: mhe on 2005-01-08 23:35:33
Strokeit - Mousegestures for any windows app. Freeware, tiny footprint, ~104KB installer.
533216 gestures performed, and counting
http://www.tcbmi.com/strokeit/ (http://www.tcbmi.com/strokeit/)
Title: Essential Software
Post by: Lev on 2005-01-11 11:43:08
I may have missed this, but is there a tool that allows you to right click anywhere on the desktop and bring up the start menu from there?  I used to have something like that for my old Amiga, and I loved it.  Thanks
Title: Essential Software
Post by: unfortunateson on 2005-01-11 12:13:45
The Gimp (http://www.gimp.org/windows/) - Very Powerful Image Manipulation Software.

Spybot (http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html) - Considered as the best Spyware removal program.

Exact Audio Copy (http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/) - Self Explanatory.

Foobar2000 (http://www.foobar2000.org) - Self Explanatory.

Antivir (http://www.free-av.com/) - One of the best antivirus programs.

Edit: All free, as well. 
Title: Essential Software
Post by: dewey1973 on 2005-01-11 16:39:53
Quote
Antivir (http://www.free-av.com/) - One of the best antivirus programs.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=264459"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


I'm curious.  What makes this "one of the best"?  I notice it passed the independent labs detection tests, but do you have any other justification for your statement.  I'm not busting your chops, I am just interested.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: CiTay on 2005-01-12 11:34:13
Quote
Quote
Antivir (http://www.free-av.com/) - One of the best antivirus programs.
[{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a] (http://index.php?act=findpost&pid=264459")


I'm curious.  What makes this "one of the best"?  I notice it passed the independent labs detection tests, but do you have any other justification for your statement.  I'm not busting your chops, I am just interested.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=264519"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


Acoording to c't magazine, the best *free* one is [a href="http://free.grisoft.com/doc/1]AVG Free Edition[/url], followed by the aforementioned Antivir Personal Edition (http://www.free-av.com/). The worst free one is called Avast...
Title: Essential Software
Post by: fakeplastictrees on 2005-02-16 12:21:42
Ad-Aware
Spybot
Esset Nod32

Opera
ReGet


CCleaner
LzArc

Crimson Editor


Foobar2000
Media Player Classic
Defiler Codec Pack
Real Player Alternative
Quicktime Alternative
Title: Essential Software
Post by: CiTay on 2005-03-06 02:55:53
Another nice tool is called ExamDiff (http://www.prestosoft.com/ps.asp?page=edp_examdiff). "ExamDiff is a freeware Windows tool for visual file comparison." Two texts side-by-side, simultaneous scrolling, and it highlights added, deleted and changed lines in different colors.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: music_man_mpc on 2005-03-06 21:06:33
Quote
Another nice tool is called ExamDiff (http://www.prestosoft.com/ps.asp?page=edp_examdiff). "ExamDiff is a freeware Windows tool for visual file comparison." Two texts side-by-side, simultaneous scrolling, and it highlights added, deleted and changed lines in different colors.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=279631"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Is TrNSZ even around to edit the list anymore?  Perhaps a new thread should be started so that the list can keep developing?
Title: Essential Software
Post by: CiTay on 2005-03-06 21:19:55
Quote
Is TrNSZ even around to edit the list anymore?  Perhaps a new thread should be started so that the list can keep developing?
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=279852"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


The HA staff can edit it too, but i see no crucial need for it right now. Let's just collect some new stuff here and when TrN has time he can add what he deems appropriate.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: KikeG on 2005-03-14 14:16:07
Quote
Another nice tool is called ExamDiff (http://www.prestosoft.com/ps.asp?page=edp_examdiff). "ExamDiff is a freeware Windows tool for visual file comparison." Two texts side-by-side, simultaneous scrolling, and it highlights added, deleted and changed lines in different colors.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=279631"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


Other good free diff tools are KDiff3 and WinMerge. The former will do 3-file comparisons and merges, but can't move differences from one file to the other, it just does merge operations on a third file.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: rjamorim on 2005-04-03 04:18:46
Quote
Don't make me laugh. Neither tool comes close to UltraEdit.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=217710"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


I too love UltraEdit. The only feature that I miss a lot is hability to search or replace text blocks with more than one line in them.

Sometimes I go as far as loading the text file in my HTML editor (Home Site) to be able to replace text blocks with several lines.


In case someone smarter than me found out how to do that in UltraEdit, I would appreciate if you would explain how (I know you can use ^p to match a CR/LF, but that is definitely not practical...)
Title: Essential Software
Post by: Jojo on 2005-04-03 18:46:27
Quote
Quote
Don't make me laugh. Neither tool comes close to UltraEdit.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=217710"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


I too love UltraEdit. The only feature that I miss a lot is hability to search or replace text blocks with more than one line in them.

In case someone smarter than me found out how to do that in UltraEdit, I would appreciate if you would explain how...
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=287916"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

ok Roberto, here we go
Highlight whatever you want to search for or replace. Search -> Replace. The Search-String is already filled...all you need to do now is to insert your replace string and you're all set...

If you want to search within the file, highlight your textblocks and press F3...press F3 again to jump to the next match...that's all
Title: Essential Software
Post by: rjamorim on 2005-04-04 00:24:29
That's quite interesting, thanks Jojo. But still, there are some usability issues...

Quote
Highlight whatever you want to search for or replace. Search -> Replace. The Search-String is already filled...all you need to do now is to insert your replace string and you're all set...


1 - What if the replace string takes more than one line?

2 - What if what I want to search is in another file, so highlighting won't work?

Example: when I was modding phpbb (back when I trusted phpbb WRT security), most mods had instructions like "find the following big block of text and replace with this other big block of text" or "find the following big block of text and add this big block of text after it".

Most of the times, I read these modding instructions on the Web, copied the text to look for, and pasted it at Home Site's search box (that can span several lines), so that the text in question was found and I could follow whatever instructions there were. IIRC UltraEdit would only search for the first line of whatever I pasted at the search box, eventually leading to completely broken moddings...
Title: Essential Software
Post by: Jojo on 2005-04-04 00:56:01
Quote
That's quite interesting, thanks Jojo. But still, there are some usability issues...

Quote
Highlight whatever you want to search for or replace. Search -> Replace. The Search-String is already filled...all you need to do now is to insert your replace string and you're all set...


1 - What if the replace string takes more than one line?

hmm
I haven't found a solution for that either...

Quote
2 - What if what I want to search is in another file, so highlighting won't work?

I don't understand your question...Just highlight it and go to Search -> Replace in files or Search -> Find in files...works like a charm  I mean, you can open every file with UE or copy and paste it to UE...

Quote
Example: when I was modding phpbb (back when I trusted phpbb WRT security), most mods had instructions like "find the following big block of text and replace with this other big block of text" or "find the following big block of text and add this big block of text after it".

you could just search for it and go back to the instruction file and paste it...works pretty well...

Quote
Most of the times, I read these modding instructions on the Web, copied the text to look for, and pasted it at Home Site's search box (that can span several lines), so that the text in question was found and I could follow whatever instructions there were. IIRC UltraEdit would only search for the first line of whatever I pasted at the search box, eventually leading to completely broken moddings...
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=288115"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

IMO Home Site sucks, so I don't have it...anyway, you can do it as I described or you install that phpBB hack that installs hacks automatically...
Title: Essential Software
Post by: rjamorim on 2005-04-04 01:04:56
Quote
Quote
2 - What if what I want to search is in another file, so highlighting won't work?

I don't understand your question...Just highlight it and go to Search -> Replace in files or Search -> Find in files...works like a charm  I mean, you can open every file with UE or copy and paste it to UE...


I mean, the file with the search string is. e.g, a web page. I would have to save it to disk, load it with UE, and then highlight the string. Pain in the arse... :/

Quote
you could just search for it and go back to the instruction file and paste it...works pretty well...


Yees, but the string to be searched for is at a web page. The easiest way to move the string to be searched to the editing program is ctrl-c ctrl-v, otherwise I'd have to save the file to disk, load it and then highlight the string.

Quote
IMO Home Site sucks, so I don't have it...anyway, you can do it as I described or you install that phpBB hack that installs hacks automatically...
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=288121"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


easyMod never worked for me

And phpbb is only an example, I run into those situations all the time.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: Jojo on 2005-04-04 23:49:06
Quote
Quote
Quote
2 - What if what I want to search is in another file, so highlighting won't work?

I don't understand your question...Just highlight it and go to Search -> Replace in files or Search -> Find in files...works like a charm  I mean, you can open every file with UE or copy and paste it to UE...


I mean, the file with the search string is. e.g, a web page. I would have to save it to disk, load it with UE, and then highlight the string. Pain in the arse... :/
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=288124"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

as I said, I'd just create a new file in UE, str-c , str-v, hightlight it and search for it. not that much of a pain  But you are right, since OE 11 is out already, they should have implemented that by now...maybe someone should write their support...they're quite nice
Title: Essential Software
Post by: rjamorim on 2005-04-05 01:10:56
Quote
as I said, I'd just create a new file in UE, str-c , str-v, hightlight it and search for it. not that much of a pain


Ah, I see. Thanks for the suggestion. Too bad there is still no solution to mass replace multiple lines...

Quote
But you are right, since OE 11 is out already, they should have implemented that by now...


Yeah, that's quite shameful.

Quote
maybe someone should write their support...they're quite nice
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=288316"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


Good idea.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: sameer_87 on 2005-04-11 10:19:17
Hi,

I have read your tips and they are very knowledgable.

I want to set my sound card clock to external permanently. I am using Terratec's Aureon Sky 5.1 sound card. My project requires me to connect Digital Radio to SPDIF input of the sound card for recording. I am using tosslink optical cable to connect to 'input' of the sound card. Using the 'Aureon Control Panel', I set the master clock to external (48000 Hz, 800 samples/buffer and latency=17 msec) and I get the correct data after analyzing the recording.

The problem arises, when the computer reboots (due to any reason) and the clock is automatically set to 'internal' (while the DAB radio is still sending the data). I want my sound card's clock to be set to external automatically after the computer boots.
Any help would be much appreciated. Thank you.

Regards,
Sameer
University of Reading, UK

[span style='font-size:8pt;line-height:100%']Quote removed by moderation.[/span]
Title: Essential Software
Post by: krmathis on 2005-04-11 11:43:38
sameer_87. Do you really need to Quote ALL that text?
Title: Essential Software
Post by: smok3 on 2005-05-09 17:14:06
alternative pdf reader for win (fast!!!):
http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php (http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php)
Title: Essential Software
Post by: miniml on 2005-06-02 11:17:52
Switched to Mac OS X
Title: Essential Software
Post by: Axon on 2005-08-28 21:58:36
EDIT: vim was on the first post. Doh.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: zima on 2005-08-28 23:38:43
Free Xchat Windows builds (http://silenceisdefeat.org/~b0at/xchat/win32/)

(personally I prefer Daemon404 one)
Title: Essential Software
Post by: tev777 on 2005-10-08 05:59:46
Treepad Lite: http://www.treepad.com/treepadfreeware/ (http://www.treepad.com/treepadfreeware/)

For my job I spend all day every day running queries. Queries, queries, queries! Treepad is the the best program I have found for keeping everything where I can find it. If you have a lot of code snippets or just keep a lot of notes check it out. I can't live without it.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: Andavari on 2005-10-31 17:54:50
[span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%']Unlocker - http://ccollomb.free.fr/unlocker/ (http://ccollomb.free.fr/unlocker/)[/span]

Freeware, doesn't install any adware, or spyware.
A right-click shell add-on for removing locked files.

Supported OS: MS Windows 2000/XP

Allows for the removal of annoying files that Windows states can't be deleted such as:
- Cannot delete file: Access is denied
- There has been a sharing violation.
- The source or destination file may be in use.
- The file is in use by another program or user.
- Make sure the disk is not full or write-protected and that the file is not currently in use.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: Andavari on 2005-10-31 18:00:58
[span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%']Microsoft Windows Memory Diagnostic[/span]
http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp (http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp)

A freeware boot-time memory disagnostic utility by Microsoft. It can create a bootable floppy disk, or a bootable CD from which it can run from.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: rjamorim on 2005-10-31 22:23:21
Quote
Microsoft Windows Memory Diagnostic
http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp (http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp)

A freeware boot-time memory disagnostic utility by Microsoft. It can create a bootable floppy disk, or a bootable CD from which it can run from.
[{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a] (http://index.php?act=findpost&pid=338537")


Hrm... makes me wonder if it is any better than memtest86+
[a href="http://www.memtest.org/]http://www.memtest.org/[/url]
Title: Essential Software
Post by: rutra80 on 2005-10-31 23:47:27
AFAIK memtest86+ tests with cache on only (someone correct me if I'm wrong), while the one from MS can test with cache off too.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: rjamorim on 2005-11-01 15:44:11
Quote
AFAIK memtest86+ tests with cache on only (someone correct me if I'm wrong), while the one from MS can test with cache off too.[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=338639"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


There are uncached tests in memtest86+ too. Just check menu 1.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: Andavari on 2005-11-01 16:43:40
I use both memory testers, and can't make any statements of which one is better. Although MemTest86 at least has a boat load of information on its website.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: Andavari on 2005-11-01 17:08:45
[span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%']tinySpell - http://tinyspell.m6.net/ (http://tinyspell.m6.net/)[/span]

Freeware, doesn't contain any adware or spyware.
Supported OS: MS Windows
Supported Language: American English

Description taken from the website:
Quote
Occasionally you need to check the spelling of words in an application that does not include a spelling checker and you don't want to launch your word processor just for that. This is when tinySpell becomes handy. It is a small utility that allows you to easily and quickly check the spelling of words in any Windows application. tinySpell monitors your typing on the fly and alerts you whenever it detects a misspelled word. It also checks the spelling of every word you copy to the clipboard.
tinySpell installs itself in the system tray for easy access. It comes with an American-English dictionary containing more than 110,000 words.


It also works perfectly fine with web-browsers when posting on forums!
Title: Essential Software
Post by: rjamorim on 2005-11-01 18:50:52
Quote
I use both memory testers, and can't make any statements of which one is better. Although MemTest86 at least has a boat load of information on its website.[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=338772"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


Right. Besides, memtest86 has been around for much longer and has available source code, which allows third parties to scrutinize it and see if the tests are really effective and exhaustive. More trustworthy overall, IMO.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: Andavari on 2005-11-14 21:49:26
[span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%']WackGet (http://millweed.com/projects/wackget/)[/span] - http://millweed.com/projects/wackget/ (http://millweed.com/projects/wackget/)
- Supports: MS Windows 98 and above
- Free/Open Source
- Doesn't install any adware or spyware.

Description, taken from the website:
Quote
WackGet is a download manager for Windows. It maintains a queue of files and downloads them (using wget (http://www.gnu.org/software/wget/wget.html)) in the order you specify.

WackGet is a minimalist application. It doesn't tax system resources, doesn't require a lot of screen real estate, and doesn't include extraneous features. It's free, ad-free, and is lovingly developed and maintained by the hip people at Millweed.com.

Note that since WackGet doesn't mess up your system registry or do anything weird like that, you can get the zipped version and put the files wherever you want - on a USB keychain or iPod for example - and run it from there.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: Rendereason on 2005-11-20 08:18:53
INDISPENSABLE PROGRAMS FOR THE AUDIOPHILE:

XMplay - IMHO the best player (after using it a few minutes); even better than foobar2k (been using for a few months) or winamp(been using it for years) by far. Lowest CPU usage, dead on accurate playback, completely customizable, good nondistorting equalizer (unlike winamp's noise-creating plugins) and good looking as well. I prefer it for its compatibility with multiple languages. I found out foobar has bugs with multilanguage tags. (korean, chinese, japanese tags/files)
EAC - Undisputedly the best CD ripper.
CDex - Easy to upgrade with codecs from rareware and simple to use for unexperienced users. Connects to web for FreeDB tagging!
mp3tag - The only program you will ever need to tag/rename all those messy audio files!

Miscellaneous programs:
Evilyrics - I like lyrics.
FL Studio 4 - Love trance? Are you a promising new DJ? Then compose your own music with the best application there is.
Hydrogen - Make rhythm and beats. A drum program.
Mplayer - standalone media player. The best.
CCCP - second best with MPC. For seamless playback of anime hahahah.
Daemon Tools - cd emulator.
Tweak UI - I can't live w/o Xmouse.
Autohotkey - Do what u want the way you want it with your keyboard. Limitless app.
Panda Platinum Internet Security 2006 - My personal favorite.
7-zip - Forget all the other file de/compressors.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: zima on 2005-11-20 17:51:39
Rendereason, at least two of programs you've mentioned have much too common name to find them easily, you should provide links.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: jormartr on 2005-12-12 18:31:20
Runfast (http://www.idiogensoftware.com/runfast/index.htm): just a little kb standalone executable that can make your life with a windows worksation really comfortable.

I is a software for executing programs, just that, try to use it and you won't never touch the start menu again, I'll promise you  .
Title: Essential Software
Post by: kjoonlee on 2005-12-15 08:33:55
This was a link-of-the-day at UserFriendly.org, but I guess it's still informative nevertheless.

The 46 Best-ever Freeware Utilities (http://www.techsupportalert.com/best_46_free_utilities.htm): a list from Gizmo Richard's Tech Support Alert.

This list seems to be updated constantly.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: Jospoortvliet on 2005-12-15 09:20:19
since i discovered Amarok (amarok.kde.org) i haven't used another audio player. it takes 5 min to get used to, but its powerfull browser/playlist way of managing music is simply not beaten by anything...
of course, most other utils like musepack, lame etc are simply there in linux, no need to go looking for them.

same with lots of utils named here, you either don't need them under linux (spellcheck is build-in in my webbrowser, chat program, mail application and even texteditor; amarok shows lyrics and bandinformation from wikipedia; of course everything tweakUI could ever offer is already included in KDE; one doesn't need deamontools because mounting ISO's is a core capability in unixes; and what could i use a virusscanner for if there are no virusses?) or they mostly are there by default (a default suse 10.0 install offers much more than windows after 1 day of configuring and installing software).

and i wouldn't trust freeware anyway, no way to be sure there is no spy/add ware included. and even if it isn't now, it might be included in the future.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: hybridfan on 2006-01-07 12:00:42
Audacity is a very good freeware audio recording app and Hammerhead is a good free drum synth.  I also use Apollo as my audio player quite old and a bit like Foobar but very stable & low mem useage but only plays wav and mp3 files.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: kwanbis on 2006-01-07 21:35:44
Quote
Audacity is a very good freeware audio recording app.

its open source not freeware.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: Oge_user on 2006-01-13 20:59:04
My little list, as the other programs were already mentioned...

CoverXP (http://www.coverxp.com/main.asp)
X-Setup Pro (http://www.x-setup.net/)
XP-AntiSpy (http://www.xp-antispy.org/)
HijackThis (http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/)
RenameFiles (http://renamefiles.it-falke.com/)
Title: Essential Software
Post by: ckjnigel on 2006-01-17 07:59:03
Bulk Rename Utility is mirrored at
http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file_desc...id,22983,00.asp (http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file_description/0,fid,22983,00.asp)
though the author's site was down when I just checked.
This is the kind of little program that awes me because it required such incredible attentition to little details.  I'm very grateful that there are pernickety people making tools like this.
I've not found anything else offering so much control.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: cyberVera on 2006-03-17 00:01:09
I am not using any of the soft listed in the original post. Don't know why I am living though...
Title: Essential Software
Post by: pepoluan on 2006-05-12 11:10:00
Seems everyone got their faves here

So here's my non-multimedia-related tools, in no particular order (actually, in order it appears in my Start Menu):Edit: Links and short descs now provided.
Edit2: Scratch Norton, add Undelete, more info on WinRAR.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: hcraze524 on 2006-07-15 20:28:41
Too lazy to do the links, but I noticed some of my favorites were missing!
Title: Essential Software
Post by: Squeller on 2006-07-16 14:26:33
fb2k, fb2k, fb2k, fl studio, opera, 7-zip, keepass pw safe, pspad editor, totalcmd, truecrypt+tcgina, pgp, hamster mail/newsserver, forte agent...
Title: Essential Software
Post by: krmathis on 2006-07-16 14:37:25
Camino (http://www.caminobrowser.org/), Adium (http://adiumx.com/), Colloquy (http://www.colloquy.info/), iTunes (http://www.apple.com/itunes/), Max (http://sbooth.org/Max/), VLC (http://www.videolan.org/vlc/), HandBrake (http://handbrake.m0k.org/), QuickSilver (http://quicksilver.blacktree.com/), SeaShore (http://seashore.sourceforge.net/), 7zX (http://sixtyfive.xmghosting.com/), Smultron (http://smultron.sourceforge.net/), Xcode Tools (http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/xcode/), ...

Edit: Added links.
As pointed out by CiTay
Title: Essential Software
Post by: CiTay on 2006-07-16 15:26:16
Links, my people, links.    Nobody's gonna enter all that in Google.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: RIV@NVX on 2006-07-30 11:37:38
Media player no one mentioned so far - xine (http://xinehq.de/) with two cool frontends - amaroK (http://amarok.kde.org/) and Kaffeine (http://kaffeine.sourceforge.net/). Supports external Win32 codecs as well.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: Funkstar De Luxe on 2006-08-17 10:57:09
Foxit Reader.  Replaces that aweful Adobe Reader.

http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php (http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php)
Title: Essential Software
Post by: Nick E on 2006-11-07 10:44:51
Camino (http://www.caminobrowser.org/), Adium (http://adiumx.com/), Colloquy (http://www.colloquy.info/), iTunes (http://www.apple.com/itunes/), Max (http://sbooth.org/Max/), VLC (http://www.videolan.org/vlc/), HandBrake (http://handbrake.m0k.org/), QuickSilver (http://quicksilver.blacktree.com/), SeaShore (http://seashore.sourceforge.net/), 7zX (http://sixtyfive.xmghosting.com/), Smultron (http://smultron.sourceforge.net/), Xcode Tools (http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/xcode/), ...


More for OS X:

Abiword (http://www.abisource.com/) (also Win, Linux) word-processor
Cog (http://cogosx.sourceforge.net/) audio player
Flip4Mac (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/player/wmcomponents.mspx) Windows Media Components for QuickTime (also available direct from the ISV: Flip4Mac (http://www.flip4mac.com/))
Google Earth (http://earth.google.com/download-earth.html) (also Win, Linux) 3D interface to the planet
HexEdit (http://sourceforge.net/projects/hexedit/) hex editor
TinkerTool (http://www.bresink.de/osx/TinkerTool.html) GUI for access to additional preference settings
NetNewsWire Lite (http://www.newsgator.com/NGOLProduct.aspx?ProdId=NetNewsWire&ProdView=lite) RSS reader
Vienna (http://www.opencommunity.co.uk/vienna2.php) RSS reader
Title: Essential Software
Post by: Smith 782 on 2006-11-21 20:03:39
AccuConference (http://www.accuconference.com) offers free conferencing with powerpoint and recording (no charges) via AccuTalk.net (http://www.accutalk.net).

The web conferencing works with Mac: Article (http://www.macsimumnews.com/index.php/archive/accuconference_beefs_up_web_conferencing_solutions_for_mac_users/)
Title: Essential Software
Post by: smok3 on 2006-11-22 08:57:23
small guiless ftp server for windows with bandwidth limiting abilities? (other than slimftpd or filezilla)
Title: Essential Software
Post by: pepoluan on 2006-11-27 18:06:16
I happened upon EverNote (http://www.evernote.com), a nifty free note taking program.

It's basically a freetext database. Its capability to integrate with FireFox is really wonderful: Just select, click, and the selected text (with its formatting and links intact) are copied into the database, complete with a link to the source page.

I also use it to consolidate my personal notes. Up to now I kept them in .txt files, with the unavoidable result of inevitable duplicates. I have been moving them into EverNote. Nicely categorized (it supports multi-categories per note), and there's a quite smart hot-search function to prevent duplications.

This is quick becoming an indispensable tool for me.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: DanielSmith on 2006-12-16 02:03:05
Quote
You should test MyIE2 (http://www.ruihehang.com/myie2/html_en/home.htm). It uses your IE-engine, but adds so much features.. Of course the most important are tabs-support  
good stuff, so far iam (ab)using 'undo close window(s)', tabbed browsing, no popups. tested phoenix also, very nice, still prefer the ie engine tho  B)

MyIE is a great ....
Title: Essential Software
Post by: Mangix on 2006-12-16 21:22:30
MyIE is now known as Maxthon Browser
Title: Essential Software
Post by: TREX6662k6 on 2006-12-21 17:50:39
Putty, Filezilla, Firefox, Foobar, Electricsheep screensaver, Xfire, Msn, RealVNC, Battlefield 2142, mplayer, blackbox, mirc, winrar, utorrent, foxit reader
Always installed upon every format.

Must checkout EverNote.
Im tired of storing notes in text files named "New Text Document.txt", "New Text Document (1).txt". Bah
Title: Essential Software
Post by: pepoluan on 2006-12-21 20:31:16
Must checkout EverNote.
Im tired of storing notes in text files named "New Text Document.txt", "New Text Document (1).txt". Bah
Ha, you're like me then  By all means, try it! Even Walt Mossberg (of WSJ fame) praised this nifty tool.

It can not only store notes, it categorizes them, secures them (optional encryption). You can search all of them really fast, plus it has this nifty feature called "Time Band", which enables you to quickly see notes you created since a certain time in the past (just drag the Time Marker, the 'tape' scrolls accordingly).

It has passable to-do list template -- heck, helps me when at home I remember I have to do something at office. Just open EverNote, find the To-Do list for the day (or create a new list), type the thing to do... voila!

I also rarely save webpages now. I just select the interesting text, click the "Add note to Evernote" button (installed when you install the Evernote extension)... done. The note even contains a live hyperlink pointing to the source page.

My Evernote database is now 9 MiB and counting... heck, there's this blogger who called herself GTDwannabe (spelling?) .. her database (she claimed) is 80MiB and counting. She used Evernote not only for taking personal notes, but also as a note-taking tool for her doctorate research.

I found the free version of Evernote good enough for my need. Since I don't do digital ink (no tablet PC nor wacom pads) I don't need its advanced ink recognition. And for synchronization, I found Allway Sync (http://allwaysync.com/) to be good enough to synchronize the database to/from a flash disk.

Disclaimer: I have no relation to the maker of Evernote beside a very satisfied user. And they don't pay me in any way, nada.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: bhoar on 2006-12-22 02:04:32
I played with it a bit and can't really see what the killer feature or two are.

What, in particular, grabbed you and pulled you in?

-brendan
Title: Essential Software
Post by: pepoluan on 2006-12-22 19:00:40
What grabbed me in? Let's see... (in no particular order)

1. I consolidated all my electronic .txt notes that previously were lying around in my hard disk.

2. I do not need to save web pages anymore, with its related "..._files" directories. Furthermore, saved snippets also have links pointing to its source. And saved snippets need not be whole web pages; they can be mere selection in the webpage. The selection (and any images selected) gets saved with formatting.

3. Everything I saved in Evernote can have multiple categories. Prior to Evernote, I must think carefully where to put a .txt note. And when I search, I will inadvertently (more than 50% of the time) search in the wrong place first, and finally resort to Inforapid Search & Replace.

4. I can search all my notes really quick, e.g. if I want to find a certain joke regarding genie, I just click on the "Jokes" category, and type the search word. Or even if I am not sure of the category, I will just click "All Notes", type the search word and I'll find the note I'm looking for.

5. Nice To-Do template. I usually use .txt files to jot down things I plan on doing on the office, or back home, or etc. Now I just use Evernote. Even better, Evernote clearly (and automatically) indicates which To-Do's are finished and which ones are "in progress".

6. Custom categories. For instance, I add "@unsent" to denote notes that I want to send using my email, "@URGENT" (boldfaced and red) to indicate things that must immediately be handled upon arrival at office or home, etc. ("@" sign optional, just my way of indicating 'state' instead of mere 'category')

7. I can easily replicate Evernote between home and office by copying mere 4 files.

Well, Evernote is much more functional than just the 7 points above, but those 7 are the reasons that really grabbed me
Title: Essential Software
Post by: Kirby54925 on 2007-01-03 05:33:18
Too bad EverNote doesn't have the same editing keys and functions as Emacs.  If it did, I'd jump on it right away...

EDIT:  Looks like the encryption associated with it is really weak!  I guess I'll just stick with Emacs+GnuPG for now...
Title: Essential Software
Post by: sn0wman on 2007-01-18 21:00:35
i uninstalled it after figured out that the plugin for ff is not working at all (after the ico).
Title: Essential Software
Post by: Pardus on 2007-01-19 11:41:51
i uninstalled it after figured out that the plugin for ff is not working at all (after the ico).

The plugin works like a charm for me.
I have some doubts about the screen capture tool though.
Evernote has been added to my list of standard software.

Other things are:

AVG free (http://free.grisoft.com/doc/1) - a good free antivirus program
Kerio firewall (http://www.sunbelt-software.com/Kerio.cfm) - free and good
Cyberhawk (http://www.novatix.com/Cyberhawk/) - free, monitors the behaviour of your software
SuperAntiSpyware (http://www.superantispyware.com/) - free and very good
Adaware (http://www.lavasoftusa.com/products/ad-aware_se_personal.php) - free antispyware scanner
Unlocker (http://ccollomb.free.fr/unlocker/) - free, solves those "cannot remove ****, is being used by who knows what" annoyances
Diskeeper (http://www.diskeeper.com/defrag.asp) - very good and fast defragmentation tool
Winrar (http://www.rarlab.com/download.htm) - file extraction/compression
Fineprint (http://www.fineprint.com/) - pre-print formatting tool, because we love the trees

Firefox (http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/) - free and very good browser
Proxomitron (http://www.proxomitron.info/) (patched (http://www.castlecops.com/p880852-Proxomitron_limits_download_speeds.html) and with grypen filters) (http://www.users.on.net/~grypen/Downloads/) - free, web filter
IP-Tools (http://www.ks-soft.net/ip-tools.eng/) -  to solve those annoying connection related problems

Rainlendar (http://ttp://www.rainlendar.net/cms/index.php) (Moderna (http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/8681387/?&q=moderna&qh=boost:popular+age_sigma:24h+age_scale:5)skin) - good, discrete calendar and todo utility
YZdock (http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=2790) - free, good lightweight object dock (and probably the oldest windows dock)
A wallpaper from studiotwentyeight (http://www.studiotwentyeight.com/index2.htm)

VLC (http://www.videolan.org/) - free, best? media player
EAC (http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/) - no comment, free, best CD rip app
Winamp (http://www.winamp.com/)  , free, I've been using it for almost 10 years and I still use it as my main music player.
EditPlus (http://www.editplus.com/) - free, good, lightweight, text editor

Wireshark (http://www.wireshark.org/) - free, sniffing tool - formerly known as Ethereal
Araxis (http://www.araxis.com/) - compare and merge code, documents, etc.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: zima on 2007-01-19 11:46:53
http://www.updatepack.nl/ (http://www.updatepack.nl/) - Nero Lite & Micro
Title: Essential Software
Post by: smok3 on 2007-01-22 09:53:37
totalrun
http://www.totalcmd.net/plugring/TotalRun.html (http://www.totalcmd.net/plugring/TotalRun.html)
(making total commander (and bunch of my scripts) portable)
Title: Essential Software
Post by: pepoluan on 2007-01-25 05:00:12
EditPlus (http://www.editplus.com/) - free, good, lightweight, text editor
EditPlus is not free. It's cheap, though. And if you have low moral fiber (like moi ) you dismiss the registration reminder with a click and no functionality is gone.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: dewey1973 on 2007-01-26 05:01:15
With all this talk of text editors, I'll throw in my favorite:

evolvEd (http://www.home.no/evolved/)

It's 100% free and has context highlighting for several languages.

I'd also suggest this font to make reading your code easier:

Proggy Clean Slashed Zero Bold Punctuation (the  8th font on the page) (http://www.proggyfonts.com/index.php?menu=download)

Here is a description:

Quote
Proggy Clean Slashed Zero Bold Punctuation is identical to the well-liked Proggy Clean but has a slashed zero instead of a dot.

In addition, this font contains some bold punctuation characters and delimiters. The bold characters make things like variable scope (braces/brackets/parentheses are bold) and function arguments (commas etc are bold) more apparent to the eye.


Enjoy!
Title: Essential Software
Post by: pepoluan on 2007-01-26 11:31:57
I'd also suggest this font to make reading your code easier:

Proggy Clean Slashed Zero Bold Punctuation (the  8th font on the page) (http://www.proggyfonts.com/index.php?menu=download)

Here is a description:

Quote
Proggy Clean Slashed Zero Bold Punctuation is identical to the well-liked Proggy Clean but has a slashed zero instead of a dot.

In addition, this font contains some bold punctuation characters and delimiters. The bold characters make things like variable scope (braces/brackets/parentheses are bold) and function arguments (commas etc are bold) more apparent to the eye.
Ahhh, speaking of monospaced fonts, here's a thread dedicated *just* for that subject:

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=47855 (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=47855)

HA is truly the resource center for... pretty much many things
Title: Essential Software
Post by: Agent69 on 2007-04-06 14:10:05
I love this thread! Here is my list of software that I am running on my Vista box:

FREE/OSS/Freeware:

Firefox (Web browser)
7-Zip (Compressor)
Paint.NET (Graphics)
Mame (Arcade emulator)
ImageMagick (Command line image manipulation)
Curl (Command line tool for transferring files)
Notepad 2 (Text editor)
Foxit Reader (PDF reader)
CCleaner (Windows maintenance tool)
Putty (SSH)
Imgburn (CD burning software)
Media Player Classic (Video player)
K-Lite Codec Pack Basic (Video codecs)
Foobar2000 (Music player)
Wavpack (My preferred lossless codec)
Exact Audio Copy (Ripper)
MP3Tag (Tag editor)
CheckWavpackFiles (Wavpack tool)


COMMERICAL:

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom (Photography)
Title: Essential Software
Post by: zima on 2007-04-07 19:29:04
http://www.faststone.org/FSMaxViewDetail.htm (http://www.faststone.org/FSMaxViewDetail.htm) minimalitic image viewer, very fast (it seems to do precaching of files like for example Picasa...but I want my images to be associated with lightweight image viewer, not album organiser)

update: after a month of usage I came to conclusion that, while FSMaxView has interface that I like more for fast image viewing and when loaded diplays images very fast (thanks to caching probably), starting of Irfanview is still noticeably faster...

http://www.cccp-project.net/ (http://www.cccp-project.net/) Combined Community Codec Pack, seems to cause much, much less troubles than "old" codec packs (background: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_Community_Codec_Pack (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_Community_Codec_Pack) )


PS. Why so many people seem compelled to add to this thread software that was mentioned many times and is generally widely known?...
Title: Essential Software
Post by: apul on 2007-04-07 20:16:05
Here's my very essential Windows toolbox:
ACDSee Classic 2.44
Crap Cleaner
foobar2000
Foxit PDF Reader (http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php)
Miranda
HijackThis 1.99.1 (http://www.merijn.org/programs.php#hijackthis)
ImgBurn (http://www.imgburn.com/)
McAfee AVERT Stinger (http://vil.nai.com/vil/stinger/)
Mozilla Firefox
ProcessExplorer (http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/utilities/ProcessExplorer.mspx)
TLCP (http://tlcp.tzim.net/?tlcp_intro_en) (FFDShow & MPC)
Unlocker (http://ccollomb.free.fr/unlocker/)
WinRAR

The others:
Any Video Converter (http://www.any-video-converter.com/products/for_video/) (last freeware v1.2.1 (http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=512255))
Burrrn (http://www.burrrn.net/?page_id=4)
CDex (http://sourceforge.net/projects/cdexos/)
DAEMON Tools
Microsoft Office ($)
Mp3tag
Nero Micro 7.x.
NOD32 or BitDefender Standard
VLC (http://www.videolan.org/) or GOM (http://www.gomplayer.com/main.html) or MPUI (http://mpui.sourceforge.net/)
LockNote (https://www.steganos.com/?content=locknote&language=en)
PhotoFiltre Studio (http://www.photofiltre-studio.com/) ($)
UXTheme Multi-Patcher (http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=140707)



Updated: 29 May 2007
Title: Essential Software
Post by: pepoluan on 2007-04-09 07:51:44
I have been using Comodo Firewall Pro, it's great! As good as ZoneAlarm Pro, but far far far lighter on resources, and free!

http://www.comodo.com/ (http://www.comodo.com/)

Oh, and for a (moderated) list of freewares (and freewares only, no shareware, etc.), see this thread on Comodo's forums:

http://forums.comodo.com/index.php/topic,1731.0.html (http://forums.comodo.com/index.php/topic,1731.0.html)

PS. Why so many people seem compelled to add to this thread software that was mentioned many times and is generally widely known?...
Because we are listing what we are using on our PC. And apparently, many of us thought uniformly
Title: Essential Software
Post by: zima on 2007-04-10 17:53:19
...
PS. Why so many people seem compelled to add to this thread software that was mentioned many times and is generally widely known?...
Because we are listing what we are using on our PC. And apparently, many of us thought uniformly

Well...no, this thread is "Essential Software, Software that you shouldn't live without", not "Software you're using on your PC". Yes, the post by thread starter was essentially the latter...but for some reason at the beginning people didn't duplicate much (and it was much easier to read/sort through recommendations that way)
Title: Essential Software
Post by: gameplaya15143 on 2007-05-10 15:22:40
Avisynth (http://www.avisynth.org)

.. the real reason I'm not using linux 

I don't know how people can survive without it.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: skelly831 on 2007-05-14 06:28:40
Some of my favorites that haven't been mentioned are:

FastStone Capture (http://www.faststone.org/FSCaptureDetail.htm), a very powerful screen capture utility, saves to BMP, PNG, JPG, PDF, GIF, custom delay time, several capture modes (full screen, active window, any other window, custom selection, freehand), and is one of the very few screen capture utilities that can correctly capture third-party window effects like YzShadow.

Taskbar Shuffle (http://www.freewebs.com/nerdcave/taskbarshuffle.htm), manage your taskbar buttons in the same manner as your firefox tabs, drag-n-drop to rearrange, close with middle-click, etc.

Cream (http://cream.sourceforge.net/), Vim with a modified and more user-friendly UI.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: smok3 on 2007-05-22 09:49:47
and a runfast replacer;
http://launchy.net/ (http://launchy.net/)
Quote
Launchy is a free windows utility designed to help you forget about your start menu, the icons on your desktop, and even your file manager.

Launchy indexes the programs in your start menu and can launch your documents, project files, folders, and bookmarks with just a few keystrokes!

ok, it did not replace the file manager, but everything else. It does beat similar launchers thanks to fast config, since it has internal spider.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: dewey1973 on 2007-05-23 06:15:07
Some of my favorites that haven't been mentioned are:

FastStone Capture (http://www.faststone.org/FSCaptureDetail.htm)


Just a quick FYI...  The newest version of FastStone Capture is no longer free for home use.  I was SO disappointed to come to that realization.  Do not run out and upgrade!
Title: Essential Software
Post by: skelly831 on 2007-05-27 04:17:47
Just a quick FYI...  The newest version of FastStone Capture is no longer free for home use.  I was SO disappointed to come to that realization.  Do not run out and upgrade!

I did notice that, so for your screenshooting pleasure, here's FastStione Capture 5.3 (http://www.sendspace.com/file/ij1vhs) (the last free version)

BTW, Another miscellaneous app I like is Pitaschio (http://pitaschio.ara3.net/index.htm), it offers some cool desktop tweaks like small icons, custom icon text color, per window transparency (via scroll wheel, awesome feature) and loads of customizable mouse+keyboard shorcuts.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: Dr. Oviri on 2007-05-28 21:55:45
Delphi and a lot of imagination... the rest doesn't need   
Title: Essential Software
Post by: neomoe on 2007-05-28 22:50:47
recently switched to apple macintosh os x:

I won't link firefox, thunderbird, skype, the iLife stuff, adiumX (multi-protocol IM), VLC, StuffIt and the like, because I consider those standard apps for OS X


other software I like most:


Fan Control (http://www.lobotomo.com/products/FanControl/): system preferences extension for customising the fan speed ( > a lauder but colder mac or a quieter but hotter mac) (free)

colloquy (http://colloquy.info/): teh irc-client for the mac (free)

uApp (http://www.eagle-of-liberty.com/index_en.php): you think dragging an app to the trash deletes it completely? well, that's not the case. (free)

TinkeTool (http://www.bresink.de/osx/TinkerTool.html): hidden system-preferences; a nice little app (free)

SyncTwoFolders (http://perso.orange.fr/tcfj/site/Prg_AutresRB.html): guess what. (free)

ProVoc (http://www.arizona-software.ch/applications/provoc/de/): helps you learn foreign languages . (free)

pdfLab (http://www.iconus.ch/fabien/pdflab/): split and join pdfs. (free)

GoPod (http://gopod.free-go.net/): circumvent the loudness restrictions of EU-iPods. (free)

rename4mac (http://www.power4mac.com/renamer/index.php?page=description&file=〈=de&sid=734e661fcfd8e7ef45a8d3e11e448806): batch rename several files. (free)

Neooffice (http://www.neooffice.org/neojava/de/index.php): OpenOffice for the mac (doesnt require X11) (free)

MenuShade (http://www.nullriver.com/index/products): a little application enhancer to dim the menu bar. (free)

SuperDuper! (http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html): easy Backup utility. (free)
CarbonCopyCloner (http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html): replaces SuperDuper! because it lets you do a backup as soon as the external drive is attached which is very convenient for laptop users.

senuti (http://www.fadingred.org/senuti/): copy music off your ipod. (free)

MainMenu (http://www.santasw.com/): OSX maintenance tool. (free)

transmission (http://transmission.m0k.org/): bittorrent-client (free)

cleardock (http://www.unsanity.com/products/free): to alter the dock (free)

anacron OS X (http://members.cox.net/18james/anacron-tiger.html): to run the repeating maintenance script even when the mac isn't up 24/7 (free)

Coolbook (http://www.coolbook.se/CoolBook.html): a tool to undervolt the CPU > reduces heat and therefor fan noise. (around 10 EUR) TOP!

DeLocalizer (http://www.bombich.com/software/local.html): to remove unnecessary language files; safes much disk space! (free)

folderglance (http://home.online.no/~stoedle/YLS/YLS-products/FolderGlance.html): browse folders by contextual menu. (free)

quicksilver (http://quicksilver.blacktree.com/) man, u need that. way more than simply a launcher. (free)



software for audio, video:


handbrake (http://handbrake.m0k.org/): a tool for ripping DVDs compressed to your harddrive. (free)

Max (http://sbooth.org/Max/): a ripper, transcoder. check out the other apps on that site. (free)

flip4mac (http://www.flipformac.com/download.htm): windows media codecs.

GimmeSomeTune (http://www.eternalstorms.at/gimmesometune/index.html): fetches artwork and lyrics for songs played by iTunes in the background and displays the artwork. (free)

iScrobbler (http://www.bergstrand.org/brian/software/bin/iscrobbler.2.1.2.dmg): scrobble current iTunes played songs to last.fm in a unoptrusive manner.

MediaRage (http://www.chaoticsoftware.com/ProductPages/MediaRage.html): sadly the only tagging app which can compete with windows applications. (around 24 EUR) (of course there is tag.app and tritag.app but neither of them has all one needs.)

iVolume (http://www.mani.de/de/software/macosx/ivolume/index.html): sadly the only ReplayGain implemention for the mac. (12 EUR)

airfoil (http://www.rogueamoeba.com/airfoil/mac/): stream any system sound to (multiple) airport express stations. (around 25 EUR)





edit: added more applications.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: smok3 on 2007-05-29 10:32:25
ReplayGain implemention for the mac. (12 EUR)

anything wrong with the itunes implementation?
Title: Essential Software
Post by: neomoe on 2007-05-29 11:25:48
it's fast but it is not as accurate as ReplayGain. even I can tell the difference. sometimes you will have to adjust the loudness of a song manually to get equal loudness to other songs. and the SoudCheck function doesn't know AlbumGain or something comparable.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: gameplaya15143 on 2007-05-29 23:06:00
Taskbar Shuffle (http://www.freewebs.com/nerdcave/taskbarshuffle.htm), manage your taskbar buttons in the same manner as your firefox tabs, drag-n-drop to rearrange, close with middle-click, etc.
I've used taskbarshuffle for a while.  I tried to stop using it... started goin nuts after 2 minutes 

gif optimizer (http://www.inicom.net/pages/en.products-freeware.php#f3)
It sometimes even beats pngout in filesize  .. and it's instant-fast.
There seems to be a small bug where it removes completely transparent frames from animations.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: skelly831 on 2007-05-30 03:44:43

Taskbar Shuffle (http://www.freewebs.com/nerdcave/taskbarshuffle.htm), manage your taskbar buttons in the same manner as your firefox tabs, drag-n-drop to rearrange, close with middle-click, etc.
I've used taskbarshuffle for a while.  I tried to stop using it... started goin nuts after 2 minutes 

I have Pitaschio setup to minimize windows with a middle-click on the titlebar, and taskbar shuffle to close windows with a middle-click on the taskbar button, after a while it feels these are native Windows functions! I also disable the minimize/maximize animations for a "quicker" feel.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: Hollunder on 2007-06-16 17:28:25
Avisynth (http://www.avisynth.org)

.. the real reason I'm not using linux 

I don't know how people can survive without it.


http://avisynth3.unite-video.com/ (http://avisynth3.unite-video.com/)

I guess you can switch now 


essential if you want to learn neo or dvorak or any other layout: http://ktouch.sourceforge.net/ (http://ktouch.sourceforge.net/) ; http://klavaro.sourceforge.net/ (http://klavaro.sourceforge.net/)
Title: Essential Software
Post by: smok3 on 2007-06-17 12:28:58
Hollunder; this is not in the usefull state right now and also the plugins are incompatible with version 2.5x (so keep your xp install...) 
Title: Essential Software
Post by: sthayashi on 2007-06-19 03:14:56
and a runfast replacer;
http://launchy.net/ (http://launchy.net/)

I have to say, I've been using this for 2 weeks now based on Smok3's recommendation, and it's darn useful, but not necessarily for launching programs.  I point this at my music collection (which is semi-organized) and I can just type something part of the title or artist, and *boom* it finds it.

(Yes, I realize that other music players incorporate this feature, but it's never really felt this elegant before).
Title: Essential Software
Post by: pepoluan on 2007-06-19 23:00:00
and a runfast replacer;http://launchy.net/ (http://launchy.net/)
I have to say, I've been using this for 2 weeks now based on Smok3's recommendation, and it's darn useful, but not necessarily for launching programs.  I point this at my music collection (which is semi-organized) and I can just type something part of the title or artist, and *boom* it finds it.

(Yes, I realize that other music players incorporate this feature, but it's never really felt this elegant before).
The beauty is that you don't have to start your music player first  that's what makes it elegant



gifoptimizer (http://www.inicom.net/pages/en.products-freeware.php#f3)
It sometimes even beats pngout in filesize  .. and it's instant-fast.
Ah, you're comparing apples to oranges ... GIF's with only 256 colors (8-bit) will most of the time be smaller than a PNG with 16.7 million colors (24-bit).

You have to ensure that PNGOUT will output an 8-bit PNG, and thus the result should always be similar, most likely smaller.

Also if the GIF's got some colors thrown out, e.g. reducing it from 8-bit to 4-bit, you must also make sure PNGOUT outputs 4-bit (which I'm not sure it is capable or not).
Title: Essential Software
Post by: Jojo on 2007-06-20 00:06:22
Abakt (http://www.xs4all.nl/~edienske/abakt/) - an excellent lightweight  backup tool that can act as a front end for 7-zip. Highly recommended.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: TREX6662k6 on 2007-06-20 01:09:33

and a runfast replacer;
http://launchy.net/ (http://launchy.net/)

I have to say, I've been using this for 2 weeks now based on Smok3's recommendation, and it's darn useful, but not necessarily for launching programs.  I point this at my music collection (which is semi-organized) and I can just type something part of the title or artist, and *boom* it finds it.

(Yes, I realize that other music players incorporate this feature, but it's never really felt this elegant before).


HOT DAMN! I'll experiment more with this later. Looks really interesting from the screen shots. I typically run everything from the Run dialogue box. Notepad, IExplore, msconfig, services.msc, gpedit, taskmgr...cant be bothered to use the mouse or startmenus
Title: Essential Software
Post by: smok3 on 2007-06-20 21:23:54
yeah, whats interesting is that it can actually read your mind, screenshot:
(http://somestuff.org/blog/images/launchy_can_read_your_mind.png)
Title: Essential Software
Post by: kwanbis on 2007-06-28 17:07:09
EditPlus is not free. It's cheap, though. And if you have low moral fiber (like moi ) you dismiss the registration reminder with a click and no functionality is gone.

To be honest, and i have been testing text editors for years, the best one so far is UltraEdit. Whatever you think, it does, and it does on the way you think it should do it.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: smok3 on 2007-08-13 08:44:13
http://sourceforge.net/projects/console (http://sourceforge.net/projects/console)

Quote
Console is a Windows console window enhancement. Console features include: multiple tabs, text editor-like text selection, different background types, alpha and color-key transparency, configurable font, different window styles


this is how cool it may look:
(http://blog.somestuff.org/images/console_rusty.jpg)
Title: Essential Software
Post by: pepoluan on 2007-08-15 19:41:04
smok3, that's kewl! Although not strictly an essential tool for me (I think), I have to install it -- just to out-cool my fellow admins
Title: Essential Software
Post by: smok3 on 2007-08-15 21:27:52
pepoluan, you are right, it is not essential, basically just a skin
Title: Essential Software
Post by: ExUser on 2007-08-16 00:06:06
Actually, it's got a killer feature that the standard console lacks: width resizing!

It's a fantastic app. Thanks for the pointer, smok3.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: rjamorim on 2007-08-26 03:23:29
Actually, it's got a killer feature that the standard console lacks: width resizing!


You can define the console width in characters in the properties dialog. Since at least Win2000.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: smok3 on 2007-08-26 19:43:39
Actually, it's got a killer feature that the standard console lacks: width resizing!


You can define the console width in characters in the properties dialog. Since at least Win2000.

obviously he is talking about interactive resizing.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: smok3 on 2007-11-23 14:06:03
nice & simple 'console' calc:
(http://ccalc.shanebweb.com/images/getccalc.gif) (http://ccalc.shanebweb.com/)
Title: Essential Software
Post by: Squeller on 2007-12-01 19:05:09
Automatic Wallpaper Changer (http://awc.smurphy.co.uk/)

Regarding automatic wallpaper changing, there's a ms powertoy (which works, but hasn't many options) plus a lot of DYSFUNCTIONAL CRAP out there. Avoid using all these. AWC is what you need. Well done plus a good command line interface.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: pepoluan on 2007-12-06 19:05:56
nice & simple 'console' calc:
[a href="http://ccalc.shanebweb.com/" target="_blank"]

Thanks, smok3!
Title: Essential Software
Post by: Squeller on 2007-12-11 19:14:02
From the mac world, nice one: http://rocketdock.com/ (http://rocketdock.com/)
Title: Essential Software
Post by: smok3 on 2007-12-25 12:09:32
launchy 2 is out, http://www.launchy.net/ (http://www.launchy.net/)

2.0.0
• Launchy has been completely rewritten with QT
o Your old plugins/skins will no longer work
o Your old configuration will be wiped
• A new look! New icons and skin thanks to Tyler Sticka
• Much better skinning support
• Options merged into a single, tabbed dialog
• Skin selection now shows previews
• Plugins much more configurable
• Launchy can hide when it loses focus
• Fade in/out effects
• Customizable transparency
• Optional shallow scan of directories
• Unicode support for Firefox bookmarks
• Vista support
• It’s just better.


---
another one:
pathSync, http://www.cockos.com/pathsync/ (http://www.cockos.com/pathsync/)

an interactive directory (path) synchronizer for windows
Title: Essential Software
Post by: pepoluan on 2008-01-21 07:12:32
launchy 2 is out, http://www.launchy.net/ (http://www.launchy.net/)

2.0.0


Does it work with Windows 2003? 1.5 didn't (it crashed), so I had to revert all the way to 1.0.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: SamHain86 on 2008-02-02 18:44:13
I've been pointed to plenty of forums with threads just like this. This one is my current favorite (http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?t=126832).

So here are some more pages:

By the way, I LOVE Launchy 2.0.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: zima on 2008-03-10 16:33:23
http://www.mediachance.com/free/multimon.htm (http://www.mediachance.com/free/multimon.htm)

Very usefull little tool if you have two or three monitors; and, unlike Ultramon, free and "carefully written" part seems to be true
Quote
What it does:

* It adds second taskbar to the extended desktop on Monitor 2 (either right or left)
* It can add third taskbar to the second Extended monitor if you have 3 monitors setup.
* It shows only applications from that Monitor
* It hides the applications on Monitor 2 from normal Windows Taskbar
* Adds a Move to Monitor button to all windows applications.
* Add Text Clipboard Extender (new 1.1.)
* Very carefully written, I don't want to crash my own desktop!
Title: Essential Software
Post by: WavSlave on 2008-04-16 07:53:56
It's always nice to see someone else extol the virtues of 4NT.  It's so much better than CMD (in my opinion) that the two shouldn't even be mentioned in the same sentence.

And for those of you (okay, us) that still have a machine or two running much older versions of Windows, know that even 4DOS still gets the occasional update at the 4DOS Revived! (http://4dos.hit.bg) page.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: smok3 on 2008-04-17 11:23:33
'basic' scriptwriting proggy, based on mozilla;
http://www.celtx.com/ (http://www.celtx.com/)

pros: simple to use, you can just write and not think about formating stuff
cons: primitive co-op usage, some really basic things are missing
Title: Essential Software
Post by: zima on 2008-06-19 00:32:54
Can't believe I haven't mentioned it yet... (and nobody else did)

Google Talk (http://www.google.com/talk/) (downloadable windows client)

It's a Jabber IM client (can only use Google/Gmail Jabber account though, but of course you can communicate via text with users of other Jabber servers) that's, for me, as close to perfect IM as it gets.

Great VoIP - compared to Skype, it's equally fine on good connections, but much better on crappy ones. Small, simple, non-bloated, to the point, easy to install/configure/use - perfect when you want to talk via VoIP with somebody not computer savvy.

Unfortunatelly it doesn't have video yet, and its VoIP capability, based on open sourced Jingle library, is just starting to be implemented properly in other Jabber clients, so for now you're basically limited to original Gtalk client/Windows/Gmail Jabber account.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: smok3 on 2008-06-19 12:44:55
+1 at great voip in google talk, team playing bf2 was a joy (shame i don't have time for that anymore) and i didn't know it is jabber compatible (how to (ab)use) that?
Title: Essential Software
Post by: zima on 2008-07-04 19:05:07
It's not "Jabber compatible", it IS Jabber. You can actually use any Jabber client you like to connect with your Gmail jabber account, Google even provides easy configuration descriptions: http://www.google.com/support/talk/bin/topic.py?topic=1415 (http://www.google.com/support/talk/bin/topic.py?topic=1415)
Of course proper Jingle/VoIP is present at the moment only in original Gtalk client...but other clients, which are capable of connecting to other servers, are getting close (Coccinella and Kopete are closest to that goal, I think...adn there are also at least two apps for Symbian that allow connecting with Gmail jabber account and using VoIP)
Title: Essential Software
Post by: Squeller on 2008-08-10 11:37:50
File Menu tools from http://www.lopesoft.com/en/index.html (http://www.lopesoft.com/en/index.html)

Organises your explorer context menu. It has some very useful commands. I needed "Copy content" which copies file content to clipboard with one click. Very useful if you embed CUEs or Logs to audio files.

(http://www.lopesoft.com/en/fmtools/screenshots/FileMenuTools_tn2.jpg)
Title: Essential Software
Post by: smok3 on 2008-09-06 09:01:33
for winxp only at this moment, the browser:
http://www.google.com/chrome (http://www.google.com/chrome)
Title: Essential Software
Post by: Kitsuned on 2008-09-06 22:12:31
for winxp only at this moment, the browser:
http://www.google.com/chrome (http://www.google.com/chrome)


Pretty darn fast, but there's still work to be done.  Good first beta though.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: pepoluan on 2009-03-17 13:55:47
Hmm... are we running out of essential software nowadays?
Title: Essential Software
Post by: zima on 2009-03-21 12:05:33
Listed programs didn't dissapear anywhere from what I can tell...

But a bit more seriously - hey, it's a good thing, means that needs of many computer users are fulfilled quite good, at least in the confines of current UI paradigm.

Low level of activity in this thread is also a byproduct of the fact that, thankfully, we menaged to stop turning it into "post what software you use" (which would be useless/impossible to browse), instead usually trying to post things only if they weren't mentioned yet. Makes it much more clear and useful.

And with having in mind making this post more useful, few small essential apps that I've come to use (after checking they weren't mentioned via "Search Topic" function of course  )

SMPlayer (http://smplayer.sourceforge.net/) - how on Earth I haven't mentioned that... (been using it for quite some time) For me it's essentially "foobar of video" - very nice (but simple) frontend to MPlayer, very light, fast, low on CPU usage, not relying on Windows/dshow codecs and beeing able to play basically any format (especially after simply copying, no installation required, Binary Codec Package from MPlayer homesite (http://www.mplayerhq.hu/design7/dload.html) )

SpeedFan (http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php) - as above, how I couldn't mention it for so long... Very light, no-bloatware, system temperatures, fan speeds and HDD S.M.A.R.T. monitoring app.

Duplicate Files Finder (http://doubles.sourceforge.net/) - does what its name says; and indeed, when compared with few other apps I've tried, its speed claims seem well grounded. Plus it's also very non-bloatware style app.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: zima on 2009-03-25 07:15:34
Wackget - small, fast, very non-bloatware download app was mentioned few times...however its homesite is down for a long time. You could download the version that was there from some software download sites, however:

Since it was, I believe, open source somebody took it and updated a bit with new version of wget, giving it larger files support and SSL.

Wackget 1.2.3 (http://trog.qgl.org/20061030/wackget-v123/)
Title: Essential Software
Post by: 2E7AH on 2009-11-27 09:48:01
After seeing this post (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=76499) about useful free apps, and because I didn't saw STDU Viewer (http://www.stdutility.com/stduviewer.html) there (no marketing at all I guess) I would like to promote it here:

It's free PDF/DJVU/XPS... reader and fastest I know off (it's even fast on P1 with reasonable documents), with features like slim view, tabbed documents, bookmarks, great search (regexp option), restore document state at opening...

What else could one want for reading/browsing pleasure?
I would recommend it to a friend
Title: Essential Software
Post by: Haf on 2011-02-26 00:36:36
Windows Blinds (Windows theme software)
Firefox (Internet browser freeware)
PHP-Designer (Multilanguage editor software)
Rainmeter (Desktop cuztomising freeware)
Propellerhead Reason (Music making software)
Foobar2000 (Music player freeware)
Fraps (Screenshot software)
Steam (Online-store source for PC games)
Photoshop CS5 (Image editing software)
Deamon Tools (Virual CD/DVD drives freeware/software)
AVG Internet Antivirus (Antivirus software)


Title: Essential Software
Post by: sthayashi on 2011-04-22 20:38:25
wow some of the older stuff that I posted on here is really dated.

One piece of software that I discovered a couple years ago has proven to be quite useful now and then for me: XVI32 (http://www.chmaas.handshake.de/delphi/freeware/xvi32/xvi32.htm), a freeware hex editor.

Now some of the recommended software here already includes a hex editor with everything else.  I'm not a big fan of one piece of software that can do everything.  I prefer things that have a specific task for a specific use.  XVI32 is that way for me.  If you need to look at or look for raw bytes in a file, this is the tool to do it.  It's stripped down compared to WinHex, which was recommended in the very first post, but I think it's better for looking at files.
Title: Essential Software
Post by: Dude111 on 2011-12-01 05:51:50
Here is my list of favourite SW

DISK CLEANER - http://www.diskcleaner.nl/download (http://www.diskcleaner.nl/download) (Best TEMP FILE REMOVER i have ever found)

REGSEEKER - http://www.hoverdesk.net/freeware.htm (http://www.hoverdesk.net/freeware.htm) (BEST REG CLEANER I HAVE EVER FOUND (First time using it removed over 800 keys!)) Plus it does so much more.....

MyIE2 - http://www.oldversion.com/download_Maxthon_0.9.27.html (http://www.oldversion.com/download_Maxthon_0.9.27.html) (BEST BROWSER I HAVE EVER FOUND (Uses the IE engine with an option for Gecko (Version 9.27.68)))

RESTORATION - http://www3.telus.net/mikebike/RESTORATION.html (http://www3.telus.net/mikebike/RESTORATION.html) (RESTORATION.ZIP (Best UNDELETE/TOTAL REMOVE program i have ever found))

DR. TCP - http://www.dslreports.com/drtcp (http://www.dslreports.com/drtcp) (Excellent program to TWEAK your settings for faster speeds,etc)

SCREAMER RADIO - http://www.screamer-radio.com (http://www.screamer-radio.com) (BEST RADIO APP I HAVE EVER FOUND)
Title: Essential Software
Post by: zima on 2013-03-09 16:25:43
If you happen to have an old bt848, bt849, or bt878 (or related later Connexant chips, I believe) analogue TV card, DScaler will give it a new life (assuming you still have analogue TV signals at your place  ...or want to convert to DVDs those old VHS tapes; or have a digital TV tuner/converter box):
http://deinterlace.sourceforge.net/ (http://deinterlace.sourceforge.net/)

Alternatively, K!TV is another very good option: http://www.kastortv.org/ (http://www.kastortv.org/)

I always saw them as similar to foobar2k - light and powerful.