i respect software i pay for, as it often comes with support, upgrades, warranty, and the money you shell out is supposed to indicate usefulness and stability.
however, i am starting to become a fan of what is referred to as opensource software (for those of you unfamiliar with this - it is software whose sourcecode is publicly available, and is developed by teams or groups of people working on it. the code is protected by copyright and licenses. the same licenses also protect the users by keeping it public and free. use of the code, or parts of the code require the end product to be distrubuted under the same licenses the original code was developed under).
let's just say, there's a lot of brilliant people out there, creating free versions of software that cost big bucks. because they think the development model works better. fixes bugs faster. and because they think it should benefit everyone.
anyway.... here are some utilities that i've been using, or have switched to. not all are opensource (most are though), although all of the ones listed here are freeware - at time of listing. (sorry, a although many of these utilities are cross-platform, i am primarily a windows user.)
- firefox - www.getfirefox.com web-broswer, part of the mozilla project
- freemind - http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page mind mapping utility, comparable to mindmanager, etc. having trouble getting organized, working on a project or outline? this thing is fabulous
- task switch xp - http://www.ntwind.com/software/taskswitchxp.html? alt-tab manager (what windows should have, and isn't)
- nvu - http://www.nvu.com/index.php cross platform web authoring.
- pspad - http://www.pspad.com/ universal editor for plain text/coding.
- zinf - http://www.zinf.org/ audio player
- google sketchup - http://sketchup.google.com/ easy 3-d modelling (very cool)
- cdburnerxp pro - http://www.cdburnerxp.se/ cd burning software (audio/video in development, but a good general burning program)
- deepburner - http://www.deepburner.com/ another free (for personal use) cd burner package. this one has a usb key/portable edition!
- imgburn - http://www.imgburn.com/ cd image burning software (iso, bin, etc)
- open office - http://www.openoffice.org/ office productivity suite (like, well.... office!)
- irfanview - http://www.irfanview.com/ fast, small windows graphics viewer
- audiograbber - http://www.audiograbber.com-us.net/ windows cd ripper/audio encoder (check out the lame encoder)
- colorpic - http://www.iconico.com/colorpic/ windows color picking utility - supports custom color palettes, uses a screen magnifier for precision
- dia - http://www.gnome.org/projects/dia/ a program for drawing structured diagrams (think visio style)
- the font thing - http://members.ozemail.com.au/~scef/tft.html windows font manager.
- ultravnc - http://ultravnc.sourceforge.net/ remote computer desktop control.
- axcrypt - http://axcrypt.axantum.com/ file encryption for windows
- gimp - http://www.gimp.org/ gnu image manipulation program (think free photoshop. sure, it's not quite as user friendly - but it is almost as powerful)
- inkscape - http://www.inkscape.org/ vector graphics editor (think illustrator, or corel)
- porta - http://www.stegmann.dk/mikkel/porta/ web photo album generator (uses simpleviewer)
- airtight interactive - puts out a couple extremely cool flash based image viewers gratis. check out simpleviewer, and postcard viewer. porta (see above) is one tool available to help easily create albums, but you can also use picasa, iphoto, or go manual.)
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