Free Software Exchange

[HAL]

I need some new free programs to play with such as utilities or anything useful. If you have a favorite then please post a link to it here with a description.

Here's my offering -

MyDefrag is a disk defragmenter and optimizer (a maintenance utility to make your harddisk faster) for Windows 2000, 2003, XP, Vista, 2008, Win7, and for X64. It is freeware, no time limit, fully functional, no advertisements. Fast, low overhead, with many optimization strategies, can handle floppies, USB disks, memory sticks, and anything else that looks like a disk to Windows. Included are a set of easy to use scripts for endusers, a scripting engine for demanding users, a screensaver, and a combined Windows plus commandline version that can be scheduled by the Windows task scheduler or for use from administrator scripts.

http://www.mydefrag.com/

[Whitney]

probably not what you are looking for...but I like inkscape:  http://www.inkscape.org/

  What is Inkscape?

Inkscape is an open-source vector graphics editor similar to Adobe Illustrator, Corel Draw, Freehand, or Xara X. What sets Inkscape apart is its use of Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG), an open XML-based W3C standard, as the native format.

[HAL]

probably not what you are looking for...but I like inkscape.

Oh I don't know - I was thinking of making some banners for the forum. 

[Jim]

3D modeling/rendering/animating/compositing: blender.org
music notation and playback: musescore.org
easy-peasy Java for artists: processing.org
video playback: VLC at videolan.org
nifty doodling program: Alchemy at al.chemy.org
sound editing: audacity.org

All free, all cross platform

[Whitney]

Oh I don't know - I was thinking of making some banners for the forum. 

ha...

In that case you might want to try GIMP: http://www.gimp.org/

[Madbunny]

http://www.cccp-project.net/

Includes VLC, and with the current codec pack you should be able to play pretty much anything out there.  Plus, the media player classic, is in my opinion better than the new bloated version.

http://www.acidplanet.com/downloads/xpress/

Sony Acid, a kick ass music and sound editing program.  Compatible with a all sorts of stuff and scalable like you wouldn't believe.

Here is a typical sound clip done using it.

( It's lame because it was a sample meant to be used by my students for a project.)

[Peter B.]

Oh I don't know - I was thinking of making some banners for the forum. 

Reading comments like this, i'm always glad i got my Stress Relief 2.0:

Are you mad at your computer (my note: Or mad at commentators at the other end of the web)? Do you want to throw a hammer at it (or them)? Now you can with Stress Relief. Use a Hammer, Chainsaw, Gun, Flame Thrower, Color Thrower, Phaser, Stamp, Termites, and a Washer.

 

[HAL]

C'mon Peter! What'dya think of my banner! 

[The Crystalline Entity]

Some that use (trying very hard to migrate to near total open source)
PC:
VLC (standard def video)
Media Player classic (HD Video though VLC is catching up with hardware decoding)
WinAMP (music playback, this one is kind of a throwback but it remains the most unobtrusive music play with the right skin and widow size IMO)
GIMP (image editing)
Boxee (home media center. I Might change though)
Handbreak (video conversion has recently replaced DVD Decrypter and/or DVD Shrink)
uTorrent
Minefield! (New Firefox alfa containing Tab Candy the most awesomest revelation in recent browser history)
7zip (best compression utility evar!)
graphCalc (graphing calculator replacement for windows calc)
open office (gets better every update)
Ditto (tracks and stores ALL items saved to your clipboard!)
Steam (if you have to ask you'll never know!)
Virtual Clone Drive (Disc mounting)
Spybot SD, CWShredder, Hijack this (for when I get teh AIDS)
DBaN (for total data destruction!)
BackTrack 3 (need to upgrade but I'm still learning .... )
PuTTY (Telnet and SSH for Windows and Unix platforms)
Microsoft network monitor 3.4
Skype

Mac:
VLC
Boxee
Burn (slightly more detailed extensions for OSX's native burning utility)
uTorrent
carbon copy cloner (Used occasionally for data backup)
WaterRoof (IPFW Firewall Frontend Still debating NoobProof)
Minefield!
Drop Folders (automating converting of video files with Handbrake)
Handbrake
Stuffit expander (compression utility, requires a junk email address to register for product ads)
Tinkertool (OSX hidden settings exposer)
Open Office
Steam
PuTTY
Skype
Experimenting with Squared 5 (MPEG Streamclip is a powerful high-quality video converter, player, editor for MPEG, QuickTime, transport streams, iPod. And now it is a DivX editor and encoding machine, and even a stream and YouTube downloader.)


These are just what I can think of off the top of my head there's more!  Anytime I feel lonely I head over to SourceForge and look for new stuff (though not out here).  I'm still searching for a decent burning ROM for windows and Open Office still has a long way to come with MS Office integration but it is by far the best suite available. 

[HAL]

The Ditto app is very useful.

[Ambassador pony1976]

bm