
-----------------------------------
BigBear
Wed Feb 06, 2008 4:39 pm

Useful Free Programs
-----------------------------------
I am always glad when I find a useful free program such as Mozilla Firefox. 

Please post all useful programs you may happen to come across. These programs can be useful for any task such as editing pictures or games etc.

Useful Free Programs I have found :

CCleaner
A Cookie/Temp cleaner and  basics registry fixer (www.ccleaner.com)

Firefox
A browser with custom skins and add-ons (www.mozilla.com/firefox)

Foxit Reader
A small, quick loader PDF reader (www.foxitsoftware.com)

Frets on Fire 
A guitar hero based game uses keyboard or guitar hero or rock band guitar and custom songs with note editor (fretsonfire.sourceforge.net)

itunes
A music player with a store and many features (www.apple.com/itunes/download)

Open Office 
A complete Suite includes Word Processing, Database, Calc, Impress, Math, Draw (download.openoffice.org)

Stepmania
A DDR based game can be used with custom songs with step editor or user downloaded songs and computer dance pad. (www.stepmania.com/ )

Moffsoft Calculator
A calculator (www.moffsoft.com/downloads.htm)

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michaelp
Wed Feb 06, 2008 8:03 pm

RE:Useful Free Programs
-----------------------------------
Tune XP 1.5
http://www.download.com/TuneXP/3000-2086_4-10290929.html

Tweak XP utility:
http://www.tweakxp.com/tweakutility/

These are the only ones I can think of. And CCleaner, which is already posted.

http://forums.qj.net/f-everything-windows-15/t-free-software-list-41908.html

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Mackie
Wed Feb 06, 2008 8:41 pm

Re: Useful Free Programs
-----------------------------------
[url=http://www.nchsoftware.com/ftp/index.html]Fling FTP: Constantly uploads any changes to your Hard disk to a web server, the best auto backup ever!

[url=http://www.getpaint.net/]Paint.NET: Awseome image editor, for Windows. It does a few neat things The Gimp doesn't.

[url=http://www.gimp.org/]The Gimp: Another awesome free image editor, works with most Photoshop plug-ins. It also picks up the slack where Paint.Net fails.

[url=http://www.blender.org/]Blender: Awesome free 3D editor.

[url=http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird/]Thunderbird: Best Email client ever!

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PaulButler
Wed Feb 06, 2008 8:45 pm

RE:Useful Free Programs
-----------------------------------
Linux

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Mackie
Wed Feb 06, 2008 8:47 pm

Re: RE:Useful Free Programs
-----------------------------------
Linux

Touche

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Tony
Wed Feb 06, 2008 10:01 pm

RE:Useful Free Programs
-----------------------------------
All of the software you might want (functionality wise) is available for free and open source.

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Bobrobyn
Wed Feb 06, 2008 10:38 pm

Re: RE:Useful Free Programs
-----------------------------------
All of the software you might want (functionality wise) is available for free and open source.

Agreed.  All the software I use on a daily basis is free and/or open source.

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Euphoracle
Wed Feb 06, 2008 10:58 pm

RE:Useful Free Programs
-----------------------------------
However, all of the software you are forced to use by various institutions are not! :(

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Tony
Wed Feb 06, 2008 11:23 pm

Re: RE:Useful Free Programs
-----------------------------------
various institutions
Your high school?

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Bobrobyn
Wed Feb 06, 2008 11:32 pm

Re: RE:Useful Free Programs
-----------------------------------
However, all of the software you are forced to use by various institutions are not! :(

My university's compsci program has some flavour of linux in all it's labs.  So, no, not really.  One thing that disappointed me, though, was our resume's for our co-op program are required to be in .doc format (they're submitted online).

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PaulButler
Thu Feb 07, 2008 12:11 am

Re: RE:Useful Free Programs
-----------------------------------
However, all of the software you are forced to use by various institutions are not! :(

My university's compsci program has some flavour of linux in all it's labs.  So, no, not really.  One thing that disappointed me, though, was our resume's for our co-op program are required to be in .doc format (they're submitted online).

Yeah, universities tend to be more friendly toward OSS than other institutions. Unfortunately software that comes with text books is usually Win/Mac only, but that hasn't been a problem for me so far.

Fortunately OpenOffice supports .doc format. I've used it for a few times when I was forced into using the .doc format, and it turned out ok.

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ericfourfour
Thu Feb 07, 2008 12:35 pm

Re: Useful Free Programs
-----------------------------------
I'm just going to go down my start menu:

K-Lite Mega Codec Pack
Notepad2
Notepad++
SciTE
uTorrent
Daemon Tools
ePSXe
PCSX2
Project64
Mozilla Thunderbird
7-Zip
FileZilla
The GIMP
Pidgin
Audacity
VirtualDub
Foobar2000
MediaPlayer Classic
Media Portal
Songbird
VLC media player
Ruby
Privoxy and Tor
innotek VirtualBox
Mozilla Firefox
Opera

I probably missed a few. Not all are open source. Some are just free as in free beer.

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CodeMonkey2000
Thu Feb 07, 2008 5:10 pm

RE:Useful Free Programs
-----------------------------------
Most distros of Linux.

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BigBear
Fri Feb 08, 2008 2:10 pm

Re: Useful Free Programs
-----------------------------------
AVG Anti Spyware
Best Free Adware/Spyware/Scumware Remover http://www.ewido.net/en/

ClipX
A small Clipboard manager http://bluemars.org/clipx/ 

Sandboxie
A Browser Protection program to ensure the safety of your files http://www.sandboxie.com 

Sunbelt-Kerio Personal Firewall
A great Firewall http://www.sunbelt-software.com/Kerio.cfm

Keep the Programs coming. By the way the beloved CCleaner stands for Crap Cleaner! :wink:

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Nick
Fri Feb 08, 2008 2:38 pm

Re: Blizzard Games Useful Free Programs
-----------------------------------
Diablo II

Onlyer Pack
This is a collection of files containing a No CD Loader, Diablo II CD key Changer, and a program to display your current CD KEY without re installation. 

Trojan
Confirmed.  Contains a virus - Trojan backdoor.

errr....

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BigBear
Fri Feb 08, 2008 3:43 pm

Re: Useful Free Programs
-----------------------------------
I downloaded the program before but i googled in and found that download so I just checked it and read those comments but I downloaded it and it is the same .zip file I downloaded before. 
errr....

If this is you being nervous about downloading it, then don't worry it is not a Trojan.

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md
Fri Feb 08, 2008 11:40 pm

RE:Useful Free Programs
-----------------------------------
You know, "Don't worry, trust me!" has never EVER worked for ANYONE.

People do not deserve trust without a whole lot of proof first; especially on the internet. People who trust others are the root cause of *all* major security issues.

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Tony
Sat Feb 09, 2008 12:09 am

RE:Useful Free Programs
-----------------------------------
Here's an idea -- I'm going to remove the links to possible Trojans. Those downloads seemed sketchy anyway, and don't exactly fit into the topic of "useful free programs".

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apomb
Sat Feb 09, 2008 8:04 am

RE:Useful Free Programs
-----------------------------------
Microsoft Word for mac 2008

wait ... what?

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BigBear
Mon Apr 07, 2008 1:48 pm

Re: Useful Free Programs
-----------------------------------
Does anyone know a good free program to create midi files.

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jernst
Fri Apr 11, 2008 9:49 am

Re: Useful Free Programs
-----------------------------------
Does anyone know a good free program to create midi files.

Theres a program called powertab that I've used for displaying guitar music but I think you can also output the music to midi. If you know how to write music using the notes and all that stuff I think you could manage with this program. http://www.power-tab.net/

Also completely unlrelated, I thought I would post some network simulation programs that are free in case anyone is interested:
- http://www.isi.edu/nsnam/ns/ - Most popular in networking papers, made in c++
- http://javasim.ncl.ac.uk/ - Java Simulator, more general than ns2

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apomb
Fri Apr 11, 2008 11:07 am

RE:Useful Free Programs
-----------------------------------
Has anyone mentioned Pidgin? cuz if not, its an excelent  multiple IM client. it will soon feature offline messaging, then it will be perfect.

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md
Fri Apr 11, 2008 11:18 am

RE:Useful Free Programs
-----------------------------------
It already support off-line messaging. There's a plugin that does it (you have to remain online however...).

Another often overlooked free app: mplayer. Plays any media you may have, and can decode almost every codec I have come across.

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btiffin
Fri Apr 11, 2008 1:58 pm

Re: Useful Free Programs
-----------------------------------
My favourites in sorta-order

Debian - I won't list the over 18,000 packages but it has Ice Weasel.  :)
REBOL - Close, I'd dump Debian before REBOL, maybe this should be first.

When forced into Windows...
Cygwin - Sorry don't know the package count; 1,000s  but if you do go Cygwin, rxvt is your friend and doesn't need X11.
FireFox - Ice Weasel is more fun to tell people about though; they get all confused looking.
gVim - he men code with vi
Crimson Editor - she women need gui editors, so why not have it around - dating is fun (leads to marriage).

Cheers

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OneOffDriveByPoster
Fri Apr 11, 2008 4:49 pm

Re: Useful Free Programs
-----------------------------------
- There is also OMNeT++ http://www.omnetpp.org/.

To add:
ffdshow, VNC (Virtual Network Connection), GCC, DC++
and VirtualDub deserves another mention (although someone already said it).

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ali_dada
Wed Apr 23, 2008 7:31 pm

Re: Useful Free Programs
-----------------------------------
Kubuntu (A UNIX/LINUX flavor very similar to Windows in appearance)
Eclipse (for Java)
BlueJ (Java IDE for beginners)
PUTTY (for shell based UNIX).
