Hey, let's compile a list of useful software!

[Mazer]

I don't really care what Operating System as long as you specify. Since it's what I'm using now:

Windows XP
(I've skipped stuff like Firefox/Thunderbird; I think people are aware of their choices by now and are either willing to make their own decisions or are already blindly following someone else's example... I think this also applies to choice of operating systems so let's not go there either)

• Foxit Reader read PDFs without waiting half an hour for acrobat to load (http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php)
  
• InfraRecorder Hell, I don't need all that crap from Nero, I just want to burn my damn data (http://infrarecorder.sourceforge.net/)
  
• 7-zip Supports plenty of compression formats (even gzip and bz2) (http://www.7-zip.org/)
  
• PDFCreator A "printer driver" that allows you to export a printable document as a PDF (http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/)
  
• Pidgin A non-shitty MSN client, not to mention pretty much every other common IM protocol (http://pidgin.im/)
  
• Putty SSH, SFTP, SCP, etc. clients for Windows (http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/)
  
• VirtuaWin Virtual workspace support for Windows! (http://virtuawin.sourceforge.net/)
  
• DefilerPak Audio/Video codecs... if you already have codecs installed alright then don't bother messing around with stuff (http://hellninjacommando.com/defilerpak/)
  
• Memento A quick note taking app; I haven't used it yet, but if it's anything like Tomboy for Linux it'll be very handy (http://www.guyswithtowels.com/dev/apps/memento.html)
  
• foobar2000 A nice music player (http://www.foobar2000.org/)
  

I'm pretty sure we actually had one of these before but hell if I'm going to go looking for it. Maybe if this goes well it can be stickied.

[rdrake]

In addition to the above, here's what I recommend:

• VLC Plays any audio/video file known to mankind (http://videolan.org/).
  
• FileZilla Wonderful FTP client. Don't use the beta3 yet! (http://filezilla.sf.net/).
  
• OpenOffice.org Decent (but kludgy) office suite (http://openoffice.org/).
  

My list would've been longer but Mazer stole most of it.

[PaulButler]

Ooh, I've been looking for something like PDFCreator for a while.

• Komodo Edit Cross-platform text editor that works great for web scripting languages
  
• Eigenmath Simple but powerful symbolic calculator for Windows and Mac
  
• Maxima Another symbolic calculator, but more complicated and for Linux as well.
  

[rdrake]

Oh hell, can't believe I forgot about this:

• TeXnicCenter Pretty IDE of sorts for all your LaTeX needs (http://www.toolscenter.org/).

[Hackmaster]

Trillian: free chat client that looks after MSN, AIM, ICQ, Yahoo Chat and IRC all from one console. very cool piece of software. http://www.ceruleanstudios.com/
Daemon Tools: a disk emulator that makes your computer think you have 4 CD drives. very useful at LAN parties, as you don't have to switch out disks all the time. http://www.daemon-tools.cc/dtcc/download.php
Eclipse: Wicked IDE. sharp learning curve, but once mastered... watch out. OH so convenient. http://www.eclipse.org/

[octopi]

Windows:

HeidiSQL: A pretty good MySQL frontend.

PerlApp: lets you compile perl code into a windows exe file. (although its a pretty large file, similar to turing)

[OneOffDriveByPoster]

Any OS (kind-of):
VNC -- great remote control software for your PC; especially good for running on shell accounts (so you can keep all your xterms open--beats SCREEN any day)
Ghostscript -- wouldn't need PDFCreator now
vim -- bye bye Notepad/MS-DOS Edit/edlin

Windows:
TrayMin -- minimize to tray
Taskbar Shuffle -- reorganize your taskbar/tray icons
ZoneScreen -- virtual display adapter driver (use with VNC--now you can use old notebook as an extra monitor)

[rdrake]

Any:

• Synergy lets you use one keyboard and mouse over multiple computers like a virtual KVM (http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/).
  

Windows:

• com0com is a null modem emulator (http://com0com.sourceforge.net/).
  

[Euphoracle]

nano - Wicked awesome GNU Text editor.

[Mazer]

rdrake @ Sun Sep 23, 2007 10:02 am wrote:

Any:

• Synergy lets you use one keyboard and mouse over multiple computers like a virtual KVM (http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/).
  

Thanks, I feel pretty stupid about forgetting this one considering how much I use it. A very nice feature is that it's cross platform. You can control a Linux box via a Windows box or OSX box or whatever in any crazy combination that you'd like. I think the current version even allows you to copy and paste text between computers.

EDIT:
Windows

mp3tag a free mass tagger/renamer for Windows, a bit like Easytag for *nix. Very nice, even has a shell extension.

[md]

Synergy IS NOT A KVM. It lacks a key part of a KVM, specifically the video part.

It's really useful to be sure; but it in no way replaces a KVM.

[Aziz]

I prefer ID3-TagIt, though it's not supported anymore :/

[Cervantes]

Mazer @ Sun Sep 23, 2007 11:59 am wrote:

mp3tag a free mass tagger/renamer for Windows, a bit like Easytag for *nix. Very nice, even has a shell extension.

I've tried a lot of different audio players and taggers in my time. foobar is an order of magnitude above everything else I've found, both for tagging and playing. foobar is the only reason I'm using Windows right now.

[md]

On *nix the best media player I've found is mpd; however recently it's begun letting me down... not sure if it's just incapable of handling 14K files or not

[Mazer]

Cervantes @ Mon Sep 24, 2007 1:37 pm wrote:

Mazer @ Sun Sep 23, 2007 11:59 am wrote:

mp3tag a free mass tagger/renamer for Windows, a bit like Easytag for *nix. Very nice, even has a shell extension.

I've tried a lot of different audio players and taggers in my time. foobar is an order of magnitude above everything else I've found, both for tagging and playing. foobar is the only reason I'm using Windows right now.

I've heard foobar's supposed to have mass renamer functionality but could never find it. Does it? (and does it work like easytag? rename a group of files in a "$artist - $album - $track" kind of scriptable way?)