November 13, 2005

• Cygwin. Lots of Unix command line tools for Windows. Oh, and X Windows.
• Emacs.
• The first things I install on a Windows desktop are: Putty for connecting to Unix/Linux machines, CDex for ripping music, BitTornado for torrenting, Adobe ImageReady for cropping and resizing pics, and Trillian for instant messaging. On Linux and Unix desktops: GnuCash, GAIM, Gimp, and an SSH server. (No links to those, because they come prepackaged with just about every distribution out there.) Note for Ubuntu Linux users: the starter guide will tell you how to install GnuCash (and a thousand other helpful things).
• Um. What's reinstalling? I'm running OS X so I have no idea what that is. /snark Seriously, not once have I had to reload on my mac. I have only had to do upgrades to newer versions of Mac OS X. I started out with 10.2 and now I am on 10.4. I just loaded each OS on top of the other one. /*sigh* digresses BUT I do fix allot of win boxen for friends and work at a net cafe with mostly windows computers so I do have a few helpful suggestions. I am a big Open Office.org fan so that would be on my list. Also Spyware Doctor, AVG Anti-Virus, and Black Ice defender. I also would download VLC, it rocks. I also go to system properties and turn off all the visual effects so they don't bog down the processor and thrash the hard drive. I also set it up to defragment the hard drive at least weekly and to do a full disk check and virus scan before it boots fully into windows. Yes, it does take to years to boot but it keeps the windows box running smoother longer. you'll get no links out of me because I am lazy, google it Also you got to get in there with the Ubuntu, it's pretty cool. I am running it on a Pre Mac OS X Powermac 5500 and it runs great.
• Convert Textpad Media player clasic HT Track Nethack
• As LivewireConfusion says, there's not much call to reinstall Mac OS X. Having said that, here are my essential free OS X programs: Adium for instant messaging. Audacity for audio recording and editing. Chmox for viewing Windows help files (CHMs). Disk Inventory X for a graphical explanation of where the hard disk space went (like SequioaView above). HandBrake for DVD ripping. Inkscape for vector graphics. kotonoko for using Japanese dictionary CDs (EPWING etc.). Linotype FontExplorer X for font management. MacStumbler for finding wireless access points. MPlayerOSX for the movies that VLC won't play. QemuX for PC emulation. Skype for international phone calls. Soundflower for redirecting audio streams (and recording them with Audacity). SoundSource for quickly switching audio sources and sinks. Romeo to control media players from my Bluetooth phone. VLC for playing almost everything, including DVDs (region free!). X-Chat Aqua for IRC. xwepgen for converting WLAN passphrases from non-Apple systems.
• Mac OS X utils I can't live without (not free but most aren't very expensive either): WindowShade X: because I'm so used to windowshade windows in Mac OS 9 and I hate windows going into the Dock. DragThing: so you don't have to use the Dock anymore... Tinkertool: change system settings like double scroll arrows and set the dock to hide behind the menu bar. BuddyPop: access your addressbook from every application with one keypress. Oh so handy. PopChar Pro X: handy menu bar util to enter those seldomly used characters like ŋŝśʼnĸĻϕάΩӨԉװΐᾟתּפּ❘✓▶►▼ (that probably won't translate well in HTML) Default Folder X: extend the functionality of open and save-dialogs. Menu Master: add or change keyboard shortcuts to every menu in every application. Handy when you have to do things that have no, or an awfull keyboard shortcut with three modifiers. With these utilities you make Mac OS X even better than it already is.
• Pure Text is a great and small windows app that allows you to hot-key-paste plain text. I use it a hundred times a day... Example, you copy a bit from a web page or excel and want to paste the text in to an email, but don't want all the original page formatting.. I just click windows-V instead of control-V. SOOoooo convenient. And it's free. Oh, and ThreeDayMonk, Trillian supports many IM formats including IRC, FYI. And mechagrue, you should look into bit torrent's "headless" python scripts, if you have access to a linux box. I have a directory (also mapped to my main XP box) that will auto-start torrents if I simply drop a torrent file in to the directory. I don't have (or want) any BT clients on my XP machine...
• DevonThink, a clippings manager on steroids for Mac OS X. Couldn't do without it.
• I am going to say some totally uncool things, here. Most won't require links; either you buy them or get them from download.com or you get them through other channels by "seeing a guy about some files." Totally right about Firefox, but I also use AIM from time to time. Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver. iTunes. Word. The SeMagic client for online journals. CDex was a good call. Flickr Uploadr. AdAware and Spybot. A free antivirus, AntiVir or AVG. Maybe mIRC; it tends to come and go from my machine. On the fun end: Morrowind. The saved games that are backed-up would then be reinstalled (shyeah, like I've spent that much time in a game and am going to start over. I think not. I'm almost the Nerevarine). Snood. Civ III. A Hoyle Puzzle Games collection I have that I play a lot when I'm bored. A free trial of a SuDoku game that I like, though WebSuDoku does just as well. And the WORDS screensaver, the only one I've ever really liked. I don't know which quote pack I usually run with it, but it's full of sardonic quotes about human nature. This is basically just making me notice how much pointless extra stuff is sitting around on my computer. Yikes.
• Forgot one: Stickies for Windows! It's freaking golden. Useful on its own but has so many options, too; I mostly just change appearance (color and font) but there are a bunch of sharing functions. If you've gone back and forth between Windows and a Mac, this is something you start to miss on the Win boxes.
• Oh, and ThreeDayMonk, Trillian supports many IM formats including IRC, FYI. I'm sure that's useful if one is using Windows, techsmith, but that poses a question: why are you telling me? I can't even run it!
• MetaPad for text editing, Ad-Aware to keep the spyware at bay, And most importantly, KeyNote. It's a great little planning tool. I use it for everything.
• The five most important to me, in no particular order: OpenOffice yWriter NoteTab KeyNote (Development has been discontinued, but it's still better than any equivalent.) Picasa
• Mac OSX - Quicksilver. Absolutely necessary.
• For windows, I'm a huge fan of 7zip which compresses files better than winzip (and it will even make smaller zip files than winzip) Atlantis Nova a nice little RTF word processor that I use mainly because it automatically strips out all the crappy metadata and makes really really small rtf files (I hate the Microsoft Doc format! If you are just doing plain text rtf is so much smaller!) ABBYY PDF Transformer turns PDF's into plain text. As a college student, I constantly have to download bloated pdf's of articles. With PDF Converter I can turn them into plain text and save them as (can you guess?) RTF files that are often only 5%-10% of the size of the PDFs. Moreover, when I print the article, it takes less paper, and when I want to cite it, I can just cut and paste rather than type out a quote. I guess I have an obsession with saving space...
• I would have too many to list, honestly. But most of what has been noted is included in my cluttered hard drive. I have lots of utilities for cleaning up the puter and making it run better, etc. Photoshop, paint shop pro & animation shop pro, lots of other graphic thingies. All sorts of shit. Endless.
• Buffy, Geraldo, Happy Days, Oprah and Songs of Praise. I have no idea what programs you idiots have been watching. Turn off the HBO and stop get gay marriaged, you fucking perverts.
• As well as various ones mentioned above I also (on WinXP) use Spyware Blaster, MP3tag, and I like to have a file renamer to hand, at the moment I'm using Batch File Renamer. Good question BTW, and does anyone know what Mitheral is likely to be referring to with 'Convert'?
• verbminx... thanks, now i've wasted two hours playing snood! which i had forgotten about until i read that post!
• Some very useful apps here, thanks all. One OsX app not mentioned yet that I find perfect for scheduling the recording of BBC Radio progs that are either not on listen again (cos of rights issues) or that are on listen again and you just want to keep is Audio Hijack which allows you to record any audio going through your 'puta and integrates well with iTunes etc ... Have just d/l'd ffmpeg which is a multiple video/audio converter client, but haven't rreally used it yet so can't vouch for it (may even have found out about it on MoFi!) But A QUESTION. Do any monkeys know of an app that schedules your mac to wake up from sleep, do something (i.e. record a radio programme) then go back to sleep again??? will applescript do this?
• dvd::rip Celestia Baudline Blender Mplayer And most important of all (for me) xn view
• What an awesome thread this has turned out to be! I'd quickly add to a new (Windows) PC: Sygate Personal Firewall which blocks/flags network access both in and (unlike the XP firewall) out, making it easy to see when programs are "phoning home," and showing spyware/malware/trojans/viruses etc. up for what they are quickly. Winamp, mostly for music, but it does a fine job of playing videos, and even doing audio format conversions, as well. Irfanview for lightning fast image viewing, batch-renaming, batch-converting, and light editing. 7-Zip file archiver, for handling .ZIP and other file formats. uTorrent, a teeny and highly efficient new Windows Bittorrent client.
• does anyone know what Mitheral is likely to be referring to with 'Convert'? I was wondering the very same thing. On my list I'd also add: Crimson Text Editor - for general purpose text editing jEdit - for programming Apache, PHP and MySQL for web development Free version of SQLYog for administering MySQL databases Subversion for software development version control [1] Mozilla Thunderbird for email FileZilla Great opensource FTP client [1] I also use Subversion to version control my creative writing.
• Various people have mentioned the Linux and Windows stuff. My work Macs must have Aquamacs. The gooey goodness of Emacs with the gooey goodness of OS X compatibility. That's just freakin' awesome. Also, it really, really sucks that you can't get some equivalent of Search WP and Searchbox Sync for Safari or Camino, because Firefox sucks on a Mac.
• Firefox sucks on a Mac I'm surprised to hear that. I thought Firefox was generally A Wonderful Thing. What sucks about FF on a Mac, as opposed to Safari or Camino?
• As I recall, Firefox's keyboard shortcuts simply don't work correctly on a Mac. Camino and (obviously) Safari's shortcuts work a lot better. Granted, we're talking about a much lower level of suckage than IE on literally any other platform, but it was enough to make me switch, even though the greatest extension ever is written for Firefox (honestly, why don't any other web browsers support putting text somewhere to click on and find on page? Gah! Drives me nuts!). I seem to recall other stuff (and maybe FF 1.5 fixes some of this), but it just seems like Camino and Safari, for all their faults, works better on OS X. Of course, I'm posting this with Firefox on XP.
• I like to see thumbnails on right click. I use a version of this(.312), but when I just now tried to upgrade to this version(.313), I got error messages. Might just be my pc http://www.firmtools.com/products/shellextension/
• ff on the Mac works fine for me. Perhaps other users are more demanding.
• This link may be of interest to WinXP people following this thread: The 46 Best-Ever Freeware Utilities. It mentions several of the programs listed by others above.
• Hmmm. In addition to the others listed above, the programs I can't live without include: Arachnophilia 4. New Java version is teh suckage in my opinion. There may be better HTML editors out there (this program was released in 98 I think!) but I've used it for so long that I haven't been able to abandon it, and wish the author hadn't given up on writing Windows programs. I hack the program to use the Mozilla ActiveX control rather than the IE version. The PC Inspector tool suites. Free and useful data recovery programs. Don't miss the one aimed specifically at flash memory! This set of programs has saved my butt more than once. My usual install is Firefox, Thunderbird, Winamp, WinZip (I HATE the built-in "zip folder" support - It just doesn't work as I expect it to!). If it's a machine I'm going to use myself, I also add Putty, Xming, and Filezilla. Heck, I keep a copy of Putty, FIlezilla, Firefox and Thunderbird on my USB key so that I have them anywhere I need them. Running Filezilla from an XML file rather than registry makes it portable as jhell.
• Similar to SequoiaView, but a little nicer IMO, WinDirStat. I use Bittorrent *very* rarely, but I second uTorrent. Previously had used Azureus and then BitComent, but uTorrent suits me a lot more since I just download the occasional Linux iso. Firefox and Thunderbird do go in, but Opera became my primary browser and RSS aggregator early this year. Security-wise, I innoculate with Spyware Blaster and keep Spybot S&D along with Adaware & MS AntiSpyware around, but that's really just ritual since I haven't had issues in years. For a firewall, I go with the free version Kerio, but it's being discontinued soon. (I'm considering Sygate, but the fact that Symantec bought them recently does not instill me with confidence.) For antivirus, I swear by Nod32; it's not free, but I'm paranoid enough that the extra degree of protection it offers (while not being a resource hog--also important to me) is worth it to me. Also: TweakUI and the PowerToy Calculator HTTP File Server because sending files over Gaim blows SyncBack Just about everything from Sysinternals musikCube for playing music
• HuronBob: er... sorry?...! :) (I know how it is. I should delete Snood and pretend I've never ever heard of it. There's a variant on that Hoyle Puzzle Games collection, too, that's like Snood crossed with Pong, and also a lot like the old Moraff's Breaker shareware, if I am remembering the correct title.) I totally agree with Skrik's recommendation of NoteTab. I don't use it anymore, but I used to like it a lot. I also forgot to list WS-FTP and some archive tool that will work with some of the more exotic archive types. The link Planetthoughtful posted is a good one, but there are a dozen others like it, so if you look over a few you're sure to find something indispensible. After complaining about how overfull my computer was in my last post to this thread, I went and cleaned it out and cleaned up the start menu. Wavering on whether to delete a couple of programs that came with it (Quicken went bye bye, because it's been on every computer I've ever owned, and I've NEVER used it), but I managed to free up some disk space and make things look better.
• HuronBob: er... sorry?...! :) (I know how it is. I should delete Snood and pretend I've never ever heard of it. There's a variant on that Hoyle Puzzle Games collection, too, that's like Snood crossed with Pong, and also a lot like the old Moraff's Breaker shareware, if I am remembering the correct title.) I totally agree with Skrik's recommendation of NoteTab. I don't use it anymore, but I used to like it a lot. I also forgot to list WS-FTP and some archive tool that will work with some of the more exotic archive types. The link Planetthoughtful posted is a good one, but there are a dozen others like it, so if you look over a few you're sure to find something indispensible. After complaining about how overfull my computer was in my last post to this thread, I went and cleaned it out and cleaned up the start menu. Wavering on whether to delete a couple of programs that came with it (Quicken went bye bye, because it's been on every computer I've ever owned, and I've NEVER used it), but I managed to free up some disk space and make things look better.
• !!! oh, great! =/ sorry, guys.