July 21, 2007

100 Open Source Downloads and 100 Open Source Tools, Resources, and Template Sources.
posted by Spock 17 years ago
  • Fascinating. (And useful!)
  • Indeed. Hadn't commented yet because I'm still periodically perusing the list, but it's good stuff. A lot of it well-known, but having so much in one list is a darn fine resource. I've been using XAMPP for developing and testing PHP web apps, and been very happy with it. There's some glitchiness to it, but overall it's served me well.
  • I just installed one of the IM programs. Works like a dream, and is much smaller than AIM. Thanks, Spock!
  • I'll also add that PortableApps is one of the most useful software tools I've ever discovered. I dropped a hundred bucks on an external drive, installed PortableApps and some crypto software to protect more sensitive data, and that drive is now my external brain. Going between the office and home, I rely on those apps probably more often than any other software I've ever purchased ever. Nice way around that whole "don't install any software on your work computer that ops hasn't pre-approved" rule, too.
  • I adore PortableApps. Being at college, it's great to break up my essay writing with the odd game of Sudoku on my 1-gig flash drive.
  • I've had Audacity for years. Nice little program.
  • Oh, and Stream Ripper, and Azureus, and about 10 others! This is a nice resource.
  • For those who dig teh PortableApps (apparently, just Tracy and me), I have discovered via their forums that RocketDock, a Windows clone of the Mac Dock, is also fully portablizable, and it's pretty nifty. I've been playing with it for a few hours now, and actually like it better than the PA menu. You have to install it on your PC, then go to the dock settings window and click the "Store Settings in a Portable INI (single-user)" box and save your changes. Then just copy the install folder over to your external drive, uninstall the original version if you want, and voila, RocketDockPortable. As I said, so far I'm liking it tons more than the PA menu. You can customize the hell out of it, and it seems both less obtrusive and more responsive. And if you've got the latest version of the PA suite, all you've got to do is make sure you have RocketDock in a folder immediately under the PortableApps directory, and the menu will pick it up. I think I'm going to try abandoning the menu completely, though. This rules. Screenshot of my desktop running it, which is now guarded by Batman
  • I've been using RocketDock since it was mentioned here some months back. It's become habitual, such that whenever I log onto a machine that doesn't have it, I find myself futilely prodding the top of the screen with the cursor.