Top 10 Favorite Free Programs
April 19th, 2009 (Tech)Below is a list of my top 10 (free) programs (in no particular order) that I have found to be extremely useful over the years.
- Evernote – I use this to keep track of all my notes. Personal things, work projects, etc… I’ve used it since its beginning when it looked a lot different than it does today. Evernote is a pretty good free alternative to MS One Note and its synchronization feature makes it so easy to use it on all of your computers. There are some small ads in the corner of the program, but they are non-intrusive. Mac, Mobile and Windows.
- X-Chat – I used to use mIRC back in my high school days and loved it as an IRC client, but X-Chat is free and open source and does most of the same stuff very well. Windows and Linux.
- GIMP – Ahh, the GIMP. Another piece of software that I’ve been using for a while. Despite what many people say, it is a great free (and again, OSS) alternative to Photoshop. IMHO, Photoshop is still better if you can afford it, but at free, you cannot beat the GIMP for features and I think usability as well. It is very simple and really just works for photo editing and web graphics. Linux, Mac, Windows.
- Digsby – Digsby is my command center for IM, Gmail, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. What more can I say…it rocks and gets more stable with each version. Linux, Mac and Windows.
- FileZilla – The only FTP client I have used in a long time. It’s open source and has both a client and server version of the software. I have mostly used the client. It has all the features of the non-free clients except for directory synchronization. The resume feature is great for large uploads or downloads. Linux, Mac, Windows.
- VLC – I have talked about Video Lan Client before, but it has a soft spot in my heart. It can play back multimedia files that other plays (ahem, Windows Media, Quicktime) can’t…plus it’s also open source and constantly being developed. Linux, Mac and Windows
- Celtx – If you have ever done any script writing, you probably know how expensive the gold standard of script programs, Final Draft, can be. Celtx aims to be a good free open source replacement and does a pretty good job. I love the synchronization to their server so you can work from multiple computers, but they are soon making this a paid service =(. Linux, Mac, Windows.
- Faststone Capture – I take screen grabs all of the time for my website work. Faststone Capture makes this really easy – I usually use the adjustable size capture window. It’s no longer free, but I’ve included a link to the last free version of the software which still works great for everything I need. Windows only.
- CamStudio – Another screen capture program, but this one is for video. It’s a nice alternative to Camtasia – certainly not as full featured, but works very well for free. Oh yeah, they have made a codec that looks very nice and produced small (file size) files. Windows only.
- Look@LAN – I guess this is now called Fing and is currently command line only, but it is a great network scanning tool. I often use it to track down a particular computer on the network. Linux, Mac and Windows.
There are many other useful programs out there. Those are just a few that I use on a pretty regular basis that are all free. What free software do you get great enjoyment from?
Thanks for doing all this research for the rest of us! You sound very attached to some of these, but I guess you’ve got history there… The only one I am tempted to download is VLC—but I’ve just downloaded Skype (and bought a headset) so I’d better concentrate on that. Thanks for solving the “mystery of digsby”:)
Loved this blog. Very interesting. Plus–my baby, camtasia, was mentioned (sigh). We are purchasing Articulate which, at first, I thought wasn’t going to live up to camtasia standards (grr…). However, I’m excited b/c I think it is a different tool for the ole belt as it’s more e-learning rather than video edits. Also, did I tell you we got an LMS?? (Geolearning). Alright, enough work stuff. I need to check out some of these freebies you mentioned–much fun!!!
I also recently read your post on fake twitters…also interesting as I’m not really close that that world.
And one more thing…checked out some of your websites and I AM IMPRESSED!!! i really wish some of the ones that I’ve been involved with looked as nice. U got talent!!