I’m going to keep a running list of Windows programs (along with links to) -both freeware & commercial software that I use and recommend here. I spend a pretty good amount of time looking for new apps and trying them out. So check back here often as it could save you some time. Also feel free to email me if you know of any better choices than what I have listed.
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VOBMerge – Utility – (Freeware)
VOBMerge is a handy little A/V utility that does one thing and one thing only. It allows you to take all those loose VOB files you get after extracting a DVD to your harddrive and join them all together as one playable file. It doesn’t transcode or recode anything so it’s fast and no quality is lost. Sure you’ll still have a big 4gig file with old-school Mpeg2 compression but hard drives are pretty cheap and getting larger and larger. Some people aren’t bothering to transcode standard def DVDs anymore. It’s freeware and runs with a single EXE file (no installation required).
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BitMeter – Utility – (Freeware)
BitMeter is a System Tray app that monitors your Internet/Network connections. It’s tray icon is a two sided red & green bar that animates with activity. It’s pretty cool. If you point at it a pop-up informs you of the download/upload speeds. You can also have it display the total downloaded for the day. It has lots of options. Check it out. It’s FREE.
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Cobian Backup – Utility – (Freeware)
Cobian Backup is a great freeware backup utility…or as the author says a “Scheduler for security copies”. It allows you to very easily and quickly schedule and automate the duplication of files/folders of your choosing to another drive/folder/external drive or where ever you’d like it saved too. This is PERFECT for my purposes as I don’t want or need an imaging app. All I need to do is schedule copies of a few folders and all their sub-folders to alternate internal drives. This program does this wonderfully. It even installs as a service. NICE.
Check it out.
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Microsoft Windows 7 – Operating System – (Commercial Software)
I’ve been running Windows 7 as my main (and only) Operating System since a week after the BETA was released to the public. This thing is FANTASTIC. The best version of Windows ever. It’s an absolute joy to use. It features MAJOR improvements to the interface most notably the “Super Taskbar” and a slicker Windows Explorer. Much of the greatness really needs to be seen and experienced to appreciate. Have a look here for a taste:
http://www.winsupersite.com/win7/
If you are considering a new PC do yourself a favor and wait a few more months for the Windows 7 release. (rumor has it will ship on new PCs in the Fall of 2009)
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Mozilla Firefox – Web Browser – (Freeware) – (Open Source)
MS’s Internet Explorer 7 is much better than 6.x & 8.0 is looking better all the time but the fact is the freeware & open source Firefox is the better browser. It’s fast, thoroughly customizable and relatively safe. Most of the malware that targets Internet Explorer does absolutely nothing to Firefox. The app is constantly being improved by an enthusiastic community of programmers and users helping users.
It’s a beautiful thing.
Use it.
Love it.
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Eset NOD32 Antivirus – Anti-Virus/Anti-Spyware – (Commercial) – (free trial)
Eset is the best choice for a premium paid Antivirus. It always scores high on tests (see AV Comparitives) & has few false-positives. So when you factor in the cost (get the trial from Eset but you can usually buy cheaper from Newegg) & you experience just how light the thing feels on your system this is the clear winner. Highly recommended.
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Microsoft Security Essentials – Anti-Virus/Anti-Spyware – (freeware) – (requires Windows Validation)
Microsoft Security Essentials is Microsoft’s FREEWARE Anti-Virus and Anti-Spyware app that in my opinion is good enough to be my current choice for my secondary PCs and for all my clients who don’t want the cost or need the extra protection provided by the likes of Eset. This is the best of the freeware anti-virus solutions and an even better choice than the expensive and bloated McAfee or Norton/Symantec apps.
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Mozilla Thunderbird – Email Client – (Freeware) – (Open Source)
Mozilla Thunderbird is a fantastic email program. It’s fast and as easy to use as Outlook Express but more secure and customizable. It’s also quite capable with powerful filtering & the ability to handle multiple accounts, IMAP and multiple SMTPs.
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Spybot – Search & Destroy – Anti-Spyware – (Freeware)
Spybot – Search & Destroy is a free anti-spyware app that can scan a system and remove a HUGE and ever growing list of malicious software. It has a nice “immunization” feature that ALL Windows users should take advantage of.
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EditPad Lite – Text Editor – (Freeware)
EditPad Lite is a free text editor from Just Great Software. This is quite simply the finest text viewer/editor available. It has a tabbed interface so you can load multiple files at once. It has a handy search panel you can toggle on and off as needed. It’s REOPEN menu lists the last 16 files opened. It has unlimited UNDO & REDO. EditPad can do upper and lowercase conversions. It can even do ROT-13 if you wanna go old-school. Who needs EditPad? Anyone who does a little HTML or works with a lot of text files will enjoy EditPad. People who do a LOT of coding and/or programmers may like the commercial version EditPad Pro even more as it includes ‘Clip Collection’, ‘File Navigator’, built in FTP and Syntax Coloring.
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ACDSee – Image Viewer/Organizer – (Commercial) – (free trial)
ACDSee is arguably the fastest image viewer available for Windows. It’s ability to quickly browse through a folder full of thousands of pictures quickly and easily using the space bar or mouse wheel for navigation is awesome and though often imitated it’s never been matched by any other program. It also excels at photo/image management. It can display all your pics as thumbnails and YOU can decide exactly how big/small to display them. Image files can be routed to other folders/sub-folders with a quick right click context menu that offers: MOVE TO, COPY TO, etc. ACDSee is powerful and configurable to an astounding degree. It has a Duplicate File Finder that is indispensable for people with large collections. ACDSee’s printing features are also the best there is. You can select any number of pictures and print them as a contact sheet of any configuration you like. It also works well with other programs. You can hand off files from within ACDSee to external editors like Adobe Photoshop. Simply put if you have a large image collection of any kind you NEED ACDSee.
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Adobe Photoshop -Graphics Editor – (Commercial) – (free trial)
Adobe Photoshop is the best graphics/photo editor available. It’s a big, powerful complex program and it’s not cheap. But it is the choice of professionals everywhere. If you do a lot of graphics work -photos or otherwise and you want to learn how to do it the industry standard way, there is no substitute for Photoshop. Because it IS the industry standard there is a plethora of tutorials available as well as tons of books to help you learn how to use it.
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Paint.NET -Graphics Editor – (Freeware) – (Open Source)
Paint.NET is a very promising free mostly open source alternative to Adobe Photoshop. It does layers, cropping and lots of other stuff. Give it a try and you will probably be astonished to see what an app with a 1.5 meg installer can actually do! I’d probably be using this as my main graphics editor if I wasn’t already used to doing all my editing the Photoshop way for the last 6 or 7 years.
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PS3 MediaServer – Streaming Media Server – (Freeware) – (Open Source)
PS3 MediaServer is a great way to play virtually ANY kind of downloaded media file (music, movies, etc.) on your PlayStation 3. (it also works on the XBOX) It requires very little configuration. You just download it, install it and point it at the folders on your PC that contain AVIs, WMV, MOVs, MKVs, etc. that you want to view on any TV connected to your Game System. Then after some simple Network setup on the Game System side and you will be able to watch stuff on the big screen in your living room rather than the PC. Note for High Def video I highly recommend a CAT5/CAT6 hard-wired Network driven by a Core 2 or greater CPU on the PC end.
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Microsoft Office 2007 – Office Suite – (Commercial) – (free trial)
Microsoft Office 2007 is a pretty huge step up from Office 2003. Word has a new default format (DOCX) and a new default font (the very classy & modern Calibri). Another great improvement for Word is it can now save to PDF! All of the apps in the Suite except Publisher also sport a new and radically different style toolbar called the Ribbon. Most people either love the Ribbon or hate it. I LOVE it.
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Open Office – Office Suite – (Freeware) – (Open Source)
Open Office is a fairly amazing thing -a 100% free alternative to MS Office. It’s individual apps correspond to MS versions like this:
MS Word – OO Write
MS PowerPoint – OO Impress
MS Excel – OO Calc
MS Access – OO Base
Like Word 2007 Open Office Write can save to PDF. It should also be noted that Open Office Impress and Draw can both save to Flash format (.swf).
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ImgBurn – Disc Burning/Imaging – (Freeware)
ImgBurn is a freeware CD/DVD/HD-DVD/Blu-ray Burning app. It’s a really nice alternative to many of the commercial Burning apps that have become very bloated over the years. It’s a great app. I find myself using this for not just ISO stuff but also for every day data burns (build mode). Highly recommended.
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InfraRecorder – Disc Burning – (Freeware) – (Open Source)
InfraRecorder is another great free burning program. This one has a really easy to use interface. It has a simple Explorer like view that should be intuitive to anyone at all comfortable with Windows. It’s quick and lite -nearly perfect.
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ComicBase – Comicbook Collection software/Database – (Commercial) – (feature limited free version available)
ComicBase is the world’s largest Comicbook database. It contains more than 28,000 titles with over 373,000 issues! It’s updated weekly so the newest titles are always added. If you are a serious Comic Collector then you need this program.
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FileZilla – FTP Client – (Freeware) – (Open Source)
FileZilla is a lightning fast FTP client (free server also available). It’s easy to use keeping mostly default settings but can be configured anyway you like. This works and works well….having the coolest name ever doesn’t hurt either!
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All program names, logos, and other art are copyrighted and trademarked by their respective owners. All usage here is strictly to promote and advocate purchase/usage of said software…so hopefully all parties are cool with it!
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