Cool Tools
Granted, tastes and needs differ, but here's a list of the various tools I use and some suggestions for finding your own.
First, let's go through some software definitions:
- Freeware — In theory, this actually means what it says. That doesn't mean it won't put some goofy adware tool bar on your browser, however, so pay attention during the installation.
- Shareware — This used to mean free, as in "shared", but now it's just another term for commercialware, usually denoting a small outfit, not a big company.
- Trialware — Shareware that usually works without hindrance for a set amount of time, often 30 days.
- Crippleware — Shareware that works with no time limit, but is crippled somehow until you buy it. Depending upon the type of program, it might limit the time length of the project, the overall size, or even embed its logo as a watermark on a video project.
- Commercialware — A general catch-all for anything that isn't freeware, and in context could refer to the big companies, i.e., if you said something about "shareware versus commercialware", people would take it to mean you were referring to some small company versus Adobe, Corel, Microsoft, etc.
- Releaseware — Software that's been released to the public domain but with a few strings attached, such as you can use it for personal use but not for profit, or you can use it however you want as long as a credit is included for the original programmer and/or company.
- Abandonware — Software released to the public domain with no strings attached.
- Vaporware — Long-promised software that never materializes.
The one thing you have to be careful about is the word "free". You'll often see "Free Download!", but that just means the download is free (ha-ha). The program, itself, might very well require a "registration fee" to activate it.
Where To Find 'Em
Okay, you know what you want the program to do, but you don't know what program to use. There are three general approaches you can take:
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Cruise by some web forum that deals with the subject and ask. This might take the longest, in the sense that it might take an hour or two before anyone answers your plaintive plea (if they even do), but the advantage is that any program someone recommends is semi-guaranteed to work, and they'll usually provide you with a download link.
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Bravely face the Internet Beast and hit Google. Slap in every keyword you can think of and hope for the best. Or pretend you're asking the question in a web forum, i.e., "How do I convert a WPS file to MS Word?". With any luck a similar question will pop up, along with the answer.
There are other areas of the 'Net where files are stored and transferred, such as the peer-to-peer (P2P) sites, Usenet, the IRC and FTP, but most of them involve something of a learning curve, especially Usenet. Still, there's a lot of interesting stuff out there.
Recommendations
For the most part I'm going to link to the home sites, but remember that when it comes to the larger, more expensive programs, the same software can often be found much cheaper on the discount software sites. Just do a Google search for the program's name and "discount" and dozens of sites will pop up, including price comparison sites. And you can often find an older version for cheap that'll do just as good a job. Search for the program plus the old version number.
For freeware, the big 'trick' is to add "sourceforge" to the Google search. It's a large area full of true freeware, much of it extremely good. Some of the better free programs below are Sourceforge products, or started out there.
Disclaimer
In many of these cases I'm using a version that's years old, so I really can't vouch for the latest versions. Ditto whether they'll run on Windows Vista or Win7. This is all "use at your own risk". I will, however, vouch for the integrity of the sites. All of these companies and individuals have been around for years.
Desktop Publishing/Word Processing
ClipMate — This strips absolutely everything from a cut & (to be) pasted block of text. This is often necessary when transferring a block of text from something like a browser to an editor of some sort. In short, there's a lot more to a block of text than just font types. There can be a number of 'embedded' characteristics, such as CR's and line spacing, that the editor simply won't understand. And if it doesn't understand it, it can't get rid of it. So having a program around that'll strip out absolutely everything is somewhat essential in this field.
Find & Replace — This allows you to change the text in a number of documents all at once. It won't do binary documents like MS Word, but it'll do Wordpad, Notepad and HTML pages. An extremely handy, time-saving tool when you need it. The link goes to the old freeware version.
Online
GetRight — This is a 'download manager', which means if the connection gets lost (or you lock up your computer with some wayward program), you won't lose what you've already downloaded. It can also queue up files for future downloading. There are lots of them around, but GetRight was one of the first so it's still my pick of the litter.
Firefox — I tend to use Internet Explorer for browser use, but for online editing, Firefox is much better in a whole bunch of ways.
ieSpell — An excellent spell-checker for Internet Explorer for any kind of online input box, be it an online web editor or a blog comment. If you're using a program like Outlook Express that has a file (usually called "custom.dic") where it keeps all of the words you've added to the spell-checker, you can add the list to ieSpell to make it instantly smart.
Graphics
FS Color Picker — This is a color identifier that will give you the color value (RGB, CMYK, Hex, etc) of whatever color is currently under the pointer. It'll copy the hex value to memory so you can punch it into a document or 'Find' box with Ctrl-V.
IrfanView — General picture viewer. Good keyboard controls and a few features some of the other viewers don't offer. I often do an A-B comparison between two screen-shots of a video rendered two different ways, so I like its 'full-screen' mode that puts a black border outside the pics, which cuts down on distractions when doing a close A-B comparison.
CompuPic — This displays folders of pics as thumbnails, a very handy feature for picking the gems out of the rubble. It will also do certain editing features (enlarge, crop, brighten, darken, etc).
GIMP — This freeware image studio is actually pretty good and has most of the better image studio features, such as a smudge tool, freehand outline, layers, etc. It's also got a few quirks. Review here.
Paint Shop Pro — Pound for pound, this is a much better deal than the vaunted Photoshop. The problem with Photoshop is that you'll never use 75% of it. For the standard crop, lighten, darken, recolor, resize routine, there are lots of programs out there that will do the job just fine.
DVD/Video
Media Player Classic — This is my general kickaround player of choice for video clips. It'll play pretty much anything you throw at it. You'll also want the K-Lite Codec Pack.
PowerDVD — For playing DVDs on the computer, I tend to like PowerDVD, but WinDVD has a number of supporters, and there are other good players around. Since all you're doing is asking it to play the dang thing without blowing up, it immediately boils down to individual program features. In PowerDVD, I like the way I can advance frame-by-frame using the 'T' key in order to get that perfect screen-grab, the way the 'U' key turns the subtitles on and off to catch that mumbled line, and the 'Page Up' key is an 8-second instant replay. On the other hand, the last time I looked at WinDVD it had a magnification feature, which might be handy, and if you're into constructing DVDs, the way it displays the simulated DVD player controls works better than PowerDVD.
VideoLAN — This is generally regarded as the best of the freeware ('open source') movie players. It won't have all the bells and whistles the above two do, but it'll do the job.
Audio
Audacity — A very nice free editor, does all the usual stuff except normalizing.
Foobar — One of the best freeware audio players around, and uses the right mouse button to easily convert batches of files.
Normalize — This handy tool takes a WAV file and adjusts the volume to meet standard 'computer' levels.
Pacemaker — If you're into music, and especially if you play an instrument, you gotta check this out. It'll raise or lower the pitch of a song without speeding it up or slowing it down, and vice versa. Really amazing.
WinAmp — This is my jukebox program of choice.
General Tools
Collectorz Connect — A great series of database programs for music, movies, books, etc.
Cool Timer — A free stopwatch/countdown timer.
Daemon Tools — Eliminates the problem of pesky CDs having to be in the drive in order for a program or game to work, or work with all of its enhanced features.
DiskPie — Displays a graph of where all of your hard drive space is going. Sometimes you just have to wonder what Microsoft was thinking when they didn't include such a basic tool as this in Windows.
Process Explorer — Gives advanced info on background processes.
Resolution — This enables you to quickly change the screen resolution without being nagged "Are you sure?" Slips right into the SysTray.
Square One — When I touch the left side of my monitor with the pointer, a tall menu bar pops out about an inch. On it are 28 labeled icons for the programs, folders and drives I most access. (I've never liked the small Quick Launch buttons) You can put the bar against any edge of the monitor and you can divide the groups of icons with spaces. All in all, I suppose I use this program more than any on this page. It's no longer being sold so the download is an old registered version. Note: It doesn't hide itself nearly as well with Vista/Win7 and that 'Aero' look.
TheRename — Lets you rename a bunch of files, adding sequence numbers, etc.
True Image — This is the easiest, smartest and best way to back up your system, bar none.
WinRar — A 'Zip' file is a bunch of files that have been made into one big file and compressed at the same time, mainly to make transferring easier and quicker. There are actually tons of Zip-type formats out there, and if you do enough web surfing and downloading, you'll eventually run into a few. This is the best all-around program to cover the various compression formats.
Windows Programs
There are a small handful of Windows programs that can actually do much than they're given credit for:
- Notepad — When it comes to copying & pasting text into editors, I would consider this my primary tool. Almost everything goes through Notepad first, which strips it clean of line breaks, font styles, etc. The only hitch is that it also tends to strip out blank lines, and, if you're copying a large block of text, you'll have to go back through it and put all of the blank lines back in. This is gotten around by using ClipMate, above, which doesn't treat blank lines as 'extra' items to be removed.
- Wordpad — If you can't fork over the big bucks for MS Word or similar, but want to write a professional-looking document, complete with bullets and embedded pics, Wordpad will do the trick.
- MS Paint — Granted, this is a clunky, odd program to use, but it'll do most of the usual stuff, like crop and resize. There are tons of online guides around.
Loose Ends
What ties a number of these tools together is the SendTo feature. Normally, a program is 'associated' with each type of file. On my system, for example, I have Media Player Classic associated with AVI video files. When I double-click on an AVI icon, that's what pops up and starts playing the video. However, for one reason or another I might want to use a different player like PowerDVD, or an editor like VirtualDub, in which case I merely 'send' the video to the alternate program with the right mouse button. It has a whole bunch of nifty uses as covered here.
Summation
The most important tool on the page is unquestionably True Image. As I stress again and again, the image file method is the easiest and most professional way to back up a system. And if you think you're protected against worms and viruses, read this.
The most interesting tool on the page is probably PaceMaker. If you're into music, this thing is really a trip.
The most useful program on the page when it comes to the sheer person-hours it could save is probably Find & Replace. If I suddenly needed to change the table margins on all 990 of my web pages from 96% to 93%, it would take about 30 seconds for Find & Replace to do the trick. Imagine how long it would take to edit them individually.
But the most appreciated program on this page, IMHO, is little AutoSizer. That business about programs like IE opening email links and Desktop icons in less-than-full-screen mode just drove me bonkers. Thank you, little AutoSizer!