Recently I downloaded Google's Desktop Search for a second time for a few reasons. I don't like that it keeps track of everything, but you can disable what you don't what, but still the idea of it searching my whole C drive is just...eh...to me. But it does have some helpful features, mainly the Scracth Pad, ToDo list, and weather area. Now I already use google's personalized home page so I can see weather, movies, news, sports and more so basically the only featues I really like are the ToDo List and ScratchPad. Im sure there are some cool extensions, but I haven't really found anything yet.
So what Im getting at is what cool little programs do you guys use that have some useful features?
Also, does anyone use Google Desktop Search? Do you find it useful?
Right now the most useful things I use are...
[list]
Gmail, and Google's personalized homes
OpenOffice
Firefox
iTunes and my iPod for backing up all of my files and listening to music
MSN for talking
HydraIRC for Ace stuffs
Gobby is really cool for programming with people, me and Stylpe used it very effectively once
[/list:u]
That's about it for me, Im really looking for something like a ToDo list so I don't forget about my homework while browsing online and stuff :)
List tags are malformed.
Digging through my e:/apps/ directory ...
[list][*][url=http://www.7-zip.org/]7z[/url] - Serious about compression? Muchly. It handles zip better than zip does and the 7z format is just beautiful.
[*][url=http://www.apache.org/]Apache[/url] - I loves the mastaile.mine.nu. How do I host files? mv file e:/www/ ... *Cheer!*
[*][url=http://audacity.sourceforge.net/]Audacity[/url] - Playing with waves is fun, especially if one happens to get involved in audio-play projects. Which ... I actually do because it's entertaining.
[*][url=http://www.beipmu.com/]BeipMU[/url] - My MU* client of choice. For communication clients, KISS.
[*][url=http://www.outertech.com/index.php?_charisma_page=product&id=7]Cacheman XP[/url] - The only good Windows cache manager around, it's commercial but since the guy only asks a fiver (in my moneys), I don't feel too badly about it.
[*][url=http://dailystrips.sourceforge.net/]DailyStrips[/url] - I read too many damned webcomics and this leaves me with not enough time, not enough time! So this is extremely helpful, even if morally dubious.
[*][url=http://sourceforge.net/projects/ffdshow/]FFDShow[/url] - DivX? XViD? Billions of other video codecs? Why bother with codec packs when this one wrapper handles almost every codec in existance. Like, seriously.
[*][url=http://mozilla.org/]Firefox[/url] - [i]The[/i] browser, [i]if[/i] you know how to tame the beast. Careful stripping down of existing aspects and then dressing up with the correct extensions leads to the best browsing experience I've had.
[*][url=http://gaim.sourceforge.net/win32/]Gaim[/url] - I tend to use Jabber, ICQ and IRC regularly. Gaim manages my time with these with class. Guifications for the win! As I said before though, simplicity is the key here and Gaim wins. Again, KISS.
[*][url=http://www.gimp.org/windows/]GIMP[/url] - [i]The[/i] art program, [i]if[/i] you understand how its plugin system works. It's complex but the UI is no longer clunky (at least if you're using 2.0+ it's not) and the power ... compared to other image-editing solutions, oh the power. Code my own plugins? Yes please.
[*][url=http://gobby.0x539.de/]Gobby[/url] - Collaborative editing, go! I was pointed in the direction of this by Stylpe and I am glad of it. If I manage to get a few more team projects going, this'll be put into regular use, I suggest everyone grab this helpful little bugger.
[*][url=http://k3d.sourceforge.net/]K3D[/url] - Because 3D modelling is fun to play around with and this thing has mad tutorials. I love it. I admit, I can't really model but it's fun to try, yanno?
[*][url=http://download.kerio.com/archive/]Kerio[/url] - My software firewall of choice, back when it actually worked well and wasn't bloated. It's very nice for security concerns. Good, solid and it doesn't make me feel like some big company's whoreboy due to the fact it doesn't push its name in my face at every oppurunity. Simple, sleek, powerful.
[*][url=http://kmeleon.sourceforge.net/]K-Meleon[/url] - A good browser if one's PC happens to be strained of resources, say ... running a game client that tends to eat up 500-800MeB of RAM. Yes, you know who you are.
[*][url=http://sourceforge.net/projects/guliverkli/]Media Player Classic[/url] - This and FFDShow (both open source) are my primary methodus operandi of video file watching. Oh and it works with DVDs too, which is always a big bonus and has full support for the best codec systems out there, including individual dub file support and other neat things.
[*][url=http://www.nero.com/]Nero[/url] - ... because none of the open-source burners seem to understand XP too well, at least so far. So sadly I've had to actually buy this. Still, it works nicely for my obsessive once-a-day backups.
[*][url=http://www.eset.com/]Nod32[/url] - I have no software loyalty so the virus-scanner I have is the one that most beardy-analyst-sites agree on to be the best at the moment, that would be Nod32.
[*][url=http://www.nvu.com/]Nvu[/url] - If I'm putting Html up on the internet, I write it by hand. If I want to kick back and write a document though - I use Nvu. Some people use Word, I hate Doc. I use Html.
[*][url=http://www.shareaza.com/]Shareaza[/url] - A while ago it sucked, now it doesn't. It actually recently outdid g3torrent by quite a bit resource usage wise, WTF? 0-2 cycles and 13.5 RAM whilst downloading is about the average for me. Clunky and ugly but damn, is it efficient.
[*][url=http://www.shoutcast.com/download/]SHOUTCast[/url] - Yes, occasionally I like letting people listen to my music because my music is so strange and I just love the reactions to it.
[*][url=http://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/]SpyBot[/url] - My malware gutter of choice.
[*][url=http://mozilla.org/products/thunderbird/]Thunderbird[/url] - My mail client of choice, in text mode.
[*][url=http://virtualdubmod.sourceforge.net/]VirtualDubMod[/url] - Because video-editing is actually fun. If nothing else, it's good for removing ugly logos.
[*][url=http://www.wallpaperchanger.de/]WallpaperChanger[/url] - I could never find a better program than this one, it's [i]weird[/i] but it does a damned good job. I'm a very ... artsy, creative person. So I love constant inspiration on the desktop. I have an endless variety of fantasy locales and situations amongst my desktop collection. It's nice to have those on a cycle of 60 minutes.
[*][url=http://www.winamp.com/]WinAMP[/url] - In honesty, with all the plugins I just still haven't found anything better. I'd love to try XMMS but it doesn't look like that'll ever get compiled for Windows, for now? WinAMP.
[*][url=http://winlame.sourceforge.net/]WinLame[/url] - Because it makes life easier.[/list:u]
Well that's it for my apps directory.
I also have an e:/stuff/ directory, I'll try to bring you the best of what I have in there.
[list][*][url=http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages.html]GnuWin32[/url] - I have every package from this place. My workplace feels very Linux-ish and I approve. I'm a major command-line user.
[*][url=http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/compile.html]Bash[/url] - Having a good version of BASH around is always a bonus as I find it a friendlier shell to work with than cmd.exe, quite often.[/url][/list:u]
All just my opinion of course.
If anyone could suggest a Free music-playing and DVD-burning systems which are consistently good then I'm listening. I'm listening in all categories actually but I won't switch my Free solutions for commercial, not going to happen.
List tags are malformed.
In addition to some of the applications already mentioned, I use:
Ventrilo and Teamspeak, voice comm. apps,
FastStone Image Viewer, excellent app for browsing folders of images,
DU Meter, lightweight app to monitor network usage,
OpenTarget, a small dll thingy that adds 'Open Target Folder...' to the right-click menu of all shortcuts,
And AudioPhonics Guitar tuner to tune my guitar ^_^
Opera for web. I prefer it to FireFox. WinRAR for archives. I've tried 7zip, TugZip, and others, and I keep coming back to WinRAR. It just does everything better for me, and is worth the registration. Eudora for popped email to a couple of accounts. Google Talk for Google's IM client and Gmail inbox checking. UltraEdit32 for most editing. notepad2 for any other quick editing. SysInternals - A myriad of free utilities, I use probably at least half of the free tools on their site. VLC or ffdshow for playing video. uTorrent for Bit Torrent downloads, I just switched to this client last week from Azeurus and I love it. Tiny footprint and performs great. NetLimiter to make sure programs can't saturate my uplink.
Despite the fact that I have a lot of commercial software I do try to use open source software where possible, but I will pay for something if it flat out fits my needs better.
Now I actually do a lot of my onilne stuff (IRC, IM, etc.) on my Linux system, in a terminal window. I use text mode clients for everything. CenterICQ for AIM, Yahoo, and ICQ. BitchX for IRC.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
So what Im getting at is what cool little programs do you guys use that have some useful features?
Also, does anyone use Google Desktop Search? Do you find it useful?
Right now the most useful things I use are...
[list]
Gmail, and Google's personalized homes
OpenOffice
Firefox
iTunes and my iPod for backing up all of my files and listening to music
MSN for talking
HydraIRC for Ace stuffs
Gobby is really cool for programming with people, me and Stylpe used it very effectively once
[/list:u]
That's about it for me, Im really looking for something like a ToDo list so I don't forget about my homework while browsing online and stuff :)
List tags are malformed.
[list][*][url=http://www.7-zip.org/]7z[/url] - Serious about compression? Muchly. It handles zip better than zip does and the 7z format is just beautiful.
[*][url=http://www.apache.org/]Apache[/url] - I loves the mastaile.mine.nu. How do I host files? mv file e:/www/ ... *Cheer!*
[*][url=http://audacity.sourceforge.net/]Audacity[/url] - Playing with waves is fun, especially if one happens to get involved in audio-play projects. Which ... I actually do because it's entertaining.
[*][url=http://www.beipmu.com/]BeipMU[/url] - My MU* client of choice. For communication clients, KISS.
[*][url=http://www.outertech.com/index.php?_charisma_page=product&id=7]Cacheman XP[/url] - The only good Windows cache manager around, it's commercial but since the guy only asks a fiver (in my moneys), I don't feel too badly about it.
[*][url=http://dailystrips.sourceforge.net/]DailyStrips[/url] - I read too many damned webcomics and this leaves me with not enough time, not enough time! So this is extremely helpful, even if morally dubious.
[*][url=http://sourceforge.net/projects/ffdshow/]FFDShow[/url] - DivX? XViD? Billions of other video codecs? Why bother with codec packs when this one wrapper handles almost every codec in existance. Like, seriously.
[*][url=http://mozilla.org/]Firefox[/url] - [i]The[/i] browser, [i]if[/i] you know how to tame the beast. Careful stripping down of existing aspects and then dressing up with the correct extensions leads to the best browsing experience I've had.
[*][url=http://gaim.sourceforge.net/win32/]Gaim[/url] - I tend to use Jabber, ICQ and IRC regularly. Gaim manages my time with these with class. Guifications for the win! As I said before though, simplicity is the key here and Gaim wins. Again, KISS.
[*][url=http://www.gimp.org/windows/]GIMP[/url] - [i]The[/i] art program, [i]if[/i] you understand how its plugin system works. It's complex but the UI is no longer clunky (at least if you're using 2.0+ it's not) and the power ... compared to other image-editing solutions, oh the power. Code my own plugins? Yes please.
[*][url=http://gobby.0x539.de/]Gobby[/url] - Collaborative editing, go! I was pointed in the direction of this by Stylpe and I am glad of it. If I manage to get a few more team projects going, this'll be put into regular use, I suggest everyone grab this helpful little bugger.
[*][url=http://k3d.sourceforge.net/]K3D[/url] - Because 3D modelling is fun to play around with and this thing has mad tutorials. I love it. I admit, I can't really model but it's fun to try, yanno?
[*][url=http://download.kerio.com/archive/]Kerio[/url] - My software firewall of choice, back when it actually worked well and wasn't bloated. It's very nice for security concerns. Good, solid and it doesn't make me feel like some big company's whoreboy due to the fact it doesn't push its name in my face at every oppurunity. Simple, sleek, powerful.
[*][url=http://kmeleon.sourceforge.net/]K-Meleon[/url] - A good browser if one's PC happens to be strained of resources, say ... running a game client that tends to eat up 500-800MeB of RAM. Yes, you know who you are.
[*][url=http://sourceforge.net/projects/guliverkli/]Media Player Classic[/url] - This and FFDShow (both open source) are my primary methodus operandi of video file watching. Oh and it works with DVDs too, which is always a big bonus and has full support for the best codec systems out there, including individual dub file support and other neat things.
[*][url=http://www.nero.com/]Nero[/url] - ... because none of the open-source burners seem to understand XP too well, at least so far. So sadly I've had to actually buy this. Still, it works nicely for my obsessive once-a-day backups.
[*][url=http://www.eset.com/]Nod32[/url] - I have no software loyalty so the virus-scanner I have is the one that most beardy-analyst-sites agree on to be the best at the moment, that would be Nod32.
[*][url=http://www.nvu.com/]Nvu[/url] - If I'm putting Html up on the internet, I write it by hand. If I want to kick back and write a document though - I use Nvu. Some people use Word, I hate Doc. I use Html.
[*][url=http://www.shareaza.com/]Shareaza[/url] - A while ago it sucked, now it doesn't. It actually recently outdid g3torrent by quite a bit resource usage wise, WTF? 0-2 cycles and 13.5 RAM whilst downloading is about the average for me. Clunky and ugly but damn, is it efficient.
[*][url=http://www.shoutcast.com/download/]SHOUTCast[/url] - Yes, occasionally I like letting people listen to my music because my music is so strange and I just love the reactions to it.
[*][url=http://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/]SpyBot[/url] - My malware gutter of choice.
[*][url=http://mozilla.org/products/thunderbird/]Thunderbird[/url] - My mail client of choice, in text mode.
[*][url=http://virtualdubmod.sourceforge.net/]VirtualDubMod[/url] - Because video-editing is actually fun. If nothing else, it's good for removing ugly logos.
[*][url=http://www.wallpaperchanger.de/]WallpaperChanger[/url] - I could never find a better program than this one, it's [i]weird[/i] but it does a damned good job. I'm a very ... artsy, creative person. So I love constant inspiration on the desktop. I have an endless variety of fantasy locales and situations amongst my desktop collection. It's nice to have those on a cycle of 60 minutes.
[*][url=http://www.winamp.com/]WinAMP[/url] - In honesty, with all the plugins I just still haven't found anything better. I'd love to try XMMS but it doesn't look like that'll ever get compiled for Windows, for now? WinAMP.
[*][url=http://winlame.sourceforge.net/]WinLame[/url] - Because it makes life easier.[/list:u]
Well that's it for my apps directory.
I also have an e:/stuff/ directory, I'll try to bring you the best of what I have in there.
[list][*][url=http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages.html]GnuWin32[/url] - I have every package from this place. My workplace feels very Linux-ish and I approve. I'm a major command-line user.
[*][url=http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/compile.html]Bash[/url] - Having a good version of BASH around is always a bonus as I find it a friendlier shell to work with than cmd.exe, quite often.[/url][/list:u]
All just my opinion of course.
If anyone could suggest a Free music-playing and DVD-burning systems which are consistently good then I'm listening. I'm listening in all categories actually but I won't switch my Free solutions for commercial, not going to happen.
List tags are malformed.
Not showing previous mentioned programs
VLC - Media player of choice. (opensource)
Winamp - Because i like it damnit(freeware - closedsource)
Context - Text editor of choice (freeware closedsource)
Xchat - grab a silverex build for win32. (Opensouce)
Litestep - currently kinda dead but it works fine (opensource)
Hexworkshop - Good hexeditor payed for it (somone know something like this but opensource ?) (closed source - commercial)
IDA a Disassembler/debuger (closed source commercial ) cracked version
-- Less intersting
Activeperl - Tidy - nLite - Openoffice - Foxit pdf reader - gimp - CDburnerXp3 pro - Picasa - dev-cpp
Ventrilo and Teamspeak, voice comm. apps,
FastStone Image Viewer, excellent app for browsing folders of images,
DU Meter, lightweight app to monitor network usage,
OpenTarget, a small dll thingy that adds 'Open Target Folder...' to the right-click menu of all shortcuts,
And AudioPhonics Guitar tuner to tune my guitar ^_^
Ad-Aware SE Personal - Works good at finding and removing spywar/adware and is free for personal use.
Norton AntiVirus 2005 - Best anti-virus program I've ever used.
Nero Suite - A whole bunch of Nero stuff for burning, Ripping and Making Images of CDs, DVDs. Creates CD Covers as well.
Ventrilo - Use it for my WoW Guild voice chatting needs.
Winamp - I like it more than media player for music and internet radio.
Windows Media Player Classic - For watching some video types.
BSPlayer - For watching other video types.
Win RAR - Usefull zipping program that supports most formats.
X-Fire - Keeps track of hours logged gaming, I mostly use it to easily join Battlefield 2 servers my friends are in.
Adobe Photoshop CS - For all my image editing, viewing and converting needs.
Sound Forge Pro 8.0 - Proffessional quality program used for sound editing.
IP-Info - Places my Host name, ip address, gateway address and MAC address ontop of my desktop background in the corner.
MSN Messenger with Messenger Plus - Only instant messenging service all my friends are on.
HijackThis - Shows you "all" the running processes and gives detailed information on them.
Brutus - If you dont know what it's for, I'm not going to tell you.
-
View User Profile
-
View Posts
-
Send Message
Curse Premium----------
Ida-Pro
MS WinDbg64 / 32 bits version
W32Dasm
TSearch
<any game>
LCC
Usefull
-----------
Notepad
UltraEdit32
WinRAR
NewsBin Pro
Thunderbird
Firefox
DreamWeaver
MSTSC
Cyberlink PowerDVD 6.x
Photoshop
Fraps
Ventrilo
TimeSink
-----------
Eclipse
Teh Intarweb
Head
WinRAR for archives. I've tried 7zip, TugZip, and others, and I keep coming back to WinRAR. It just does everything better for me, and is worth the registration.
Eudora for popped email to a couple of accounts.
Google Talk for Google's IM client and Gmail inbox checking.
UltraEdit32 for most editing.
notepad2 for any other quick editing.
SysInternals - A myriad of free utilities, I use probably at least half of the free tools on their site.
VLC or ffdshow for playing video.
uTorrent for Bit Torrent downloads, I just switched to this client last week from Azeurus and I love it. Tiny footprint and performs great.
NetLimiter to make sure programs can't saturate my uplink.
Despite the fact that I have a lot of commercial software I do try to use open source software where possible, but I will pay for something if it flat out fits my needs better.
Now I actually do a lot of my onilne stuff (IRC, IM, etc.) on my Linux system, in a terminal window. I use text mode clients for everything. CenterICQ for AIM, Yahoo, and ICQ. BitchX for IRC.