Cool/Useful Software

[wespelarno]

I've just bought a new computer and I'm installing all my software. Does anybody have any favourite bits of software (preferably free) that does something particularly useful? Id be interested to see what other people have tracked down.

From me:

Mendeley: PDF manager, automatically writes bibliographies and citations. I've got approx. 1000 scientific journal articles neatly organised using this

PDF Xchange Viewer: Allows you to search for PDFs on your computer by words/phrases so you can find articles on your computer if you don't know the location/title of the document. For some reason the windows search tool struggles with PDFs, even with correct plug ins.

VLC media player: Plays most formats (bar blu-ray, but coming soon) and bypasses region-codes so if you have DVDs on different regions you can play them all.

DoubleTwist: Allows easy synching of multiple devices and libraries without generating redundant copies of files and music or automatically overwriting and deleting things (Itunes, I'm looking long and hard at you...).

So, post up what you have and why it is worth having

 

[3viltoast3r]

I use Libreoffice (mac) although you should give Open Office a go!

Handbrake is good for encoding video..

Utorrent of course..

I believe there are some good itoones alternatives around... Media monkey comes to mind, So does winamp, But I haven't used those in a long time
I have had good experience with Thunderbird as an email client..

EDIT: I forgot PS3 media server if you have one....or an xbox for that matter..

 

[wombat]

All some variety of freeware-

Handbrake: Video encoding/recoding/transcoding (whichever it is, I get confused with the terminology). Great for converting files for playback on portable devices.

Rich Copy Tools: Microsoft developer inhouse tools, I use it for backing up and syncing files. Allows you to choose a bunch of different parameters to determine which version of a file is more current, and copy appropriately.

Bulldog PDF: Print driver that creates PDFs from any printable document.

Calibre: One most peeps probably already know, but its a kickarse ebook organiser

Requiem: Specifically the most recent release, which can remove Fairplay from ebooks. Not that I'm suggesting using it for piracy, but not being able to read an epub file that I've paid for on anything other than an ios device blows massive chunks, and Requiem will fix that.

 

[Elbo]

Stellarium: free, open source planetarium for your computer. I love exploring the night sky with this thing. You can set your location/altitude/light pollution, etc, and go outside and look up and use the computer to identify stars, constellations, planets, or more if you have binoculars or a telescope.
http://www.stellarium.org/

Hugin: free panoramic photo stitcher
http://hugin.sourceforge.net/

Little Snitch: control all internet connections your computer makes. Shareware (works for 3 hours at a time until purchased).

Mendeley looks the goods, although I use EndNote because my uni offers free licences to students.

 

[yakuza857]

Treesize professional awesome program to clean up crap on your hard drive that isn't needed (e.g. .tmp files)
Ninite not a program but a site. really easy way to install a ton of programs needed on pretty much all computers in one place.

 

[Xavo.au]

CCleaner - Used to clean up your computer and fix problems with the registry. Also better than the Windows uninstall because it removes everything completely.

 

[taquar]

Mediamonkey: Personally I think it's one of the best media players/library managers out there. Does virtually EVERYTHING you need to.

ZoneAlarm Firewall: Best possible free firewall you can get. Been using it since it first came out and it's never let me down. The paid version is even better, but I only have that cause I got it for free.

MagicDisc: Disc image mounter. It can mount any ISO and can create as many virtual drives as you want. Use it all the time.

Printershare: Allows you to print things from anywhere with an internet connection to your home printer if you want to. Because I don't have a printer, I use it to print to my dads printer at his place. Shocked him once or twice, and he uses it to print from his phone and tablet.

 

[Hew]

VLC media player - Best out there
Foobar2000 - Fully customisable nice little music player
Vipre AV protection - Honestly the most thorough virus protection that I've ever tried. It will tell you what IP addresses your computer is trying to access, when a program is trying to access a different part of your computer other than its install directory, everything. Insane.

 

[indica]

Little Snitch: control all internet connections your computer makes. Shareware (works for 3 hours at a time until purchased).

Unless you block it from accessing itself... hahahaa

 

[johnripper1987]

VLC media player - Best out there
Foobar2000 - Fully customisable nice little music player
Vipre AV protection - Honestly the most thorough virus protection that I've ever tried. It will tell you what IP addresses your computer is trying to access, when a program is trying to access a different part of your computer other than its install directory, everything. Insane.

Foobar, best soft for listening music, how cannot MS provides such a thing ?

 

[nskz]

ninite.com

Not software as such but when I format etc I find downloading and installing software annoying, ^^ that program fixes that. Just click the programs you want (obscure stuff won't be there), it gives you an all in one installer....BAM done! Saves a shitload of time, if you format a lot of have to setup computers etc it's the business.

 

[udi]

Video Download Helper for Firefox -
Lets you save almost any stream / tube video to your hard drive in FLV or MP4 format, in any available quality. I'm yet to find anything nearly as thorough for Chrome in terms of supported scope.

FLV2MP3 Converter -
Take your videos (from the above) and turn them into MP3's for your music player or car etc. Awesome for good live performances and covers on youtube that you want to preserve and listen to elsewhere.

 

[Grundos]

iRip: Allows you to rip media from iPod/iPhone straight to your iTunes library. Gotta pay $20 to activate it though.

 

[wespelarno]

Download Accelerator Plus (DAP). I'm kind of mixed on this one, it ads some very nice and much needed functionality to downloading via web browser when torrenting isn't an option. But it comes with a few annoying tool bars (can be easily shut off though. just the principle annoys me) and occasionally can be buggy.

 

[Xavo.au]

I use Downthemall for Firefox and it's really excellent. You can specify which folder you want it to download to, and there is definitely a noticeable improvement in speed compared to the regular FF downloader. You can also add segments, which makes it even quicker sometimes.

 

[INRI]

ninite.com

Not software as such but when I format etc I find downloading and installing software annoying, ^^ that program fixes that. Just click the programs you want (obscure stuff won't be there), it gives you an all in one installer....BAM done! Saves a shitload of time, if you format a lot of have to setup computers etc it's the business.

after the first time I used this I wanted to do clean windows installs just so I could use it again, it's so nice!