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  1. #1
    If you can't slam with the best then jam with the rest sabar's Avatar
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    Software costs a lot of money nowadays and pirating it can be a hassle. Here's legit free software. Don't link to pirated software, you are in no danger, but Kori would be.


    OPERATING SYSTEMS
    Mandriva
    • I really like Mandriva at the moment. Can install KDE or GNOME. The interface is very slick. urpmi works flawlessly for updating.

    Fedora Linux
    • Good Linux distro for servers, though you can use it as a desktop too. I've had some issues with yum and updating. KDE or GNOME.

    Ubuntu
    • Very popular Linux distro for use as a desktop. Easy to install packages, they ship the DVDs free. Ships with GNOME but you can install KDE (making it Kubuntu). Most noob-to-linux guides are written specifically for Ubuntu.

    Knoppix
    • Awesome for booting from a live cd. If you gotta go somewhere and are gonna be forced to use a machine with windows on it, just pop in the cd and work away in an excellent linux environment.



    BROWSERS

    Mozilla Firefox
    • Secure, fast. Supports thousands of user created addons, some of which I suggest below. Brings in your bookmarks from Internet Explorer. Tabbed browsing.

    Google Chrome

    • New. Each tab is a seperate process to lower dependancy on the stability of the entire browser. Some scripts are sandboxed. Very simplistic.

    Opera
    • Opera consistently performs high in performance tests and leads all browsers with compatibility with web standards. Powerful browser with many features.



    FIREFOX ADDONS

    Adblock Plus
    • You will never see a pop-up or flash ad ever again. Guaranteed.

    Download Statusbar
    • Easy to track downloads

    Flagfox
    • Displays which country the server hosting the webpage you are looking at resides in. Did you know SpursTalk is hosted in Slovenia?

    Googlepedia
    • Displays a relevant wikipedia article alongside your google query.

    IE Tab
    • Lets you render a page using Internet Explorer

    PDF Download
    • Big PDF files can freeze up browsers. Not anymore since it asks you what you want to do with it.

    Torrent Finder Toolbar
    • Search over 120 torrent servers in a second. Find anything you will ever want.



    PROGRAMMING

    Java Runtime (java.sun.com)
    • Java programs require the JRE to be installed.

    Bloodshed IDEs
    • Excellent IDEs that use open source compilers like gcc.



    SECURITY

    avg free

    • Pay nothing and get protection. Mostly silent and uses few resources.


    avast! Antivirus Free Home Edition
    • Don't pay a dime and you get feature-packed protection. Don't recommend on older systems as windows binary scanning can cripple start speeds on those machines.

    Spybot - Search & Destroy
    • Find over 150,000 malware, adware, spyware programs with a scan. You can also immunize Internet Explorer and Firefox against malicious websites. Don't install TeaTimer unless you want to, it's annoying.



    REMOTE ACCESS

    putty
    • SSH anywhere securely

    SSH Secure S Client
    • SSH, plus gui file transfer



    SYSTEM STABILITY

    CCleaner
    • Clean your registry, unused files, temp files, memory dumps, core dumps, anything and everything that takes up space but isn't needed.

    Driver Cleaner Pro
    • Strongly suggested when installing new video card drivers. Uninstall the old ones, run driver cleaner pro, reset PC, install new drivers. Prevents version conflicts common with driver upgrades.

    ProcessScanner
    • See what is running in your background and if it is trash.



    ARCHIVING

    7-zip
    • Free, fast uncompressing and compressing technology. Doesn't annoy you like WinRar and WinZip with registration.

    PeaZip

    • Fast and free. Lightweight.


    IMAGE VIEWING

    Irfanview
    • Free fast image viewer.

    3D MODELING
    Blender
    • Free and hundreds of user-made plugins let you do anything a full-featured $2000 program does.


    COMMAND-LINE

    vim
    • Nothing is better for editing text files from a command line.

    cygwin
    • Linux bash s on your windows machine.



    THEMES

    Theme patcher
    • Lets you install 3rd party themes to WindowsXP

    NiteLiteXP
    • A dark winxp theme

    LunaVX
    • A blue winxp theme

    Royale
    • Microsoft winxp theme, ships with media center

    Zune
    • Dark microsoft winxp theme



    MEDIA
    Adobe Reader
    • Only PDF reader that can open any PDF files. There are 3rd party ones like Sumatra, but they are all buggy and still in development.

    Combined Community Codec Pack
    • Excellent for DVD playback. Will crack copy protection on any DVD that exists, letting you be able to watch movies on your PC.

    Winamp
    • Music player. I'm sure you've heard of it. Very skinnable.

    imgburn

    • Accept no subs ute for burning dvds

    GAMES
    Cube 2: Saurbraten

    • Quake-like FPS with a few modern graphics techniques

    OpenArena

    • Quake 3-clone

    Zelda Classic

    • It's NES Zelda for the PC with a level editor

    Barkley, Shut Up & Jam: Gaiden, Chapter 1 of the Hoopz Barkley SaGa

    • "The Great B-Ball Purge of 2041, a day so painful to some that it is referred to only as the "B-Ballnacht". Thousands upon thousands of the world's greatest ballers were massacred in a swath of violence and sports bigotry as the game was outlawed worldwide. The reason: the Chaos Dunk, a jam so powerful its mere existence threatens the balance of chaos and order. Among the few ballers and fans that survived the basketball genocide was Charles Barkley, the man capable of performing the 'Verboten Jam'..."


    UTILITIES

    Launchy
    • Quick-launch programs by pressing alt-space and then typing part of the programs name.

    SpeedFan
    • Monitor cpu fans, case fans, motherboard temperature and more, assuming your mobo is compatible and reports these things.



    DO ENTS

    GoogleDocs
    • Online do ent editor. Word editor, spreadsheet editor are popular.

    OpenOffice
    • Too cheap for microsoft office? Grab openoffice. It's compatible with microsoft's formats and costs nothing.

    I'm sure I forgot plenty of stuff I use.
    Last edited by sabar; 11-05-2009 at 04:54 AM.

  2. #2
    I love craft beer. Sense's Avatar
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    Nice post man... appreciate it.

  3. #3
    Take the fcking keys away baseline bum's Avatar
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    vim is great. It's been my #1 text editor for years regardless of what operating system I use. It's my tool of choice for writing papers, web pages, s scripting, or writing small C programs.

    - ffmpeg is the best tool for converting audio, video
    - vlc is the most versatile media player I've ever found, though mplayer's not bad
    - KLite codec pack will ensure you can play any type of video at will on a Windows box
    - Eclipse is far and away the best java development environment
    - Visual Studio Express is free for Windows coders now, and their C++ development environment/debugger is top notch
    - for Linux, Gentoo has become very solid. I used to use LFS, but as Linux has grown, it has become pretty unmanageable the last couple of years (especially now with 64-bit and 32-bit libraries in parallel). Fedora sucks IMO... it tries to force the user into using only open src software, and has no mp3 or dvd support out of the box.
    - teTeX (*NIX) and MikTeX (Windows) are great for creating mathematical do ents.
    - If you have a TV capture card on Windows, DScaler is an awesome viewer. Still haven't had a lot of success with MythTV in *NIX though.
    - fceu is the best Nintendo emulator; MAME is great for arcade games (ie, Ninja Turtles, Street Fighter 2, Ms Pacman)
    - iDump is a great Windows tool to get music from your iPod onto your hard drive
    Last edited by baseline bum; 06-05-2008 at 01:26 AM.

  4. #4
    Too weird to live, and too rare to die. midgetonadonkey's Avatar
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    Winamp is great but it pisses me off because it is constantly telling me to upgrade.

  5. #5
    If you can't slam with the best then jam with the rest sabar's Avatar
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    foobar2000 is a good music player but it can be a real pain to setup. It's ugly as dirt out of the box. If you are patient you can create your dream media player.

    Speaking of emulation, epsxe is awesome for playing psx games on your machine, especially since any cd-rom will pick up the games and there is no crazy copy protection on the cds.

    I use zsnes for some snes games, though I've gone back to using my actual snes. My old games are starting to die now that it's been 15+ years. If you got an old system, emulate your favorite games, those cartridges are starting to hit their life expectancy.

    Anyone have suggestions on free mp3 taggers? Almost everything is commercial or try-before-you-buy. I need to tag hundreds of mp3s, still haven't found a good program.

  6. #6
    Believe.
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    http://linuxmint.com/

    My OS of choice, unless I'm gaming. Basically Ubuntu, but with some nice tweaks, a better GUI, and many codecs already taken care of.

    EDIT: Also loving the original post. Only addendum I would add is that spybot has really gone to lately. I used to count on it and adaware, but now it is slow and less effective. I found me a new one that is tops, Asquared:

    http://www.emsisoft.com/en/software/free/

    Good stuff.
    Last edited by Newton; 06-05-2008 at 09:29 PM.

  7. #7
    PLM Kyle Smith's Avatar
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    Nice post man... appreciate it.

  8. #8
    Veteran exstatic's Avatar
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    Windows Text Editor Category

    Crimson Editor is a nice little text editor. Give it a try.

    Crimson Editor Site

  9. #9
    Moss is Da Sauce! mouse's Avatar
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    Software costs a lot of money nowadays and pirating it can be a hassle. Here's legit free software. Don't link to pirated software, you are in no danger, but Kori would be.


    OPERATING SYSTEMS
    Fedora Linux
    • Excellent Linux distro for servers, though you can use it as a desktop too.
    Redhat Linux
    • Another good distro for servers.
    Ubuntu
    • Very popular Linux distro for use as a desktop. Easy to install packages, they ship the DVDs free.


    BROWSERS

    Mozilla Firefox
    • Secure, fast. Supports thousands of user created addons, some of which I suggest below. Brings in your bookmarks from Internet Explorer. Tabbed browsing.


    FIREFOX ADDONS

    Adblock Plus
    • You will never see a pop-up or flash ad ever again. Guaranteed.
    Download Statusbar
    • Easy to track downloads
    Flagfox
    • Displays which country the server hosting the webpage you are looking at resides in. Did you know SpursTalk is hosted in Slovenia?
    Googlepedia
    • Displays a relevant wikipedia article alongside your google query.
    IE Tab
    • Lets you render a page using Internet Explorer
    PDF Download
    • Big PDF files can freeze up browsers. Not anymore since it asks you what you want to do with it.
    Torrent Finder Toolbar
    • Search over 120 torrent servers in a second. Find anything you will ever want.


    PROGRAMMING

    Java Runtime (java.sun.com)
    • Java programs require the JRE to be installed.
    Bloodshed IDEs
    • Excellent IDEs that use open source compilers like gcc.


    SECURITY

    avast! 4 Antivirus Free Home Edition
    • Don't pay a dime but get excellent and non-laggy protection. Suggest you register for free for a one year license.
    Spybot - Search & Destroy
    • Find over 150,000 malware, adware, spyware programs with a scan. You can also immunize Internet Explorer and Firefox against malicious websites. Don't install TeaTimer unless you want to, it's annoying.


    REMOTE ACCESS

    putty
    • SSH anymore securely
    SSH Secure S Client
    • SSH, can't remeber the URL :O


    SYSTEM STABILITY

    CCleaner
    • Clean your registry, unused files, temp files, memory dumps, core dumps, anything and everything that takes up space but isn't needed.
    Driver Cleaner Pro
    • Strongly suggested when installing new video card drivers. Uninstall the old ones, run driver cleaner pro, reset PC, install new drivers. Prevents version conflicts common with driver upgrades.
    ProcessScanner
    • See what is running in your background and if it is trash.


    ARCHIVING

    7-zip
    • Free, fast uncompressing and compressing technology. Doesn't annoy you like WinRar and WinZip.


    IMAGE VIEWING

    Irfanview
    • Free fast image viewer.


    COMMAND-LINE

    vim
    • Nothing is better for editing text files from a command line.
    cygwin
    • Linux bash s on your windows machine.


    THEMES

    Theme patcher
    • Lets you install 3rd party themes to WindowsXP
    NiteLiteXP
    • A dark winxp theme
    LunaVX
    • A blue winxp theme
    Royale
    • Microsoft winxp theme, ships with media center
    Zune
    • Dark microsoft winxp theme


    MEDIA/UTILITIES

    Adobe Reader
    • Only PDF reader that can open any PDF files. There are 3rd party ones like Sumatra, but they are all buggy and still in development.
    Combined Community Codec Pack
    • Excellent for DVD playback. Will crack copy protection on any DVD that exists, letting you be able to watch movies on your PC.
    Winamp
    • Music player. I'm sure you've heard of it. Very skinnable.
    Launchy
    • Quick-launch programs by pressing alt-space and then typing part of the programs name.
    SpeedFan
    • Monitor cpu fans, case fans, motherboard temperature and more, assuming your mobo is compatible and reports these things.


    DO ENTS

    GoogleDocs
    • Online do ent editor. Word editor, spreadsheet editor are popular.
    OpenOffice
    • Too cheap for microsoft office? Grab openoffice. It's compatible with microsoft's formats and costs nothing.

    I'm sure I forgot plenty of stuff I use.

    You are Moderator material! good job!

  10. #10
    You Belinelli Believe It! dougp's Avatar
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    Dont forget about:

    Application Launchers
    Rocket Dock - Nice MAC-like app launcher.

    PDF Application
    CutePDF - Create PDFs and load them on the fly - also print to PDF from Word/IE, etc.

    Image Editors
    Paint.NET - Simple editor, but requires .NET
    GIMP for Windows - Like the Linux version, but requires Python.
    FastStone Photo Resizer - Batch resize images.

    Browser Mods
    IE7 Pro - Since you have FF taken care of, this one improves on IE7/8.
    Opera - Old school!

    Codecs
    QT Alternative
    Real Alternative


    You can also visit Lifehacker (http://www.lifehacker.com) for other tips on speeding things up, it's nice and they update quite a few times a day.

  11. #11
    Moss is Da Sauce! mouse's Avatar
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    Ok so we have two mods, do we really need another?


    I hope Slomo gives you two a Pocket protector icon!

  12. #12
    Don't stop believin' Dex's Avatar
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    For you Applephiles, here's a similar list of OS X freeware.

    http://generaldisarray.wordpress.com...s-x-apps-list/

  13. #13
    You Belinelli Believe It! dougp's Avatar
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    Image Viewer
    IrfranView - I prefer the default Windows one, but this one is nice also

    HTML Editors (WYSIWYG)
    KompoZer - Pretty simple, based off of NVU.
    Dynamic HTML Editor - Uses CSS to position and style the website, basically like drawing your own design.

    TXT Editor
    Notepad++ - This is the one I use, kinda remins me of EditPlus, but free!

  14. #14
    If you can't slam with the best then jam with the rest sabar's Avatar
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    Nice stuff, I'll update the original post soon

  15. #15
    Feels bad man Mr.Bottomtooth's Avatar
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    Very nice.

  16. #16
    Since 1992 Brutalis's Avatar
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    AVG Antivirus 8 just came out and is free. Thought it was better than Avast.

  17. #17
    You Belinelli Believe It! dougp's Avatar
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    AVG has a tendency to miss things, I've been using Avast! for 5 years and never had a problem. The only time I used AVG I managed to get a trojan that hosed my system. Never even caught it, had to use Avast to clean it up.

  18. #18
    Since 1992 Brutalis's Avatar
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    You may be right but I have had several computer nerds (not an insult) that told me to keep AVG over Avast.

  19. #19
    Poker Phenom. Heath Ledger's Avatar
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    Spurstalk hosted in Slovenia, no wonder why Slomo is a god around here...

  20. #20
    Finals MVP GINNNNNNNNNNNNOBILI's Avatar
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    Anyone know of a (Free) software that will convert AVI files over to a format that will burn on to a DVD.

    Any help would be appreciated

  21. #21
    You Belinelli Believe It! dougp's Avatar
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    Anyone know of a (Free) software that will convert AVI files over to a format that will burn on to a DVD.

    Any help would be appreciated
    What kind of DVD Burning software do you have?

    Also, what kind of DVD player do you have that you want to watch it on?

  22. #22
    bandwagoner fans suck ducks's Avatar
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    AVG has a tendency to miss things, I've been using Avast! for 5 years and never had a problem. The only time I used AVG I managed to get a trojan that hosed my system. Never even caught it, had to use Avast to clean it up.
    avg does not miss things
    avast is good
    avg picked up 54 viruses that norton 360 misssed

  23. #23
    If you can't slam with the best then jam with the rest sabar's Avatar
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    I've used both avg and avast. I went with avast as it doesn't bother you if you're disconnected from the internet and it fails to update like avg did. I haven't tried avg 8 though.

  24. #24
    Do you expect me to talk? DieMrBond's Avatar
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    I recommend using www.logmein.com as a remote control software, you can install it on computers that are linked to an email address based login, and using an internet browser - connect to the computer, and control it like a virtual desktop. Works through firewalls, and i've never had any issues with it at all.

    You can lock the mouse/keyboard on the users end, chat to the user, change the how the screen appears to speed up the performance, and lots of other things. With the Pro version (which you have to pay for) you can transfer files, and hear sound, and do all sorts of things.

    Quality.

  25. #25
    W4A1 143 43CK? Nbadan's Avatar
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    Nice stuff....but don't forget the K-lite codec pak

    Don't fret about missing codecs again...

    http://www.free-codecs.com/download/...codec_pack.htm

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