Software products that you think are really good

[goofyballer]

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Memento - great little post it prog - very small footprint

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thanks for replacing the 4390203473 stickies on my desk at work.

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I just downloaded this and I can tell it's going to change my life. Thank you.

[mosta]

XXClone After pokertracker (no need to list) I think this is the first software I ever paid for. Makes a bootable clone of your xp system on your back-up hard drive (or whatever media). I'm not very tech advanced, but apparently msft doesn't like cloning your system b/c it facilitates piracy. generally a clone of xp won't be bootable. xxclone was designed to do it. now if my drive fails, I shut down, pull and trash the drive, and boot off the clone, which replicates everything since my last back up. hardly a hiccup. no extraction, no restore, no boot discs. maybe this just appeals to me b/c I'm tech retarded.

MSFT Streets and Trips. I'd spent my whole life never having given money to msft (pirated office, bot refurb'd computers). Then on a plane trip the guy next to me whips out his laptop, sticks a gps sensor on the window, and tracks our flight on a map. I was sold. since then I've navigated all around the country (and canada) with my old TP 650e laptop in the passenger seat. (gives audio directions too.) delorme has a competing product but reviews say it's not good. msft isn't perfect (some addresses are a block off), but it has never caused me a problem in many trips. and it's under 100 bucks.

open office. better I use this to fight msft than pirate it. I decided to make the step when a reviewer said office 2007 docs wouldn't be readable in old offict. f u msft. Calc (spreadsheet) doesn't do somethings as well as excel. but it does them. I'm kind of a medium power user, not a super power user, though. Writer does a lot of things better than Word. You can save in the msft formats for compatibility, and you can save to pdf too. (I'm not sure if msft reads open formats itself, though. but apparently they have caught on in some countries so...)

Bitpim. freeware. I've used it to make back ups and move files on and off of (and hack) my last 2 phones with verizon (an LG from 2 years ago and a new Razr). VZ locks them down. Bitpim picks the lock. (also for more advanced you need a seem editor.)


re the above: I'm interested in a universal remote. I now have 4: TV, CD/DVD, Squeezebox (which I only use for internet radio), and amp. I'm concerned they won't cover my amp. (PS Audio GCC 100 (Class D), not something you're going to find in Best Buy.) Maybe they do. Maybe they will as soon as you ask.

[El Diablo]

mosta,

Head over to astro's thread for universal remote recs.

[bwana devil]

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just to clear things up. openoffice files can be opened with microsoft office products and used interchangeably right?

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a word of warning. last year, i started a project at work in powerpoint. brought it home and worked on my computer in openoffice and everything was fine. brought it back to work tried to open it in powerpoint and the file was not fine. (it's been too long to remember exactly what was wrong).

im somewhat handy w/ a computer but couldnt do anything w/ it. one of the IT guys at work was able to fix the file after quite some time.

[astroglide]

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I tried gimp years ago and what I really disliked is that the interface seemed really obtuse. Or maybe it was just me being obtuse. In photoshop it always seemed really easy to figure out how to do stuff, but in gimp, I think I had a hell of a time drawing a circle.

Has the interface improved over the years?

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try paint.net. it's been mentioned, but not hyped. i only do simple crap, but i like it a lot better than gimp.

[asofel]

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Textpad - Similar to, but better than, EditPlus for Windows. Great syntax highlighting built in and shortcuts for coding/writing in a number of languages ranging from Ruby to CSS.

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Have you tried TextMate? I don't know if you're a programmer by trade, but I code in Ruby (specifically a Rails environment) all day, and I love this damn editor...

[astroglide]

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any cygwin fans in the house? there must be around here. Probably the one program that has improved my life the most. If you're a linux/unix guy trapped in a windows environment you really should be using it.

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i love cygwin, but i think the nt terminal sucks. luckily, the unknown-but-amazing puttycyg lets you use putty as a local shell window!!

i love vi and i hate emacs, but i am not a fan of vi mode on the command line.

[pvn]

Launchy is the bomb. Once you've used it for a day, using a computer without it is like going back to DOS.

It's that good.

For GNOME users, Deskbar is very similar.

Metapad is the best win32 barebones notepad replacement I've seen.

[jba]

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any cygwin fans in the house? there must be around here. Probably the one program that has improved my life the most. If you're a linux/unix guy trapped in a windows environment you really should be using it.

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i love cygwin, but i think the nt terminal sucks. luckily, the unknown-but-amazing puttycyg lets you use putty as a local shell window!!

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yeah the default terminal is a disaster. I use rxvt which is pretty good - I'll have to check this out.

[cold_cash]

Here's a cool site with a bunch of freeware reviews.
46 best freeware utilities