Best shareware/freeware

Anything and everything software related that doesn't fit above can go in here!
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dgood
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Post by dgood »

dopdf
great program for printing documents to .pdf if you don't have acrobat. even pictures and scanned documents can be printed into it that way.
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stev
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Post by stev »

ACME TraceArt

1. A raster to vector converter, which can convert raster bitmap into vector image at high speed. Windows 98/NT4/2000/ME/XP

2. To convert image formats such as BMP, JPG, TGA, TIF, PCX etc. and make them into AutoCad DXF, WMF, EPS, HP-GL(.PLT), SVG, EPS,CGM and PDF.

3. It's the fastest way I know of taking a raster image file into a CAD program. Mostly, it's symbols like UL, CE, CSA, TUV and other images that I really need converted into CAD. The settings allow for a course to fine translation along with various outline types and mesh thresholds if needed. It's part of the DWGTools.

4. It's a mature product since it's version of 3.xx. Many of the problems I've ran into prior have been cleaned up. The program is very solid and stable.

5. Where to get it and try it out ... http://www.freefirestudio.com/traceart.htm
Check out the Features and Functions along with the Screen Shots too.

They also have a program called Outline Art. However, TraceArt does this and more.

If a person has a hand sketch of art, like a horse or a dog or whatever, it can be converted into the EPS format as well. This in turn can be used as art to make printed T-shirts. This will work with any logos for company sportswear too.

I once took graphics of a certain high end memory manufacture's logo and brand name, converted it, and made vinyl decals to put onto my computer case.

This software is good to convert rater to vector in a better way than Adobe Illustrator does, but for only pennies of the cost.

The trial version does not have any time limit to expire. But here's the catch, once a file is converted, ACME puts a "spline" based so called water mark across the translation. In the conversions to AutoCAD DXF, I can just select "splines" and delete all. Now I have the detailed conversion clean and ready. However, when I did the vinyl decals, I had to purchase the software. :P

Try TraceART, you will find it is very useful.
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stev
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Post by stev »

Convert

1. Convert is an easy to use unit conversion program.

Supports:
Windows 95
Windows NT 4
Windows 98
Windows 98SE
Windows ME
Windows 2000
Windows XP
Windows 2003
Windows Vista (32-bit & 64-bit)

2. It will convert the most popular units of distance, temperature, volume, time, speed, mass, power, density, pressure, energy and many others, including the ability to create custom conversions!

3. Need to know English units <=> Metric, let convert do that too! It's a very powerful little program that uses very little memory!

4. No problem running it on various OS's I've used it on. It's very solid and stable.

5. Where to get it and use it for FREE 24/7/365 ... http://joshmadison.com/software/convert

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DaIceMan
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Post by DaIceMan »

VLC

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

VLC - the cross-platform media player and streaming server

VLC media player is a highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg, ...) as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. It can also be used as a server to stream in unicast or multicast in IPv4 or IPv6 on a high-bandwidth network.

Windows, Mac, Linux (of several types), WindowsCE/PocketPC.

I personally love VLC. I can't seem to recall any file that I've thrown at it that it won't play. I use it for everything media related.
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Post by Dragon_Cooler »

Awesome thread guys keep em comming!!! I will try and find some to add as well!!
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bigblockmatt
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Post by bigblockmatt »

1. Logmein - Windows

Name of app and it's platform (Windows, Linux, Mac, WinMobile, etc)
2. Remote Access of a PC through your internet browser.

3. Easy setup, havent had any major issues with it performance wise. you can multiple computers under the same account.

4. Have had some issue with computers running windows 2000, but figured them out. The free version doesnt allow file transfer, but that can simply be solved by emailing a file to yourself or (if too large) with a free online storage such as snapdrive or gspace.

5. http://www.logmein.com
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Post by Zenphic »

DVDFab Decrypter

1. Windows Vista/XP/2000/98/ME
2. Copies entire DVD movie to hard disk, and removes all the protections (CSS, RC, RCE, APS, UOPs and Sony ARccOS) while copying.
3. Freeware. Updated to support the latest DVD protections, unlike DVD Decrypter.
4. No settings to control DVD read speed
5. http://www.dvdfab.com/free.htm

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Last edited by Zenphic on Sat Apr 07, 2007 9:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Zenphic »

Foxit Reader 2

1. Windows 98/Me/2000/XP/2003
2. Foxit Reader 2.0 is a free PDF document viewer and printer, with incredible small size (only 1.5 M download size), breezing-fast launch speed and amazingly rich feature set.
3. Freeware. The previous number pretty much summarized it: fast loading time, low memory usage (compared to Adobe PDF Reader!).
4. No bad things I could find so far
5. http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php

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Post by Tyron »

Exact Audio Copy

1. Windows
2. Rips audio cd's. Best at it's job.
3. Freeware ( With a caveat. The author requests you send an interesting postcard to him)
4. Nothing.
5. http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/

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Post by TristanM »

Someone has already mentioned a text/code editor, but here's one I use -

SciTE - Scintilla Text Editor

Cost - I've been using it for free.

More or less the same features as Notepad+ that was mentioned already (tabs etc.)

Downside - If you are using it as a .txt editor, when you go to open the file again you have to keep telling it "all file types" because it only looks for source code files.

http://www.scintilla.org/SciTE.html
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Post by Zenphic »

AUDACITY

1. Windows 98/Me/2000/XP/2003. GNU/Linux and Mac OS X
2. Audacity is free, open source software for recording and editing sounds.
3. Very quick and has lots of features to work with. I sometimes prefer using this for quick edits instead of Adobe Audacity.
4. There should be an option to choose the bitrate of the audio when saving. Currently, the only way to decide its bitrate is thru the preferences.
5. http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

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Post by Indignity »

Gadwin PrintScreen

1. Gadwin PrintScreen requires Microsoft ® Windows 98/Me/2000/2003/XP/Vista, or Windows NT 4.0SP6. If you are running any of these operating systems and have a Windows-compatible mouse or pointing device.
2. Capturing an image of your desktop.
3. This free app allows you to capture the entire screen, the highlighted screen or a free-formed rectangular selection. You can save the image in a number of different formats.
4. I've been using this application for years and there is nothing that I do not like about it.
5. http://www.gadwin.com/printscreen/

RealVNC

1. RealVNC is available for Windows, Linux, Unix & Mac
2. VNC stands for Virtual Network Computing. It is remote control software which allows you to view and fully interact with one computer desktop (the "VNC server") using a simple program (the "VNC viewer") on another computer desktop anywhere on the Internet. The two computers don't even have to be the same type, so for example you can use VNC to view a Windows Vista desktop at the office on a Linux or Mac computer at home. For ultimate simplicity, there is even a Java viewer, so that any desktop can be controlled remotely from within a browser without having to install software.
3. I have always installed this on PCs I work on in case I would need to get access to the PC remotely to troubleshoot problems.
4. The "Free" version is missing some of the better features of the "Purchased" versions.
5. http://www.realvnc.com/products/free/4.1/download.html

There's a bunch more that I use & I'll try to get them posted.
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dgood
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Post by vicaphit »

anyone know of a good music converter that can convert mp3 or wma into OGG? I just got frets on fire, and it requires OGG format for putting songs in the game.
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Post by Indignity »

dBpoweramp is freeware that should do it

If that doesn't work, i'm not sure, but try Audacity. It's up a few posts.
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Post by Indignity »

JkDefrag

1. Free (released under the GNU General Public License) disk defragment and optimize utility for Windows 2000/2003/XP/Vista/X64. Completely automatic and very easy to use, fast, low overhead, with two optimization strategies, and can handle floppies and USB disks/sticks. Included are a Windows version, a commandline version (for scheduling by the task scheduler or for use from administrator scripts), a screensaver version, a DLL library (for use from programming languages), and versions for Windows X64.
2. Defragmenting your Hard Drives.
3. It's free, fast & just as effective as the commercial apps.
4. It looks a little dated in this day of Vista, but give it a try.. you'll probably switch.
5. http://www.kessels.com/JkDefrag/
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Post by alister »

Comodo Firewall

Because it is free and installs on Windows servers also (not Vista ready yet). Supposed to be a new Vista compatible version released on May 14th.
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Post by Zenphic »

XNVIEW

1. Windows, MacOS X, Linux x86, Linux ppc, FreeBSD x86, OpenBSD x86, NetBSD x86, Solaris sparc, Solaris x86, Irix mips, HP-UX, AIX
2. XnView is an efficient multimedia viewer, browser and converter.
3. I mostly use it as my picture thumbnail viewer, much faster than the one included with IrfanView and you can configure it to open your pictures with IrfanView.
4. Most of the things I hated was rectified in the latest version (slow refresh when browsing folder tree)
5. http://www.xnview.com/

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Post by Zenphic »

ERUNT and NTREGOPT

1. Windows NT/2000/2003/XP/Vista
2. Freeware. ERUNT backups and can restore Windows' registry. NTREGOPT defragments Windows' registry
3. Works very well, I mean it really works! Saved my butt last time when I installed a new Windows update that destroyed my Windows Media Player.
4. None so far, besides a more decent GUI!
5. http://www.larshederer.homepage.t-online.de/erunt/

ERUNT
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NTREGOPT
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Post by Indignity »

AllChars

1. AllChars works on Windows 95, 98, ME, NT 4, 2000, XP and Vista (partly) and there is an old 16-bit version for 3.x.
2. AllChars provides a quick, easy-to-remember way of creating accents like é Ü ç î æ and special characters like ƒ ² ‰ © £ ± ß ° 1/2 ¿ « » ™ „ in most Windows programs.
3. This free app sits in your taskbar awaiting a key combo to generate & type one of the "special" characters.
4. I've been using this application for a couple of months. Getting used to the key combos is kind of difficult, but you can bring up the gui to select the character you wish to use as well. I just think it's cool to be able to type the characters to amaze your friends and colleagues.
5. http://allchars.zwolnet.com/
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