Well, maybe I could live without them, but I wouldn’t enjoy it!
Here’s a list of tools that are either freeware or opensource, from a variety of different categories. These tools are almost guaranteed to have nice GUIs and be lightweight — I’m very picky that way.
Security and privacy tools
Keepass
http://keepass.info/
Free, open-source, light-weight and easy-to-use password manager.
Truecrypt
http://www.truecrypt.org/
Free open-source disk encryption software for Windows XP/2000/2003 and Linux
Network tools
Wireshark
http://www.wireshark.org/
Wireshark is the tool you turn to when you want to really see what’s happening on your network. It is an award-winning network protocol analyzer developed by an international team of networking experts.
uTorrent
http://www.utorrent.com/
EXTREMELY lightweight and functional bittorrent client. Most of the features present in other BitTorrent clients are present in µTorrent, including bandwidth prioritization, scheduling, RSS auto-downloading and Mainline DHT (compatible with BitComet). Be sure to turn on ip filtering in uTorrent and update your filters regularly.
Chrome
http://www.google.com/chrome
Yep. It’s Google Chrome. I’m just not a big fan of IE. Call me crazy. Firefox and Firebug is still tops for web development / javascript debugging.
Royal TS
http://code4ward.net/CS2/Default.aspx
Royal TS allows you to organize and manage multiple remote desktop connections. Incredibly useful when managing LOTS of boxes.
Desktop utilities
IZArc
http://www.izarc.org/
With a modern easy-to-use interface, IZArc provides support for most compressed and encoded files, as well as access to many powerful features and tools. It allows you to drag and drop files from and to Windows Explorer, create and extract archives directly in Windows Explorer, create multiple archives spanning disks, creating self-extracting archives, repair damaged zip archives, converting from one archive type to another, view and write comments and many more.
Belarc advisor
http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html
Builds a detailed profile of your installed software and hardware, missing Microsoft hotfixes, anti-virus status, CIS (Center for Internet Security) benchmarks, and displays the results in your Web browser.
Microsoft Powertoys for Windows
Download here
Mostly for the ‘command prompt here’ and the ‘TweakUI’ powertoys.
CutePDF writer
http://www.acrosoftware.com/products/cutepdf/Writer.asp
The reader is free from Adobe. Now you can write PDF’s as easy as printing something.
Virtual Clone Drive
http://www.slysoft.com/en/virtual-clonedrive.html
Virtual CloneDrive works and behaves just like a physical CD/DVD drive, however it exists only virtually. Image files generated with CloneDVD or CloneCD can be mounted onto a virtual drive from your hard-disk or from a network drive and used in the same manner as inserting them into a normal CD/DVD drive.
Video / audio
Handbrake
http://handbrake.fr/
HandBrake is a GPL’d multiplatform (Mac OSX, Linux, and Windows), multithreaded DVD to MPEG-4 ripper/converter. The cool thing about this puppy is you can go straight from DVD to the ever-portable MP4 format.
ImgBurn
http://www.imgburn.com/
Versatile DVD ripper. Copy a DVD to an ISO, rip the whole disc straight to the filesystem, rip specific streams from the disc – a very valuable tool. Fantastic when used in tandem with Handbrake
Windows Live Photo Gallery
http://download.live.com/photogallery
Yep. It’s a Microsoft product that actually makes sense. I can grab photos off the camera, organize them on the fly and upload to Flickr/Facebook all from one app. And it’s free. And it rocks.
Apple iTunes
http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/
Buy music, movies, TV shows, and audiobooks, or download free podcasts from the iTunes Store 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Organize and play everything on your Mac or PC. Then sync it to your iPod and bring it along. Anywhere. In true ‘give away the razor, sell the blades’ fashion — this is free software with a hook. You can buy music, but organize all music and video in the MP3/MP4 formats for free.
Subversion
http://subversion.tigris.org/
The goal of the Subversion project is to build a version control system. The software is released under an Apache/BSD-style open source license.
TeamCity
http://www.jetbrains.com/teamcity/
By the same guys that brought you Resharper and IntellJ IDEA — TeamCity is build management on the cheap.
UnFuddle
http://unfuddle.com/
Unfuddle is a secure, hosted project management solution for software development teams.
Tortoise Subversion client
http://tortoisesvn.tigris.org/
TortoiseSVN is a really easy to use Revision control / version control / source control software for Windows. Since it’s not an integration for a specific IDE you can use it with whatever development tools you like.
Firebug
http://getfirebug.com/
Firebug integrates with Firefox to put a wealth of web development tools at your fingertips while you browse. You can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page.
Consolas font pack for VS2005 and VS2008
Download here
Yes. That’s a font pack.
Diet and excercise
Nutrition data
http://www.nutritiondata.com/
In summary, Nutrition Data does three things better than anyone else: 1. Helps you quickly find food composition data. 2. Helps you understand that data. 3. Helps you share that data with your friends.
Del.icio.us bookmarks
http://del.icio.us/
Bookmarks, but … better. Tag, share, search, and discover new bookmarks. Your bookmarks will always be where you need them — online.
Miscellaneous
WordPress
http://wordpress.org/
It’s the software that runs this site. It’s also the software that runs www.wordpress.com (so you can use wordpress even if you don’t have your own hosting account!). WordPress is a state-of-the-art semantic personal publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability. What a mouthful. WordPress is both free and priceless at the same time.
TaxACT
http://www.taxact.com
OK, this isn’t actually free, and it’s not actually software — at least I don’t use the downloadable version — but it’s dirt cheap (less than $20!), incredibly useful, easy to use, and I don’t know what I would have done the last 2 years if I didn’t use it.
During this holiday season, there are many things that warm me up inside — but for some reason, I have a special soft spot for these cheesy movies:
Comfort and Joy
With Nancy McKeon (‘Jo’ from the Facts of Life)
The life of Jane Berry was all materialist, until one Christmas Eve, she is involved in a car accident that changes her life forever. She wakes up to discover she is the mother of two, a wife and that her only job is in the house, besides her frequent volunteer work.
On the 2nd day of Christmas
With Mary Stuart Masterson (Young “Idgie Threadgoode” from the movie Fried Green Tomatoes)
Con-woman Trish and her niece/ward Patsy are caught trying to steal from a department store right before Christmas. With the holidays so near, Bert, a store employee, agrees to be responsible for the pair so that Patsy need not spend the holidays in social services.
Secret Santa
With Jennie Garth (‘Kelly’ from Beverly Hills 90210)
Newspaper reporter Rebecca Chandler, who feels she got no fair chance to prove her worth in her thee years career, looks forward to a Hawaian holiday with her fiancé Ryan, but instead of a ring he brings her the news that he found someone else. So she accepts again to be the bachelor on duty in the Christmas season, and write the annual romantic non-news feel good-story, once more about the elusive Secret Santa in small-town Hamden. Considering this is a ‘B’ movie, the acting is excellent.
The Man Who Saved Christmas
With Jason Alexander (‘George’ from Seinfeld)
About the real-life story of Alfred Carlton Gilbert and his real life toy factory, set in World War I America. Gilbert, a successful toymaker, is requested by the government to re-tool his factory to help produce goods for the war effort. Gilbert initially agrees to this, but comes to regret his decision. The movie also deals with Gilbert’s relationship with his father (played by Ed Asner) and his son.
The Shop around the Corner (1940)
With Jimmy Stuart
“Matuschek’s” is the gift shop around the corner. Among the staff is Alfred Kralik, a likeable young man who’s in love with a woman he has never met and whose name he doesn’t even know (their “romance” has been conducted through a post office box). When Klara Novak comes to work as a clerk in the shop, the sparks begin to fly: she and Alfred can’t stand each other. Of course, what neither knows is that Klara is the woman Alfred has been romancing through the mail! (Remade and ruined in the 1998 movie You’ve Got Mail)
A Chance of Snow
With Charles Durning (“Pappy O’Daniel” from the movie O Brother, Where are thou?)
After signing her divorce papers, a woman heads out to her Minnesota airport with her sister and daughters for a flight to her mother’s home. At the airport, her sportswriter husband shows up to catch a flight to Miami to visit his father. When a blizzard hits, the two suddenly find they have time to re-evaluate their relationship with assistance from an older couple. I really like the dialog between the older couple and the younger couple in this movie.
You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
You cannot help little men by tearing down big men.
You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
You cannot establish sound security on borrowed money.
You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than you earn.
You cannot build character and courage by destroying men’s initiative and independence.
You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they can and should do for themselves.
-
Latest Photos
More Photos
