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Topic Starter Topic: Re: Computer Software you might not use but probably should
Foo
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PostPosted: 03-23-2009 11:22 AM           Profile   Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


I think I should mention a similar problem with the Eraser tool. If you use it to wipe slack (free) space on RAID volumes, it may render the drive unbootable. A windows repair fixes it but, well, that's hardly a workaround

Eraser's still great, just don't try to wipe free space on your boot drive if you're running RAID.
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Foo
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PostPosted: 06-23-2009 02:11 AM           Profile   Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


VMWare ESXi 4.0.0

ESXi is VMWare's 'big daddy' enterprise-grade hypervisor. Think of it like a tiny operating system which you install on a physical computer, that then allows you to create and run multiple virtual computers within it. It comes as a bootable ISO and installs like any other OS (except it can't co-exist... the machines has to be dedicated to the ESX install).

It's useful if you're the kind of person who likes to try out a bunch of different operating systems, or the kind of nerd that likes to mess about testing applications. You can build an entire virtual network of machines within a single ESXi host and connect them together, copy them, take point-in-time snapshots... lots of stuff.

Aside from the obvious geek appeal of messing about with it as a toy.... I work with ESXi's commercial big brothers ESX 3.5 and vSphere every day... and I can tell you that ESXi is a barely-reduced version of the same sofware. So you can gain legitimate VMWare experience by messing around with ESXi, which might be good for your CV if you're in IT.
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U4EA
i liek boobies
i liek boobies

Joined: 26 Nov 2000
Posts: 11461
PostPosted: 07-26-2009 01:12 AM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


Open source, light-weight apps:

WinCDEmu [ISO mounting]
Infra Recorder [Burning]
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Eraser
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Joined: 01 Dec 2000
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PostPosted: 11-19-2009 01:05 AM           Profile   Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


Paint.NET

http://www.getpaint.net
"Paint.NET is free image and photo editing software for computers that run Windows. It features an intuitive and innovative user interface with support for layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools. An active and growing online community provides friendly help, tutorials, and plugins."

It may not be Photoshop, but it's the next best thing when you're looking for something that's free.



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Silicone_Milk
The Illuminated
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PostPosted: 11-19-2009 04:08 PM           Profile   Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


Would you suggest it over Gimp + Gimp-Shop?

BTW JkDefrag kicks much ass. I'd say it's at least 6 times faster than the Windows XP defrag utility and much more flexible/"intelligent"



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R00k
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Joined: 18 Dec 2000
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PostPosted: 12-26-2009 10:15 AM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


WinDirStat:

http://windirstat.info/

The best disk space management app for Windows I've found, for free. Gives you extremely useful information about exactly what is taking up space on your hard drive. There is a tree view that tells you how much space is taken up by each specific folder, and lets you drill down as far as you want. There is also a block view on the bottom, that shows you what file types are taking up the most space.

Extremely useful.
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bitWISE
god xor reason
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Joined: 08 Dec 1999
Posts: 20751
PostPosted: 02-13-2010 10:16 AM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


ReNamer - http://www.den4b.com/projects.php

Amazing file renaming tool with support for many different rules. Just used it to rename a bunch of files back into their rar/r00 format.
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bitWISE
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Joined: 08 Dec 1999
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PostPosted: 03-02-2010 01:11 PM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


QRCode reader and generator for desktops (linux,osx,win)

http://www.jaxo-systems.com/download/in ... arcapture#
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Foo
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PostPosted: 03-02-2010 02:05 PM           Profile   Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


f.lux
This sits in your taskbar and automatically adjusts your monitor colour temperature to match your room lighting. It takes your timezone and light type (incandescent/flourescent) and when the sun goes down, tones the temperature down to match your indoor lights.

The effect is subtle but it's much easier on the eyes when working under artificial lighting. By default it comes setup to emulate sunlight by day, and indoor lights by night. But if you work in an office with little natural light, you can adjust the sliders to match artificial light during the day.

The pinkish colour tint it adds seems odd at first, but stick with it. It's really neat.

http://www.stereopsis.com/flux/
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bitWISE
god xor reason
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PostPosted: 03-03-2010 03:03 PM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


Foo wrote:
f.lux
This sits in your taskbar and automatically adjusts your monitor colour temperature to match your room lighting. It takes your timezone and light type (incandescent/flourescent) and when the sun goes down, tones the temperature down to match your indoor lights.

The effect is subtle but it's much easier on the eyes when working under artificial lighting. By default it comes setup to emulate sunlight by day, and indoor lights by night. But if you work in an office with little natural light, you can adjust the sliders to match artificial light during the day.

The pinkish colour tint it adds seems odd at first, but stick with it. It's really neat.

http://www.stereopsis.com/flux/

Thats neat. What is funny is my cheap secondary emachines monitor at work turns piss yellow while the primary macbook display is fuschia. It didn't really fade in though. Seemed pretty instant.
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prince1000
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PostPosted: 05-05-2010 11:27 AM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


i will pimp a couple open source tools i've grown accustomed to over the last couple years, not sure if they've been mentioned already:

Clonezilla - Cross-platform imaging tool that can be used over multiple network protocols or save/restore disk images to local device.
http://clonezilla.org/

DRBL - Open source mass imaging and deployment tool used for Linux clients via various network protocols, no local OS install necessary. Live CD contains server version of Clonezilla for imaging of Windows and Linux clients.
http://drbl.sourceforge.net/

OpenDiagnostics - Stripped down Ubuntu Live CD/USB with various essential security tools, most notably ClamAV.
http://www.volatileminds.net/opendiagno ... /Main_Page

SystemRescueCd - Another Live CD/USB tool (Gentoo) with many uses.
http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page
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Lieutenant Dan
The Afflicted
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Joined: 23 Jul 2006
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PostPosted: 03-31-2011 07:03 AM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


Foo wrote:
f.lux
This sits in your taskbar and automatically adjusts your monitor colour temperature to match your room lighting. It takes your timezone and light type (incandescent/flourescent) and when the sun goes down, tones the temperature down to match your indoor lights.

The effect is subtle but it's much easier on the eyes when working under artificial lighting. By default it comes setup to emulate sunlight by day, and indoor lights by night. But if you work in an office with little natural light, you can adjust the sliders to match artificial light during the day.

The pinkish colour tint it adds seems odd at first, but stick with it. It's really neat.

http://www.stereopsis.com/flux/


I absolutely love this program.
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Silicone_Milk
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PostPosted: 04-13-2011 03:17 PM           Profile   Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


Lieutenant Dan wrote:
Foo wrote:
f.lux
This sits in your taskbar and automatically adjusts your monitor colour temperature to match your room lighting. It takes your timezone and light type (incandescent/flourescent) and when the sun goes down, tones the temperature down to match your indoor lights.

The effect is subtle but it's much easier on the eyes when working under artificial lighting. By default it comes setup to emulate sunlight by day, and indoor lights by night. But if you work in an office with little natural light, you can adjust the sliders to match artificial light during the day.

The pinkish colour tint it adds seems odd at first, but stick with it. It's really neat.

http://www.stereopsis.com/flux/


I absolutely love this program.


That is a pretty awesome program. :up:



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Foo
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PostPosted: 05-07-2011 07:56 AM           Profile   Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


KeePass

CoolDown mentioned it a while back but it's worth mentioning again because this program is top quality. Stores and serves up all of your various website/email/application accounts or any other little snippets of information you want to keep locked down.

One good use of the app is to go through your online accounts and set all of them to random passwords generated with the program, then you don't need to worry about a Sony-like breach in future because none of the accounts have common passwords. You can also use it to store all of your CD-Keys.

There are clients available for Windows, Linux, Android, Blackberry etc, and it'll run from a flash drive. Put it in a truecrypt container if you want a super security nerdgasm.

http://keepass.info/
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obsidian
I'm the dude!
I'm the dude!

Joined: 04 Feb 2002
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PostPosted: 05-07-2011 08:07 AM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


DisplayFusion

If you're running multi-monitors on Windows, you may be using a program like UltraMon to handle multiple taskbars, wallpapers, window spanning and other features. DisplayFusion is a hands down better alternative to UltraMon and sees far more updates and features. All around better implemented and works well with Windows Vista/7. It comes as a freeware version as well as a paid version ($25). I purchased the full version though the freeware is pretty full featured as well.

http://www.displayfusion.com/



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duffman91
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Joined: 25 Jan 2001
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PostPosted: 04-02-2013 04:27 PM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


Foo wrote:
ITT, cool free shit that deserves to be part of everyone's software lineup:

VMWare
VMWare is a company that produces virtualisation software in use both on desktops and server environments. Despite the 'enterpriseyness' of what they do, they have free versions of both VMWare Player and VMWare server available for download on their site.

Virtualising an operating system basically entails having a 'fake' PC running inside your PC, on which you install another OS such as a Linux distro, or another copy of XP, or even a windows server. That virtual PC is then totally self-contained and can be turned off and on at will without interacting with your 'real' operating system that's actually running on your PC.

This is useful for:
- Playing around with new linux distros and livecds without needing to reboot
- Running a second copy of XP to test software installations on
- Running old OSes to play legacy dos-mode games
- Running a web server or other web-connected service with minimal risk.
- Uh, porn.



One quick comment about virtualization: VMware allows for the over allocation of resources where competitors do not (Hyper-V). You won't need to allocate CPU or Memory 1:1 when you build VM's. This allows for stacking more VM's on the same hardware if consumption is low.

This is a different methodology that's largely used in the enterprise, but is very useful for home users trying to get the most VM's running on the same hardware.

Personally, I've had great success with Oracle VirtualBox and VMware Player/Workstation and recommend both.

EDIT: Also, VMware's HCL now includes several desktop manufacturers. ESXi 5 is only a few hundred megs and is now the preferred Enterprise solution.
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duffman91
oh yeah!
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Joined: 25 Jan 2001
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PostPosted: 04-02-2013 04:33 PM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


Libre Office
http://www.libreoffice.org/

Alternative to Open Office. Several Distributions have moved onto this flavor.
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