Software I use
This list is pretty close to complete for now, but I will probably be adding stuff as I remember it. As you can clearly see, the majority of it is open source, or at least free. I strongly support the open source movement, and I'd like to eventually use exclusively open source software someday.
Open source or free
- Launchy
- Allows me to open programs using just my keyboard, easily and efficiently without using the start menu.
- Notepad ++
- My text editor of choice.
- Blender 3D
- My 3D animation package of choice. Love the user interface and all the keyboard shortcuts. Powerful program with a helpful and friendly user community.
- Open Office
- I use this excellent software suite as a replacement for Microsoft Office. It includes all the same features and even very similar layouts as Microsoft Office, so there isn't even much of a transition to go through. I love using it.
- Firefox
- My internet browser of choice.
- Audacity
- My sound editor of choice. Its non-linear editing of soundwaves is just the way I like it. The keyboard shortcuts are also fully customizable.
- VLC media player
- Plays all the media Windows Media Player won't. Also, plays media correctly that Windows Media Player doesn't.
- 7zip
- I use this to unzip and zip everything. Handles all formats.
- Quicktime with iTunes
- Quicktime plays mp3's, midi's, and sometimes movies in Firefox for me, it plays midis from my hard drive for me, and I use iTunes to organize and listen to my video game mp3 library.
- CutePDF
- This program writes PDFs for me. Basically if I can print something, I can also save it as a PDF by selecting CutePDF as my printer. The main thing I use it for is saving my sheet music out of Midi Notate Composer.
- Sumatra PDF reader
- This program opens and reads PDFs much faster than Adobe PDF reader.
- uTorrent
- My bittorrent client of choice. Very small, lightweight program (as opposed to Azureus) that has all the necessary useful features I need.
- Virtual CloneDrive
- This program allows me to mount CD or DVD image files.
- DAA2ISO and UIF2ISO
- Simple, tiny programs which convert the proprietary image files DAA and UIF into the standard ISO.
- CDBurnerXP
- I use this program for creating and burning DVDs, and making ISO images.
- DVD Decrypter
- I use this program for decrypting DVDs with copy protection in order to make images of them.
- Avidemux
- After a very long and exhausting search, I found this awesome program which did exactly what I wanted it to do: convert a DVD to a video file for editing (various formats such as Mpeg or Avi). It did it much faster and without any quality problems like many others I tried (most of which weren't free).
- WinSCP
- This is my FTP client of choice. I like being able to have multiple connections open, and having the total progress of my transfers shown. I use this program to connect to a Linux laptop via SFTP, a Windows desktop via FTP, and my web server. It's an easy to use and lightweight program.
- Filezilla Server
- I use this server in case I want to be able to connect to my computer from another computer via an FTP connection.
- Mp3tag
- I use this program to batch edit mp3 tags.
- Flashgot and Flashget
- I only use a download manager when I am on dialup so that I can easily resume downloads, and I like this one because it integrates well into Firefox.
Proprietary
- MidiNotate Composer
- I use this program to edit and create midi files, as well as make sheet music. I would like to find an open source program that does the same thing, but I haven't yet.
- Adobe Photoshop
- My graphics program of choice. I use it for photo editing and manipulation, web development, drawing, etc. An open source alternative (which I've never tried but have heard good things about) is GIMP.
- Corel Painter
- I only recently began using this program as a supplement to Photoshop. I like it because it mimics natural media surprisingly well.
- Adobe Premiere
- My video editor of choice.
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