Useful Applications
Useful Applications
Introduction
Here's a list of some applications I have found helpful to utilize often or sometimes in some circumstances. Software mentioned here is freeware, shareware, public domain, commercial software, and so on. The type of software here is programs, operating systems and even some text commands and command line utilities that help me to accomplish tasks. I'm not mentioning any version numbers, so it will take less time to maintain and update this list. Links usually get broken in time, so if the link no longer works you can use a search engine to find the new location for the software (in case it's still free and available). See also: Application Settings, Useful Non-Applications, Operating Systems, Website Settings, Interesting Programs, UNIX, Software.
Audio/Sound/Music Applications
Browsers
Browser Add-ons
Calculator Applications
TI-Nspire CAS Student Software is for connecting your Texas Instruments Nspire CAS or Nspire CX CAS calculator to your PC (Windows or Mac).
TI-Nspire CAS Student Software
Chat and Instant Messengers
Chat and Messenger Applications
Clipboard Managers
Clipboard Express, Clipboard Magic and Yankee Clipper are enhancements for the Windows clipboard. I prefer the Clipboard Magic.
Compression and Archiving Applications
Compression and Archiving Applications (packing, zipping)
Database / SQL
Postgres.app is an easy to install local Mac PostgreSQL server, which includes PostGIS, PGSQL, Perl, Python, V8 (Javascript) and extensions like hstore, uuid-ossp.
Download / File Transfer Applications
Download / File Transfer Applications (Cyberduck, wget, Xtorrent)
Email and Usenet Clients
Encryption
GNU Privacy Guard (GnuPG) and GPGTools (OS X) are for encrypting your email messages and files before sending them through the Internet. TrueCrypt is for encrypting files.
Files
You can rename many files at the same time for example with A.F.5 Rename your files, PathFileTwirler (no longer free) and Rename 'Em!. Tofrodos is for converting files between Windows (CR/LF) and Unix/Linux (LF).
Games
I'm not mentioning any freeware games as from my experience I know games can mess up with the Windows Registry slowing Windows down, causing error messages all the time, etc. Instead, I'm mentioning online games that shouldn't install software to your computer (at least much, but maybe something to your web browser's cache directory). I recommend getting a Yahoo! account for Yahoo! Games and a Google account for Google Gadget games even though some games may work without an account (I haven't tested it).
Graphical User Interface (GUI) Design Applications
GUI Design Applications (graphical user interfaces, GUI prototypes)
Graphics
Graphics Applications (drawing, image viewers, ray tracing, vector graphics)
Hardware
HWiNFO32 shows hardware information. Motherboard Monitor shows information for example about temperature and fan speeds. Nokia Monitor Test helps you to adjust your monitor.
Media
Multimedia Authoring
Multimedia Authoring Applications (Adobe Flash Professional)
Networking Applications
Networking Applications (Network Utility, ping, nmap)
Office Applications
Personal Video Recorder (PVR)
MacTF (by Nathan Oates) is Mac software for Topfield TF5000PVRt (and some other Topfield 5xxx models). You can use ProjectX (see Media) to export from .rec to .mpg (M2P). Then you can use VLC media player (see Media) to watch it. With QuickTime (see Media) you can take screencaptures or convert videos to iPod Nano/Touch.
Research Tools
Zotero is a citation and reference tool.
Screensavers
AnyImage Screen Saver and Screen Scapes allow you to select what kind of pictures those screensavers show on your screen.
Security: Firewalls
ZoneAlarm Personal Firewall is, as the name suggests, a firewall program. Tiny Personal Firewall and Sygate Personal Firewall are no longer freeware, but I'm mentioning them for sentimental reasons as I liked them both.
Security: Scanners
Ad-Aware, Spybot - Search & Destroy and Windows Defender are spyware/adware scanners. Avast! Home Edition, AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition and Avira AntiVir Personal are virus scanners. CA Virus Scanner and Trend Micro HouseCall are free online virus scanners. HijackThis 1.99.1 is the last free version of that software, but I use it in bad cases where I need to manually remove malware from my computer.
Security: Toolbars
Google Toolbar and Yahoo! Toolbar aren't software meant for only security purposes, but they do block pop-ups.
Security: Miscellaneous
Big Crocodile is for generating random passwords. Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer is used to analyze your Windows operating system to give hints about possible security related settings you might want to change. SpywareBlaster increases security by preventing the installation of some of the known ActiveX-based malware. Windows Update website offers security updates for many Windows operating versions including additional software.
Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer
Text Editors and Other Editors
Text Editors (text, code, hex, binary)
Time and Date
AnalogX Atomic TimeSync and the net time command are for synchronizing your computer's clock with a time server. ClockRack is a world clock. The w32tm command is for configuring the Windows Time service.
Last modified: April 21st, 2015
Author: Tomi Häsä (tomi.hasa@gmail.com)
URL: http://sites.google.com/site/tomihasa/useful-applications