What software would you never be able to live without?
By this, I mean things you use every day.
I've always had an interest in different software programs and lately I've felt like I reached the end of what I know. There is a novelty to finding new programs and trying them out; so, I want to hear what y'all are using all the time.
Mine are Notepad++, Chrome, GIMP, Defraggler (runs automatically for me), 7Zip, VLC, UltraCopier, Pidgin, LibreOffice.
-ZI will make 2 lists, one with every day and others I cant live without which may not be used daily but used quite frequently.
Used Daily List:
Firefox for web surfing
Thunderbird for having all e-mail accessible in 1 LOCATION with the feel of outlook. http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/
Adobe Flash Plugin for videos, music, and some games
iTunes - music
Can't Live without List:
JitBit Macro Recorder PRO - ( $69 ) I am able to automate by recording once redundant keyboard and mouse routines fast and compile them as EXE's to place on to other systems to farm info off the web etc more info here: http://www.jitbit.com/macro-recorder/
GetDataBack (All Versions) - ( $79 ) Bought this a few years back and works very well for getting data recovered from damaged hard drives that still spin up. https://www.runtime.org/data-recovery-software.htm
FRAPS - ($37) I use this to record online multiplayer game events as well as create how to videos without having to spend a fortune ( $300 ) on Camtasia. Prior to fraps I was using the free CamStudio, but CamStudio has aged without hardware support for modern audio hardware and so while it still may work for recording your display as you see it, it errors out on new audio hardware. I used this years ago before fraps and while it was ok for how to videos, gaming info captures were grainy and sometime laggy as for it was encoding on the fly, whereas fraps works best because its a direct dump to hard drive so you dont lose quality of the captured content. Fraps was only like $40 compared to $300 Camtasia Studio in which I didnt need all the editing features etc. http://www.fraps.com/
VirtualDub - ( FREE ) Processes my large video captures from FRAPS and encodes them into much smaller AVI files without any significant loss of image quality. I can take a 20 minute gaming event that is 10GB in size and squeeze it down to a 500MB AVI video file that has no drastic loss in quality. I then delete the 10GB bloated fraps file to free the HDD up for the next game capture. http://www.virtualdub.org/
Notepad++ - ( FREE ) Prior to this I was using Crimson Editor also another free feature rich & color schemed editor supporting many launguage formats for manual coding outside of a normal IDE. Here is link for Crimson Editor which I have used for years prior to Notepad++ http://www.crimsoneditor.com/
HTTrack - ( Free ) I dont use this so much anymore, but I use to use this to gather information off the web to take around with me offline. It allowed me to copy a websites contents to a laptop so that when I went on the road and did not have internet, I could still reference this information from the state it was in when last captured for offline use. This was important when I was buying and selling collectables and needed to know the current market value for millions of different items. I was able to look at what someone had to offer and instead of going with gut instinct on what I believe its worth over what they are asking for it, I'd walk to a corner and fire up my laptop and look up the info, and the info is as good as last captured before leaving for the collectable show, and so I can see if the market is good, if the price went up or down in a certain period of time, and know what its really worth vs taking a gut instict chance on it. *This tool at my side for market info made me LOTS of money and saved me from buying items that I thought were worth more, but actually worth the same or less than asking price. But I haven't used this in a few years because I dont have the time anymore to drive around to auctions and shows to look around for an item to buy and make a good margin on resale of. Here is the link: http://www.httrack.com/
Web Thumbnailer - ( FREE ) - This tool was useful for capturing a digital microfilm like image of websites that did not copy for offline use with HTTrack because they had dynamic content and flash etc. This tool allowed me to logon to sites that I paid a subscription for access to the information, and then take a screenshot that was of the entire page, not just the viewing area on a 19" display, but if the page was one that you needed to scroll up or down on a list, it captured the entire page in a long stretched JPG image. I then was able to open the JPG file and then zoom in and scroll up or down on the image file to view the pricing information that was current as of the capture. * One NOTE I'd like to state about this free program is that while it works 99.9% of the time, it sometimes is buggy. Also there is a limit to how many URL lines you can place into the list. I think the limit was 256 lines ( urls ) Here is the link: http://www.priyatna.org/webthumbnailer.php
RAMDisk - ( Free & Paid Versions ) - This tool allows you to allocate a portion of your otherwise unneeded extra system RAM to act as a Hard Drive, however the data in the RAM is subject to loss on power failure or shutdown, so you have to be careful with what you place onto this space. Its mainly used to load information from a SSD or HDD to RAM in this allocated space that acts as a drive, and the data then that is on this RAM Drive is able to read/write super fast because its ready in RAM direct for the CPU when called. When done with use, the changes are then written back to the SSD or HDD before shutdown if configured correctly. The benefits to this for the free version for non-commercial use is if you have something that can fit within 4GB of RAM space that you want to load lightning fast or something that otherwise would take a while and over work a hard drive such as hundreds of thousands of read/write instructions. I have used this with a script that updated a MySQL database which prior to use of this on a 500GB SATA II 7200rpm HDD it would take about 5 minutes to complete, and on a RAMDisk drive it would complete in 38 seconds with 4GB or DDR2-800Mhz with 1.5GB RAMdisk space leaving 2.5GB free for the OS and applications to run, and while this is happening for 38 seconds the hard drive is just idle letting the RAM hammer it out with the CPU until complete. Then when complete, I write the final result back to HDD in less than 10 seconds.
http://memory.dataram.com/products-and-services/software/ramdisk (* Some day I hope to have a system with 32GB or more of RAM to then buy the version that allows for a larger RAMdisk and place games onto the RAM to run direct for maximum gaming performance for large games that have large game files that are constantly read in for the game to operate such as World of Warcraft.)
Bloodshed Dev C++ - ( FREE ) I have been using this a lot for quick C++ programs. So figured I'd share it. http://www.bloodshed.net/devcpp.html
MySQL - ( FREE ) - I use this with about 99.9% of all my databases unless a client requests them to be with other than MySQL. http://www.mysql.com/
ActivePerl Community Edition - ( FREE ) - Primary IDE for writing & executing local Perl scripts. http://www.activestate.com/activeperl
WAMP - ( FREE ) - For coding up a site and testing it all web server, database, and HTML etc on same system. Then later the site and code move on to a secure server vs a wide open non secure sandbox which is what this is. * Do not ever use this to run a real website hosted for others to access unless you want to be hacked very quickly! http://www.wampserver.com/en/
DoPDF7 - ( FREE ) Ability to print to PDF to not waste paper and save printed important stuff as PDF's. *The other day I went to install this on my wifes computer and they have version 8 out now. Version 8 wanted registration info while Version 7 did nit require this and ran clean without registration to function. I had version 7 on my external drive and removed version 8 and installed version 7 and she was then able to create PDF's as well without having to register to a spam server. If you plan on using this, you might want to try to find version 7 vs using the current version 8 if you are like me and dont want to be forced to register it to use it! http://www.dopdf.com/
MAP EDIT - ( Trial & Paid ) - I was introduced to this tool back in college about 12 years or so ago. It came bundled on a CD in the back of my HTML book. I had a lot of fun with this tool because it allowed me to make interactive HTML images with hyperlinks to X,Y areas of images, and so I was able to make an interface image in say MSPaint and then call this JPG image in the webpage, and with this software reference to the interface image within the HTML and select boxes etc for the area of the image that I wanted people to be able to click on HOME and get to HOME and click on ABOUT and get to the ABOUT page etc, but most importantly, it allowed me to make some HTML games that used nothing more than HTML. No Java Script, etc. And basically based on their clicks they followed a Hyperlink Tree so I was able to make games similar to Zork ( although with a GUI vs just text ) that were in HTML and you could click on arrows to move left right and forward and backwards. The game was basically trying to get from the beginning to the end and there were hints and wrong turns that would lead to your death, but played enough times you then knew what to do and what not to do and eventually beat the game. The one feature the college professor really liked was that a light switch when flipped on in the darkened the room you were in because it loaded up a different page with a JPG for that room, the room was now lit up and you then could see what there was in the room to interact with, in which there was a piece of paper on a desk and when clicked on it would load up this paper that was scanned with my scanner to look real, and then you could click to go back to the room and move on etc. I liked this tool so much that I bought a license of it. I still use it on occasion, but its been almost a years since I used it for making a FileMaker Pro 5.5 interface for accessing different databases through a HTML webpage by drawing up a interface with MSPaint and some other tools and then making a simple HTML page to load the interface center screen and then hyperlink the X,Y locations of the interface to what Database was to be opened. http://www.boutell.com/mapedit/
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Lastly, I keep an external HDD with hundreds of open source as well as paid for program on, and from time to time I go back to this drive to add others that I find as well as install them as needed.
The software I use every day would be:
- Windows 8 Pro at home, Windows 7 Pro at work
- Debian 7 Linux on most of my servers (Couple of oddball CentOS/Ubuntu boxes as well)
- FreeBSD (Almost all the servers I deal with at work)
- Google Chrome
- SublimeText (My text editor of choice)
- Quassel (IRC Client)
- Mozilla Thunderbird (Mail Client)
- mRemoteNG (SSH client albeit more of a wrapper around PuTTY)
- Jetbrains IDEs (I use PHPStorm, PyCharm and IntelliJ IDEA when I am not just using SublimeText)
- Divvy (I use two 1440p monitors so need this to be able to snap windows to quarters of a screen, half a screen is often too much)
- F.Lux (I generally work at night so this really helps my eyes)
- Git
Other stuff I use regularly:
- Fiddler HTTP Debugging Proxy (Very useful for my job which involves a lot of inspecting HTTP requests to Analytics tools)
- Microsoft Office (Most of what I do is in either Google Drive or LaTeX but there are times I still need full MS Office)
- TeXMaker (Nice IDE for writing LaTeX)
- VLC
- WinSCP
Come to think of it, I'm pretty surprised I use that many programs, and there's likely more I've forgotten about!The best software, in terms of economic impact, wide-spread applications and advance of electronic technology is:
Linux in all its forms.
You don't even have to have it to benefit from it.
It does these things and more:
- Found in most servers worldwide.
- Found is most routers and switches.
- Found in automation used in factories.
- Found in burglar alarms.
- Found in medical equipment.
- Found in home appliances.
- And of course in most smartphones.
The list goes on, but I will stop with this note. Linux, along with other Open-Source software has played the key role in keeping costs down and providing a platform for advancement of software development.
Well Geek-9pm (long time no see, by the way!), I am a long time user and lover of Linux as well. What programs do you tend to operate on Linux?
Lately I've been sticking to Fedora (I'm displeased with the Ubuntu developments of the last two years). I tend to like most of it's default programs for text editing and compressing functions. But, I continue to use Chrome, GIMP, VLC, Pidgin, and LibreOffice on it. In addition, WINE and PlayOnLinux are essential to me also.
Windows continues to be my main OS for various reasons.
DaveLembke and camerongray, those were very detailed responses. I will be looking at many of the software programs you listed. Well, I use puppy Linux just because it boots quick from a CD. I use GPart when I have trouble with a drive partition.
My Smartphone has Android, which is derived show how from Linux. The routers I own might have Linux code , I don't know. The next automobile I buy might be Linux controlled. If I ever get a MRI, it might be using a variant of Linux. For daily use UltraEdit32, WinRAR, Xshell (like Putty but more usable), Speedfan, VLC Media Player. For occasional use a USB pen bootable via Grub4DOS with ISOs of Slax Linux, Gparted and Windows 7 Recovery Disk. Plus on my OpenSuse machine I run SABnzbd and on my NAS I run Transmission.
Stuff I need for work:
Visual Studio 2013 (Not that specific version, but hey, MSDN Ultimate subscription would be wasted if I used Express, right?)
pgAdmin (we use Postgres)
Theos Workstation (for connecting to the THEOS Server terminal. Not useful otherwise.)
Outlook 2013. I use Outlook for my work E-mail, and thunderbird has the rest. I could add them all to thunderbird but my work E-mail Server is on our VPN which I might not always connect to which causes thunderbird to choke and complain
TortoiseSVN. Our Source repository is on our VPN and uses SVN. Some might wonder why not git or some other source control. WEll this is only the source control for the Windows programs. the older THEOS-based programs literally have zero source control except a few backups of the source code. SVN is a huge step up in that context. (Also, SVN is easier to centralize, whereas git is designed to be distributed).
NSIS For creating installers.
Netbeans/IntelliJ/Eclipse We haven't really found a good IDE to use for our one Java Program which is used as an adapter to Jasper Reports. Netbeans is entirely source control unfriendly and requires projects be "exported"; IntelliJ would work except the built .jar file never works properly. Eclipse I know works with source control at the project level so that was going to be the next thing to try the next time we get annoyed by me being the only person who can easily build the Java program even when others have changed it. of course this isn't necessary but any IDE is better than futzing about with javac.
VMWare has been invaluable for testing. Some problems only manifest on specific machines, or sometimes my development machine has a different program setting somewhere that prevents it. With a VM I can clean install all our software and test it, as well as mess around with the configuration of things like Java which I would rather not do on my main system (which has other applications using Java).
That's the stuff I Need for work. I also use other programs for it but could go without them:
Resharper Is an Add-in for Visual Studio. It improves some built in options and adds others such as code inspections and added static analysis tools. eg it will highlight a comparison being used somewhere and indicate that the expression will always be true, or the expression will always be false at that point in the code, which can help remove redundant segments. I get a free personal license for this so I see no good reason not to use it. (Except on my laptop, where I've uninstalled it since it makes the system impossible to use performance wise).
VisualSVN is another add-on which integrates Visual Studio with Tortoise SVN. Otherwise dealing with source control means opening Windows Explorer and using context menus to commit/update/add stuff. It's also easy to forget stuff. The add-in shows whether stuff is up to date, has changed, or is conflicted right in the project explorer.
Editpad Pro Text Editor. Aside from text editing I also use it oddly enough as my main
FTP Client. It allows editing and saving items directly to an FTP/webhost which is useful. It puts teh FTP panel from notepad++ to shame for certain.
Fences is useful as well. I don't see my desktop very often but when I do at least the shortcuts are nicely organized.
I forgot the one thing I use on any *nix device - pico/nano, so handy with tty logins
To me the most needed are Skype and FireFox, without the rest I can do, but these 2 buddies are vitalI can't think of any software I couldn't do without. The reason for that is that there are so many alternatives available.
I use Win 7 for work, Win 7 & Win 8 at home but I could use Win XP or one of the many Linux distros if need be. I need a
BROWSER and I use FireFox but I could use Chrome, Opera, IE, etc... I use Office 2013 but there are many alternatives to that as well. Pretty much any software program you can think of, there are alternatives to it that make it so it's not so indispensable.
I like having choices.Judging by the amount of time I spend on the internet, my most definite pick is chrome.
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