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Useful Applications

M

Mighty_Emperor

Gone But Not Forgotten
(ACCOUNT RETIRED)
Joined
Aug 18, 2002
Messages
19,407
Seems the old one got the chop but no matter we can start again.

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Obviously get yourself fixed up with firewalls and virus checkers - you can get free ones so there is no excuse.

Also install a couple of spyware checkers.

When it comes to browsers give FireFox a whirl - its great.

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iTunes is a really useful media player and works well for burning MP3s back onto CD (handy for making compilations from your already exisitng CDs!).

I still like WinAmp mind but iTunes does it all well.

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On a broader note GIMP:

www.gimp.org

is a powerful graphics package but some people have found it tricky to use. It has just been ported to a more PhotoShop-style interface to make - GimpShop:

Mac:
http://plasticbugs.com/index.php?p=241

Linux:
http://codemills.com/blog/?p=4

PC:
http://blog.yumdap.net/archives/20-GIMP ... ndows.html

Its early days still but this looks to be a real winner!!!
 
Since I'm a bit slow in the techie stakes, I tend to opt for things that I understand like Virus Checkers and Firewalls. All else, to me, is optional.
 
Bizarre choices for the poll. -How can you possibly compare ant- virus with an alternative browser (Whatever it's alledged advantages - or a graphics prog? -
 
Rrose Selavy said:
Bizarre choices for the poll. -How can you possibly compare ant- virus with an alternative browser (Whatever it's alledged advantages - or a graphics prog? -
Click to expand...

Well I'm open to suggestions - I was just filling it in as I was writing the post. It seemed like a good idea at the time but in hindsight it may need some tweaking. So.......
 
I voted for the virus checker.

The most useful Application I have is Total Commander. It's truly the Swiss army knife of file managers. It's got just about everything I need including:
  • Two file windows side by side
    Multiple language support
    Enhanced search function
    Compare files / synchronize directories
    Quick View panel with bitmap display
    ZIP, ARJ, LZH, RAR, UC2, TAR, GZ, CAB, ACE archive handling + plugins
    Built-in FTP client with FXP (server to server) and HTTP proxy support
    Parallel port link, multi-rename tool
    Tabbed interface, regular expressions, history+favorites buttons
    New: Thumbnails view, custom columns, enhanced search
    And many more!
 
I voted for antispyware. As a Mac user, an antivirus program isn't terribly essential, although I do have one. Spyware/adware accounts for a lot of general computer weirdness; most casual users are vaguely aware of virii but not of spyware/adware.
 
Emperor said:
Also install a couple of spyware checkers.
Click to expand...

How true this is! I've had Spy Sweeper (free edition) installed and running for ages. My comp was starting to run a bit slow so I decided to install Spybot - Search and Destroy (another freebie) the other day. Spybot found 58 pieces of spyware installed on my comp that Spy Sweeper had let in and/or ignored!
 
Horik, believe it or not, try the M$ one too; it's really robust and thorough.
 
Leaferne said:
Horik, believe it or not, try the M$ one too; it's really robust and thorough.
Click to expand...

M$?? Is that Microsoft? Sorry I'm not familiar with M$ :?
 
Leaferne said:
Horik, believe it or not, try the M$ one too; it's really robust and thorough.
Click to expand...

Unbelievable! I installed and ran Microsofts Antispyware and that found a further 12 threats! Think I'll keep that running all the time now. got rid of Spy Sweeper, the free edition obviously isn't up to the job.
 
I am running a whole host of anti spyware/trojan/adaware programs, all free including spysubtract which was a trial and seemed to be doing its job. When the trial expired, I was impressed enough to want to pay for the full version, but decided to first do a little exploring. I came across a PCWORLD.COM test which showed M$ antispy outdoing the others in the test and by a large margin. The test doesn't include all the anti spyware programs avalable but I was tempted to try it. And its free as a beta until 31/7.

Boy was I impressed. It did find a couple of things everything else has missed (this is on systems nailed down harder than Fort Knox), but it does auto updates (useful for the kids PC) and has an easy to use interface.

So bye bye, Spy Subtract, swallow pride, and Hello M$ anti spy.

Of course on 1/8, I'll be singing a different tune
 
Ignore the address of PCWORD.COM, because they didn't test it there.
 
CCleaner is a really good program if you don't like tempory files and adveriseing tracking, it only takes a second or 2 to deleate stuff too so saves you quite a bit of time.

http://www.ccleaner.com/

CCleaner (Crap Cleaner) is a freeware system optimization tool. That removes unused and temporary files from your system - allowing Windows to run faster, more efficiently and giving you more hard disk space. The best part is that it's fast! (normally taking less that a second to run) and Free. :)
Click to expand...
 
Lord_Flashheart said:
CCleaner is a really good program if you don't like tempory files and adveriseing tracking, it only takes a second or 2 to deleate stuff too so saves you quite a bit of time.

http://www.ccleaner.com/

CCleaner (Crap Cleaner) is a freeware system optimization tool. That removes unused and temporary files from your system - allowing Windows to run faster, more efficiently and giving you more hard disk space. The best part is that it's fast! (normally taking less that a second to run) and Free. :)
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

Quite agreed.

There's a newish version for those that haven't upgraded in a while.

I like it: kills everything or very specific classes as you choose.

Amazing how much space it frees.
 
Get-right is a download pauser, and download speed enhancer.
Download-accelerator-plus is quite similar and more streamlined.

Iso-buster is excellent for extracting many types of huge archive files.
 
I agree with MrSnowman ! I do that often ! messing around with the m player all kinds of stuff endless! (i picked firewall)
 
Nvu is turning out to be quite a useful freeware webpage authoring app, now up to its landmark 1.0 release.

http://www.nvu.com/

You can easily switch between design view (WYSIWYG) and code view, and it's been designed to code to web standards rather than produce the kind of tag soup associated with Frontpage et al. It also includes an integrated CSS editor.

The only potential problem is that it will insist on reformatting XHTML pages as HTML unless you save your file with the .xhtml extension - which Internet Explorer doesn't understand. (Although there are strong arguments in favour of this behaviour, I'd prefer that the programme left the choice up to the designer.)

Also, it probably wouldn't be appropriate for someone who just wants a WYSIWYG page creator and isn't willing to learn how to code by hand as it doesn't come with any ready-made templates. Nevertheless, for editing existing pages or quickly creating new pages around an existing template, it's invaluable.
 
:kiss: to you Graylien; this looks awesome and I'm downloading it as I type. I looooooove open source!
 
I used to try out loads of Mac software from cover-discs but in recent years I have found that most of what I need to do can be done in a few key applications. Freeeware and Shareware trials would leave my HD filled with preferences and extensions with such mysterious names that it took great courage to delete them.

So I was a bit apprehensive about the facility I downloaded to capture images from DVDs. However, being essentially just a script, the file-size is tiny and - on my Mac anyway - it does everything promised. Lovely!

DVD Capture
DVD Capture, now updated to version 2.5, is a helper application for the Apple DVD Player. New features include enhanced improved file handling, DVD Player controls, improved settings retention and conversion to JPEG and cropping capability. It enables the user to take screen captures of the DVD Player Viewer in full screen mode in three different sizes. The captures can be saved to a file or placed on the clipboard. An AppleScript is provided for the DVD Player script menu that launches DVD Capture. Select "File" or "Clipboard" to assign a location for the capture. Mac OS 10.2 or higher required. May not work on all hardware configurations that are not G4-G5 Towers.

http://www.digitallyobsessed.com/software.php3



:D
 
Talking about open source programes, i suspect a lot of you'll know about this but theres no need to wate money on microsoft office or microsoft publisher with open office. it's dead good and free.

http://www.openoffice.org/
 
Does Opera have anything that Firefox doesn't, Emps? I'm not being dismissive, I'm genuinely ignorant on the matter...
 
It has a page-zoom feature and a simple one-click button for disabling style-sheets and optionally applying one of about a dozen ready made stylesheets, and another one-click button for disabling images. The features are primarily aimed at vision impaired users, but come in very handy on those Geocities-type sites where the webmaster thought it would be clever to put tiny purple text on a psychedelic background.

(The Web Developer extension for Firefox offers some similar features, but is comparatively fiddly to use)

Anyway, what I actually came here to recommend is the TAW website accessibility checking tool. It functions in much the same way as Bobby or Cynthia, but as well as being available as an online tool you can also download and install it as an application. Once you've installed it, you can use it to check local HTML documents on your hard drive as well as those on the web. They don't make this very clear in the instructions - but just open the local page in your browser and copy and paste the address from the address bar into TAW and let it do its magic.

Available from:
http://www.tawdis.net/taw3/cms/en

As well as the Windows version (which runs fine for me on Win 98 SE, it also comes in Mac and Linux flavours)
 
Mac Office Suites - a cheeky request!

My hard drive with Mac Classic and Office on it has just died on me so I can't access my Office documents.

Being a poor single parent I need something downloadable that's very very free.

It needs to be able to run on OSX 10.2.8 as I'm having problems installing the upgrades (prolly something to do with the fact that were downloaded on to my Windoze laptop and burnt to CD. I've also got a copy of Office but it needs a higher OS (10.4.* I think) to run).

Alternatively, if any kind soul has a copy of OS9 with Office on CD that they don't need any more, please PM me.

Thank you very glad!
 
I believe it's been mentioned before but Open Office is stellar:
http://www.openoffice.org
Doesn't look like it'll run on 9 though. :(

AppleWorks can also read Office stuff. The version I have will run on 9 and 10. PM me about it if you like. *significant cough*
 
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