Best free obscure software

[Ian Osborne]

What's your favourite free-but-obscure software package? Let's stay away from things like Gimp or OpenOffice.org; everyone knows about them. Let's share our top apps, games, utilities and whatever which are free, but not widely known about. Here's a couple of Mac OSX utilities from me for starters:

FinderCleaner (http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/16996) - This little utility lets you remove Mac resource files such as .DS_Store and .Trashes from external storage drives before ejecting them. It's ideal if you've a cheap MP3 player which gets confused by these files, which are invisible on the Mac. It's ideal if you pass data from your Mac to a PC on a pen drive too.

CleanArchiver (http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/17207) - This removes the same files as FinderCleaner, but for folders which you want to Zip. With CleanArchiver you get exactly what it says on the box - a clean archive. This is useful for passing material between Macs and PCs, and essential if you want to create a .cbz file for use on a sequential image reader. Many such readers on the PC won't read an archive containing Mac resource files.

Over to you then, guys - share your fave free software we might not otherwise have heard of, with links where possible.

[Smike]

StartupMonitor (http://www.mlin.net/StartupMonitor.shtml) - Essentially, anytime something tries to insert itself into your registry for loading on bootup, this program pops up a box asking you if you want to allow it to. Much easier than killing stuff in msconfig.

[Abe_the_Man]

Hitman Pro (http://www.hitmanpro.nl/hitmanpro/content/view/3/9/lang,en/")

Great spyware tool. Hitman Pro with a single click automatically downloads, installs and runs the 7 most popular free/free trial anti-spyware programs as well as it's own built in anti-spyware. Can be configured to do virus scan as well.

No more having to install Spybot to remove one spyware, and adaware to remove another.

xxcopy (http://www.xxcopy.com/index.htm")

Awsome tool for copying large amounts of data very quickly. Ideal for backing up hard drive data (much faster than copying it with windows file system). It's command line only but still pretty easy to use.

Here's the basic command to copy the contents of one drive or folder to another. Includes logging so you can tell if any files didn't copy (usually only some temp and system32 files won't copy as they're in use by windows).

xxcopy "(location)" "(other location)" /yy /BACKUP /oAlog.txt

[Worm]

Depends what you call a 'software package' I guess.

A couple of my favourite small apps:

WinURL (http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/winurl/) : This launches URLs copied to the clipboard using a hotkey setting (Win-W by default). Amazingly handy, particularly when copying URLs in PuTTY windows.

Launchy (http://www.launchy.net/) : App, URL etc. launcher using a text interface. Avoid the Start Menu. Very handy for those of us who use the keyboard rather than the mouse by preference.

[TheDoLittle]

ASCIIcat (http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/r_harvey/asciicat.htm)
PC ONLY but there is a smaller PDF file. Granted, it hasn't been updated in a couple of years, but it's still a pretty useful Help guide.

Electric Sheep (http://www.electricsheep.org/)
One of the coolest screen savers ever!

Heromachine (http://www.ugo.com/channels/comics/heroMachine2/heromachine2.asp)
Not really downloadable, but you can play a really cool game of paper dolls.

[GreNME]

Paint.Net (http://www.getpaint.net/) - If you're running Windows (XP & Vista) and don't have a commercial image manipulation program (Photoshop, Illustrator, etc.), then this program is the one for you.

Windows Sysinternals (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/default.aspx) by Mark Russinovich - Mark is a stand-up guy who wrote most of these (free) apps long before Microsoft made him an offer, and Microsoft continues to offer (most of) these for free because they were so good.

IE7Pro (http://www.ie7pro.com/) - For those of you running IE 7, this program adds functionalities to the browser to give it even more capabilities and flexibility. Very nice.

KeePass (http://keepass.info/) - this is a password manager that lets you store all of your passwords in an encrypted file. It even lets you lock it with a single "master password" so others can't get to it. There is also a Mac version called KeyPassX (http://www.keepassx.org/) that I use to share the password file between my Windows desktop and iBook.

Power Tab (http://www.power-tab.net/guitar.php) - Little Windows program to help you build guitar tablature.

[Upchurch]

SyncToy (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/prophoto/synctoy.mspx)
Microsoft does little for free, but is a pretty good way to synchronize two directories. After the initial synchronization, it only copies changed files. I use it as an easy way to back up data files.

[Sickly Crypsis]

USB Drive PC Repair system (http://dailycupoftech.com/usb-drive-systems/3/)

Awesome little "Field repair Kit" for computers, it contains 38 different little freeware repair/diagnostic tools and only takes up 32mb!

It builds an auto running system tray icon (a Coffee bean) and when right clicked brings up all the funky little tools. Highly recommend trying it.

Sandboxie (http://www.sandboxie.com/)

Little program to test if software your installing contains anything malicious/annoying, it runs the program or "sand boxes" the program in a transient storage it makes, separating it from the rest of your hard drive.

Das Boot! (http://lifehacker.com/software/data-recovery/download-of-the-day-dasboot-mac-251133.php)

Makes a mac diagnostic and repair tool with any portable HDD, even your iPod! (I'm sold on the name alone!)

[quixotecoyote]

Orbit Downloader (http://www.orbitdownloader.com/) lets you grab just about any embedded video or program your browser won't let you download.

[Arkan_Wolfshade]

http://www.izarc.org/download.html - IZArc in place of WinZip or WinRAR

[yairhol]

First of all this is a good thread.

I tried to run Hitman Pro as suggested above.
What a ***** program. It took over my computer and picked its own settings. Then it started to scan for adware, spyware etc. and spyware doctor installed itslef in my task bar at the bottom right corner (near the clock) and I could not turn it off. What more is that it didn't fix what it found since I need the Pro version (costs money) to remove them.
the next move I did was to uninstall it and throw it away.

[nimzov]

First of all this is a good thread.

I tried to run Hitman Pro as suggested above.
What a ***** program. It took over my computer and picked its own settings. Then it started to scan for adware, spyware etc. and spyware doctor installed itslef in my task bar at the bottom right corner (near the clock) and I could not turn it off. What more is that it didn't fix what it found since I need the Pro version (costs money) to remove them.
the next move I did was to uninstall it and throw it away.
I had the same experience installing Hitman Pro on w2k,

nimzo

[JonnyFive]

MathGV (http://www.mathgv.com/): A really simple, nice function plotting tool that makes clean, pretty graphs. Really good for making simple illustration functions for documents and what-not.

[grmcdorman]

KeePass (http://keepass.info/) - this is a password manager that lets you store all of your passwords in an encrypted file. It even lets you lock it with a single "master password" so others can't get to it. There is also a Mac version called KeyPassX (http://www.keepassx.org/) that I use to share the password file between my Windows desktop and iBook.

I use Password Safe (http://passwordsafe.sourceforge.net/). Originally by security guru Bruce Schneier (http://www.schneier.com/), it requires a master password. It also supports autotype (i.e. it takes over the keyboard and types your ID/password for you), clipboard management (so your password doesn't stay on the clipboard) and more. It can run from a USB drive (i.e. won't change the host system). Windows-only, unfortunately; there is a Java version but it's rather old and corrupted my password file when I ran it. Very well designed. Open source, too.

It can import KeepPass files, by the way.

[GreNME]

I use Password Safe (http://passwordsafe.sourceforge.net/). Originally by security guru Bruce Schneier (http://www.schneier.com/), it requires a master password. It also supports autotype (i.e. it takes over the keyboard and types your ID/password for you), clipboard management (so your password doesn't stay on the clipboard) and more. It can run from a USB drive (i.e. won't change the host system). Windows-only, unfortunately; there is a Java version but it's rather old and corrupted my password file when I ran it. Very well designed. Open source, too.

It can import KeepPass files, by the way.

Great mention! Yeah, I used that previously, but switched to KeePass (which has many of the same features, though it doesn't require a master pass) because there was a Mac port. That way I can keep a master file at home and update it to my iBook without any extra steps. I can attest to PasswordSafe being a good download (for Windows) too!

[Rrose Selavy]

Mollsoft Free calc - a decent replacement with tape function for the tiny non resizable Win calc
http://www.moffsoft.com/freecalc.htm

[Reality Believer]

http://www.stellarium.org/
Stellarium is a free open source planetarium for your computer. It shows a realistic sky in 3D, just like what you see with the naked eye, binoculars or a telescope.

[Abe_the_Man]

First of all this is a good thread.

I tried to run Hitman Pro as suggested above.
What a ***** program. It took over my computer and picked its own settings. Then it started to scan for adware, spyware etc. and spyware doctor installed itslef in my task bar at the bottom right corner (near the clock) and I could not turn it off. What more is that it didn't fix what it found since I need the Pro version (costs money) to remove them.
the next move I did was to uninstall it and throw it away.

Well crap I'm sorry Hitman Pro didn't work for you. It was the only thing we used all the time at my old tech job. It does install a bunch of anti-spyware programs automatically. It doesn't change anything about spyware doctor or adaware or spybot (some being trials will only have 30 days or so and then they can't be used anymore) so they will install themselves in your task bar and stuff until you edit their settings. But if it doesn't work junk it. It's not worth pulling your hair out over.

[Ian Osborne]

Interesting Windows and Mac programs here. Do the Linux users have anything to add?

[ddt]

Interesting Windows and Mac programs here. Do the Linux users have anything to add?
As a Linux user, I'm using always open source software :). As I'm mostly into system administration and programming, I mostly write my own scripts to automate tasks the way I want them :D.

For the Windows users though, I'd nominate this one:

NT password editor (http://home.eunet.no/pnordahl/ntpasswd/): very convenient if you forgot the administrator password. Of course, it's Linux based :rolleyes:

[Blue Mountain]

For Linux, I've discovered that most of the GUI apps shipped with KDE do the job, but the quality varies from poor (RPM manager) to outstanding (Amarok).

For viewing pictures, the old-as-the-hills (not updated in 10(!) years) 'xv' is still better than Kuickshow; it has better key bindings and more tools.

For file management, nothing beats the Midnight Commander ('mc'). Although there's a GUI version, I still use the terminal/shell version. Lightning fast, and its ability to tag a bunch of files and then use the '%t' macro to insert the names of those tagged files into a command line means you can do some complex stuff with a bunch of files at once rather easily.

And for the system administrator in you, there's lsof (list open files.) Not only can it tell you the name of every file every application currently has open, it can also tell you about IPC controls, shared memory segments, and IP addresses, too. Chances are you got a copy with your Linux distribution.

[GreNME]

And for the system administrator in you, there's lsof (list open files.) Not only can it tell you the name of every file every application currently has open, it can also tell you about IPC controls, shared memory segments, and IP addresses, too. Chances are you got a copy with your Linux distribution.

I've caught myself typing that command in the Windows command line a bunch of times. :)

Is there a Win32 equivalent for the command line (I know the GUI, but it's buried in the MMC)?

[thrombus29]

AnalogX has good free utilities, MaxMem was always heplfull.

http://www.analogx.com/contents/download/system.htm

[Father Dagon]

ExplorerXP (http://www.explorerxp.com) - Have you ever tried to move large quantities of files with Windows Explorer only to discover that the computer choked? With ExplorerXP you can manage your files easy and reliable. The interface is far better than Windows Explorer.

µTorrent (http://www.utorrent.com) - A lightweight yet powerful bit torrent client.

HJSplit (http://www.freebyte.com/hjsplit) - For splitting and joining files.

[moopet]

Which definition of "free" are we using today? Anyway...

SIW (http://www.gtopala.com/) Good tool for identifying hardware components of a system and recovering license keys, etc.

7-zip (http://sourceforge.net/projects/sevenzip/) is one step better than IzArc because it's open-source (though I've found one instance where it's failed and WinRAR worked)

CDBurner XP (http://www.cdburnerxp.se) is a good, well, CD burner tool.

Crimson Editor (http://www.crimsoneditor.com) is my favourite text file editor.

[grmcdorman]

I prefer Notepad++ (http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/) for an editor. Open source, a "portable" USB version (http://portableapps.com/apps/development/notepadpp_portable) is available, and has pretty much all the features of Crimson Editor, as far as I can tell. Multiple views into the same file, even.

[ShowMe]

Foxit

If you're sick of the bloated overhead of Adobe Reader this program is a free alternative.

http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/reader_2/down_reader.htm

[Worm]

I prefer Notepad++ (http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/) for an editor. Open source, a "portable" USB version (http://portableapps.com/apps/development/notepadpp_portable) is available, and has pretty much all the features of Crimson Editor, as far as I can tell. Multiple views into the same file, even.

Seconded. Notepad++ rocks.

[grmcdorman]

Foxit

If you're sick of the bloated overhead of Adobe Reader this program is a free alternative.

http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/reader_2/down_reader.htm
Even better: Sumatra PDF (http://blog.kowalczyk.info/software/sumatrapdf/). Open source, and comes in a portable (http://portableapps.com) version (http://portableapps.com/apps/office/sumatra_pdf_portable) (i.e. runs from a USB drive without changing the host machine).

ETA: Foxit may have more features, if I recall correctly, but they are selling the more advanced features, particularly for commercial usage. (IrfanView has the same issue: it is not free for commercial use, but I keep finding people at work using it without a license.)

[ile]

I do not think it particularly obscure, but just in case, since someone mentioned an astronomy program:
kstars: http://edu.kde.org/kstars/.

It has recently been ported to OS X (where I have tried it and it is beatiful) and Windows (sorry, can't test it, don't touch the stuff).

In fact, KDE4 has been ported to OS X and MS Windows, so now you have heaps of very good free/libre software. Try it.

[moopet]

I prefer Notepad++ (http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/) for an editor. Open source, a "portable" USB version (http://portableapps.com/apps/development/notepadpp_portable) is available, and has pretty much all the features of Crimson Editor, as far as I can tell. Multiple views into the same file, even.

CE is open source, and can view separate parts of a document in their own windows. And it'll fit on a floppy. For some reason I like the interface better than n++, but that's just personal preference. I'm just pointing out that there's not really much of a difference.

[Jekyll]

Seconded. Notepad++ rocks.

What's it like compared to the old school editors like emacs?

(I'm just asking not trolling...)

[grmcdorman]

emacs? Heresy! vi is the one true editor!!111eleventy!one!

:p

[grmcdorman]

... or is it the other way around? :confused:

:D

[grmcdorman]

Seriously, though, most Windows editors like Notepad++ or Crimson Editor don't compare well to Emacs or vi. Emacs and vi are usually strictly keyboard-based (vanilla vi, in particular). The above two editors are GUI apps, so they have menus (including context menus), tabs, scrollbars; the whole GUI thing. So, for the most part, it'd be an apples-to-oranges comparision.

[Jekyll]

Seriously, though, most Windows editors like Notepad++ or Crimson Editor don't compare well to Emacs or vi. Emacs and vi are usually strictly keyboard-based (vanilla vi, in particular). The above two editors are GUI apps, so they have menus (including context menus), tabs, scrollbars; the whole GUI thing. So, for the most part, it'd be an apples-to-oranges comparision.

Well yes, but emacs comes with all most all of that enabled by default nowadays, and the same holds for the prettier vi(m)s, gvim or cream. And despite how nice emacs is there are occasions when I'd rather be coding in visual studio, so I wondered what these young upstarts had going for them ;).

[Rrose Selavy]

Just found this the other day, if you like to browse pic galleries you will find it awesome...possibly a way netbrowsing is going to go.

http://www.piclens.com/

Firefox add on here:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5579

-

[winnietheblue]

Exact Audio Copy (http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/) Reads audio cds very carefully. :) Only way some of my more scratched cds can be read. Saves the data as a wave file, but can also convert it to flac or mp3.

REACT2 (http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=REACT) Automates some aspects of EAC, and allows the original file from EAC to be converted into multiple formats, such as flac and mp3, at the same time EAC is originally run. (there are other (free) programs have been created to work with EAC, but I haven't used them).

Also, found this recently (while trying to organize my music collection).
MixMeister BPM Analyzer (http://www.mixmeister.com/download_freestuff.html). Calculates the BPM and adds it to the file's tags. Works well with mp3s, but doesn't work with flac. :(

[moopet]

Just found this the other day, if you like to browse pic galleries you will find it awesome...possibly a way netbrowsing is going to go.

http://www.piclens.com/

Firefox add on here:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5579

-
Piclens breaks a lot of other funtionality. They're "known issues" that haven't been resolved. I forget what blocks I ran up against, but I know that some websites wouldn't work at all with that plugin installed. Oh, yeah, it breaks scrollbars occasionally and breaks login scripts.

[Worm]

What's it like compared to the old school editors like emacs?

(I'm just asking not trolling...)

To a degree, as noted, it's a case of apples and oranges, but there are comparisons to be made.

Mind you, I couldn't be considered a regular user of either vi or emacs, so this is purely my opinion.

Notepad++ stacks up pretty well in my opinion. It can store macros, replace against regex etc.

It does miss some of the vi-like power commands , but mostly that's down to usage and familiarity, the only real benefit is in terms of keystrokes.

ie. hitting 'dd' isn't a million miles away from 'Home Shift-Down Delete', and the latter becomes more useful when you want to delete more extensibely while retaining more selectivity.

Big advantages to me are the tabbed interface, cloned views (show file in more than one view), context highlighting and open/ending tag tree display.

Depends on what you use an editor for really I guess.

If I'm knocking up a simple web page then I'll just use vi or nano on my web server. For larger projects I'll use Notepad++ ... horses for courses.

[Drudgewire]

Real7ime Converter (http://www.videohelp.com/tools/Real7ime_Converter)

Converting realplayer files to AVI files. I have Total Video Converter but it can't handle a lot of the RP, so this free and easy program is a great suppliment. Just drop and drag.

NOTE: It's good to have other conversion programs, because the AVI file this thing creates is HUGE!!

[AgeGap]

Startup Delayer (http://www.r2.com.au/software.php?page=2&show=startdelay) Actually helps a Windows computer start up quicker.

Also ShieldsUP (https://www.grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2) tests how invisible your machine is.

System rescue CD (http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page) for when your system crashes and you have not backed up your files. Shame on you. Also consider DSL.

OpenOffice Professional Template Pack - English (http://extensions.services.openoffice.org/project/SunTemplatepack_1)

[AgeGap]

Just for fun.
Flight sims. I don't have a computer that will run Flightgear (http://www.flightgear.org/) but it will run YS flight (http://homepage3.nifty.com/ysflight/fromauthor/e2008.html).

[AgeGap]

Not that obscure. Eraser (http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/download.php) if you are getting rid of your computer. Destroys files.

Broadband Speed Tester (http://www.broadbandchoices.co.uk/speed-tester.html). How much an issue this is outside the UK I don't know.

[Blue Mountain]

Not that obscure. Eraser (http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/download.php) if you are getting rid of your computer. Destroys files.
The geek way to do this:

Boot a Knoppix CD (or other live CD Linux distro)
Type the following command:
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=1M

Overwrites the entire drive with binary zeros. Only the most advanced forensic labs can get to the data after that, and I'm not even sure they can do it with the extremely dense hard drives we have these days.

[BenBurch]

NETHACK! - A game I have been playing for 20 years and have never won; http://nethack.org/

Multi-platform.

[AgeGap]

Version 2 of LEGO Digital Designer (http://ldd.lego.com/). When you have wasted time on this here (http://portal.wecreatestuff.com/Portal.swf) is a 2D game of Portal. Here (http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/launchpad/launchball/) is another flash game, this one from The Science Museum, so it must be educational.

[PB&J]

Occasionally I need a window to stay on top of others (usually a browser or a notepad type of window). Several of these don't have the built in functionality of "stay on top of other windows", so use deskpins for when I need this kind of functionality for XP.

http://www.snapfiles.com/get/deskpins.html

[PB&J]

Paint.Net (http://www.getpaint.net/) - If you're running Windows (XP & Vista) and don't have a commercial image manipulation program (Photoshop, Illustrator, etc.), then this program is the one for you.

This is an excellent program, thanks :D

[Alareth]

Can anyone recommend a decent duplicate file locator?

[AgeGap]

Can anyone recommend a decent duplicate file locator?

DupKiller (http://www.snapfiles.com/opinions/DupKiller/DupKiller.html)

[yairhol]

Can anyone recommend a decent duplicate file locator?

CCleaner (http://www.ccleaner.com/)

[biomorph]

I've used Editpad for ages, it supports multiple pages.

http://www.editpadpro.com/editpadclassic.html

and Mailwasher email previewer and spam filter at

http://www.firetrust.com/products/mailwasher-pro

For ftp I use FTP Commander which does what I need, at

http://www.internet-soft.com/download.htm

I'm not sure if these are still free tho, but they were when I found them.
I like "mc" for linux too, good prog.

[moopet]

I've used Editpad for ages, it supports multiple pages.

http://www.editpadpro.com/editpadclassic.html

and Mailwasher email previewer and spam filter at

http://www.firetrust.com/products/mailwasher-pro

For ftp I use FTP Commander which does what I need, at

http://www.internet-soft.com/download.htm

I'm not sure if these are still free tho, but they were when I found them.
I like "mc" for linux too, good prog.

Not free, no. Says on each of the pages you linked to.

[moopet]

CCleaner (http://www.ccleaner.com/)

This removes duplicate files? I can't find any reference to that feature, and have never noticed it when I've used the product?

[TheDaver]

Oh boy, let's not get into text editors.

I prefer Notepad++.

[JonnyFive]

Not free, no. Says on each of the pages you linked to.

EditPad Lite (http://www.editpadpro.com/editpadlite.html) is free for non-commercial use. I use it at home because it kicks ass. :)

[yairhol]

This removes duplicate files? I can't find any reference to that feature, and have never noticed it when I've used the product?
Yes it does.
One of its features for cleaning up your hard drive is by finding duplicates across all hard drives and letting you delete them.

[siqr]

Oh boy, let's not get into text editors.

I prefer Notepad++.

emacs. I'm running it under Windows. Which means, from what I read, it's a crippled shadow of what it could be on a Linux machine. And I still prefer it to pspad, which is what I used before.

It's the cursor control commands that make emacs such a wonderful editor for me. ALT-F, CTRL-N, and especially CTRL-S and CTRL-R -- I can't live without them. No more need to constantly reach for the mouse and move and click. In emacs you just hit a few keys and the cursor jumps to precisely where you want it.

[moopet]

Yes it does.
One of its features for cleaning up your hard drive is by finding duplicates across all hard drives and letting you delete them.

I must be missing something, because the copy I just downloaded doesn't mention this functionality or just do it.

[rats]

I found FREEDIFF (http://www.saltybrine.com/) very useful in a previous job. It allows quick comparisons between ascii files. I haven't used their other programmes.

Strangely, their Help file has a bizarre "Help on Life" section which, despite not reading in full, seems to be a long-winded argument against atheism!

[nimzov]

In emacs you just hit a few keys and the cursor jumps to precisely where you want it.
Like to the next character. :D

nimzo

[BillC]

LCC-Win32 (http://www.cs.virginia.edu/%7Elcc-win32/), a C compiler.
Inkscape (http://www.inkscape.org/), a vector graphics editor.

[Gevaudan]

RoughDraft (sorry, no links allowed yet) is a terrific program geared towards scriptwriters. Best feature: automatically formats action, names and dialog correctly.

[TheDoLittle]

RoughDraft (sorry, no links allowed yet) is a terrific program geared towards scriptwriters. Best feature: automatically formats action, names and dialog correctly.

Linkypoo:
http://www.salsbury.f2s.com/rd.htm

I also second RoughDraft. I have used it in a couple of short screenplays I've written.

And Gevaudan, you should be able to use links by now. I think it's 15 posts before they allow linking.

[CrikeyBobs]

AutoHotkey (http://www.autohotkey.com/)


* Automate almost anything by sending keystrokes and mouse clicks. You can write a mouse or keyboard macro by hand or use the macro recorder.
* Create hotkeys for keyboard, joystick, and mouse. Virtually any key, button, or combination can become a hotkey.
* Expand abbreviations as you type them. For example, typing "btw" can automatically produce "by the way".
* Create custom data-entry forms, user interfaces, and menu bars. See GUI for details.
* Remap keys and buttons on your keyboard, joystick, and mouse.
* Convert any script into an EXE file that can be run on computers that don't have AutoHotkey installed.



AutoHotkey has an active forum with many user-created utilities. I have a simple script for accessing Wikipedia, YouTube, Google, Dictionary. All I have to do is highlight words in any web page or application and then hit the appropriate hot key.


Phun (http://phun.cs.umu.se/wiki). A 2d physics simulator. The link is to the Wiki, which contains a demo video and a link to the download. This is a really fun (phun, geddit?!) and interesting tool.

[AgeGap]

Free racing game (http://www.trackmania.com/en/)-Trackmania Nations Forever.

[Rrose Selavy]

Not free, you will get a nag to register after 30 days but Spacemonger is fascinating, even for a trial period , to see what is taking up all that space.

http://www.sixty-five.cc/sm/

[Ducky]

Ok well we had a little from linux/unix people, so I'll add into that bunch - however most of what I am going to list is cross platform by personal preference:

My favorite editor so far (next to vim in a shell) was recommended by El_Spectre:

http://www.activestate.com/komodo_edit/

I prefer this media manager/mp3 player manager to itunes etc. mainly due to it being built on the gecko engine and neat as hell plugins:

http://getsongbird.com/

Calendaring via Sunbird (Or the Lightning extension for Thunderbird) this also works with Google Calendars with a few small tweaks:

http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/sunbird/

http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/lightning/

Cross platform control of multiple machines via one keyboard/mouse (assuming they all have their own monitor):

http://code.google.com/p/synergy-plus/

Not sure if anyone has mentioned it yet, but I am a big fan of Pidgin, and it's smaller console-based finch. I like it mainly for the killer OTR encryption plugin (stands for Off The Record) that provides excellent in transit ecryption between clients. Finch's only drawback is I had to write my own plugin for OTR encryption to be used. I hope this changes soon. Granted Pidgin isn't exactly obscure, but the OTR plugin isn't well known.

http://www.pidgin.im/

http://www.cypherpunks.ca/otr/

This one is cross platform, only insomuch as you'd better be a ubuntu 8.10 user and newer to easily install (though you can compile from source) and is one of the easiest and best DVD ripping tools out there, IMO:

http://handbrake.fr/

Also to use with ubuntu you'll need to follow these direction to get dvd encryption working (other platforms have similar how-to's all over google.):

http://lifehacker.com/350015/enable-dvd-playback-in-ubuntu-in-two-commands

Cross platform free video editing (via a sign up):

http://jahshaka.org/

I like many different bittorrent clients, but these three stand out as the best of easy and functional:

http://deluge-torrent.org/

http://www.transmissionbt.com/

http://www.vuze.com/app

Then again, I mainly just use rtorrent. That's found here or in your favorite linux repo: http://libtorrent.rakshasa.no/

Not obscure, but always needs to be mentioned due to awesomeness:

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

Also, There are several good options for encryption that are cross platform, but many are not free. TrueCrypt is very effective, and on a windows machine supports full disck encryption with an option to install a hidden OS accessed by a different passkey (for "under duress" situations you need to boot a clean/different OS):

http://www.truecrypt.org/

Full disk encryption on my *nix boxes is done via LUKS:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LUKS

All of the above is cross platform. Now at home I only run *nix (opensolaris and ubuntu) I'll get into the very cool platform specific for those:

SSHerminator:

http://lifehacker.com/5135130/ssherminator-splits-ssh-terminal-windows-into-panes

(This is included in opensolaris builds newer than nv105)

While OpenOffice is very good for full featured office suites, often my machines only need lightweight installs so I use these:

http://www.abisource.com/ (This is cross platform)

http://www.gnome.org/gnumeric

And for my accounting needs:

http://www.gnucash.org/

I've converted my small recording studio to ubuntu studio edition and use the following:

http://ardour.org/

http://www.rosegardenmusic.com/

VM/Virtualization via Sun's VirtualBox:

http://www.virtualbox.org/


On a side note, for those who love VIM, you can make firefox act like vim (this serves no good purpose I can find except to be a neat novelty):

http://www.developernotes.com/archive/2008/06/30/vim-firefox-vimperator.aspx

[The Sopwith Turtle]

Some more Windows ports of programs that are originally written for *nix (mainly Linux) that I use a lot, to the point that I install them on my Windows partition as well.

LyX: A LaTeX editor that I use for writing papers because it's pretty much LaTeX for dummies. The Windows installer comes with an installer for LaTeX too.
http://www.lyx.org

Inkscape: A nice vector-graphics program (like Adobe Illustrator). It's a little buggy and slow, but it's free.
http://www.inkscape.org

XChat: An IRC client, and about the best one I've found, though it can be annoying to configure.
http://www.xchat.org

And GnuCash, which ducky already mentioned, has a Windows port, so you needn't feel left out if you don't want to pay for Quicken.

[Ducky]

Some more Windows ports of programs that are originally written for *nix (mainly Linux) that I use a lot, to the point that I install them on my Windows partition as well.

LyX: A LaTeX editor that I use for writing papers because it's pretty much LaTeX for dummies. The Windows installer comes with an installer for LaTeX too.
http://www.lyx.org

Inkscape: A nice vector-graphics program (like Adobe Illustrator). It's a little buggy and slow, but it's free.
http://www.inkscape.org

XChat: An IRC client, and about the best one I've found, though it can be annoying to configure.
http://www.xchat.org

And GnuCash, which ducky already mentioned, has a Windows port, so you needn't feel left out if you don't want to pay for Quicken.

Forgot about inkscape! Good call!

Also, there's the Gimp which is not obscure, but is a good graphics editor:

http://www.gimp.org/

Also cross platform.

[The Sopwith Turtle]

Forgot about inkscape! Good call!

In all fairness, I just noticed that BillC mentioned it first...

Also, not at all obscure, but very useful and cross-platform.
Eclipse: Very fully-featured IDE with support (via plugins) for most popular languages, and a few obscure ones.
http://www.eclipse.org/

[wombatwal]

Image editing, also handles my RAW images.
Free program called Faststone (http://www.faststone.org/FSViewerDetail.htm).

[Ducky]

In all fairness, I just noticed that BillC mentioned it first...

Also, not at all obscure, but very useful and cross-platform.
Eclipse: Very fully-featured IDE with support (via plugins) for most popular languages, and a few obscure ones.
http://www.eclipse.org/

Yeah there's another thread in here with editor wars going on. I mentioned in that one I like kdevelop and komodo. No one really commented on kdevelop.

Granted Eclipse and Netbeans are both very good.

[RoboTimbo]

DVD Decrypter for ripping DVD's. Also good for manipulating DVD image files. You'll have to search to find it, it moves around a lot.

[Blue Mountain]

Ok well we had a little from linux/unix people, so I'll add into that bunch - however most of what I am going to list is cross platform by personal preference:

(mucho neat stuff snipped)

Gee, thanks Ducky. As if I didn't have enough planned to do for the next month :D

[Ducky]

Gee, thanks Ducky. As if I didn't have enough planned to do for the next month :D

Always glad to help :)

Let me know if you have any questions on those suites.

[N.Texas]

Blender- 3d modeling/animation. I'm not sure you could call it obscure since there's a large community of users. I didn't know about it before February.

[Ducky]

Blender- 3d modeling/animation. I'm not sure you could call it obscure since there's a large community of users. I didn't know about it before February.

Blender is a pretty kickass app. Dig these movies created with it:

http://www.blender.org/features-gallery/movies/

[shadron]

While we're in asking mode, let me ask this:

I have a utility I've used since W95 called SnapIt. It was written in Japan, and the programmer stopped supporting it soon after I got it.

What it does is TSR, and when you open a folder it rearranges the files in it so they are as near a rectangle in your screen's aspect ratio as possible, then shrinks the borders to fit. It works in any folder display mode (icons, small icons, lists, detail lists, but not tiles or thumbnails, which I never use anyway). I happen to like icons for most uses, so this is useful to me. No more huge, empty windows with three files in them filling the screen.

I've searched in vain for a replacements. It still works, usually, in Windows XP (which of courtse it was never designed for), but sometimes fails. It does other things, like saving and restoring the icons on the desktop in various resolution settings.

Anyone know of a replacement that might do these things?

[N.Texas]

Blender is a pretty kickass app. Dig these movies created with it:

http://www.blender.org/features-gallery/movies/

I love Big Buck Bunny.

[Zax63]

Another 3D modelling and animation program for Windows that is currently free is trueSpace (http://www.caligari.com/Products/trueSpace/tS75/brochure/intro.asp) from Caligari (http://www.caligari.com/default.asp). It's roots go back to the Amiga in 1990. This was a mid range(around $500 IIRC) commercial PC program for years but Microsoft acquired the company in July 2008 and released it for free. Which makes no sense to me but I'm sure it fits in their program of world domination somehow. :D

Ahh, MS wants the technology for their Virtual EarthTM so I'm more or less right about the world domination thing.

[nescafe]

On a side note, for those who love VIM, you can make firefox act like vim (this serves no good purpose I can find except to be a neat novelty):

http://www.developernotes.com/archive/2008/06/30/vim-firefox-vimperator.aspx

Well, I have used vimperator as my primary FF interface for well over a year -- the added screen real estate and built-in keyboard shortcuts get hardwired real quick.

Ironically, in that timeframe I have transitioned from vim to emacs as my primary editor/dev environment. Go figure. :)

[madurobob]

Someone already mentioned 7-Zip.. WAY better than Acrobat for reading PDFs.

I also use the "image resizer (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/learnmore/tips/eschelman2.mspx)" power tool from Microsoft quite often. I download a hundred pics from my camera, select them all, and re-size them all to internet posting size in just a couple of clicks. Very handy.

Also, check out I want a freeware utility to... (http://www.econsultant.com/i-want-freeware-utilities/index.html) A handy searchable, categorized list of 450+ freeware/shareware utilities.

[Pantaz]

My $0.02...

NoteTab text editor
http://www.notetab.com/
I actually use the paid version, NoteTab Pro, but the freeware version (NoteTab Light) is very good.

IrfanView graphics utility
http://www.irfanview.com/
After all the years I've been using IrfanView, I'm still amazed that it's free!

PDFCreator
http://www.pdfforge.org/
Faithfully reproduces anything printable as a PDF document.

[grmcdorman]

My $0.02...

IrfanView graphics utility
http://www.irfanview.com/
After all the years I've been using IrfanView, I'm still amazed that it's free!

Careful. IrfanView is not free for commercial (i.e. at-work) use. I keep catching people at work using it; too many don't realize (or, in some cases, don't seem to care).

ETA: PDFCreator is usable in commercial settings, though (in fact it's open-source).

[arthwollipot]

IrfanView graphics utility
http://www.irfanview.com/
After all the years I've been using IrfanView, I'm still amazed that it's free!I use Irfanview too. It's great for all of the low-level image editing tasks that I need to do, like cropping, resizing, adjusting contrast, etc.

[Malkuth]

http://www.ghisler.com/ Total Commander, a file manager replacement for Windows.
http://www.chaospro.de/ Fractal generator.

[moopet]

http://www.ghisler.com/ Total Commander, a file manager replacement for Windows.
http://www.chaospro.de/ Fractal generator.

Total commander isn't free.

[Ducky]

Some free games that are really fun:

http://tremulous.net/

http://www.armagetronad.net/

[Gangularis]

As a Linux user, I'm using always open source software :). As I'm mostly into system administration and programming, I mostly write my own scripts to automate tasks the way I want them :D.

For the Windows users though, I'd nominate this one:

NT password editor (http://home.eunet.no/pnordahl/ntpasswd/): very convenient if you forgot the administrator password. Of course, it's Linux based :rolleyes:

Haha, i used that on an office computer at a non-profit organization once, because the people that administered the computer were no longer around, and they left us stuck with user permissions.. It worked like a charm.. but apparently it can be risky.. i forget what the risk, was..

CCleaner (http://www.ccleaner.com/)

I use ccleaner at my job - it's part of our malware removal script. As far as I know, it has no functionality for detecting and removing duplicate files. But then again, we only use it for it's registry cleaning functionality.. We do use dllcompare (http://www.cybertechhelp.com/download/file/dll-compare) for looking for duplicate dll files.


I think Aceftp (http://download.cnet.com/AceFTP-Freeware/3000-2160_4-10073376.html)is my favorite ftp program - very easy to navigate and use, and it's free.

Of course there's Hijack This, and VLC media player would be other worthy nominations.. but i think we all know about them..

There's also a variety of neat, and free, little utilities from gibson research center. Apparently he writes a lot of his software in assembly language, which keeps it free of being bulkware:

http://www.grc.com/freepopular.htm

[Ducky]

I am going to play around with this:

http://subsonic.sourceforge.net/index.php


Seems like an interesting answer to streaming my music. Also, it has a built in installer for blackberries,etc, that will allow me to stream to my phone.

[kedo1981]

Clary Utilitys
CDburnerXP

[Blue Mountain]

Clary Utilitys

Actually, that's Glary Utilities, http://www.glaryutilities.com/gu.html.

[moopet]

Flux. Changes your monitor's colour temperature depending on the time of day and your latitude.

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

[Almo]

Various OS:

Synergy. Share one mouse and keyboard among N computers running various OSs with software.

http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/

Transmission. Bit Torrent

http://www.transmissionbt.com/


Mac OSX:

Adium. Multi-service chat program

http://www.adiumx.com/


Windows:

MWSnap. Good screen/window/rectangle capture software.

http://www.mirekw.com/winfreeware/mwsnap.html

[Almo]

Oh boy, let's not get into text editors.

I prefer Notepad++.

Context: http://www.contexteditor.org/

[The_Fire]

Film/television pre-production package including scriptwriting:

www.celtx.com

[Gangularis]

Various OS:

Synergy. Share one mouse and keyboard among N computers running various OSs with software.

http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/



Oh.. my.. GOD... thank you for sharing that software with us. I've been contemplating buying one of those "switch boxes" because I have two computers at my desk, and i get tired of using two keyboards and two mice.. I set this program up and it works beautifully.. you can even copy and paste stuff from one computer, directly to the other.. it's amazing. Thanks again. VERY nice piece of software.

[SezMe]

Broadband Speed Tester (http://www.broadbandchoices.co.uk/speed-tester.html). How much an issue this is outside the UK I don't know.
Speed test without the download: http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/

[The_Fire]

Oh.. my.. GOD... thank you for sharing that software with us. I've been contemplating buying one of those "switch boxes" because I have two computers at my desk, and i get tired of using two keyboards and two mice.. I set this program up and it works beautifully.. you can even copy and paste stuff from one computer, directly to the other.. it's amazing. Thanks again. VERY nice piece of software.

Has anyone tried it up against Vista? I'm running one xp and one vista at home and would love to hook them up to the same wireless keyboard/mouse.

[Ducky]

Has anyone tried it up against Vista? I'm running one xp and one vista at home and would love to hook them up to the same wireless keyboard/mouse.

I can vouch that it works well on vista. I used to have a vista machine here at home I ran it on.

[TobiasTheViking]

bitlbee.. IM <-> IRC gateway.

Bitlbee runs as a local IRC server, which i connect too, and on that server there is a channel with all my IM friends.

It supports the usual mix of jabber, icq, yahoo, msn, oscar.

I even think it does skype(text only)

If that isn't obscure, i don't know what is :)

[Gangularis]

If you recall, about a year ago, google said they were going to release some kind of toolbar/add on that lets you gauge whether or not your ISP is throttling your bittorrent transfers.. Unfortunately, that never got released, but welcome yourself to Measurement Labs...

http://www.measurementlab.net/measurement-lab-tools

Personally, i've noticed that all of my network traffic gets throttled when i do a bittorrent download, and I emailed with the "glasnost" staff, and asked them if they can tell if your connection is being throttled if all of your traffic is throttled and not just bittorrent traffic.. apparently, they can't. they rely on the distinction between two protocols to make the assessment.

[Rrose Selavy]

Very useful print prog that alows you to print booklets , double-sided, several pages on one page etc

Saves on paper & ink

Trial version no time limit with small banner placed on page ( is OK for personal use)
Paid for version removes watermark

http://www.fineprint.com/products/fineprint/index.html

[Ducky]

I posted this in anotehr thread here, but it applies to this one as well. For windows users interested in learning a little about linux (specifically Ubuntu):

Or, for those who want to try linux without having to install or even reboot, there's this. (http://portableubuntu.sourceforge.net/)

[erlando]

I don't know if they are obscure as such, but...

My one irreplacible tool for my Mac is Quicksilver: http://blacktree.com/?quicksilver . Generally you can remove this tool from my Mac when you have stepped over my dead, charred body.

Adium is a nice IM client: http://adiumx.com

iTerm is a really nice Terminal replacement: http://iterm.sourceforge.net/download.shtml

Eclipse and Netbeans are both nice IDE's for Java and other development.

And I gotta mention TextMate although it isn't free.

[shawmutt]

Disregard, my suggestion has been suggested already.

[zooterkin]

Someone already mentioned 7-Zip.. WAY better than Acrobat for reading PDFs.

Well, I know you posted on April 1st, but did you mean Foxit rather than 7-zip? (I use both, but I don't see any PDF support in 7-zip, nor would I expect any.)

I'll also second the votes for Synergy, I've just installed it and it works great (after a bit of fiddling).

[ThatSoundAgain]

And I gotta mention TextMate although it isn't free.

I'm partial to TextWrangler (http://www.barebones.com/products/TextWrangler/), myself.

Scaled down, free version of BBEdit. I don't use BBEdit, and can't imagine exactly what it is they've cut - TextWrangler has multi-file editing, writes and opens any encoding, has syntax highlighting for most anything, built-in (S)FTP, multi-file or directory search/replace/regex, and is scriptable and extensible.

[BenBurch]

I own BBEdit, and its worth the price of admission.

[jnelso99]

Another 3D modelling and animation program for Windows that is currently free is trueSpace (http://www.caligari.com/Products/trueSpace/tS75/brochure/intro.asp) from Caligari (http://www.caligari.com/default.asp). It's roots go back to the Amiga in 1990. This was a mid range(around $500 IIRC) commercial PC program for years but Microsoft acquired the company in July 2008 and released it for free. Which makes no sense to me but I'm sure it fits in their program of world domination somehow. :D

Ahh, MS wants the technology for their Virtual EarthTM so I'm more or less right about the world domination thing.

If anybody was interested in or is using trueSpace, get it now while you can. Microsoft is killing it.

http://www.caligari.com/News/news_200905/LetterFromTheFounder.html

[Zax63]

If anybody was interested in or is using trueSpace, get it now while you can. Microsoft is killing it.

http://www.caligari.com/News/news_200905/LetterFromTheFounder.html

Very sad, I was a paid user from version 2 through 7.5. A very nice program that never really found an audience. Too expensive for most amateurs and it never caught on for professional use.

[zooterkin]

Some suggestions for useful free software in this article (http://lifehacker.com/5266661/turn-your-spare-thumb-drives-into-feature+packed-giveaway-drives) from lifehacker.com (which I like to browse).

[moopet]

Now, I have read this thread, and I can't be bothered to check it again to make sure I'm not being the repetetive repeater.
I only came across this today: Thumbview (Windows only). I'd been fed up that since CS2, Photoshop no longer made thumbnails available for Windows Explorer. Thumbview fixes that, and sorts out a bunch of other formats too.
http://www.seriema.net/thumbview/

[Darat]

Fences - see:http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=141655

[moopet]

Fences - see:http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=141655

Oh yah, fences is awesome. Makes Windows desktops useful.

[DazzaD]

I get asked about software so often it was easier just to maintain a page:

http://www.glnescouts.org.uk/usefulprograms/

[GreNME]

Are there any decent backup programs that can handle open files (and are free)?

[Ducky]

Are there any decent backup programs that can handle open files (and are free)?

rsync?

No seriously...Open files, as in open format or open as in another resource taking them up at the moment of backup?

[GreNME]

Sorry, I worded that poorly. Files in use, including (but not limited to) operating system files (and settings).

[Ducky]

Sorry, I worded that poorly. Files in use, including (but not limited to) operating system files (and settings).

Windows I assume?

ETA:

One sort of hacked-way of doing this would be to employ a copy of VMWare converter, which is free. That will back up everything by creating a VM image of the drive while it's running. The drawback is you need a network mount to push the image to, as it's bad form to create the vm image on the disk you're backing up. I'm not sure how that fits in with what you want to do, but you could make it work in a roundabout way. Once created you could migrate that machine's use to an ESXi server and keep snapshots (or run it in virtualbox and keep snapshots.)

rsync will handle files in use for unix systems. all my backups at home are done via ZFS pools and mirroring (BSD and OpenSolaris are currently really the only OS' that will support ZFS fully, though you can get OS X 10.5 to do so with a developer package install.)

[Zax63]

Are there any decent backup programs that can handle open files (and are free)?

You could try Cobian Backup (http://www.educ.umu.se/~cobian/cobianbackup.htm). It uses Volume Shadow Copy to handle open files. The only problem I've had with it is that I can't seem to open the .zip files it produces with anything but Cobian itself.

[GreNME]

Windows I assume?

As far as I know, yes (a friend asked).

I'd also suggest ESXi for such a setup, if only because it allows for a better test environment (the friend said this is a non-production-critical machine, hence no commercial backup). Backing up a virtual disk is a whole lot easier than backing up an entire hard drive with an operating system installed. Whether he has the hardware to set up ESXi (he'd need an external set of drives for the VMs, yes?) I'm not sure, but I'm mostly sure he's not inclined to spend more money on this particular situation.

I'll have him check out DeltaCopy (http://www.aboutmyip.com/AboutMyXApp/DeltaCopy.jsp)-- essentially a version of rsync for Windows. I don't know if it can handle files in use (since Windows handles such files differently), but it might be worth a shot and it's free.

Hey, and it's also another app to add to the list of software here!

[Wudang]

Not tried any of these but....http://www.snapfiles.com/Freeware/system/fwbackup.html

[Pantaz]

Sorry, I worded that poorly. Files in use, including (but not limited to) operating system files (and settings).

The backup program included with Windows XP does "shadow copy":
From the Help file...
Volume shadow copy overview
Windows XP allows you to create shadow copy backups of volumes, exact point-in-time copies of files, including all open files. For example, databases that are held open exclusively and files that are open due to operator or system activity are backed up during a volume shadow copy backup. In this way, files that have changed during the backup window are copied correctly.

Shadow copy backups ensure that: Applications can continue to write data to the volume during a backup.
Files that are open are no longer omitted during a backup.
Backups can be performed at any time, without locking out users.


I've used it to backup my laptop to an external USB HDD. I haven't used anything else with XP, so I can't offer any comparisons.

[tuc0]

I don't think these were mentioned. Not sure what the criteria for obscurity is though...

XnView (http://www.xnview.com/en/index.html) - great picture browser/manager/basic editor; much better than irfan

GOM Player (http://www.gomlab.com/eng/) - my favourite media player

foobar2000 (http://www.foobar2000.org/) - very good audio player

and of course VLC (http://www.videolan.org/vlc/) - it's not pretty but will play pretty much anything on any platform

[Justin39640]

i def have to agree that blender is darn cool
ive had it about a week
heres a video i just rendered

Sy0QcrLmGlQ

check out my channel for other collapse animations
rate me please :) lol