Shug on 3/6/2009 at 04:04

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It seems that years have passed since we've had a thread about what people are using software-wise, and given I'm about to format I thought I'd throw the net out.

First off, I'm considering some kind of minimalist shell replacement program if anybody has tips on that. LiteStep et al all seem to have been left to rot for the last year or two, which seems odd.

Anything better than (http://www.openoffice.org/) OpenOffice these days for a free MS alternative?

(http://www.daemon-tools.cc/eng/products/dtproStd) Daemon Tools Pro is the only software I've found that works well for media drive emulation and associated activities - as I'm on Win XP 64bit. Unfortunately, it isn't free.

I'm still using (http://www.winamp.com) Winamp for music sorting and playback - considering moving to (http://www.foobar2000.org/) foobar2000 as I've heard good things about it, specifically the ability to autofix ID3 tags on music files.

Is there anything that surpasses the (http://www.codecguide.com/download_kl.htm) k-lite codec pack with bundled media player classic option for video playback?

For bit-torrenting, (http://www.utorrent.com/) uTorrent seems to be a mature and functional program with little bloat. As well as that, (http://filezilla-project.org/) FileZilla is the FTP program currently installed on my machine, but I have no idea how it stacks up against competitors.

For a dual monitor setup, (http://www.realtimesoft.com/ultramon/) Ultramon still seems to be the go.

I'm using a pay-for solution for anti-virus in (http://www.eset.com/products/nod32.php) NOD32, having come from the free version of (http://free.avg.com/) AVG which I felt was slightly lacking.

(http://www.safer-networking.org/index2.html) Spybot S&D is the only anti-malware software I've kept over the years, having found that it and (http://www.lavasoft.com/products/ad_aware_free.php) Ad-Aware do essentially the same thing. (http://us.trendmicro.com/us/products/personal/CWShredder/) CWShredder and (http://www.trendsecure.com/portal/en-US/tools/security_tools/hijackthis) HiJackThis seem to be only for serious malware infections which I haven't experienced for many years - and they have both been bought out by Trend Micro, apparently. I'm interested in any other suggestions for maintenance programs like Spybot, or perhaps defrag utilities given the inbuilt Windows program seems sub-par.

I've given up on the horribly bloated (http://www.nero.com/ena/index.html) Nero Suite - basically when I discovered their SmartDrive emulation didn't work on x64 Windows, it was the end of a rocky relationship. Good options for burning software?

Speaking of bloated, I still have (http://www.mirc.com/) mIRC and I'm looking to turf it for something a little cleaner for the occasional time I spend on IRC servers. Any other decent options besides (http://www.xchat.org/) xchat?

Still using (http://www.firefox.com) Firefox for browsing due to its add-ons system and adequate speed, and (http://www.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/thunderbird/) Thunderbird for POP3 email, although I confess that was just because it was the first program I spotted at the time.

Last of all, (http://keepass.info/) KeePass is a tidy little password management application, which I've been using to keep netbanking / poker site passwords safe.

Let me know what software you can't live without!

TBE on 3/6/2009 at 04:19

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(http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/en/index.php/resources/download/) Exact Audio Copy to rip CDs to mp3 files or FLAC.

Use (http://flac.sourceforge.net/download.html) FLAC for lossless codec or (http://lame.sourceforge.net/) LAME for mp3 creation.

I tell you what, Exact Audio Copy makes the best sounding mp3 files from audio CDs.

Kolya on 3/6/2009 at 07:25

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Last I checked Daemon Tools had a free version, you just had to get around lots of bundle/spy/ad-ware during installation.

Foobar2000 is great if you like to customise and tweak your player ad infinitum. My own version is perfect, minimal and functional (for me), but I've been using and tweaking it for two years.

For FTP as well as any file management I use Totalcommander which I cannot recommend enough. Again it needs quite a bit of tweaking though imo.

I also have K-Lite installed although for most uses VLC-player is the best choice after they've finally updated the interface and fixed some glaring bugs.

Finally I use (http://chatzilla.hacksrus.com/) ChatZilla for all chatting, with my own Trioptimum skin ((http://strangebedfellows.de/CZ/test.html) preview, (http://www.strangebedfellows.de/CZ/trioptimum.css) for install drag this link into ChatZilla). I channel all my IM accounts into ChatZilla via (http://www.bitlbee.org/main.php/news.r.html) Bitlbee (as well as RSS feeds and Twitter by (http://www.strangebedfellows.de/index.php/topic,1471.0.html) chaining some social service (nerd warning!).

Since most office suites are too bloated for my use, I write and store all my docs at Google docs.

Rogue Keeper on 3/6/2009 at 08:53

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(nTune) nTune is the right thing if you have a geForce card and you want to tune your machine up a bit. It's able find the optimal sweet spot in overclocking of all your components at once or separately without the need to change values in BIOS manually, it can extensively test the stability of your overclocked rig and you can create various overclock/underclock profiles for desktop work and gaming, it can watch the temperature of your GPU/CPU and send eventual audial/textual alerts, etcetera. Everything on your responsibility of course.

(http://www.acdsee.com/) ACDSee batch picture manager/renamer/converter/editor. Yummy.

(http://www.nch.com.au/wavepad/masters.html) WavePad for quick WAV recording, useful for flash animations or youtube videos which you can't download, and for simple edition.

(http://mp3gain.sourceforge.net/download.php) MP3 Gain if you want to adjust the loudness of your MP3 albums without normalizing them permanently. The gain values are written in the tag.

(http://www.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/Audio/Tag-Editors/The-GodFather.shtml) The Godfather for advanced MP3 batch tagging. Absolutely necessary if you don't want to go crazy from tagging all your MP3s individually.

(http://www.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/Video/Other-VIDEO-Tools/Subtitle-Workshop.shtml) Subtitle Workshop if you want to create/edit subtitles for DivX videos, or to adjust some subtitles to match your rip.

(http://www.rapget.com/en/) RapGet for convenient Rapidshare downloading.

(http://www.filetransit.com/view.php?id=64022) Net Share Watcher if you want to know who's enjoying your shared stuff at work.

...and eventually I plan to install and learn to use (http://www.ubuntu.com/) Ubuntu

Kolya on 3/6/2009 at 09:19

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Using Foobar2000 makes ExactAudioCopy and MP3Gain superflous, as it makes perfect rips (including pulling title data from FreeDB) and it can calculate and apply MP3 Replaygain per track or album. It also converts from and to every imaginable audio format and washes your ears.

If anyone's interested, here's my (http://s02.eeestorage.com/simpledownload/?sharecode=392b0c04-3f47-427a-8633-63d18eb06353) pre-tweaked Foobar2000. Some licenses apply.