Bjossi on 3/6/2009 at 21:19
Exact Audio Copy uses external encoders for compressing, I think LAME is the default mp3 encoder, which is indeed the best one out there. Though mp3 doesn't stand a chance against vorbis (especially aoTuV) or aac in terms of compression vs. quality ratio.
Anyway, here's my software list.
Internet: Firefox - Loved it from day one. The AccessiBar add-on offers the best accessibility for my particular disability I've come across.
PDF: FoxIt Reader - Much lighter than Adobe Reader and does exactly the same thing.
Torrents: uTorrent - Clean, simple and gets the job done.
Audio: XMPlay - A very good audio player that aims at being self-contained and non-bloated. Supports a wide range of formats and has a good selection of plug-ins available.
Video: Media Player Classic - Clean and simple, though it tends to crash on me randomly from time to time, and one time I had to do a hard reboot due to a very nasty freeze during DVD playback.
Messaging: Miranda IM - Self-contained, non-bloated and highly customizable. I use this one for all my IM needs, from IRC to MSN.
Archiving: 7-Zip - I went from WinZip to this and never looked back.
Images: IrfanView - Fantastic program for viewing and manipulating pictures.
CD rips: Exact Audio Copy - A powerful program with plenty of features to get the most juice out of the rips. It also has a beginner mode for the less-experienced users.
As you can see I'm not a bloatware person, which is why I wouldn't install monolithic piles of garbage like Adobe Reader or Nero unless I was held at gunpoint. :)
RavynousHunter on 3/6/2009 at 21:46
Personally, my software repertoire consists of the following:
* MS Visual Studio 2008 Express if I don't mind using MSIL.
* Bloodshed Dev C++ if I want to tool around with regular C++ (can't find a working torrent of VC++6)
* MS Visual Basic 6 Professional if I want a GUI and don't want to use MSIL and don't mind losing some of the stuff in the .Net framework.
* MS Office for document editing, databases, and spreadsheets. It's easy enough to pirate, so it doesn't bug me none.
* Daemon Tools Lite for all my ISO-running needs.
* BitComet for torrenting. It's the first program I've used for torrenting, and it works well enough for me.
* Hex Workshop when I want to have fun with hex editing.
* Serials 2000 so I don't have to worry about a virus-laden keygen.
* OllyDbg if I want to disassemble something.
thefonz on 3/6/2009 at 21:57
After the disaster that was itunes I've been bouncing between foobar and winamp recently; however neither do everything itunes could do - ie: podcasts and decent library.
I'm currently playing with Songbird which is nice although two problems thus far:
1) can only "watch" one folder (unless this can be changed?) which is annoying as i hold some mp3s on a seperate internal hd and another.
2) takes aaaaaaaaaages to open.
Toxicfluff on 3/6/2009 at 22:02
I use (
http://www.wavosaur.com/) Wavosaur for my audio editing needs -- it's much more usable than Audacity, IMO, and has comparatively wonderful VST support.
I use (
http://pnotes.sourceforge.net/) Pnotes portable edition for my information scraps needs at work. Being able to call up and banish a screenful of notes with a quick keypress saves me fucking about with post-its, which I inevitably either lose or accidentally throw away, forcing me to the indignity of a mid-office bin dig.
For bigger bits of information and lists, I use (
http://www.seonote.info/) SEO note - it's the best of the freebies -- rich text & tables, HTML, images, passwords the lot.
(
http://www.pegtop.net/start/) Pstart is my portable apps menu thing -- loads up really fast and is very flexible.
(
http://www.xnview.com/en/index.html) XNView is a great image browser that I always use for going through large directories of images - it skips along even with giant files, and you can scroll to the next image without browsing by using the mousewheel.
(
http://www.klingbeil.com/spear/) SPEAR is a nifty audio program that resynthesises any sound you feed it. You can then molest the individual partials making up the sound, allowing for all sorts of awesome effects.
Nameless Voice on 3/6/2009 at 22:33
Quote Posted by thefonz
1) can only "watch" one folder (unless this can be changed?) which is annoying as i hold some mp3s on a seperate internal hd and another.
If you know what you're doing, you can use (
http://schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinkshellext/hardlinkshellext.html) Hardlink Shell Extension to make a hardlink from a folder on one drive to a folder on another - as far as programs are concerned, the hardlinked folder is inside the folder where you created the hardlink.
Renzatic on 4/6/2009 at 00:03
My List 'O Fun
(
http://filezilla-project.org/) Filezilla for my FTP needs. I used to use SmartFTP, but the dirty fucks started asking for money.
(
http://www.imgburn.com/) IMG Burn for burning large files or images. Small and powerful, it's handled everything I've thrown at it without a single complaint. It's ridiculous when a little 2 meg file can do more faster than the 600 megs of excess crap that is Nero.
(
http://www.irfanview.com/) Irfanview. For Flatcat mostly. As fast an image viewer as I could hope.
For audio, I use good ole Windows Media Player 12 and sift through my songs via the Windows 7 libraries. Though before I went to 7, I used (
http://www.winamp.com/) Winamp exclusively.
(
http://www.luxology.com/) Modo for all my 3D modeling needs. Or at least it should be. I've been busy these last couple of months and haven't had much time to play with it (read lazy). Also it's $900, and I actually paid for it to boot. Holy shit, I need to do something with this soon.
(
http://www.launchy.net/) Launchy. Sorta like the Vista search bar, but always available on your desktop, and amazingly versatile. Yet another little toy that makes the start menu even more redundant than it already is. I mean seriously, does anyone even use the start menu anymore?
(
http://www.ccleaner.com/) Ccleaner. The C stands for crap. It cleans it.
(
http://www.avast.com/) Avast Antivirus. Disable the voice notifications with this. Otherwise you'll be lying there one night, all snuggly in bed, when suddenly...
VIRUS DATABASE HAS BEEN UPDATED...will wake you up with a yelling yelp and make you pee yourself out of stark fright. Beyond that, great antivirus software.
(
http://photoshop.cs4-now.com/) Photoshop. I use this quite a bit. Costs alot, but...wait...who pays for Photoshop? Up til recently, I thought Adobe just gave it away. One day soon, probably when I work up the courage to sell a kidney on Ebay, I'll buy it.
That's about it for me. I run pretty minimal.
Ladron De La Noche on 4/6/2009 at 01:32
(
http://www.nirsoft.net/) Nirsoft, (
http://www.analogx.com/) AnalogX, (
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/default.aspx) Sysinternals. All freeware utilities, find something useful to fit your needs.
Audio: (
http://www.un4seen.com/xmplay.html) XMPlay, I've used it for years. Small, light, fast. Skins available and plugins.
Audio: Save (
http://www.last.fm/) Last.fm songs, use (
http://www.geocities.com/the_real_sz/misc/lastfm_.htm) this or (
http://dev.xscheme.de/lastsharp) this. Works great. ;)
Video: (
http://www.gomlab.com/eng/) GOM Media Player, plays most video files although not all. If codec needed, GOM will direct to proper codec download. Also, (
http://www.mplayerhq.hu/design7/news.html) MPlayer. (
http://mulder.dummwiedeutsch.de/home/?page=projects#mplayer) MPlayer for Windows is the easiest way to install Mplayer.
File manager: (
http://www.freecommander.com/) FreeCommander Does anyone use win explorer anymore? I don't. Also, (
http://www.xyplorer.com/) XYPlorer. A favorite of mine although shareware, here is last freeware version. (
http://www.321download.com/LastFreeware/page22.html) click
I can vouch for (
http://www.launchy.net/) Launchy, it's great. App, video, audio, etc. etc. launcher. Just type somthing in and off you go.
Registry: Regseeker, ERUNT. (ccleaner also)
CD/DVD Burning: IMGBurn. (used for years, never fails.)
IM: Miranda (has IRC) and HydraIRC.
Web Browser: Opera (has IRC also)
AntiVirus: ClamWin (no resident scanner, manual scan.)
Spyware: Spyware Terminator
Password Manager: KeePass (whew! username/password madness. Why can't we just use one?)
Also most recently (
http://www.hulu.com/labs/hulu-desktop) Hulu Desktop, works good. Needs to reduce cpu usage (Flash).
and last (
http://www.getmiro.com/) Miro. Watch online videos and save 'em or delete. Lots of video feeds to choose from.
june gloom on 4/6/2009 at 01:50
Quote Posted by Renzatic
(
http://www.avast.com/) Avast Antivirus. Disable the voice notifications with this. Otherwise you'll be lying there one night, all snuggly in bed, when suddenly...
VIRUS DATABASE HAS BEEN UPDATEDYeah well, I can't tell you how many times I've sat down to my PC after 12pm only to have me nearly shit myself because of the (very loud) email noise from System Shock playing to let me know NOD32 updated.
thefonz on 4/6/2009 at 05:57
Quote Posted by Nameless Voice
If you know what you're doing, you can use (
http://schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinkshellext/hardlinkshellext.html) Hardlink Shell Extension to make a hardlink from a folder on one drive to a folder on another - as far as programs are concerned, the hardlinked folder is inside the folder where you created the hardlink.
Too much effort.
Media Monkey looks like a new possibility though.
Oh, and I've now switched to Google Chrome now - I like its simplicity.
Koki on 4/6/2009 at 06:04
So am I the only person with no antivirus?
And only person who doesn't install tons of barely useful gimmicks for that matter?
