==== Post COOL and USEFUL programs here!!! STICKIED ====

[earthman]

Filzip is a great free unzipping and archiving program. Supports almost all formats. Has always worked great for me...

http://www.filzip.com

 

[DeeK]

Some freeware I've found handy...

AllSnap - Makes windows sticky to each other and the screen edges, like Winamp.
Effective Desktop - Shell enhancer providing tray icon hiding, transparent icon text background, a virtual desktop manager and a fully customizable start button without having to hack explorer.exe.
PowerMenu - Set any window always on top, minimize any window to the tray, or make any window translucent/transparent.
Dialog Box Assistant - Add "Recent Documents" and "Recent Folders" buttons to all open/save dialogs.

 

[TP]

thanks.. the link was dead when I tried it.. but what a cool app!

Originally posted by: Muse

Originally posted by: TP

Originally posted by: Atvar
I'll chip in.

Psychic Mp3

Basically, is uses cddb info to rename your mp3s based on album. Very quick, very easy. You can adjust the look of the tags anyway you want. Only problem I have had is that it crashes from time to time. But it is free and it does do the job better than anything else i have found.


Atvar

this sounds like a goodie, but the link is dead...

This one works.

 

[SerraYX]

VisualRoute Excellent IP tracer, for when you need one

 

[Slogun]

AP Guitar Tuner is THE way I tune my guitars or other instruments via my computer. And it's FREEGet it Here

 

[Muse]

My all time favorite Windows utility is an automation/macro poweruser tool - Clickflick, put out by Miratech of Palo Alto, CA. I still use it although it seems to have dropped off the face of the earth in terms of users and tech support. The company no longer exists and you can't buy the program (If you want it, I'll send it to you). I started using it back when Windows 95 was just about to burst on the scene. I run it at startup and it runs in the background. It's really dodgy in Windows 2000 but you can still use it if you can live with the vexing problems. I'm wondering if there's something better. Clickflick is customizable button clusters called popboxes, basically rectangles of any size and geometry you want that consist of buttons whose size is configurable as well. Any number of buttons wide or high, totally up to you. The popboxes which are proprietary to what application has focus, are invisible until you hit a programmable hotkey or hotkey combo to bring the current popbox to visibility. You select a button on the popbox and the associated action occurs and the popbox disappears (unless you configure it not to). The buttons can be programmed to do practically anything you want to do in an application including launching documents, choosing application menu items, sending a series of keystrokes, the list goes on and on. There's a "Desktop" popbox that is accessible from all applications, too. From that I like to launch my applications - way faster and easier than Windows' Start button, and you can launch them with parameters to open documents, etc. I love this toy but nobody seems to use it anymore, and I wasn't able to obtain a better build than I have, which is rather buggy. I'm sure that better builds were made, but the company evidently went out of business and I tried several times but was unable to find anybody who has the program through searches. They had a 16 bit version for Windows 3.x and a 32 bit version for Windows 95 and NT and I found that the 16 bit version actually worked better in Windows 95 but only the 32 bit version worked in NT 4 and so that's what I'm trying to use with Windows 2000. Both versions came on 2 diskettes. The program was originally developed as a utility to be used by Wall Street financial firms (proprietary) and was then marketed publicly. There was a version especially targetting Autocad users and versions for "general" Windows users, which is what I have.

Can anybody recommend something I might like as much or better?!! Thanks!!

 

[Lou3]

My favorites are:

Cookie Pal - thorough cookie management (shareware)
EditPad - highly functional text editor (freeware)
Extended Character Map - more functional than Windows character map (freeware)
Turbo Navigator - Explorer replacement (freeware)
CoolPlayer - streamlined mp3 player (freeware)
MBM5 - motherboard monitor utility (freeware)
My Personal Diary - journal program with a few added utilities (shareware)
VoptXP - fast disk defragger with other useful disk maintenance utilities (shareware)
IrfanView - image viewer (freeware)
Transparent Icons - makes the background around your desktop icons' text transparent (freeware)
AVG Antivirus - effective virus scanner (freeware)

 

[BennyD]

no-one has mention the most important development in mp3 player software since winamp...

Coolplayer

blows winamp out of the water!

uses native mad decoder for haigher sound quality
does not taint sound or make it muddy like winamp does
tiny program, very fast/stable
many skins supported
no pause between tracks

 

[Packy]

Already made a thread on this one yesterday but...

[ripped from FW]

Freeware spell checker will check spelling in any dialogue boxes! Works just like Word spell checker and is fast/efficient. My wife needs it since she's dyslexic (how do you spell that?)

Ripped from the site:
ieSpell is a free Internet Explorer browser extension that spell checks text input boxes on a webpage. It should come in particularly handy for users who do a lot of web-based text entry (e.g. web mails, forums, blogs, diaries). Even if your web application already includes spell checking functionality, you might still want to install this utility because it is definitely much faster than a server-side solution. Plus you get to store and use your personal word list across all your applications, instead of maintaining separate ones on each application.

IE Spell

Enjoy!!

 

[bsr]

Cant think of them all,, but here are a few ..


Protection & must haves ***


Ad-Aware (kill all spyware/adware on your system)

Kazaalite (spyware free version)

Norton anti-virus & norton utilites (Virus scan, etc)

Zonealarm pro (If connection is not behind firewall, keep your computer secure from hackers)

Winrar (for decompressing rar, ace, zip, and other compressed formats)

Nero & clonecd (burning and copying cds)

Smartftp (ftp client)

Sisoft sandra & motherboard monitor (Monitoring and benchmarking tools)

Divx codec - for playing divx movies (avi)

Winamp3 (best mp3 player)

Yahoo messenger (awsome voice & text chatrooms, and is free)



Alternative browsers ***


Opera (fastest browser)

Mozilla

Netscape

 

[Ythan]

Hey everyone. Great thread! Most of the programs I can't live without have already been mentioned. However, there's one great app which I didn't see listed.

QuickSFV is essential for anybody who uses peer-to-peer file sharing networks or IRC to get files. You simply double-click the SFV which comes with most archives and QuickSFV will pop up to verify the checksum on all the files and ensure you got a perfect copy.

Also a shoutout for DC++, Trillian, and the Proxomitron!

-Y

 

[TheWart]

thanks, BennyD!

coolplayer is waaaay better than winamp 3. no bloated features, the sound quality is great on my alt-preset: extreme VBR encoded files.

 

[Athlex]

'nother thumbs-up on coolplayer's MP3 decoder. Winamp (I used 2.8) just sounds muddy to me now. This'll be a good stop-gap until I tackle converting everything over to ogg

 

[ukDave]

Gamespy 3D: "The best online gaming tool you can get". Searches your harddrive for games that you have installed, and then connects you to servers on the Internet where you can play against other people for FREE. Excellent for Quake3Arena, TeamArena, and like a million other games. This is the free Shareware version.

i personally don't like it.

I prefer this simple and quick HLSW. I don't think it supports as many games as gamespy, but does support some of the biggest games, and you may have guessed Half Life was the first program to be introduced (CounterStrike etc too)


HLSW

 

[eplebnista]

GutCheck-eBay FeedBack Analysis Program for IE4 or above.

[*]First of all its free! (Though, we do reserve a small spot for our use in the top right corner for a 'text only' link).
[*]Installs as a right click menu item in Internet Explorer.
[*]Right click on a eBay member name or feedback score on any page to initiate feedback analysis.
[*]Receive percentage positive, neutral, and negative feedback of total feedback received.
[*]Filter view to just negative/neutral only.
[*]Filter out feedbacks left by users with feedback scores of 'X' or less.
[*]Export view via clipboard to Excel, Word, etc.
[*]Sort all columns (left by, feedback score, feedback type, auction date, etc) ascending/descending.
[*]Drill down own feedback item and see auction title, date auction ended, and closing price.

 

[randomlinh]

Originally posted by: AncientPC
I've used both Statbar and CoolMon, but I've chunked both in favor of Samurize. It's more of a hassle to set up, but at the same time offers more flexibility.

An example of Samurize on my desktop.

A really well done Samurize desktop.

It can also be docked into your taskbar.

any mirrors? site seems to be down

 

[sleefer]

Suprised that this one's not in here yet:
DocMemory PC Memory Diagnostic Software.

EDIT: Here's some disk drive utilities for problem diagnostics:
Maxtor/Quantum drives- Powermax
IBM drives- Drive Fitness Test
Seagate drives- SeaTools

 

[tboneuls]

analogx has lots of cool stuff

 

[tboneuls]

no more link

 

[abaez]

If anyone hasn't mentioned ATNotes. its like post-its for your monitor, SO handy for just noting those random things you see on the web.

 

[LiveLongAndProsper]

Updated the master list of COOL and USEFUL programs.

Starting with this update, suggestions without appropriate links will not be added to the list....

 

[godspeedx]

Panda Antivirus Platinum

They have recently upped the price on both the download version and box version =( download is $50, but it's worth it

In order to recieve updates on your antivirus you need to buy either the download version or boxed, the trial version will give no updates and is not usable after 30 days.

Not sure if this is well known or not, I had never heard of it when I first saw it. I read a review of antiviruses from PC World's 2001 USA Comparative Review. Panda Antivirus blew everything away in their tests. Panda was the only Antivirus that stopped ALL viruses in their several tests, including Norton, McAfee, and several others.

I bought it and love it.
-kinda basic interface,(which makes it easy to use) but this IS NOT a cheap antivirus
-very very easy to use
-automatic daily, weekly, monthly, whenever you want updates that update the the virus file and the actual antivirus program itself, or either one
-very easy to schedule scans by days, weekdays, weeks whatever
-very easy to create your own scans by dragging files into a scan

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

 

[eplebnista]

Originally posted by: LiveLongAndProsper
Updated the master list of COOL and USEFUL programs.

Starting with this update, suggestions without appropriate links will not be added to the list....

 

[cjohnson]

Dunno if someone has mentioned this yet or not, but GNU Emacs is ungodly useful.

 

[JacenSolo1984]

sick of games and safe mode and everything that has the potential to mess up your hard earned strategically placed desktop icons? Try Icon Lock