Open Source Applications
Here’s how to set up your computer for maximum efficiency using free open source software. First of all, get firefox. Its free, open source, has it has a ton of cool extensions. After downloading and installing FireFox, get ThunderBird for email. Its simple to use, powerful, and customizable. If you watch alot of video on your computer, get VideoLan because it’s a free cross-platform media player that supports a large number of multimedia formats, without the need for additional codex, and it can also be used as a streaming server. If you need an sound editor get Audacity.
You definitely need anti-virus software and if you don’t want to pay for it, that’s not a problem. ClamWin is a world class Free Antivirus for Microsoft Windows 98/Me/2000/XP and 2003. It’s pretty good, too. Install it with Winpooch and you are all set. Winpooch is a Windows watchdog, anti spyware and anti trojan, with full protection against local or external attacks by scanning the activity of programs in real time.
At one point or another, you will need to manage and edit your photos. First of all, get Picassa to manage your photos. It’s one of the best applications out there and its free. Then you will need to edit your photos, and if you don’t want to pay for Photoshop CS2, get GIMP. GIMP is a freely distributed piece of software for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. It works on many operating systems, in many languages. If you don’t like GIMP, get Paint.NET. Paint.NET is an image and photo manipulation software that supports layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools. By the way, if you take pictures in RAW format, get UFRaw. It can read and manipulate raw images from digital cameras and has a GIMP plugin.
If you need a screen recorder go with Krut Computer Recorder or Vnc2swf. Vnc2swf is a cross-platform screen recording tool for ShockWave Flash format while Krut records audio and video from your computer screen into .mov-files and .wav-files. It can be used to make instructional videos or record games. Could also be used to record streaming video and audio. While we are on audio and video, get CoolPlayer to play music on your computer and get OpenSebJ if you are into real time audio sample mixing.
Do you currently use notepad to jot things down? Get Notepad++ because its free, extremely light, and has huge number of features. I like it because its also a source code editor. If you use notepad to write confidential notes then you have to get LockNote which has the mechanism to encrypt and decrypt a note. If you need to unzip or zip things that you download or upload, get 7 zip. Its free, gives you the highest compression ratio, supports 7z, ZIP, CAB, RAR, ARJ, GZIP, BZIP2, TAR, CPIO, RPM and DEB formats. Also, if you are working with any domains or servers, you probably need an ftp client. Get < a href="http://filezilla.sourceforge.net/">FileZilla, its free, fast, reliable, and has a lot of features.
Finally, if you like to making notes or todo lists, get Stickies which lets you put yellow sticky notes on your Windows desktop. It is very simple, very customizable, and completely free. CoolMon is another great open source program. It monitors vital system stats and almost anything else you wish to display on the desktop. The application can display CPU, RAM and page file usage, hard drive usage, MotherBoard Monitor temperatures and fan speeds, various network stats and much, much more. I also like Launchy which helps you forget about your start menu, your desktop icons, and your file manager. Launchy indexes and launches your applications, documents, project files, folders, and bookmarks with just a few keystrokes!
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I’m a big free software fan and typically use Linux and Gimp for my photo work. Sometimes, though, it’s not enough. See my Gimp vs Photoshop article on my Landscape Photography blog, if you’re interested.
Thanks for the links to other Windows programs!