The Best Free Software
There are may excellent free software applications out there – some are not very well known. The following is a collection of links to my favorite free software.
JkDefrag: This utility is supposed to be better and faster than Windows’ own defragmenter. A defragmenter makes your hard drive speedier by organizing the data bits on your hard drive platter. This utility comes in both a 32 bit and 64 bit version (for those Vista 64 users, like me).
Audacity: this program is a powerful audio recording and editing studio.
CCleaner: gets rid of all the junk files that will undoubtedly start collecting on your hard drive. Safe and intelligent cleaner.
Notepad++: replace Windows’ default text editor with this one. It’s much better — especially if you ever edit PHP or HTML code. After installing, unzip this file at ‘C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\AppData\Roaming\Notepad++’ to make it more aesthetically pleasing. This path applies to Vista (not XP).
Rocketdock: make your Windows experience a little more like OS X with Rocketdock. Quickly access your favorite folders on your hard drive or computer programs.
FileZilla: this is a must-have FTP client. Fast, easy, and free!
paint.net: a suprisingly powerful and fast picture editor. I used it to edit the icons used here while writing this blog article!
7-Zip: the fastest and easiest way to unzip or decompress archived files. Faster than Vista’s own native zip handler. Make sure to download the 64-bit version if you have Vista 64 to get the right-click pop-up menu.
OpenOffice: a Microsoft-Office-like suite of tools that are surprisingly powerful. A word processor, spreadsheet application, slideshow presentation, and even database application are all free in the OpenOffice suite. One very useful feature is the ability to save files as PDF documents. You can also open / save .DOC files.
Thunderbird 2: Download and archive your g-mail messages with this free e-mail program. Has free plug-ins to do things like manage your schedule and calendar (Lighting).
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