These are alternative packages that only install the codecs, not the bloatware programs, so you can use them in media player classic (for example). Google for them, they are easy to find. I don't know if it's allowed to post links, since the packages are not official.

He means the ones from here: http://home.hccnet.nl/h.edskes/mirror.htm

Very useful. Allows you to play those files e.g. with Media Player Classic, without having to install Quicktime or RealOne Player

edit: Oops, should've read the next page as well...

jIRCii has recently become my IRC client of choice.
While it looks and acts a lot like a modern GUI client (think mIRC or X-Chat), its true power shows when looking at the scripting capabilities featuring an easy to use (and fast to learn) perl-like language called sleep, which is tightly integrated into the client.. Don't be scared because it's written in Java, it's a very fast and responsive client (and snappier than XChat2 on Win32).
Fans of Openchat/2 or ircii based clients (BitchX or ScrollZ) should feel right at home.

A couple of new entries.

CCleaner - Crap Cleaner:
- Freeware, does not contain any spyware or ad's.
- A tool for removing junk files, temporary files, and Internet cache. Also contains a registry cleaner for removing obsolete registry entries.
- Supported OS: Windows 95 and above.

X-Fonter:
- Freeware, does not contain any spyware or ad's.
- A font manager and viewer with the capability to install and uninstall fonts. It can also repair font entries missing in the registry so that those non-registered fonts can be used again.
- Supported OS: Windows 95 and above.

TCP Optimizer:
- Freeware, does not contain any spyware or ad's.
- Optimizes your Internet connection. Makes it easy to find the best MaxMTU value, test latency, and tweak broadband related registry parameters.
- Supported OS: Windows 95 and above.

Before using the program make a backup:
Run TCP Optimizer, click File->Backup current settings.
It probably wouldn't hurt to also make a System Restore Point on ME/XP, just as an added precaution.

If anything goes wrong, restore your backup:
Run TCP Optimizer, click File->Retore backed up settings.

if you are shooting to jpg:
http://www.betterjpeg.com/

Main Features:
* Lossless Transformations - Rotation, Flip
* Lossless Crop (free, fixed aspect, fixed size, predefined and user-defined aspects and sizes), composition guidelines (diagonals, golden mean, rule of thirds)
* Highly Customizable Lossless Date/EXIF Info/Text insertion (position, font, size, color, background, language, format, etc.)
* Advanced Lossless Red Eye Removal (anti-aliasing, adjustable size, sensitivity, darkening)
* Copy/Paste to external editor and back for local retouching without full recompression (lossless)
* Batch image processing
* Multi-level Undo/Redo
* Metadata preservation
* Compression optimization

Pretty nice... a shame that it's not freeware...

I have been looking for a freeware BMP-to-JPG encoder that is considered the best. I love IrfanView, but the default JPG encoder that comes with it is not very good qualitywise in my opinion (even when I use the highest quality = 100). I do have Adobe Photoshop, and I think it might produce better JPG, but it is just too cumbersome/heavy for what I do.

Are there better freeware JPG encoders out there?

one of the best programs out there: Deep Freeze

Strokeit - Mousegestures for any windows app. Freeware, tiny footprint, ~104KB installer.
533216 gestures performed, and counting
http://www.tcbmi.com/strokeit/

I may have missed this, but is there a tool that allows you to right click anywhere on the desktop and bring up the start menu from there? I used to have something like that for my old Amiga, and I loved it. Thanks

The Gimp - Very Powerful Image Manipulation Software.

Spybot - Considered as the best Spyware removal program.

Exact Audio Copy - Self Explanatory.

Foobar2000 - Self Explanatory.

Antivir - One of the best antivirus programs.

Edit: All free, as well.

I'm curious. What makes this "one of the best"? I notice it passed the independent labs detection tests, but do you have any other justification for your statement. I'm not busting your chops, I am just interested.

Acoording to c't magazine, the best *free* one is AVG Free Edition, followed by the aforementioned Antivir Personal Edition. The worst free one is called Avast...

Ad-Aware
Spybot
Esset Nod32

Opera
ReGet


CCleaner
LzArc

Crimson Editor


Foobar2000
Media Player Classic
Defiler Codec Pack
Real Player Alternative
Quicktime Alternative

Another nice tool is called ExamDiff. "ExamDiff is a freeware Windows tool for visual file comparison." Two texts side-by-side, simultaneous scrolling, and it highlights added, deleted and changed lines in different colors.

Is TrNSZ even around to edit the list anymore? Perhaps a new thread should be started so that the list can keep developing?

The HA staff can edit it too, but i see no crucial need for it right now. Let's just collect some new stuff here and when TrN has time he can add what he deems appropriate.

Other good free diff tools are KDiff3 and WinMerge. The former will do 3-file comparisons and merges, but can't move differences from one file to the other, it just does merge operations on a third file.

I too love UltraEdit. The only feature that I miss a lot is hability to search or replace text blocks with more than one line in them.

Sometimes I go as far as loading the text file in my HTML editor (Home Site) to be able to replace text blocks with several lines.


In case someone smarter than me found out how to do that in UltraEdit, I would appreciate if you would explain how (I know you can use ^p to match a CR/LF, but that is definitely not practical...)

For a really nice, quick, visual representation I like Scanner. It's free, and very simple to use. Screenshot here.

I just downloaded SequoiaView though, to give it a go. It's impressive, but a little too complex for my needs.

As far as other software, off the top of my head:

• EditPlus - text editor with cliptext, source highlighting, etc.
• Foobar - obvious but still needs a mention - I love this program
• Filezilla - FTP client
• DVDShrink - easy way to backup the main movie of a DVD
• DVDRebuilder - easy way to shrink DVD9 to DVD5

I love good, free, software. The Internet rocks.

ok Roberto, here we go
Highlight whatever you want to search for or replace. Search -> Replace. The Search-String is already filled...all you need to do now is to insert your replace string and you're all set...

If you want to search within the file, highlight your textblocks and press F3...press F3 again to jump to the next match...that's all

That's quite interesting, thanks Jojo. But still, there are some usability issues...



1 - What if the replace string takes more than one line?

2 - What if what I want to search is in another file, so highlighting won't work?

Example: when I was modding phpbb (back when I trusted phpbb WRT security), most mods had instructions like "find the following big block of text and replace with this other big block of text" or "find the following big block of text and add this big block of text after it".

Most of the times, I read these modding instructions on the Web, copied the text to look for, and pasted it at Home Site's search box (that can span several lines), so that the text in question was found and I could follow whatever instructions there were. IIRC UltraEdit would only search for the first line of whatever I pasted at the search box, eventually leading to completely broken moddings...

hmm
I haven't found a solution for that either...


I don't understand your question...Just highlight it and go to Search -> Replace in files or Search -> Find in files...works like a charm I mean, you can open every file with UE or copy and paste it to UE...


you could just search for it and go back to the instruction file and paste it...works pretty well...


IMO Home Site sucks, so I don't have it...anyway, you can do it as I described or you install that phpBB hack that installs hacks automatically...

I mean, the file with the search string is. e.g, a web page. I would have to save it to disk, load it with UE, and then highlight the string. Pain in the arse... :/



Yees, but the string to be searched for is at a web page. The easiest way to move the string to be searched to the editing program is ctrl-c ctrl-v, otherwise I'd have to save the file to disk, load it and then highlight the string.



easyMod never worked for me

And phpbb is only an example, I run into those situations all the time.

as I said, I'd just create a new file in UE, str-c , str-v, hightlight it and search for it. not that much of a pain But you are right, since OE 11 is out already, they should have implemented that by now...maybe someone should write their support...they're quite nice

Ah, I see. Thanks for the suggestion. Too bad there is still no solution to mass replace multiple lines...



Yeah, that's quite shameful.



Good idea.

Hi,

I have read your tips and they are very knowledgable.

I want to set my sound card clock to external permanently. I am using Terratec's Aureon Sky 5.1 sound card. My project requires me to connect Digital Radio to SPDIF input of the sound card for recording. I am using tosslink optical cable to connect to 'input' of the sound card. Using the 'Aureon Control Panel', I set the master clock to external (48000 Hz, 800 samples/buffer and latency=17 msec) and I get the correct data after analyzing the recording.

The problem arises, when the computer reboots (due to any reason) and the clock is automatically set to 'internal' (while the DAB radio is still sending the data). I want my sound card's clock to be set to external automatically after the computer boots.
Any help would be much appreciated. Thank you.

Regards,
Sameer
University of Reading, UK

Quote removed by moderation.

sameer_87. Do you really need to Quote ALL that text?

alternative pdf reader for win (fast!!!):
http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php

Switched to Mac OS X

EDIT: vim was on the first post. Doh.

Free Xchat Windows builds

(personally I prefer Daemon404 one)

Treepad Lite: http://www.treepad.com/treepadfreeware/

For my job I spend all day every day running queries. Queries, queries, queries! Treepad is the the best program I have found for keeping everything where I can find it. If you have a lot of code snippets or just keep a lot of notes check it out. I can't live without it.

Unlocker - http://ccollomb.free.fr/unlocker/

Freeware, doesn't install any adware, or spyware.
A right-click shell add-on for removing locked files.

Supported OS: MS Windows 2000/XP

Allows for the removal of annoying files that Windows states can't be deleted such as:
- Cannot delete file: Access is denied
- There has been a sharing violation.
- The source or destination file may be in use.
- The file is in use by another program or user.
- Make sure the disk is not full or write-protected and that the file is not currently in use.

Microsoft Windows Memory Diagnostic
http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp

A freeware boot-time memory disagnostic utility by Microsoft. It can create a bootable floppy disk, or a bootable CD from which it can run from.

Hrm... makes me wonder if it is any better than memtest86+
http://www.memtest.org/

AFAIK memtest86+ tests with cache on only (someone correct me if I'm wrong), while the one from MS can test with cache off too.

There are uncached tests in memtest86+ too. Just check menu 1.

I use both memory testers, and can't make any statements of which one is better. Although MemTest86 at least has a boat load of information on its website.

tinySpell - http://tinyspell.m6.net/

Freeware, doesn't contain any adware or spyware.
Supported OS: MS Windows
Supported Language: American English

Description taken from the website:


It also works perfectly fine with web-browsers when posting on forums!

Right. Besides, memtest86 has been around for much longer and has available source code, which allows third parties to scrutinize it and see if the tests are really effective and exhaustive. More trustworthy overall, IMO.

WackGet - http://millweed.com/projects/wackget/
- Supports: MS Windows 98 and above
- Free/Open Source
- Doesn't install any adware or spyware.

Description, taken from the website:

INDISPENSABLE PROGRAMS FOR THE AUDIOPHILE:

XMplay - IMHO the best player (after using it a few minutes); even better than foobar2k (been using for a few months) or winamp(been using it for years) by far. Lowest CPU usage, dead on accurate playback, completely customizable, good nondistorting equalizer (unlike winamp's noise-creating plugins) and good looking as well. I prefer it for its compatibility with multiple languages. I found out foobar has bugs with multilanguage tags. (korean, chinese, japanese tags/files)
EAC - Undisputedly the best CD ripper.
CDex - Easy to upgrade with codecs from rareware and simple to use for unexperienced users. Connects to web for FreeDB tagging!
mp3tag - The only program you will ever need to tag/rename all those messy audio files!

Miscellaneous programs:
Evilyrics - I like lyrics.
FL Studio 4 - Love trance? Are you a promising new DJ? Then compose your own music with the best application there is.
Hydrogen - Make rhythm and beats. A drum program.
Mplayer - standalone media player. The best.
CCCP - second best with MPC. For seamless playback of anime hahahah.
Daemon Tools - cd emulator.
Tweak UI - I can't live w/o Xmouse.
Autohotkey - Do what u want the way you want it with your keyboard. Limitless app.
Panda Platinum Internet Security 2006 - My personal favorite.
7-zip - Forget all the other file de/compressors.

Rendereason, at least two of programs you've mentioned have much too common name to find them easily, you should provide links.

Runfast: just a little kb standalone executable that can make your life with a windows worksation really comfortable.

I is a software for executing programs, just that, try to use it and you won't never touch the start menu again, I'll promise you .

This was a link-of-the-day at UserFriendly.org, but I guess it's still informative nevertheless.

The 46 Best-ever Freeware Utilities: a list from Gizmo Richard's Tech Support Alert.

This list seems to be updated constantly.

since i discovered Amarok (amarok.kde.org) i haven't used another audio player. it takes 5 min to get used to, but its powerfull browser/playlist way of managing music is simply not beaten by anything...
of course, most other utils like musepack, lame etc are simply there in linux, no need to go looking for them.

same with lots of utils named here, you either don't need them under linux (spellcheck is build-in in my webbrowser, chat program, mail application and even texteditor; amarok shows lyrics and bandinformation from wikipedia; of course everything tweakUI could ever offer is already included in KDE; one doesn't need deamontools because mounting ISO's is a core capability in unixes; and what could i use a virusscanner for if there are no virusses?) or they mostly are there by default (a default suse 10.0 install offers much more than windows after 1 day of configuring and installing software).

and i wouldn't trust freeware anyway, no way to be sure there is no spy/add ware included. and even if it isn't now, it might be included in the future.

Audacity is a very good freeware audio recording app and Hammerhead is a good free drum synth. I also use Apollo as my audio player quite old and a bit like Foobar but very stable & low mem useage but only plays wav and mp3 files.

its open source not freeware.