Today is "Support Your Favorite Small Software Vendor Day"

I'm a Windows user, and I'm out to prove Wil Shipley wrong:


This is a companion discussion topic for the original blog entry at: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2006/12/today-is-support-your-favorite-small-software-vendor-day.html

The last time I bought WinZip, it came on a 3.5" floppy. No lie.

The comparison between Mac and Windows users is flawed: It compares 2 populations of totally different sizes. It puts all Windows users in the same bag even though there are probably 20 times more of them. It is therefore easy to pick Windows users profiles not found in the Mac population and claim that this is “teh typical Windoze user”.

Direct Update (dynamic dns updater)
http://www.directupdate.net

I will support total commander and textpad which are the first thing I install on every machine I use - I can’t imagine doing without them…
Other applications I always install on my main machine: KeePass, Foxit reader, daemon tools, paint.net and hamachi.

gVim. http://www.vim.org Best. Editor. Evar. Register and support children in Uganda!

WavePad http://nch.com.au/wavepad/index.html Very cool audio editor; supports mp3,wav,ogg, etc…

Take a break: http://crimsonland.reflexive.com/

Real ganster-ass ISVs come in all shapes and colours.

Textpad (www.textpad.com), without a doubt. Hasn’t been updated for a while but its still indispensable!

Expresso Regular Expression Editor: http://www.ultrapico.com/Expresso.htm

Good post! I offer http://allwaysync.com/ for syncing files/drives - it’s actually free for personal use but I use it so much I went pro…also, good to read some useful suggestions in the comments.

Support Total Commander ( www.ghisler.com )

Windows users only use three apps: Word, IE, and ITunes.

Funny, they are the 3 apps I avoid the most…

So, Jeff, I went through my applications and the ones I use everyday and cannot live without, aside from the MSDN stuff, they are all freeware: Firefox, AllSnap, Cropper, Winamp, SyncBack, Exodus, Expresso, FileZilla, Ethereal, CCleaner, 7-Zip, KeePass, Foxit, Desktop Sidebar, Windows Live Writer, Reflector, Virtual Server, GhostDoc, CruiseControl.Net, Nunit, Subversion, CommunityServer. And not forgetting all those other free VS and firefox add-ins…

So special props to those medium sized companies that make fantastic software that is worth every penny - RedGate (Ants profiler, SQL compare) and DevExpres and their excellent .Net UI library.

Just remember that this could always backfire.
I bought a lifetime license for ASE(all seeing eye) and awesome game server browser at the time. Developed by a single guy who did amazing work to maintain and add features in a fast manner. To make a long story short, Yahoo bought it, the app is now crap and there’s no updates for new features or filters for new games in ages.

  • sftpdrive: Cool little app that lets me mount my /home folder on any Linux server as a plain windows drive. It simply works and makes my life easier.

  • Textpad: Can’t live without having this tabbed power editor ready at hand, used throughout the day on many occations.

  • Process Explorer: Finally proces monitoring done right, shows USEFULL live info about resources and processes and allows entire process trees to be shut down in one action. It keeps an eye on whats going on on my two cores.

I’ll support Stardock - looove windowblinds…

Hard to believe Spybot has not been mentioned.

AntiVir has a great free version, $20 I think for a better one.

UltraEdit is pretty darn good for the money.

Beyond Compare is very good, but if you don’t mind spending some money, Araxis Merge is excellent.

A great free editor is ConTEXT.

Here’s tools from small software vendors I’m using. Highly recommend:

http://www.2brightsparks.com/syncback/sbse.html

http://www.prestosoft.com/ps.asp?page=edp_examdiffpro

http://www.rarsoft.com

I also use ACDSee image viewer and Nero burning ROM, but both companies not small anymore. They became big and greedy.

Regarding DiskView… Check out SequoiaView. It is free and very nice. May be even better than DiskView.

http://www.win.tue.nl/sequoiaview/

The highest compliment you can pay any piece of shareware software is to simply use it, because it’s worth using.

Different argument. Not the same as open source. Commercial apps typically ASK you for money. And I’m talking about contributing money, not my time. I can’t afford to freely give away my time at this juncture of my life-- it’s too expensive. Money, on the other hand, is cheap.

I will give another thumbs up for winzip. I have managed to get licenses at past employers, but only on my pc the rest of the floor they didn’t see any point in updating. Then again they were way out of license and if my family didn’t have ties to the business I would most likely talk to the BSA since they seem to think they are invincible.