Well Textpad for one (http://textpad.com/) it is the very first thing I install on any computer I use. I keep a copy on my pendrive, just so I have it around.
mIRC (http://mirc.com/) is another nice program, if you use IRC there is no better choice on windows. The only down side is that it’s getting a bit long in the tooth and still has a Win16 feeling to it in places.
There is also CRT (http://www.vandyke.com/) one of the best Telnet clients out there. The company also an FTP client and a secure verison of both. I have no idea how big the company is, but it dosn’t act like a large company.
An added benefit for Media Monkey. It stores all it’s information about your media in an Access database. That’s about as open a format as you can get on a Windows box. Niiiiiice. Now if I want to move all my media to a different location, I can just run an update script.
The Zero Assumption disk space visualizer is the nicest explorer plugin I think I’ve ever seen. ( http://www.z-a-recovery.com/ ) I don’t know if they count as a “little guy” though. But it is a beautiful tool.
2nd for RedGate’s tool set. And thanks for the post. As a Windows user who has moved to Mac, I usually have to go to an apple store every 6 months or so for a reminder to stay free of The Cult.
waiting for version 1.0 of firebug! http://www.getfirebug.com/
a firefox extention that really helps with monkeying around with javascript and ajax related stuff!
I hate, HATE waiting for PDFs to load. This happy PDF reader solved this problem to a tee.
Finally, I need to give a shout out to a piece of software that I just discovered yesterday to help save a client hours WebShot http://www.websitescreenshots.com/ This nifty little piece of software will create JPGs of an entire website. Very useful for demonstration purposes.
Remember, sometimes a web link is worth almost as much as small monetary value. Traffic is worth money and as developers, we usually command a decent amount of traffic on our site. Give back by providing a link and recommendation that maybe someone will discover the software that might not have even known such a thing existed.
Crap, I put the wrong URL and app in my previous comment. DiskView is the one that I meant to talk about. http://www.diskview.com/ It’s $40 for the cheapest version, but it’s made by an ISV.
I’m the only person I know who actually bought WinZip. I’ve worked at 6 places in the last 15-odd years - the Evaluation screen was a constant presence. Sad, really.
Oh, and if someone re-implements Beyond Compare for the Mac, I’ll pay $30 for that, too. So far I’ve been unable to find anything close to it. Probably it’s time to roll up the sleeves and write the damn thing.
One I don’t think I saw was Audacity (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/). I use it a lot simply to rip audio from streams to listen on my mp3 player (though the BBC have started using podcasts now).
Its useful too for cutting up mp3s and things like that.
Plus its really good for lots of audio editing.
I think the whole concept of shareware is a shame. Software should just either be pay up front, or get for free and donate a sum later. It’s a shame people have to add messages and dialogs and “please sustain us”. But that’s freeloaders ruining for you, and they’ll always be there…so meh.
I’m Jeff on this - my time is waay too expensive to give away profligately. Money I have… and those free projects also appreciate your money. Some of them have ridiculously low bounties for new features, so it can actually be a lot quicker to cough up $50 for the thing you want rather than coding it yourself.
I’ve bought a few things like www.textpad.com and donated to quite a few free projects. www.7-zip.org is my current favourite. I note that WinZip apparently supports the format now.
Amusing anecdote: we posted a big test data dump to our outsourcing crew as a 7zip archive, and got the predictable WTF from them (in the middle of our night), but by the next morning they’d worked out how to use google and downloaded the program to unzip the file. The outsourcers (outsourcees?) are not normally that quick on the uptake.
FWIW, 2GB of unicode text was ~60MB of 7z but ~100MB of zip file (lots of digits).
I don’t actually look for software that’s made in the shareware or crippleware realms. I use almost strictly open source/freeware projects with large user/developer/support bases. I use stuff like Celtx, NVU, Blender3D, Inkscape, Irfanview, Audacity, CDex, Microsoft Visual Studio Express, Wink, CDBurnerXP Pro, FileZilla and AbiWord. When I can, I do try to kick these developments some money to keep them supported and encouraged. But for the most part, I use software that is written for love of the software itself.
But that’s not to say I won’t pay for a great app when I get one. I like to make little beats sometimes, to quell the inner beatnik trying to escape the gossamer constraints I’ve placed on his frail form, I use the program Rhythm Rascal, for which I did pay $19.99 via PayPal. I’ll support good software when I can. But I won’t use independent wares if I’ve got a more viable choice in open source.
And the reason I use Rhythm Rascal instead of, say, Neuromixer or Hydrogen? They’re overkill for what I need. I’ll pay for simplicity.
I can’t believe no one mentioned Notepad2. This is the single best freeware utility that exists in Windows world. Nothing else comes close. Hook it up with Consolas font, and replace Notepad with it.
Is iTunes, in fact, installed in your computer now? Apple just offers you to install it, as iTunes + Quicktime has been a downloadable bundle since looooooong time ago.
iTunes won’t install itself if don’t choose so. Correct me if i am wrong, but you can install only iTunes, or OTOH, only Quicktime.