Links
Do you prefer another display alternative over the preset one?
- Mark the information you want to see
- Unmark the information you DON'T want to see (headlines and clickable links are always shown)
- Choose if you want to see all the links or only some of them
- Click on
OK
Of the several hundreds of free programs I have tried and the several thousands of websites I have visited, I give at least(!) 5 out of 5 points to those below. [note]
This is the story about why I give the links at least(!) 5 out of 5 points (instead of being conventional and using a five grade scale with no leeway):
To grade all sorts of phenomena is one of my great interests, to watch movies another one. When Skövde Film Festival started some years ago, I started grading every movie I saw. At first, I used the more established five grade scale, but sometimes I thought a movie deserved more than 5 points. Accordingly, I gave the movie in question 6 points. I didn't do so that often, but sometimes I did. Even less often, I gave a movie 7 points. That's how the five grade scale with at least seven grades was born. (I still haven't given more than 7 points on any occasion. To give 8 or 9 or even 10 points wouldn't be impossible, though, but I can't even begin to imagine what would justify that many points.)
Further, I want to comment on the signs I'm using to show how many points I give a program or a website. The blue sign is the Chinese sign for man. The red sign is a pentagram (a five-pointed star): a Western symbol for man. These symbols also appear at the top of the page. Finally, I want to mention that this pentagram was first used in Haiku Poems 2004-2010 (Haikudikter 2004-2010, partly translated to English). It consists of leafs from a dog-rose on which most of the flowers were green fruits already, picked in Karstorp in Skövde in the summer of 2005, photographed and manipulated in a computer.
Tools
7-Zip
Description on the publisher's website: The main features of 7-Zip:
- High compression ratio in new 7z format with LZMA compression
- Supported formats:
- Packing / unpacking: 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2 and TAR
- Unpacking only: RAR, CAB, ISO, ARJ, LZH, CHM, MSI, WIM, Z, CPIO, RPM, DEB and NSIS
- For ZIP and GZIP formats, 7-Zip provides a compression ratio that is 2-10 % better than the ratio provided by PKZip and WinZip
- Strong AES-256 encryption in 7z and ZIP formats
- Self-extracting capability for 7z format
- Integration with Windows Shell
- Powerful File Manager
- Powerful command line version
- Plugin for FAR Manager
- Localizations for 69 languages
Comments: In May 2010, I bought a 64 bit computer with Windows 7. Because the right-click menu in Filzip, the program I've been using to decompress compressed files the last couple of years and been very satisfied with, doesn't work on my new computer, I now use the equally excellent program 7-Zip to decompress compressed files instead. Sofar, I'm pleased enough to raise my points for 7-Zip from 5 to 6. If 7-Zip, like Filzip, also deserves 7 points remains to be seen ...
Website: 7-zip.org
Grade: 
Tools
Advanced Renamer
Description on the publisher's website: Advanced Renamer is freeware program for renaming multiple files or folders at once. It can use several different methods for calculating the new name including multimedia tools for sound and picture files.
Advanced Renamer makes it easy to set up an advanced batch job using multiple methods on a large amount of files. The eight different methods make it possible for you to change the names, attributes and timestamps of files in one go.
With Advanced Renamer you can construct new file names by adding, removing, replacing, changing case, or giving the file a brand new name based on known information about the file.
Website: aren.hulubulu.net
Grade: 
Audio editing
Andy McFadden's CD-Recordable FAQ
Description on the publisher's website: This document attempts to answer Frequently Asked Questions about Compact Disc Recordable technology and related fields. It was originally developed as a Usenet newsgroup FAQ, and is updated and posted about once a month. The main foci are explaining CD-R technology, describing hardware and software solutions for creating audio CDs and CD-ROMs, and helping people find solutions to common problems.
Comments: In Andy McFadden's CD-Recordable FAQ, you can find extensive but comprehensible answers to about 300 questions on how to burn CDs.
Website: cdrfaq.org
Grade:
Go to Andy McFadden's CD-Recordable FAQ
Image editing & office
Artweaver
Description in the program's help file: Artweaver is a simple Freeware program for creative painting, i.e. Artweaver offers you all artistic effects which you need for your work.
You can create sketches from photos and experiment with a wide range of brushes. The brush simulation is thereby so realistic as possible.
Advantages of Artweaver:
- Support of many different digital brushes e.g. chalk, charcoal, pencils...
- A wide variety of adjustment settings to customize the default brushes or to create new brushes.
- Standard image editing tools like gradient, crop, fill and selection tools.
- Support for the most common file formats like AWD (Artweaver), BMP, GIF, JPEG, PCX, TGA, TIFF, PNG, and PSD (no layer support).
- Transparency and Layers support.
- Effect filters like sharpen, blur, emboss and mosaic.
- Editable text layers.
- Pen Tablet support for a realistic feeling.
- History function to und/redo last editing steps.
- Expandable by Plug-In modules (Artweaver Standard).
- Support for many languages through language files.
- And much more...
Comments: As far as I can tell, the program is very good despite the fact that the number of the version is lower than 1. However, I'm not very good at painting with the mouse, so I have yet to try the program for real.
Website: artweaver.de
Grade:
Audio editing
Audacity
Description on the publisher's website: Audacity is a free, easy-to-use and multilingual audio editor and recorder for Windows, Mac OS X, GNU/Linux and other operating systems. You can use Audacity to:
- Record live audio.
- Convert tapes and records into digital recordings or CDs.
- Edit Ogg Vorbis, MP3, WAV or AIFF sound files.
- Cut, copy, splice or mix sounds together.
- Change the speed or pitch of a recording.
- And more! See the complete list of features.
Website: audacity.sourceforge.net
Grade:
Tools
auditmypc.com
The website's description of itself: You'll find a ton of free online tools at Audit My PC. Home internet users will enjoy our security audits, speed tests and free software while webmasters will love our website utilities, such as our link checker, sitemap creator and our website monitoring services. There is something for everyone!
Our most popular web tools and security services:
- Firewall Test
- Broadband Speed Test
- Antispam
- Sitemap Generator
- Free Website Monitoring
- Anonymous Surfing & Privacy Check
- Free Software
Comments: The tests seem reliable. At least to me. But I'm no expert in these areas.
Grade:
For webmasters & programmers
Automagic Code Generator
The page's description of itself: With my fast, reliable, automagic php scripts, you can save a lot of time when you are writing or modifying text or code. For example, you can:
- Automagically remove empty space from a text or add empty space to a text
- Get statistic information about a text
- Automagically genererate code for html and php
- Collect templates for html and php
More functions will appear ...
Comments: The automagic code generator is more or less replaced by the Windows program mkNotepad 2010 and will most likely be removed soon or perhaps a bit later.
Website: mkforlag.com
Grade:
Go to Automagic Code Generator
Tools
CCleaner
Description on the publisher's website: CCleaner is a freeware system optimization, privacy and cleaning tool. It removes unused files from your system - allowing Windows to run faster and freeing up valuable hard disk space. It also cleans traces of your online activities such as your Internet history. Additionally it contains a fully featured registry cleaner. But the best part is that it's fast (normally taking less than a second to run) and contains NO Spyware or Adware! Cleans the following:
- Internet Explorer
- Firefox
- Google Chrome
- Opera
- Safari
- Windows - Recycle Bin, Recent Documents, Temporary files and Log files.
- Registry cleaner
- Third-party applications
- 100% Spyware FREE
Comments:
The Windows registry is a database repository for information about a computer's configuration. The registry keep growing when you use Windows. As it does so, it attracts obsolete and unnecessary information, and gradually becomes cluttered and fragmented. With the growing of the registry, it can degrade the performance of the whole system and cause many weird software problems. (registry-clean.net)
Not being a computer expert, this and many similar posts on the web convinced me that cleaning the registry no doubt would make my computer faster as well as more reliable. I've even been listing CCleaner as a 7 points program!
Nowadays, I'm not so sure that cleaning the registry is such a good idea.
I've been using CCleaner and other similar software for years, and I must admit that the result isn't what I expected. It includes everything from minor functions ceasing to work and missing icons to having to reinstall Windows and a crashed computer but no positive effects (at least not any that I have noticed).
At least, I think that cleaning the registry is the cause of the problems above. Again, I'm no computer expert but merely a guy who has used computers a couple of years and gradually but slowly gained some insights, primarily by the trial and error method, secondarily by reading articles, manuals, specifikations etc.
The fact still remains that these problems appeared right after I had used a registry cleaner or another. To me, that is if not proof so at least strong evidence of the root to the problems.
I decided to finally get some hard-core facts, typed clean the registry or not what does the expert say
and did a google search. I got 5,920,000 hits. And a lot of arguments for not using a registry cleaner. Some quotes:
The Registry is the nerve center of the Windows operating system and it is a very complicated database that touches on every aspect of the Windows system. Making adjustments to it is not for the faint of heart. Errors in the registry whether by system problems or by poor registry fix programming can be crippling to a computer's operation.
Recommendations that the Windows Registry should be cleaned on a regular basis are common on the Internet. Almost all of these are echoes of what has been previously written. Most are sales pitches for software. Unfortunately, there seems to be little quantitative evidence one way or the other about possible benefits to recent versions of Windows. The notion that Registries should be cleaned regularly is based more on anecdotal claims of improved performance than on systematic study.
At best, Registry cleaning is an adjunct to other types of system maintenance and by itself will not cure sources of decreased computer performance such as these:
- Too many programs running in the background
- Malware infections
- Anti-malware that is a heavy drain on system resources
- Out of date drivers
- Software patches that slow up a program or Windows
The basic conclusion that I come to about Registry cleaning is that it is a specialized form of system maintenance that only applies to certain patterns of heavy usage or badly corrupted systems.
I'd go a step further: Don't run registry cleaner programs, period. I won't go so far as to call them snake oil, but what possible performance benefits can you get from
cleaning upunneeded registry entries and eliminating a few stray DLL files? Even in the best-case scenario the impact should be trivial at best. Maybe a second or two here and there, maybe a few kilobytes of freed-up RAM, and I'm being generous. How can you balance those against the risk that the utility willclean(in other words, delete) something you really need, causing a program or feature to fail? [note]
Ed Bott refers to himself as a veteran, grizzled, occasionally bearded technology journalist
. I like that kind of short, well-phrased, seemingly thought-through descriptions. The fact that it was one at the top of Ed Bott's page made me even more convinced that what he said in the article was true.
The big question is whether a Registry cleaner will speed up your PC, making it boot more quickly and run faster. The answer? I can say, emphatically and unequivocally, uh, maybe. That's right, a big, fat perhaps--because everything depends on the condition of your Registry.
In summary, I no longer give 7 points to CCleaner. At first, I even considered excluding the program from this list, but then I decided I still think it's a 5 points program, that can be used as a smooth tool when uninstalling programs and choosing which cookies to keep. And maybe even to clean the registry on some occasions!
Website: piriform.com
Grade:
Tools
Defraggler
Description on the publisher's website: It differs from other defrag tools on the market, by enabling you to quickly and simply defrag the files you want to, without having to process the whole drive. Simply run it, select the file and defragment in seconds. No more struggling with the Windows defragmentation tool!
- Defrag Individual Files
- Defrag Free Space
- Compact and Portable
- Vista Support
- Locate Files on the Drive
- Freeware
Comments: Defraggler is very easy to use. Click at Analyse and wait for a few seconds to get a list of all fragmented files. Choose what files you want to defragment, e.g. the most fragmented or all. Click at Defrag Checked and wait for the defragmentation to finish. Your waiting will be CONSIDERABLY shorter than if you use the Disk Defragmenter in Windows. Even if you have chosen to defragment all files.
Website: piriform.com
Grade: 
For webmasters & programmers
dotnetperls.com
The website's description of itself: Hi there and thank you for visiting Dot Net Perls. This site introduces a programming resource for software developers specializing in the C# language, the VB.NET language, and related technologies. Emphasizing technical accuracy and clear presentation, this site helps programmers throughout the world, regardless of location and experience.
Comments: I think that the short, simple and, as far as I know, accurate code snippets and explanations at dotnetperls.com are very useful for both less and more experienced programmers.
Grade:
Tools
EclipseCrossword
Description on the publisher's website: EclipseCrossword is the fast, easy, free way to create crossword puzzles in minutes.
It's never been simpler—just give EclipseCrossword a list of words and clues, and it does the rest. In seconds, you'll have a crossword puzzle with just the words you want. EclipseCrossword has been downloaded a million times by people just like you.
Comments: The crossword puzzles can be saved and later solved with pen and paper or on a computer. If you are a teacher, you can let your pupils make their own crosswords. In other words, the program is very easy to use.
Website: greeneclipsesoftware.com
Grade:
Tools
ESET Smart Security
Description on the publisher's website: The Internet is a wonderful place for networking, searching for information and entertainment, but it is also where malicious software and other threats lurk. ESET Smart Security 4 keeps your PC safe with advanced proactive detection that blocks most known and undiscovered threats hours or days faster than other Internet security technologies.
Built on the award-winning NOD32 antivirus and antispyware engine, ESET Smart Security stops most new threats proactively, well before other vendors have issued a signature, maximizing your defense against new and unknown threats.
- Integrated antispam and personal firewall keeps your online life safe and cleans Internet traffic and email, even when it's SSL-encrypted.
- Stops threats from entering through removable devices so you can share files with confidence
- Integrated SysInspector and SysRescue simplify system diagnosis and recovery
- Self defense prevents malware from degrading your level of protection
- Tiny signature updates happen discretely as needed and won't bog down your system
Comments: Despite the fact that all programs on this page are supposed to be free, I still include ESET Smart Security. I have been using programs from ESET for several years. Sofar, I'm very pleased. As soon as you have installed the programs, you won't notice them until they stop a virus etc.
Webbsite: eset.com
Grade:
Try ESET Smart Security for 30 days
Image editing & office
FastStone Capture
Description in the program's help file: FastStone Capture is a powerful, flexible and intuitive screen-capture utility. It allows you to capture anything on the screen including windows, objects, full screen, rectangle regions, freehand-selected regions and scrolling windows/web pages. It has innovative features such as a floating Capture Panel, hotkeys, resizing, cropping, text annotation, printing, e-mailing and many more.
Features:
- A small floating Capture Panel that can be dragged anywhere or minimized to the Windows tray area
- Resource friendly - uses a very small amount of memory, especially when minimized to the Windows tray area
- Global hotkeys to activate the program's capture capabilities anytime, anywhere
- Efficient tools to capture windows, objects, full screen, rectangle/freehand-selected regions and scrolling areas
- Capture web pages in Microsoft Internet Explorer, FireFox and Opera
- Option to specify destination (internal editor, clipboard, file or printer) where the captured image will be sent
- Text/Arrowed line/Highlight/Watermark annotation
- Drop-shadow, torn-edge effects
- Add caption
- Resize, crop, zoom in/out
- Undo/Redo
- Save as BMP, JPEG, JPEG2000, PNG, GIF, TIFF, TGA and PDF
- Send e-mails
- Screen magnifier, Screen color picker
- Multi-monitor support
- Option to run when Windows starts
- And many more ...
Comments: FastStone Capture is very useful and very reliable.
Website: aplusfreeware.com
Grade:
Tools
File Renamer
Description on the publisher's website: Rename all your files, folders and shortcuts, with all shapes and options you will ever need. You can numerate files sequentially, batch rename, replace strings, modify strings, change dates, modify file's attributes, etc. Drag and drop all files and folders from explorer to it's window, has full, 'infinite undo' function - so you will always be safe, and you can also create your own more elaborated scripts, adding every kind of available option together, for repetitive and more complex renaming actions.
Website: webxpace.com
Grade:
Tools
Filzip
Description on the publisher's website: Full support (add and extract) for ZIP (including Quake III's PK3), BH (BlakHole), CAB (Microsoft Cabinet), JAR (JavaARchive), LHA (LZH), TAR and GZIP (TAR.GZ).
Extracting support for several other archive formats: ACE, ARC, ARJ, RAR, ZOO.
Support for internet encoded files .UUE and .XXE.
Standard archive operations, like add, extract, delete and view files from archive, and other functions, like renaming files within ZIP archives, viewing and writing a comment, define an external viewing program, test the archive if it's valid (after a download), "Checkout" function or automatically install a program out of an archive, and set archive passwords.
Built-in email client, but also possibility to launch system default email client.
Create SFX (SelFExtracting) archives to provide your data easily, e.g. over the internet.
Copy, rename, move and delete archives within Filzip.
Find files in archives.
Write ZIP file span (predifined size or user defined, no limits!).
Explorer and Shell integration using Filzip Shell Extensions. E.g. extract files from context menu, or add from explorer directly to zip.
Convert between several archive formats, for example convert ZIP to CAB archive.
MultiExtract support! You can select several archives and extract them at once. Many options.
Help file in new Compiled Html Help format.
Complete uninstallation.
And many more...
Comments: I have been using Filzip almost daily for several years. I find the program very reliable. However, if you are using Windows 7 or a 64 bit computer, the right click menu may not work (read more in the comments to 7-zip).
Website: filzip.com
Grade:
Image viewers, video players & web browsers
Firefox
Description on the publisher's website: Everybody uses the Web differently, so why should your browser be exactly like the next person's? Firefox has more than 6.000 add-ons to help you customize it to your exact needs, plus thousands of Personas to instantly change the way it looks.
Keeping you safe while you surf is our top priority, which is why Firefox includes advanced anti-phishing and anti-malware technologies plus features like private browsing and forget this site
to ensure your privacy.
Plus, our open source security process means we have experts around the globe working around the clock to keep you (and your personal information) safe.
We're constantly optimizing Firefox to be great for the way you use the web – things like making new tabs open up more quickly, or having the Awesome Bar provide results even faster. In the end, it's about getting you where you need to go as quickly and easily as possible.
We've packed Firefox full of cool features to make sure you get the most out of the modern web. Whether it's the Awesome Bar for convenience, instant site ID for security or a faster JavaScript engine for performance, our goal is deliver better browsing every step of the way.
We believe the Internet is a public resource that must remain open and accessible to all. As public benefit software, every Firefox download supports the Mozilla mission of encouraging choice, innovation and opportunity on the Web.
Comments: Some years ago, I didn't like the web browser Firefox that much. I thought my code, that I think was valid according to existing standards, in many cases didn't appear as it should in Firefox. When I finally gave Firefox another chance, I didn't think I would be pleased this time either. But I was wrong. I'm even pleased enough to put Firefox on this page!
Website: mozilla.com
Grade:
Image viewers, video players & web browsers
Flash Player
Description on the publisher's website: Gain unprecedented creative control with new expressive features and visual performance improvements in Adobe Flash Player 10. Flash Player is a cross-platform browser plug-in that delivers breakthrough Web experiences to over 99% of Internet users.
Comments: Flash files are common on the web. Ususally, they are embedded in html, php or asp pages. To be able to see these files, you need to install Flash Player.
Website: adobe.com
Grade:
Odds and ends
giveawayoftheday.com
The website's description of itself: Basically, every day we nominate one software title that will be a Giveaway title of that day. The software will be available for download for 24 hours (or more, if agreed by software publisher) and that software will be absolutely free. That means - not a trial, not a limited version - but a registered and legal version of the software will be free for our visitors (under specific Terms and Conditions, which limit the software usage to non-commercial only, and may also limit software updates and technical support).
Comments: Some programs are good, others not so good, and often enough there are freeware or open source alternatives that are equally good or better. In other words, I'm leaning towards excluding giveawayoftheday.com from this list.
Grade:
For webmasters & programmers
Google Analytics
The website's description of itself: Google Analytics is the enterprise-class web analytics solution that gives you rich insights into your website traffic and marketing effectiveness. Powerful, flexible and easy-to-use features now let you see and analyze your traffic data in an entirely new way. With Google Analytics, you're more prepared to write better-targeted ads, strengthen your marketing initiatives and create higher converting websites.
Comments: With Google Analytics, you get very good statistics for your website. You must have javascript code at the bottom of each side you want statistics from, but that code can easily be included in the file you include anyway at the bottom of the pages with the php function require or the php function include. (More information on these php functions can be found at, for example, w3schools.com.)
Website: google.com
Grade:
Audio editing
How to transfer a tape to a CD using Audacity
Description on the publisher's website: Essentially, the process is to hook a cassette tape player up to the sound card on your PC, record the songs/music on the tape to one or more WAV files on the computer, and then transfer the WAV files to a CD.
Comments: The instruction is very good and easy to understand.
Website: nsftools.com
Grade:
Go to How to transfer a tape to a CD using Audacity
For webmasters & programmers
Htmldog.com
The website's description of itself: Welcome to HTML Dog, the web designer's resource for everything HTML and CSS, the most common technologies used in making web pages. Content:
Quick and easy-to-follow practical guides to get you up and running with HTML and CSS, following best-practices every step of the way.
A reference section, which is cross-linked from throughout HTML Dog, outlines all of the valid XHTML tags and CSS properties available to you.
A handful of articles expand on the tutorials, going into a few more specific areas and a bit more detail.
Bare-bone examples complement the tutorials, references, and articles, and should help you to grasp how bits of HTML and CSS work a bit better by seeing them in action.
Comments: Htmldog.com is a well organised and comprehensive website about html and css for both less and more experienced webmasters.
Grade:
Image editing & office
Inkscape
Description on the publisher's website: Inkscape is an Open Source vector graphics editor, with capabilities similar to Illustrator, CorelDraw, or Xara X, using the W3C standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format.
Inkscape supports many advanced SVG features (markers, clones, alpha blending, etc.) and great care is taken in designing a streamlined interface. It is very easy to edit nodes, perform complex path operations, trace bitmaps and much more. We also aim to maintain a thriving user and developer community by using open, community-oriented development.
Website: inkscape.org
Grade:
Image viewers, video players & web browsers
Internet Explorer 8
Description on the publisher's website: What's so great about Internet Explorer 8?
- It's faster than ever. Surfing the web is now quicker than ever, thanks to performance enhancements that reduce how long it takes you to do a task. For example? A more intuitive address bar.
- It's easier than ever. You don't have to open up a new window to find information like driving directions—now you can get that info easily using one of our Accelerators.
- It's safer than ever. No matter what you're doing, you'll stay safer using the SmartScreen filter. You're instantly better protected against malicious software that can compromise your privacy and identity.
- Keep up with the stuff that matters to you. Whether it's news, stock quotes, or even auction items, now you can stay on top of sites that update frequently using Web Slices.
- See any site easily. View sites with ease, even if they were designed for an older browser, with one click on the Compatibility View button.
- Recover from crashes quickly. Came across a site that caused a tab to crash? No worries, your browser session is stable, thanks to new tab isolation and crash recovery features.
- Surf with more privacy. InPrivate Browsing gives you the option to prevent browsing history, cookies, usernames and passwords from being retained by the browser.
- Make it yours. Customize your browser by choosing from an ever growing collection of handy and easy-to-use Internet Explorer 8 add-ons from the Internet Explorer Add-ons Gallery.
Comments: One of the few well-working web browsers I have tried. According to my experience, it supports standard code as good as, for example, Firefox and Safari, in other words the opposite to many claims. At least when it comes to my web pages; I haven't done any comprehensive investigation.
Website: microsoft.com
Grade:
Image viewers, video players & web browsers
IrfanView
Description on the publisher's website: IrfanView is a very fast, small, compact and innovative FREEWARE (for non-commercial use) graphic viewer for Windows 9x/ME/NT/2000/XP/2003/Vista.
It is trying to be simple for beginners and powerful for professionals.
IrfanView is trying to create new and/or interesting features in its own way.
IrfanView was the first Windows graphic viewer WORLDWIDE with Multiple (animated) GIF support, one of the first graphic viewers WORLDWIDE with Multipage TIF support and the first graphic viewer WORLDWIDE with Multiple ICO support.
Some IrfanView features: many supported file formats, multi language support, thumbnail/preview option, paint option (to draw lines, circles, arrows, straighten image etc.), toolbar skins option, slideshow (save slideshow as EXE/SCR or burn it to CD), show EXIF/IPTC/Comment text in slideshow/fullscreen etc., support for Adobe Photoshop Filters, fast directory view (moving through directory), batch conversion (with image processing), multipage TIF editing, file search, email option, multimedia player, print option, support for embedded color profiles in JPG/TIF, change color depth, scan (batch scan) support, cut/crop, IPTC editing, effects (Sharpen, Blur, Adobe 8BF, Filter Factory, Filters Unlimited, etc.), capturing, extract icons from EXE/DLL/ICLs, lossless JPG rotation, unicode support, many hotkeys, many command line options, many PlugIns, only one EXE-File, no registry changes without user action/permission, and much much more
Comments: With IrfanView you can open 109 different types of image files and 17 different types of audio and video files.
Website: irfanview.com
Grade:
Tools
KWIC Concordance
Description on the publisher's website: The KWIC Concordance is a corpus analytical tool for making word frequency lists, concordances and collocation tables by using electronic files.
Comments: The last year, I have written several php scripts that count words more accurately and MUCH faster than KWIC Concordance. I'm leaning towards excluding KWIC Concordance from this list.
Website: chs.nihon-u.ac.jp
Grade:
For webmasters & programmers
Notepad2
Description on the publisher's website: A few years ago, I found myself writing my first PHP projects using metapad. When I was looking around for text editors with syntax highlighting, I have come across the Scintilla source code editing component. I was very much impressed by this project, so I decided to create my own Scintilla-based text editor.
The result is Notepad2, a fast and light-weight Notepad-like text editor with syntax highlighting. This program can be run out of the box without installation, and does not touch your system's registry.
Comments: Notepad2 is a very good alternative to Notepad. During spring 2009, I sometimes couldn't use Dreamweaver, the program I normally use when writing code. Instead, I used Notepad2. I realised that the program is much better than I thought. For example, it's faster than I thought. When I had to make an array with about 10.000 values (in other words, replace about 10.000 spaces with about 10.000 ' , '), as an experiment I did this with four different programs and got the following result:
- Dreamweaver 8: 14 minutes
- Notepad: 9 minutes
- Notepad2: 2 seconds(!)
- Automagic code generator: 2 seconds(!)
PS: If you want to try the automagic code generator, click on this link: Code generator.
Website: flos-freeware.ch
Grade:
Image editing & office
OpenOffice
Description on the publisher's website: OpenOffice.org 3 is the leading open-source office software suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and more. It is available in many languages and works on all common computers. It stores all your data in an international open standard format and can also read and write files from other common office software packages. It can be downloaded and used completely free of charge for any purpose.
Comments: With OpenOffice you can do about the same as with the latest version of Microsoft Office. The biggest difference between OpenOffice and Microsoft Office is that OpenOffice is free.
Website: openoffice.org
Grade:
Image viewers, video players & web browsers
Opera
Description on the publisher's website: Use applications to share content with others in a quick and easy way.
Boost your speed with our powerful servers to compress Web pages, so you get them faster.
Drag the handle underneath the tabs to reveal thumbnails of your open Web pages.
Get easy access to your favorite sites every time you open a new tab. Choose the layout and the background you prefer.
Synchronize your Speed Dial, bookmarks, notes and other useful data.
Make Web pages load more quickly—block images, pop-ups, and plug-ins, as you wish.
Perform movements with your mouse to navigate the Web with Opera's mouse gestures.
Use the built-in mail client and online feed reader as your default clients.
If you accidentally close a tab, you can retrieve it from the Closed Tabs button.
Store usernames and passwords, so they will be at your fingertips.
Save your open tabs, or start with the pages you had open when Opera was last closed.
Spell-check quickly as you type, with support for 48 languages.
Debug in a cross-device, cross-platform environment with the Opera Dragonfly tools.
Access, organize and search all of your e-mail with the fastest mail client available.
Search the full text from any Web site you visit, right from your address bar.
Choose from hundreds of skins, add or remove buttons, toolbars, or change the entire layout.
Preview a feed in a clean, multiple-column layout before subscribing to it.
Comments: What I above all appreciate about Opera is the support of svg images (vector images for the web, that look the same no matter how much they are enhanced). I recently started learning how to make svg images. As usual, I'm a slow learner, so I can yet only vaguely imagine what possibilities there actually are. However, in the case of svg support Opera seems to be at least as far ahead of other browsers as Usain Bolt is ahead of other sprinters.
If you want to see the difference in quality between an svg images and a png image (a common bitmat image type on the web), first open menu.svg with Opera. Then, open menu.png with another browser, for example Internet Explorer or Firefox. Finally, enhance the images as much as possible and compare them. The result should speak for itself.
Website: opera.com
Grade:
Image editing & office
paint.net
Description on the publisher's website: Paint.NET is free image and photo editing software for computers that run Windows. It features an intuitive and innovative user interface with support for layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools. An active and growing online community provides friendly help, tutorials, and plugins.
Website: getpaint.net
Grade:
Image editing & office
PhotoFiltre
Description on the publisher's website: PhotoFiltre is a complete image retouching program. It allows you to do simple or advanced adjustments to an image and apply a vast range of filters on it. It is simple and intuitive to use, and has an easy learning curve. The toolbar, giving you access to the standard filters with just a few clicks, gives PhotoFiltre a robust look.
Comments: A good alternative to Photoshop.
Website: photofiltre.free.fr
Grade:
Image viewers, video players & web browsers
PowerPoint Viewer 2007
Description on the publisher's website: PowerPoint Viewer 2007 lets you view full-featured presentations created in PowerPoint 97 and later versions. This viewer also supports opening password-protected Microsoft PowerPoint presentations. You can view and print presentations, but you cannot edit them in the PowerPoint Viewer 2007.
Comments: PowerPoint Viewer is useful if you want to see ppt files you have downloaded. The file type in question is more and more common on the web and is one of the file types you can choose if you are using Google's advanced search. A search for and and
(the most common English word) and filtype:ppt
gave 3,290,000 hits (compared to a search for and
and filtype:any format
, that gave 8,710,000,000 hits). In other words, a rough approximation says that about 4 % of the files on the web are powerpoint files.
Website: microsoft.com
Grade:
Odds and ends
PrettyWorthless.com
The website's description of itself: Welcome to the PrettyWorthless.com website, where you will find nothing of value. This is a visitor maintained
site of the top 25 Pretty Worthless Links on the Internet.
Comments: My favorites are:
- you can do anything at zombo.com
- perpetual bubblewrap
- singing horses
- knock down the bears
- how far can you hit a penguin?
Surprisingly enough, Twelve short muffin films (including Hungry
and Feed me
) wasn't on the list, but that is of course rectified now.
Grade:
Tools
Registry Defrag/Compact
Description on the publisher's website: During the normal operation of a Windows system, registry data is constantly being written to and removed from the registry. Over time this data becomes scattered within the registry file and when information is deleted from the registry holes are left which fragment the data within the registry. Registry compacting optimizes your registry by removing gaps and wasted space, thus improves the whole system performance.
Comments: In May 2010, I wrote a longer comment to CCleaner with arguments AGAINST cleaning the registry with programs like CCleaner. Perhaps you shouldn't defragment the registry either. In the articles by various experts I read before I wrote the comment to CCleaner, it's implied here and there that you shouldn't. However, I didn't find any more concrete arguments and pieces of advice for not defragmenting the registry. For now, I keep Registry Defrag/Compact on this list, but I lower the score from 6 to 5 and urge everyone who wants to defragment their registry to get more information on the subject before they do so.
Website: registry-clean.net
Grade:
Tools
Revo Uninstaller
Description on the publisher's website: Revo Uninstaller helps you to uninstall and remove unwanted programs installed on your computer even if you have problems uninstalling and cannot uninstall them from Windows Add or Remove Programs
control panel applet.
Revo Uninstaller is a much faster and more powerful alternative to Windows Add or Remove Programs
applet!
With its advanced and fast algorithm, Revo Uninstaller analyzes an application's data before uninstall and scans after you uninstall an application. After the program's regular uninstaller runs, you can remove additional unnecessary files, folders and registry keys that are usually left over on your computer. Even if you have a broken installation, Revo Uninstaller scans for an application's data on your hard disk drives and in the Windows registry and shows all found files, folders and registry keys so you can delete them.
With its unique "Hunter mode", Revo Uninstaller offers you some simple, easy to use, but effective and powerful approaches to manage (uninstall, stop, delete, disable from auto starting) and to get information about your installed and/or running programs.
Comments: Before you use Revo Uninstaller, read the comments to CCleaner and Registry Defrag/Compact on this page and decide for yourself whether to use Revo Uninstaller or not. For now, I have decided NOT to use Revo Uninstaller. I still keep the program on this list, though; I may change my mind later.
Website: revouninstaller.com
Grade:
Image editing & office
Experiment with text colors and background colors
The page's description of itself: Choose values for red, green and blue and click on Choose or press return. Choose among the sample colors below or try other colors. Text and background with your RGB values will appear in the cells with the text I put up my sail to sail with the sun to the sun
. CSS code for your RGB values will appear at the top of the table.
Comments: I've now referred to the page Experiment with text colors and background colors
on so many different occasions that I simply can't avoid including it here.
Website: mkforlag.com
Grade:
Go to Experiment with text colors and background colors
Tools
TXTcollector
Description on the publisher's website: TXTcollector grabs all .txt files from the directory of your choice and combines them into a new (larger) text file. This can come in handy: I use TXTcollector myself to grab a CD full of readme's to enable me to read them all in one go. At work I use it to combine daily and weekly reports and to merge server backup logs. Some users find this application perfect for combining their network log files. Options/Features:
- Grabs all .txt files from a directory and combines them
- Puts directory-, file name and separator between each text file
- Possibility to add your own extensions and separators
- Popup list with files ready to be merged
- Able to recursively search directories
- Allows continuous merging (without Carriage Returns)
Comments: I wish I had found this incredibly fast program many years ago. I recently had to combine 253 txt files to one 12 MB big file. TXTcollector accomplished this in about 3 seconds.
Website: bluefive.pair.com
Grade:
For webmasters & programmers
Validator.w3.org
The website's description of itself: This validator checks the markup validity of Web documents in HTML, XHTML, SMIL, MathML, etc. If you wish to validate specific content such as RSS/Atom feeds or CSS stylesheets or to find broken links, there are other validators and tools available.
Comments: The validators at w3.org are very useful. When I have used code I don't know that well, I always validate it and don't give in until it's 100 % correct (according to w3.org's probably not entirely flawless validation, that is). I do the same when I have written a longer piece of code I'm certain is 100 % correct, because, surprisingly enough, sometimes it isn't!
Grade:
Image editing & office
Visual Color Picker
Description on the publisher's website: Visual Color Picker is very easy to use and powerful RGB-HSV-HSL-CMYK-HEX color selector. The program allows you to easily capture color value from any position of the screen even if program does not have input focus. The program has small screen capture preview area. By clicking associated button, you will get the associated RGB value in the dialog. The RGB color is automatically translated to RGB, HSV, CMYK and HTML HEX values. The program has standard and custom color tables. Text-background preview allows you to see how two colors will look next to each. Visual Color Picker operates under Microsoft Windows 95/98/Me/ NT4.0/2000/XP/2003. Visual Color Picker has settings. You can specify custom formatting and assign hot key for it.
FEATURES:
- Supported color models: RGB, HSV(HSL), CMYK, HEX(HTML).
- Basic and custom color tables.
- Instant RGB-HSV-CMYK-HEX color conversion.
- Screen area color capture.
- Textual color formatting: unlimited text representation of color (VC++,VB,Delphi,etc).
- Several color preview samples: gradient, text.
Comments: What I above all appreciate about Visual Color Picker is that you can choose how much information you get. If you want more information, you can get that, and if you want less information you can hide practically all information you don't want. Furthermore, the program can generate code for css files etc. completely according to you wishes, for example body {background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255)
or body {background-color:rgb(#FFFFFF)
.
Website: linxexplorer.com
Grade:
For webmasters & programmers
W3.org
The website's description of itself: The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) develops interoperable technologies (specifications, guidelines, software, and tools) to lead the Web to its full potential. W3C is a forum for information, commerce, communication, and collective understanding. On this page, you'll find W3C news, links to W3C technologies and ways to get involved. New visitors can find help in Finding Your Way at W3C. We encourage organizations to learn more about W3C and about W3C Membership.
Comments: W3.org is crammed with facts about the web for the more advanced webmaster. The less advanced webmaster may try W3Schools Web Building Tutorial. The beginner may try W3Schools Web Building Primer.
Grade:
For webmasters & programmers
Web Page Preview Tool
Description on the publisher's website: I made this tool with single purpose only: to preview my pages in different screen sizes. If you think this toy can be useful for you – download and use it. If not – sorry for wasting your time.
Note that there is no installation/deinstallation needed – just download and use and – eventually – delete and forget...
Comments: With Web Page Preview Tool, you can preview webpages in seven different resolutions: 800x600, 1024x768, 1152x864, 1280x720, 1600x1200, 1920x1440 and 2048x1536. The pretty common resolution 1280x1024 is missing, though.
Website: wonderwebware.com
Grade:
Comments
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