 Michael and Rebecca Wong |
 |
Michael and Rebecca Wong |
|
OpenOffice.Org
It's an office suite. It's not quite as good as Microsoft Office yet, but it works, and it's free. They're up to version 1.1.4 right now, and it's free, which is the bottom line. Another great feature is that it's cross-platform. It's available for Solaris, Windows, and Linux, and files can be shared seamlessly between all versions. A fully supported commercial version is available from Sun, called StarOffice. It's also handy for making simple web pages, since it generates fairly clean HTML (unlike that other office suite). Get it here.
Motherboard Monitor
Modern computers make a lot of heat. They may have a lot of fans built into them. Enter Motherboard Monitor, which keeps running temperature and fan speed gauges in your system tray (finally, a system tray icon that I can use). It's freeware, so you can get it by simply downloading it from the author's website.
Nero Burning ROM
The best CD-R burning program. Adaptec's Easy CD Creator software used to occupy that position in the old days, but that was a long time ago. Today, Easy CD Creator is a giant waste of time. It's been a bug-ridden mess since version 4.0. Moreover, Nero has much better buffer management than Easy CD Creator, so it's a lot less likely to burn coasters. Visit Ahead Software's website to find out more, although you should be forewarned that Nero is not free.
Crystal SiteUpdater
If you're a webmaster, Crystal SiteUpdater is extremely cool software. It can check your website for bad links (both internal and external), and it automatically compares your local copy of your website with the online copy at your ISP, so it knows which files need to be uploaded. However, it isn't free, although you can download a time-limited trial from the developer's website.
It's not without its flaws; it can take a long time for it to check an entire site against a local copy if your site is large, particularly if you have a slow connection. It also has no support for SSH tunneling, which you need if you're concerned about security. Sitecopy beats it on those counts, but sitecopy is really a UNIX program. It's easier to obtain, install, and use on Linux, and it's a typical UNIX program in style, which means that it's command-line software which is configured with ASCII text files rather than a pretty GUI.
The GIMP
It gets the job done, and it's free, unlike Photoshop. 'Nuff said. Get it here.
WinAmp
It's the best MP3 player available on Windows. It's skinnable, there are a ton of visualization plug-ins, and it's a free download from the official website.
PowerDVD
For a long time, PowerDVD was the only DVD player software which would let you take screenshots, and it's still my favourite. Check out Cyberlink's website for more info. When you just need to take that screenshot from your favourite porno movie, you need PowerDVD :)
OpenOffice.Org
The Linux version of OpenOffice.Org is functionally identical to the Windows version. One tip: execute the installer as root with the /net option, and dump it in some shared directory on the server. After installation, go into the program directory and run setup as yourself (assuming you're not foolish enough to log in as root all the time). It will install a few stub files in your home directory while using the shared copy for the bulk of the data, thus allowing you to use one install for a large group of users or computers.
Grip
An audio CD ripping program. It does everything that any other audio CD ripper does (rip, encode with multiple options, and do CDDB lookups), and it does it under Linux with no price tag. Just what the doctor ordered. It's on the Mandriva install DVD.
Lame
My favourite MP3 encoder. It scores well in comparative listening tests, it can make VBR (variable bitrate) files, and it's free.
Sitecopy
The best, leanest utility for updating websites. I use it all the time. As with lame, it doesn't come preinstalled on Mandriva so you'll have to grab it from the developer's website.
Xmms
The UNIX world's answer to WinAmp, with most of the same features. Preinstalled with virtually any kind of Linux.
Gimp
The UNIX world's answer to PhotoShop. This is no rinky-dink application; gimp is a well developed, mature piece of software that's ready for prime-time. Preinstalled with virtually any kind of Linux.
Konqueror
Konqueror is the lightest, fastest, least resource-hungry web browser I've ever seen, apart from those stripped-down browsers that have no features. It supports Netscape plugins such as RealAudio and Flash, as well as Java. It's part of the KDE desktop environment, so it comes preinstalled with Mandriva. I do most of my browsing with Konqueror.
Last updated: 2005-07-05
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This site was written using KWrite and OpenOffice, running on Mandriva Linux.