Free (or cheap) software you really love

MikeSh said:
Yes, I use Chrome and Calendar, though I use a 3rd party front end for the calendar on my Androids.
For notes I use Evernote (free), but for sync I pay for SugarSync which I don't think falls into the 'cheap' category any more.
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I use Aquamail as a front end to Gmail on my phone, and ChompSMS as a front end to texting.

I haven't seen SugarSync before, but yes, the prices look high after one year. I use Google Drive for sharing stuff online (free) and also have several other free accounts but don't use those much. I haven't the courage to expose one of my NASes to the internet. Definitely not the Synology NAS, but I also have a couple of WD Cloud drives that allow some kind of online exposure. Not sure how safe that is. I wouldn't have to stick them in the DMZ, so I guess they must contact WD's servers to see what has to be updated or accessed.
 
BS FAG - Software to equalize the audio volume on video files.

Only problem is that it converts the audio to mp3 so that it can use mp3gain to normalise the audio.
Other than that it's a very useful bit of software if you have video files from different sources.
 
I forgot to mention the free version of Spyware Blaster.

http://www.brightfort.com/

Also the free edition of Spybot Search & Destroy

http://www.safer-networking.org/

And did I mention PuTTY?

http://www.putty.org/

Or LibreOffice?

http://www.libreoffice.org/

Or PDF Tools:

http://www.pdfill.com/

I would recommend Revo Uninstaller more, because it cleans up all the junk left behind when programs are uninstalled, but why is it blind to some of my programs?

http://www.revouninstaller.com/

How could I forget Picasa 3?

http://picasa.google.com/
 
I need to learn how to use Picasa before I unleash it on my photo collection! I installed it a few years ago and "things happened" that I had no idea what was going on, so I restored back.
 
Black Hole said:
I need to learn how to use Picasa before I unleash it on my photo collection! I installed it a few years ago and "things happened" that I had no idea what was going on, so I restored back.
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I don't store my pictures in a standard place, so I go to the File-->Add Folder to Picasa screen and remove the scan from all folders but where I keep my pics. For me, that is Documents/Media/Camera. I set that to Scan Always, and Remove From Picasa for everything else.

Picasa then loads all my photos and starts trying to identify faces. (You can turn this off.) It will group faces together if it thinks they are the same person. First thing is to choose faces you are interested in and assign a name to them. Then, you can take another group and assign to the same name if it is the same person. Finally, you can mark random passers-by as Ignore. It takes a while to train it, but eventually you will get pictures assigned to each named person, which you can accept or reject, either singly or in bulk.

You then have a catalogue of people and also a chronological list. Double click on an image to edit it. Straighten, auto-correct and red eye are my favourites, also setting the neutral colour on the second editing tab.
 
HarveyB said:
cutepdf, a nice little tool that allows you to print straight to a PDF file.
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Nice tip! I know you can print to a PDF file in Chrome by changing printer, and to a PS file by setting up a generic Postscript printer and printing to a file. (Then PStoPDF to create the PDF file.) There is also this:

http://www.dopdf.com/

It sets up a new printer which prints to a PDF file.

I notice cudepdf uses the tools I used to use years ago: Ghostscript and PStoPDF. The route used to be

TeX-->DVI-->DVItoPS-->PStoPDF

with Ghostscript as the PS viewer. When Adobe started restricting printing of some PDF files, we discovered that if you opened them in Ghostscript, the restriction was removed. It only existed in Acrobat.
 
I use Bullzip when I need a PDF virtual printer, but my main productivity tools (OpenOffice, CorelDraw) have built-in PDF export.

Can anyone vouch for Foxit as a reader?
 
And I am struggling to understand why you would want something else when AR is free anyway?
 
Acrobat has a reputation for being resource-hungry and slow - although, as noted in the link (post 52 update), that's probably Acrobat 9 and may have been fixed in Acrobat X.
 
Interesting reading, but as a bit of an off topic question, why doesn't my lappy display what are obviously pictures in the article? Or is it some cheap/free soft that I need on it to display them?;)
 
That article is nearly 4 years old, so things may have changed a bit.
The images may be a lack of plug-in - I think I dumped Flash some time ago and maybe those are Flash images.

Many years ago Foxit didn't have that nasty trap in the install. I noticed it last time I installed it and eventually worked out how to avoid the c**p, but it certainly lowered my opinion of messrs Foxit.
But with all free stuff you have to accept there will be catches. (I just wish that half the stuff I pay for didn't have them as well :( )
 
You just can't trust an automated install these days. I always go for a customized one even if it only confirms the installation directory.
 
Apart from the OS I think I have only two pieces of paid-for software on my pc - Photoshop Elements and Splash Pro. And that's Windows - of course, on my linux machines, it's ALL free. Don't most of us run mainly free systems?

On the other hand, Android apps tend to cost unless you can put up with endless ads.
 
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