Here is a list of applications that I find to be essential and they’re all are geek approved and FREE!

Video Player / Video Podcasting

Miro

Beautiful interface. Plays any video type (much more than windows media player). Subscribe to video RSS, download, and watch all in one. Torrent support. Search and download from YouTube and others.
Download Page

IM - Instant Messaging

Pidgin

Connect to multiple IM accounts simultaneously in a single app, including: AOL IM, MSN, and Jabber.
Download Page

RSS

RSSOwl

Solid cross-platform RSS client.
Download Page

Peer-to-Peer Filesharing

Cabos

A simple, easy to use filesharing program. Gnutella network.
Download Page

Gnucleus

A very good Gnutella search and download filesharing program.
Download Page

Azureus

A powerful, but complicated BitTorrent client. So many features you’ll lose your mind.
Download Page

eMule

Immersive, trippy screensaver.
Download Page

Utorrent

µTorrent is a lightweight and efficient BitTorrent client for Windows with many features.
Download Page

Video Playback

VLC

Plays more video files than most players: Quicktime, AVI, DIVX, OGG, and more. Pretty good interface.
Download Page

MPlayer

Similar to VLC– plays loads of video formats.
Download Page

Media Player Classic

Compact, but powerful media player. Plays anything under the sun. No install necessary.
Download Page

DVD Ripping / Video Conversion

Media Coder

Great tool for ripping CDs, DVDs, etc and converting between tons of video formats.
Download Page

ImgBurn

is a lightweight CD / DVD / HD DVD / Blu-ray burning application. It supports all windows versions. A CD/DVD-burning program for burning ISO disc images. It’s free and very easy to use. Download Page

Word Processing / Office Suites

AbiWord

A word processor. Leaner and quicker than OpenOffice. Compatible with Microsoft Word documents and OpenDocument Format.
Download Page

GnuCash

Replaces Microsoft Money or Quicken

GnuCash is a slimmed-down version of the bloated Microsoft Money and Quicken packages, but it contains all of the features I want for managing my money. The interfaces are incredibly simple - it functions much like a checkbook ledger on your computer - but there’s a lot of meat hidden throughout the software.
Download Page

Ajax13

Ajax13 is a web-based Office Suite that allows you to create and share files in popular formats such as rich text, spreadsheets, presentations. Ajax13 also has a sketch tool to do basic diagrams, a media player and a new tool called Ajax OS which allows the user to access files in any format and picks the appropriate tool from the Internet to open the file.
Visit Website

Quasar

Easy to use Accounting package
Download Page

DVD Ripping

Handbrake

DVD to MPEG-4 ripper/converter.

Unique but essential

Handbrake enables you to stick a DVD in your DVD drive and have the contents of that film stored to your hard drive in a form that can be read by pretty much any media player. I often use it to put a few movies on my laptop for travel purposes, so I don’t have to worry about keeping track of DVDs while on the road.
Download Page

Sound Recording

Audacity

Simple sound recording tool.

Unique but essential (for some)

If you’re interested in recording your own podcast (or just want to make your own voice recordings for whatever reason), Audacity and a microphone are pretty much all you need to get the job done. I’m not much for podcasting (let’s just say I don’t have a radio voice), but I use Audacity for other voice recording purposes. Download Page

Juice

Unique but essential

Solid podcasting client. Juice lets you effortlessly subscribe to podcasts, organize them, and listen to them at your convenience. In conjunction with PodNova, I find it easier to use Juice to organize podcasts than using iTunes itself.
Download Page

Graphics / Photo Editing

GIMP

Photo editing application that rivals Photoshop in features.
Download Page

Paint.NET

Graphics editor with a very nice interface.
Download Page

Inkscape

Vector graphics application.
Download Page

Irfanview

IrfanView is a lightning fast, small, compact and innovative FREEWARE image viewer, editor, and processor for Windows 9x/ME/NT/2000/XP/2003/ It really is the lightest, fastest image viewer and batch editor on the market. I’ve been using it for years and I couldn’t live with out it. Review at LifeHacker.
Download Page

FTP / SFTP

Filezilla

Excellent FTP program. Can’t live with out this program.
Download Page

Developer tools

XEmacs
The classic, super customizable editor, for Windows.
Download Page

KompoZer

Easy to use, open source WYSIWYG html editor
Download Page

SharpDevelop

Open Source IDE for the .NET Framework. Utilizes the multiple programming languages and Windows forms
Download Page

Notepad ++

Replaces Notepad

Open Source programmers notepad for Windows Notepad2 is a replacement for the traditional Windows Notepad that just adds a few sweet little features: multiple documents; line, word, and character counts; and some highlighting of tags. In fact, I’m using Notepad2 as I draft this post (after using Freemind to organize it).
Download Page

SciTE

Source code Editor for Windows and X
Download Page

Blogging

Windows Live Writer

is a desktop blogging application that allows you to write and edit posts from your desktop. This software makes it extremely easy to insert photos and videos to your post. It has also made me more productive due to the fact that I can work on new posts even when there is no Internet connection available.
Download Page

Web Developer Server Suite

Very good WAMP Stack (Windows, Apache, MySQL, PHP) Very thouroughly tested on Windows Server 2003 and Windows 2000 Server (preliminary testing on Longhorn Server underway). Highly Recommended.
Download Page

Free File Hosting

CC Publisher

Host Creative Commons video or audio files for free on archive.org with this easy uploader.
Download Page

MP3 Players

musikCube

Open Source MP3 Player, ripper and organizer written using the .NET Framework
Download Page

3D Graphics and Modeling

Utilities

Cobian Backup

Backup software.
Download Page

7-Zip

File archiver.
Download Page

Security

ClamWin

Open Source Anti-Virus. Very good at detecting viruses. Can be plugged into hMailServer for e-mail protection LIMITATION: Real Time scanning not implemented yet
Download Page

Eraser

Delete files securely off your hard drive utilizing DoD standards
Download Page

RogueScanner

is an open source vulnerability management tool that is used to gain greater network visibility. This enables you to quickly identify and remove rogue wireless devices that may provide back door access to your critical data and infrastructure.
Download Page

TrueCrypt

Creates encrypted virtual hard drives for extra security
Download Page

Archiving

PeaZip

Fantastic archiving utility to extract and pack archives of an extensive amount of formats. PeaZip also features password protecting archives, keyfile support, system integration, a lovely interface, and much more.
Download Page

IPOD Touch and IPhone APPS

MusikCube

Replaces iTunes

If you’re not already committed to downloaded music from the iTunes Music Store, then MusikCube is the best choice available for a music organizer and player. It organizes your mp3s, makes it really easy and really fast to find them, and allows you to make some incredibly clever smart playlists.
Download Page

More Ipod Apps

Anapod Explorer : Organize your iPod contents

Yamipod : Copy music from your iPod to your PC

Xilisoft iPod Video Converter : Convert any video file to the iPod format

River Past Crazi Video for iPod: Convert videos to play on your mobile devices

iPod Media Studio : Transfer DVDs to your iPod

Juice : Transfer podcasts to your iPod

Tubehunter : Download online videos to your iPod

Pod2Go : Read the news on your iPod

Virtual iPod : Transfer your music from your iPod to your PC

PodPlus : Use your iPod as a storage device

Ok this is cool folks..if you always wanted to backup or download your entire live journal but you never knew how or you knew how but your like me didn’t want to sit there and use the LJ export tool which only allows you to download one month at a time..I have been writing in my journal for 7 years so that would take me hours.

ljArchive

What is ljArchive? It’s a Windows-only exporter for LiveJournal. ljArchive is a tool for downloading, browsing, and analyzing journal entries and comments from LiveJournal (or LiveJournal clones). ljArchive is currently available for Windows, and may soon be coming to gtk/Linux. ljArchive allows you to do the following to your journal:

• Download and navigate a synchronized, local archive of your journal or community.
• Search through your journal for keywords, and browse through search results immediately.
• Export your journal into various formats, such as XML, HTML, PDF (in conjuction with LJBook), and MIDI (yes, MIDI!).

Plus you can.. Run custom plugins on your journal. ljArchive comes with the following plugins: Entry Reader - reads your journal entries aloud using text-to-speech technology. Regressive Imagery Analysis - provides a psychological profile of your journal. Word Count - provides a list of the words used in your journal, and their frequency. Post Frequency - graphs the frequency of your posts over time. Comment Count - graphs the number of comments left by users in your journal, and also how many comments you’ve left them. You can also use it to export your entire journal to an .xml file and import it into a wordpress blog! Download ljArchive

There are a few programs I could not live without at work and at home. Clipomatic is probably the one I use the most. It’s a clipboard manager.

How it works

Start Clipomatic, and it will automatically begin monitoring the clipboard and recording its changes. When you want to paste an old item, you just put the keyboard cursor where you would like to paste and press Ctrl-Alt-V instead of Ctrl-V. A menu pops up with your clips - you can select one with the mouse or with a single keystroke. The menu then disappears, and the item is pasted.

Just check out out and you’ll like it…

More Info/Download Clipomatic

Has anyone checked out the Flock browser yet? I downloaded it on a whim because I’m always downloading apps and checking them out and that includes browsers. Yes, I love my Firefox but I’m not stuck up..yet..I will try anything.

Anyway’s..I downloaded Flock and it’s pretty cool. It has a side bar deal you can pull up that allows you to log into all your accounts like digg, tweeter, WordPress, Live journal, Gmail, Facebook, Flicker, Yahoo, etc..etc…

You can post to your Live journal from the Flock Browser..or your WordPress or any of them really…I was on youtube checking out a video and little pop up came over the video I clicked blog and it let me post it to my live journal. *spiffy*

It’s worth a look see. I’m not saying hey change your browser this is the new it.

I’m just saying you really should check it out.

I needed a IE browser engine that was anything but IE and so I found and downloaded a browser call The World and now I use that browser everyday at work. So..you know it pays to try new stuff.

:) http://www.flock.com/

Technorati Tags: live writer,microsoft,freeware,blogging,html editor,blogging tools,web tools,WordPress,Live Journal

Well I registered ibdreamy.com again and I’m extremely happy about it. So now if you want to know what’s up with me all you have to do is type in ibdreamy.com and wah-la! Like magic. Ibdreamy posts on a dish.

Anyway..I’ve been a huge fan of Semagic for years and I’ve used it to post to my LJ forever but now that I also write in a WordPress blog I wanted to find an desktop application that allowed me to post to both at the same time. I’m pretty sure you can do it with Semagic but I couldn’t figure it out.

I did some research and I downloaded a few different editors including BlogDesk and w.bloggar and the best one I found and the one with the best reviews was…*drum roll*

Microsoft’s Live Writer - yes, believe it or not..it’s pretty damn sweet! You have to check it out! Even if you only use Live Journal it’s worth it. Plus it’s Free. Allot of the other editors cost money. Lame.

I’ve also used Semagic as a quick HTML editor to create quick links, lists etc.. for years and it’s always been handy and fast but Live Writer kicks it’s butt in this category as well because you can preview your HTML in live mode, HTML mode, WYSIWYG mode and Web Layout mode all in the same window.

I was looking for applications to add to my phone and I found a list of them I thought I’d share with my faithful readers..helloo *echo* ah well..here they are anyway..

Search and Browse

Opera Mini - Whether you want to access your mail, RSS feeds or bank information, Opera Mini is a quick and secure way to get your data on the go. Great interface for scanning pages and zooming in and out. OS: Java

Mobispin - Your favorite news, blogs and feeds on the go

Mozilla Minimo - Multiple tabs, Social bookmarking, RSS Support, Widget and Extension support . OS: Windows Mobile

Microsoft IE for Mobile - Standard browser features, Sync the Favorites you’ve saved on your PC. OS: Windows Mobile

Mowser.com - A search and start page for mobile browsing.

Tappity.com - Discover, submit, and rate mobile sites to share with others.

WamPad.com - A mobile search engine for all sorts of information including MySpace.

Chat

Fring - Go mobile withSkype, MSN Messenger, ICQ, Google Talk, SIP, Twitter, AIM & Yahoo! First VoIP ever for the mobile phone.

Ebuddy - Mobile chat experience on MSN, Yahoo! and AIM, all in one single buddylist.

Bing - Java (J2ME), BlackBerry, MSN, ICQ, Yahoo, AIM & GTalk on the go!

Cellity FreeSMS - Send text messages from your mobile worldwide FREE of charge*

Miscellaneous

Flurry.com - Access to email, feeds, update your friends and more.

Goosync.com - Sync your Google Calendar with your mobile phone or PDA.

MoMail.co.uk - Access any and all of your email accounts from one centralized mobile mailbox.

PlusMo.com - A widget service for mobile devices that has over 20,000 widgets at your disposal.

MyWaves - delivers video content from the web to your mobile for FREE!
READ ON FEARLESS WARRIOR!

20 More Free + Useful Mobile Apps after the cut…

Below are Publishing tools, RSS Feeds and Bookmarking all for your Mobil Phone….and all for FREE!

Read the rest of this entry »

I found all these really cool links posted on the patd (Panic at the Disco) community on Live Journal. These are all links for downloading videos and music. I was pretty impressed with the fact that they have (*) 12,847 members! That’s insane and their links were cool.

To rip audio/video:

♥ http://vixy.net for youtube ONLY.
♥ http://zamzar.com for most video hosts
♥ http://keepvid.com for pretty much EVERY video hosting site.
(Keep in mind, keep vids you download an flv file. you need to convert it. You could use Videora iPod Converter, or Zamzar.com)(Keep in mind, in keepvid you download an flv file. you need to convert it. You could use Videora iPod Converter, or Zamzar.com)
♥ http://online.movavi.com for ripping videos only, and into any format you want. :x
♥ http://www.file2hd.com for pretty much anything, not just audio and video.

To upload your files to share with others:

♥ http://www.sendspace.com
♥ http://www.divshare.com (this one lets you keep the link forever if you join, so join and don’t worry about uploading every two weeks)
♥ http://www.megaupload.com
♥ http://www.mediafire.com/
♥ http://www.rapidshare.com
♥ http://www.sharebee.com
♥ http://www.gigasize.com
♥ http://www.massmirror.com

To convert files:

♥ http://media-convert.com/
♥ http://www.zamzar.com/

Rip Music From Myspace:

Try musicgrab.org pretty sweet! and file2hd.com and this website works for more than myspace and more than music. You can rip videos, applications, files, and even pictures.

To rip videos from sites like MTV.com or VH1.com:

♥ Download Orbit Downloader

It’s free, and you can pretty much rip all kinds of media from anywhere with it :P