DomainK Posted December 19, 2008 Posted December 19, 2008 Wanted to make this thread for sometime to explore the amazing world of freeware. You will be surprised to know that for almost commercial application out there, there is a freeware alternative. They may or may not always be as good as the commercial apps all the time, but can meet your requirements mostly. I will try to post reviews also. Please contribute to this thread if you know if any freeware.
DomainK Posted December 19, 2008 Author Posted December 19, 2008 CCleaner for System Mechanic 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! :) Click here for download/more information. Review: I have used this tool and it is indeed effective in what it does. Recommended strongly.
DomainK Posted December 19, 2008 Author Posted December 19, 2008 O&O Defrag 2000 Freeware O&O Defrag 2000 is a freeware Windows defragmentation tool. It is completely integrated into the Microsoft Management Console as a snap-in and can be used to replace the standard Windows 2000/XP defragmentation software. Partitions can be analyzed and manually defragmented with the SPACE defragmentation function. You have now the possibility of showing clusters in the "faded" mode: the clusters are displayed in a brighter or darker color according to how full they are and their content. With the Cluster Inspector you can view the cluster contents and display fragmented files. Click here for download/more information. Never used it personally, but have heard good reviews.
DomainK Posted December 19, 2008 Author Posted December 19, 2008 GIMPshop for photoshop GIMPshop comes nowhere close to Photoshop as a professional app. But if your requirements are not highly professional and very demanding, GIMPshop makes a very good alternative. It does most of the things that Photoshop does (except some high level features and actions). I did try this software and liked it, but then uninstalled it as my project requirements sometimes need the high level features of PS CS3. So, if your requirements are not highly demanding, why pay for photoshop? Try GIMPshop. Click here to download/more information.
Holysmoke Posted December 19, 2008 Posted December 19, 2008 Openoffice instead of MS office. OpenOffice is pretty good, and some feel that because its not as feature rich, it is not as complicated. Available on Win, OS X and Linux. A good alternative if you dont want to use pirated software and cannot afford MS office. www.openoffice.org
DomainK Posted December 19, 2008 Author Posted December 19, 2008 Openoffice instead of MS office. OpenOffice is pretty good, and some feel that because its not as feature rich, it is not as complicated. Available on Win, OS X and Linux. A good alternative if you dont want to use pirated software and cannot afford MS office. www.openoffice.org Amazing software. Very good replacement for MS office. It even comes with advantages that MS office does not have. For example, it comes with an "export to PDF" features that MS office lacks. In Office 2008, MS offers a plug in for converting to OPF, but 2008 is quite a heavy app and comes with its own bugs. No doubt that MS office (particularly 2008) is way more feature rich than oo, but then most of the features are ones that users dont really use. Another very good alternative to MS office is "Google docs". Its online, so you can access it from anywhere. All the basic features are available.
Holysmoke Posted December 19, 2008 Posted December 19, 2008 Actually, MS office 2008 comes with that feature. For MS office 2007, its a tiny plugin that you need to install from microsoft.com The only thing that really bugs me about Openoffice is that it doesnt always maintain the formatting.
DomainK Posted December 19, 2008 Author Posted December 19, 2008 Actually, MS office 2008 comes with that feature. For MS office 2007, its a tiny plugin that you need to install from microsoft.com The only thing that really bugs me about Openoffice is that it doesnt always maintain the formatting. Yeah, you are right. My mistake.
h4te Posted December 19, 2008 Posted December 19, 2008 Scilab in linux in place of Matlab. Matlab is the only non-free, non open-source software that i use. Octave/Scilab can :lollypop: my :joyman:.....I need my cell-arrays, thank you!
DomainK Posted December 19, 2008 Author Posted December 19, 2008 folderlockbox- for locking your private folders. I know, your eyes just lit up. Many of you want to keep some precious files hidden away secured from others....at home and in office.:winky: This one does exactly that. That folder of yours will stay hidden in every way. Click here to download/more information.
punjabi_khota Posted December 19, 2008 Posted December 19, 2008 Matlab is the only non-free' date=' non open-source software that i use. Octave/Scilab can :lollypop: my :joyman:.....I need my cell-arrays, thank you![/quote'] what the **** is cell arrays ?
vadodaravictor Posted December 19, 2008 Posted December 19, 2008 Dia, the diagramming tool (Poor man's Visio) Available on Linux & Windows. I used this tool during my grad school for flow charts, network diagrams etc. User interface is slightly unconventional, but once you get used to it, you will find it easy. This tool can export diagrams in multiple file formats (png, jpg etc).
h4te Posted December 19, 2008 Posted December 19, 2008 what the **** is cell arrays ? EXACTLY! If you use Matlab you would know :hahaha: Cell Arrays man, i do all my programming in matlab. haven't written anything in c/c++ or java or python or anything in years......even wrote a bibtex parser in matlab the other day, which should've been done in python or perl or c...LULZ!
h4te Posted December 19, 2008 Posted December 19, 2008 ^^ this thread is hijacked:(( is that a surprise? what were you expecting? :whack:
vadodaravictor Posted December 19, 2008 Posted December 19, 2008 Back to the topic 7-Zip - Swiss army knife of compression utilites Though there are many other freeware compression utilities, nothing beats flexibility & usability of 7-zip. It supports multiple file formats (zip, tar, bzip2, gzip) etc. 7-Zip boasts that its native file format (7z) is better than rar & zip formats. Above all, it is open source !
DomainK Posted December 19, 2008 Author Posted December 19, 2008 Free RAM optimizer: Optimize your memory (RAM) using this lean program. Avoid application crashes due to low memory. This program monitors your memory, and frees up ram if it falls below a certain minimum. It consumes little memory (the lowest when compared to other such programs available on the net). You can configure it to free memory automatically or manually. Note: Windows XP has a very state-of-the-art memory management, and you won't notice any performance improvement when using memory optimizers. All such optimizers/boosters available on the market - both freeware and trialware - are useless for XP and others to follow. Such programs are recommended for 95/98/ME only. Click here to download/more information.
vadodaravictor Posted December 19, 2008 Posted December 19, 2008 Free RAM optimizer: Note: Windows XP has a very state-of-the-art memory management, and you won't notice any performance improvement when using memory optimizers. All such optimizers/boosters available on the market - both freeware and trialware - are useless for XP and others to follow. Such programs are recommended for 95/98/ME only. Click here to download/more information. Do people still use them:omg:
punjabi_khota Posted December 19, 2008 Posted December 19, 2008 EXACTLY! If you use Matlab you would know :hahaha: Cell Arrays man, i do all my programming in matlab. haven't written anything in c/c++ or java or python or anything in years......even wrote a bibtex parser in matlab the other day, which should've been done in python or perl or c...LULZ! I do most of my programming in Matlab too son, plus some C and some mathematica for symbolic stuff. Never used cell arrays. Looking at those, I cannot see any immediate use for me....look like a really inefficient data structure to me. Maybe for certain purposes it makes sense to use it...
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