great software that you've never heard of

I just wanted to share some great software, all of it free, that I have found useful. Maybe this has been done before but if so not for a while. Remember they are all FREE so you may as well give them a shot.

Great Software you've never heard of...
(Screenshots attached)

Instant Messaging - gaim
http://gaim.sourceforge.net/
http://guifications.sourceforge.net/
Gaim allows you to use AIM, YIM, MSN, Jabber, IRC, pretty much any instant messaging client all with the same program. It also has a really pretty interface and lets you give your friends Aliases, and has some other plugins. If you get it I also recommend the plugin Guifications, so that you can have the little toaster pop ups when a friend signs on or off, etc.

Office - OxygenOffice
http://sourceforge.net/projects/ooop
OpenOffice is a free alternative to Microsoft Office. It has a document-editor, spreadsheets, slideshows, graphics, math, business cards, HTML, and more. It can open and save in almost every format imaginable. So you will still be able to edit old files. OxygenOffice is basically an enhanced version of OpenOffice that comes with clipart, fonts, and other extras.

Image-editing - The GIMP and Photo Resizer
http://www.gimp.org
http://www.faststone.org/FSResizerDetail.htm
The GIMP is a free image-editing program on par with Photoshop. It's not quite as good but as a free alternative it definitely has more value. It gets the job done. I'd say with Paint at a scale of 0 and Photoshop at 10, the Gimp would be around 8.5-9. It is definitely the best free image-editing software I have used. Also, FastStone Photo Resizer is a really handy tool for batch-editing files. You can rename a ton of files at once, resize them all, add watermarks, and more really easily.

Media - GMplayer
http://www.mplayerhq.hu/design7/dload.html
Make sure you download "Windows GUI" not just "Windows"
Greatest media player ever, plays nearly every format you can imagine or download. Plays mp3, avi, wmv, mov, you name it and it can play it. Make sure you download the GUI so that you can control it with the mouse and use skins (I'm using a boring one in the screenshot but there are all sorts). After you get this you can uninstall DivX, realplayer, quicktime, all of those. You can also have it embed into websites for watching movies online. I recommend this mainly for movies so that you don't have a ton of gigantic programs and can instead use this small one for all movie formats. The one fault I have with MPlayer is playlists and organization, so I recommend using a different program for your music collection.

Widgets - Yahoo Widget Engine
http://widgets.yahoo.com
These widgets make your desktop much more useful and much prettier. You can have anything from calendars to iTunes controllers to clocks to weather to radios to sticky notes, all on your desktop. There are literally thousands of widgets you can choose from and it's not very hard to make your own either.

Text-editing - Editpad Lite
http://www.editpadpro.com/editpadlite.html
Infinite times better than Notepad. You can have multiple documents in one window (tabs), infinite undo abilities, customize indenting for different file types, and more. If you like using a simple text-editor then this is definitely the best one out there.

Other Tools
LaunchonFly
http://arturdev.com/index.php?section=prod&product=launchonfly
This lets you create your own menu that you can open by clicking the middle mouse button, bumping the mouse to a corner, etc.
4t Tray Minimizer
http://www.4t-niagara.com/tray.html
Adds a button to windows to let you minimize windows to the system tray. Really useful. (Visible in most screenshots)
Dev-C++
http://www.bloodshed.net/devcpp.html
I doubt many people here program but if you do this ones a nice free compiler and editor.

And some you have heard of...

Internet - Firefox or Opera
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/
http://www.opera.com/
Much more stable, able to be customized with extensions and themes, tabbed windows, much more privacy controls, all reasons to get Firefox over Internet Explorer. Another good one is Opera, which is the fastest browser in the world (since it uses memory caching), and also takes a lot less space than Firefox or IE.

Email - Thunderbird
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird/
I haven't used Outlook but I assume all of the problems with IE are similar to those with Outlook. If you like Firefox you will probably like Thunderbird as well. I believe you can import all of your Outlook emails, settings, and contacts when you use Thunderbird, so why not give it a try? One area it is lacking is todo lists/calendars unfortunately. You can get extensions for these but I haven't found any I like yet. So if that is a big part of your Outlook usage then I don't recommend switching.

Music - iTunes
http://www.itunes.com
I won't dwell much on this because most people already know whether they love or hate it but I really like the organization and look of iTunes.
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Trillian used to be ugly and now it's just a rip-off of gaim
Dr.S you can PM me now

 

Ike try this link
http://sourceforge.net/project/downloading.php?group_id=170021&use_mirror=easynews&filename=OOOP_2.0.4_061109_Win32Intel_install_en-US_wJRE.exe&4469179
They listed the German download above the English one

Also if you just want plain OpenOffice without the clipart and fonts that OxygenOffice has go here
http://www.openoffice.org/
I should've put that link in the first one

 

Most of the programs I listed were originally made for Linux and ported to Windows

 

lol