CurvedSpace Forums: Apps You Can't Live Without - CurvedSpace Forums

Soo.. I was just thinking. What are the essential apps you can't live without? Here's my list...

1. Notepad
Every Windows user has it, and it's just so handy for jotting things down or coding, so basic

Adobe Photoshop CS2
For graphic design at school, good for advanced image manipulation

Adobe Illustrator CS2
Same as above, but from scratch

Microsoft Office
Excel, powerpoint, word... Everyone knows how to use them, and they're cool

Adaware, Spybot S&D and Microsoft Antispyware
The antispyware trio, every PC user should have these

Zone Alarm
Brilliant firewall, blocks everything that doesn't have my permission

iTunes
Generally, only mac users (or iPod owners) use this, but I really like the slick interface, and quick load times, and less crashing (Compared to WMP)

Firefox
Death to IE!!!

Flickr Upload
To quickly bung my photos on Flickr

Cyberlink PowerDVD
Plays VCDs too

MSN Messenger
Generally the preferred IM client of Australia, everyone has an account

Don't have a virus scanner preference, I use VET on my home PC because it's preinstalled, and I use *Checks* Officescan on this, preinstalled by school. I would use AVG though, probably.

And I take an Auditor live cd everywhere (http://www.remote-exploit.org)

This post has been edited by Bigbro69: 07 September 2005 - 11:23 AM

I use Eset's scanner, NOD 32. It's not all that well known, but it's pretty effective. It's broken up into 5 sections. A system monitor, an 'on-demand' scanner, an internet monitor, a macro-detecting document monitor and an email monitor. Pretty good protection, it's updated a lot and even if it doesn't have the right definition it scans for what it thinks might be viruses.

I use...uh...microsoft word! And notepad at school. And mozilla, to check the codes I make. Other than that...

VLC: awsome all around video player (free) plays pretty much any video, includeing DVD's and also a good music player.
Adobe Photoshop: yea.
Adium: All around mesenger program, lets me have YIM, AIM, MSN, ICQ and a lot of others in one killer app.
TextEdit: Think, notepad on steroids. all the power of Word, none of the bloatware.
Safari: The interweb!

thats about it for the most part, i have a ton of other software, that use of and on, but those are my main basics.

The Recycle Bin

Ditto. I was helping my dad do something a little while ago, and noticed that his Recycle Bin was full. There was something like 2-300MB in there.

As for me...

Firefox: Plain 'n simple. I use the computer mostly for internet. Yeah.
Winamp/WinMedia: I can't live without my music!
Word/Notepad: I usually use Word, though Notepad if it's just for making a short note to myself for a day to come. Comes in much handiness.
Microsoft Works Calendar: Does wonders for my memory when I boot up the computer and... up come the reminders!
Paint: Too broke for Photoshop, so there it is.

Firefox, WindowsMediaPlayer, Word/Notepad, AIM, Spybot, Paint and/or Flash.

Err, how is imageready better than photoshop for making stuff from scratch?

Notepad, winamp, firefox, photoshop, flash, trillian.
Nyuk.

Illustrator, not imageready... N00b
'Tis what graphic designers use

Excuse me, my uncle works dually as a programmer/graphic designer, and he uses photosho, and ONLY photoshop (sept for converting pictures to vector, then he uses illustrator, but he makes it in photoshop ).
Nyuk.

Audio Tools...
-dBpowerAMP (converts to/ from just about any audio format)
-Exact Audio Copy (High-quality CD ripper)
-Audacity (Audio editor)
-JHymn (disables iTunes DRM... disclaimer, it's for fair use, yadda yadda, screw you DMCA)
Graphics...
-Photoshop (Gotta love it)
Office...
-OpenOffice (Does just about everything MS Office does... for my purposes anyway)
Security...
-Ad-Aware
-Spybot S&D
-AVG Antivirus (because my McAfee subscription ran out)
-ZoneAlarm Firewall (same)
Disk Tools...
-PartitionMagic (oh, you'd be surprised)
-Diskeeper (Disk Defragmenter on steriods -- again, oh, you'd be surprised)
Video Tools...
-SDP (download WMV streams)
-VirtualDubMod (Not really for video editing, mainly conversion, and it can do a few effects)
-SubRip (rip DVD subtitles)
-RAD Tools (converts to/ from just about any video format)
Else...
-Azureus (Torrent manager)
-Allway Sync (Synchronizes between folders; I use it for my iRiver to avoid Windows Media Player suckage)
-DivX Player (Since Windows Media Player screws up MPEG-4 video, and Winamp has issues with video, period)
-iTunes (But only because of the free "Single of the Week" )
-Notepad (yup)
-Nero (burn baby burn)
-Winamp (yup)
-Firefox (yup)
-ObjectDock (like the "dock" in OS X... yum)
-Trillian (multi-IM client)
-CPUFSB (my motherboard sucks; this lets you adjust FSB settings from Windows)
-MaxMem (periodically clears RAM for improved performance)
-Daemon Tools (to mount CD/ DVD images)
-Dreamweaver (web design)

Yup, huge list. And the scary part is I left stuff out.

Firefox
Adblock
Web Developer - fun for mess with CSS

Thunderbird
For emails, gets all my accounts and shows them in one place

First Class
Email program used at university, has some pretty cool features

Dosbox
Mostly for playing constructor, I couldn't even get the game to run on DOS 6.2, but it runs fine through an emulator

Remote Admin
Lets me control my other pcs

DVD Decrypter
Removes copy protection, rips and burns dvds

DVD Shrink
As the name says

Virtualdub
Encoding videos

Dreamweaver
Messing with web type things

Photoshop
Usually use it for saving web images and creating text

Winamp
Plays EVERYTHING. if it doesn't then a plugin will

Bitcomet
Torrents

Nero
Burning

Notepad
Saving notes

iTunes
Music playing goodliness. Easy to use and organized.

Spotlight
A Mac OS X: Tiger feature that lets you find everything and anything that's in your computer. Just click on the icon in the corner of the screen, type what you're searching for, and poof! Ya got it.

Microsoft Office
I'm a mac user, yes, but Appleworks is pretty bad.

AIM
Talk to people. It's good for you.

Garageband
Music recording and mixing software. Fun to play around with, and if I'm blessed by the bass god with inspiration, I can record it onto my computer

Widgets
I got one checking stocks, I have a dictionary/ thesaurus, as well as a translator. I have pac-man, snake, and a yoda widget (you type in a normal something and it rephrases it and says it back to you as yoda would). But my favorite is one that checks the song I'm currently listening to on iTunes and gives me the lyrics.

Safari
Apple browser. Sleek and, as most things Apple, easy to use.

Ah yes, also DVD Decrypter like Wibb said... the DVD drive's on my mom's computer; forgot about it

Oh, and The Godfather. Handy for "en masse" renaming and tagging of audio files.

Hmm... lets see what I come up with...

MSN Messenger
Of course I have to say this. Most peeps in New Zealand use this and generally when people want to talk to each other they'll be like "Oh what's your MSN addy?" and stuff like that. Plus it's a way to talk to peeps from around the world.

Microsoft Office Word
I always use this for homework purposes. Easy to use and easy to navigate for people like me who aren't that computer orientated. However if Word might not have something I like or can use without having to read about I go to...

Microsoft Publisher
Just like Word in ways... I guess. Thankfully I know how to use this as we were taught to use Publisher way back in Primary School so amazingly enough I managed to retain enough information using my ever-so-shoddy memory to be able to operate Publisher.

Microsoft AntiSpyware
Wow! Something "technical" I can use without blowing up my computer. All I have to do is press a button and then it'll scan my computer so all I have to do while it's doing that is sit and stare at the comp.

Outlook Express
Why yes I do in fact use this funnily enough. Well... I use this on like a time period of once a fortnight/once a month. Just to check up emails I get on my Clear account. Usually filled with annoying chain mail from many contacts (e.g. my aunt) or many newsletters and/or alerts about the many games/sites I sign up for.

Paint
Yep. Good ol' Paint! Yet another programme I know how to use thanks to playing around when I should have been working during Primary School. Thank god it's basic and easy to navigate around unlike...

Adobe Photoshop
Yes. This programme. I'm absolutely shoddy at this and only produce average-looking pictures through experimenting where I never remember how to do it ever again. I use this and draw things whenever I feel bored and tired of playing Mumu.

Notepad
I use this all the time. Like if I might find a little phrase or quote or snatch of information I might find useful or amusing for future use, I'd just copy it onto Notepad and save it for another day. Totally awesome to use and nothing complicated which would confuse my cabbage computer skills.

Nero
Of course. If someone wants to borrow some songs to listen to Nero becomes my best friend. Something else I can use without screwing my computer up and causing me to re-install many other applications! And last and definitely not least...

Windows Media Player
Definitely equal best next to MSN Messenger. Otherwise how else would I listen to songs? Going without listening to music is hard for me. For example I remember that time I did the dare to go without the computer for a whole week... I forgot to burn my music to a cd and only remembered once the week had started so I had to live off me playing music myself on the many instruments I play... drastic measures I tell you.

Yep. Those are the tools of the cabbage-computer-knowledge me.