Freeware fav's

This is a geek-ish post, mainly for windows users: (Sorry MACies as i don't have one i don't know what freeware is out there for one), there are several great programs that I use on a regular basis that are completely free, (Some are freeware others are open source) included are a short description of said program.

Google earth: as something of a writer, when I'm looking for some exotic location... or just want to mess around I load up google earth. It's fun to mess around with and more than a little creepy when you think about some of the implications.... though while I'm on the subject of Google, let me add Gmail, Google Docs, Google Calender, Google Reader, and Picassa.


paint.net do not mistake this awesome program for mspaint (which and let's be honest about this, sucks), Paint.net is a fairly robust program that loads incredibly fast for quick photo touching up I've not yet found a better program in the freescape.

gimp - I honestly couldn't talk about paint.net without mentioning gimp, aka THE open source photoshop replacement program, I also don't use it that often, but it's still considered the best image manipulation program that comes without a price tag. Now I've had issues with the UI for gimp, but apparently there is a solution provided.

Launchy - now this one I know has a mac equivalent called quicksilver this is a very nice program launcher, (type based) for me I hit alt + space and then start to type the name of a program and then can launch it. I know it sounds like a long way to do things, but I abhor a messy desktop, and for me it's much faster to do this then to navigate through the start menu.

Dropbox This one is also cross platform, and one I'm working on getting more members of our creative arts team using. It's a free (for 2 gigs worth of space) file synchronizing service. As an added benefit you can share folders with other users, I team up with our main vj to ensure that our Lyrics are current for each week's worship set.

Winamp The original mp3 player... okay so perhaps it wasn't THE original mp3 player, but it might as well have been. I've been a winamp user since the early versions, long before all the improvements that have followed in version 5.x (What i'm currently using), that have made it in my opinion MUCH more usable then itunes, It takes a few seconds to set up, but once you do, the library feature is great! and makes managing my massive song collection, a breeze.


google Voice: okay technically this one is still in Beta, with invitation only, as someone who's gotten his invitation let me say simply, this rocks. Along with it I'll add Google Wave, especially if I can get more people to use it..


If you have any Favorite free programs? Share them here!
Logmeinfree I love logmeinfree, it's a web app that allows me to control another pc via the internet. Its come in very handy.

Darkroom When I just want to write creatively or am working on some major writing project I use Darkroom. It doesn't have any fancy formatting tools of a robust office program (For that try Open Office, it's a simple full screen text editor that darkens out (IE runs in full screen mode) everything else so that you can focus on your writing.

Foxit Reader My much preferred pdf reader over Adobe Acrobat reader, in general it loads and runs 2-3 times faster...

VLC Probably the best media player out there. It's constantly being tweaked and upgraded and it seem to play EVERYTHING.


TOK Box Video conferencing (And vid-mailing for that matter) made simple and easy, this is an awesome tool that should get a lot more street cred than it is!