recommended software

the following is a list of open source and freeware applications that i have used and highly recommend. over time, i’ll write a more detailed review or description of each. i’ve used all of these and highly recommend them. i am listing them in the order that i use them, not to suggest that i don’t use any of them often.

just to be clear, i don’t recommend these because they’re free or open source but because they are good products, as good as, if not better than, their proprietary and costly counterparts. in most cases, i’d recommend you drop what you bought and use these instead. in some cases, i just can’t afford to buy everything i’d like to have, so, rather than be tempted by pirating software, i have tried to find at least a decent stand-in. i’ll note those where applicable.

  • avg anti-virus—while not open source, it’s freeware, and it is dang good. i’ve never liked norton because of a problem i had iwith it and because i thought their support was lacking.
  • gaim —an excellent instant messaging program that supports aim, yahoo, msn, jabber, irc, etc.
  • firefox—best web browser.
  • open office—word processor, drawing program, spreadsheet, and presentation software suite.
  • wordpress—the blog software that i use to manage this.
  • filezilla—an ftp client that is fast and reliable; it supports chmod (read/write/execute file permissions). I’ve used ws_ftp le for a long time. The new version is very good, but there’s no longer a free version.
  • nvu—a very good html editor, much like dreamweaver.
  • 7-zip—rather than use winzip, check out this open source compression utility. sure, windows has a built-in compression tool, but i like this one better.
  • mwsnap—a small, excellent screen capture program. the latest version of snagit is very good, a product that i have used for more than 10 years. the built-in capture editing and callout features are very good in snagit, plus the interface is improved. but mwsnap is a good substitute, especially for infrequent or home use.

right now, i’m evaluating a technical illustration tool, for creating diagrams like in visio. i’m trying out diagram studio (not open source or free), dia, and inkscape. i’m still trying out the gimp, a photoshop-like program.

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