Recommend an amazing piece of free software

[puddlediver]

This is free, curtesy of sourceforge written for Java and I think it's very good.

It's a mind mapping program, useful for fleshing out ideas, teaching materials, workflow. Tony Buzan wrote books on this method and if you google mindmap then loads of examples come up.

Main Page - FreeMind - free mind mapping software

There is a download link on the page.

Cheers

Lyv

[dry suit diver]

Originally Posted by Lazlo

Do you have any amazing pieces of free software to recommend?

most of the free stuff I use has already been listed.

one that i don't think has been listed though is DIVx player but work won't let me go to that site for some strange reason, same for FLV player for playing flash video.

most of the shareware software I have I have made a donation to the running costs as I use it all the time, I don't use WinRar often

[Lazlo]

Originally Posted by dry suit diver

one that i don't think has been listed though is DIVx player but work won't let me go to that site for some strange reason, same for FLV player for playing flash video.

Here ya go .

DivX Video Player - DivX Codec - DivX Converter - DivX Web Player - Download DivX for Windows

Irritatingly, I only ever want to download the codec, but you're forced to download the player as well. Unless anybody knows different?

[Cussy]

For those that post photos on the web, I'd recommend:

For batch resizing & compressing: AxiomX PicSizer
For adding watermarks: Photo-Freeware.net - Visualizer Photo Resize Download (will also resize, but I prefer Picsizer)
Add a simple border and title to your photo: http://www.trevboyd.com/products/astroframe (see Framing images - Digigreen for results)

A very good resource for freeware associated with photos is Photo-Freeware.net - Image Editing Freeware Download Source

There are hundreds of alternatives to those above, they are the ones I use and would recommend.
Rob

[Glyn]

would you leave your car unlocked with the keys in the ignition or would you lock it and take the key and issue the key to people who want to use it on payment.

No. But if I was selling a car and let someone test drive it I would hope they would bring it back.

It is also far harder to 'lock' a program than people are implying. Adding this functionality to a shareware program can be far more work than developing the program in the first place. Even then people will crack it. If people like Microsoft can't protect their software what hope has one man and his dog.

Shareware is about trust!

[MattS]

Originally Posted by dry suit diver

I never said it was right I said it was silly for somebody to not take reasonable measures to secure their property.

So you don't see anything wrong in vandals ripping up front gardens, and wrecking public spaces then? They rarely get caught. What about the life-rings down on the quay, it would be OK for me to go and nick them because they are not locked up?

Fitting a lock is a damn site easier and cheaper than fitting effective copy protection. It is pretty easy to implement a simple and effective copy protection system, but it's illegal due to privacy laws - bit of a conundrum that.

The fact is, if you are using pirated software you are a thief. Personally I find your trying to justify it more objectionable than the crime itself.

Another bit of free software, but strangely not very popular.

[dry suit diver]

Originally Posted by MattS

So you don't see anything wrong in vandals ripping up front gardens, and wrecking public spaces then? They rarely get caught. What about the life-rings down on the quay, it would be OK for me to go and nick them because they are not locked up?

Fitting a lock is a damn site easier and cheaper than fitting effective copy protection. It is pretty easy to implement a simple and effective copy protection system, but it's illegal due to privacy laws - bit of a conundrum that.

The fact is, if you are using pirated software you are a thief. Personally I find your trying to justify it more objectionable than the crime itself.

Another bit of free software, but strangely not very popular.

so like all the people who offer ' evaluation' copies of Tom tom on here.

what about the artists who have their music copied, thats what I find objectionable but it seems to not get commented on. I am not justifying it and when i use winrar more often than once in a very long time ( I checked and last time I opened it was 3 years ago) I will purchase a licence.

yes you are right it is theft but the examples you give about vandalism are getting a bit pedantic and this is really taking the thread way off topic.

another great little free bit of software is Power point viewer from the M$ website

[Arfie]

Originally Posted by Lazlo

There's several Firefox extensions that will do this:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/fir...orrent&cat=all

So does opera without any plugins and downloads and manages the torrent, but utorrent manages the download better than either browser and has the searchbox within it which opens up the chosen browser with a chosen search engine (6 installed I think and you can add others manually).

Another one I use a bit, a simple picture resizer from Microsoft HERE (5th from bottom). You simply right click on the image(s) and select small, medium or large and it does it and adds (small) onto the file name. Handy for doing a few pics for forum posts.

Arfie

[Lazlo]

Originally Posted by Arfie

So does opera without any plugins and downloads and manages the torrent, but utorrent manages the download better than either browser and has the searchbox within it which opens up the chosen browser with a chosen search engine (6 installed I think and you can add others manually).

Haven't looked at Opera for some years now. I'm sure it's very good. Of course, there are Firefox extensions to handle torrents, but like you I prefer a dedicated client.

utorrent has a good reputation for being a very lightweight (in a good way) bit torrent client. Personally I use Azureus which has more features and is free (as is utorrent).


One more for the list that I forgot before:

Snarfer which is a free RSS/Atom reader. I've tried several others and found them bloated and slow. This one is neither.

[puddlediver]

Just tried the picture resizer. Cool. Thanks Arfie.

Cheers

Lyv