Must-Have Freeware Tools

[Ghostrider]

InSSIDer and NetStumbler show a graph and a list of all the wireless networks within range.

NetStumbler can also connect to a GPS receiver so you can drive around, locate any WiFi hotspot in your town and then map it out on Google Earth.

 

[Sunhillow]

After using GIMP for a long time to edit my photos, I discovered
JPG-Illuminator, a great tool not only to illuminate dark parts of images, but also adjust white balance, black point, rotation, perspective correction, pincushion correction etc.
Only disadvantage: it is available in every language yo like, as long as you desire German

And IMO the best denoiser for GIMP is: Wavelet Denoise

 

[ar81]

The problem with JPG format is that it loses quality every time you compress to save.
I would advise that for high quality jobs you use graphic formats that do not lose quality.

 

[Sunhillow]

The problem with JPG format is that it loses quality every time you compress to save.
I would advise that for high quality jobs you use graphic formats that do not lose quality.

That's correct, but if you don't do it too often a compression value of 98 .. 100 for the intermediate steps will help to avoid visible artifacts.
If you think this is not safe enough, you can use TIF or BMP

 

[Ghostrider]

For image browsing/processing, Faststone is cool.

 

[ex-orbinaut]

Another GREAT one to have for VC++ 2008 Express users who want to see what resources are in dll files (as the express edition does not support resource editing). A must, in fact....

http://download.cnet.com/Nasser-Resource-Viewer/3000-2383_4-10591555.html

A free resource viewer. It gives you the id's to embedded bitmaps.:speakcool:

---------- Post added at 01:06 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:54 PM ----------

BTW, has not somebody already put VC++ 2008 Express in this thread yet? Here it is, for redundancy's sake, in any case;

http://www.microsoft.com/Express/vc/

Check out the VC++ Game Creator GDK, too.

 

[cjp]

Is the VLC media player already mentioned?
After an update of windows, windows media player suddenly required 'validation'. I refused, and now VLC serves me both on Linux and on windows.

 

[ar81]

CO2 emissions by country.

 

[RangerPL]

Total Commander Ultra Prime - Total Commander, with lots of awesome features.
http://tcup.pl/index.php?l=en
(If it says no input file specified, refresh the page until the site shows up)

 

[n122vu]

Didn't see any of these listed. Sorry if I duplicate anything that was already posted.

SIW - System Information for Windows. Great little tool that provides detailed system information on a system's hardware & software, including motherboard & processor info, software keys, etc. Used it several times to eliminate having to open a user's PC to see what size/quantity memory chips they had installed without them even having to shut down or log off. Can run from any directory, including USB drive.

Pazera Free flv to avi Converter - handy for converting videos downloaded from the web into avi format so you can share with everyone in the office without them having to install a flash video player (read: without me having to go around and install it on their machines for them). Which reminds me, I need to post this one...

Applian Free FLV Player - free FLV player for videos downloaded from the web (please be respectful of copyright law).

Universal Extractor - tool for extracting files from any archive. Can also extract from self-extracting executables, .msi files, etc.

Winamp - my favorite PC-based media player right now. I don't listen to music much on the PC anymore since I have an mp3 player, but I used it pretty heavily for a long time.

 

[tblaxland]

SlickEdit Gadgets - some handy tools for Visual Studio including a SLOC (source lines of code) Report.

 

[tofitouf]

Whoa excellent list

it should be recompiled in the first post and sticked.
I use many of those tools but 2 other more :

Komposer : light and opensource html editor. based on lib mozilla (like firefox and opera). It does not had stupid and useless tag like many other html editor. very powerful to edit simple pages.

TreeSizeFree : show each directory size. very helpful to clean your disk.

Filezilla : the best ftp (and not only) client.

ID3TagIt : excellent software to tag mp3 (convert from and to filename is powerful)

Sketchup : 3D modeler for the dummies

My other favorite, already in the list : Notepad++, Visual express edition, CCleaner, GoogleTalk, Unlocker, TortoiseSVN (ankh is not enough and too intrusive in visual), Winrar but 7Zip is really powerful too, Fraps, and ...Itunes.... sorry i like itunes even if it is really heavy.

 

[ThatGuy]

Mp3tag- another mp3 tag editor.
Format Factory- The every media converter. It can convert video, audio, and pictures into multiple formats, and it can rip CDs and DVDs.

 

[n72.75]

Does anyone know of a program that will let you convert files to .wav and back again.

for example if i wanted to hide a pdf i could convert it to sound with audacity. but i know of no means to convert it back.

so again I am looking for a program that can convert raw files in to .wav and then decode them.

thanks

 

[Hielor]

Does anyone know of a program that will let you convert files to .wav and back again.

for example if i wanted to hide a pdf i could convert it to sound with audacity. but i know of no means to convert it back.

so again I am looking for a program that can convert raw files in to .wav and then decode them.

thanks

Are you actually wanting something to read the pdf to you, or just disguise the fact that it's a pdf?

If the former, you won't be able to convert it back into a pdf afterwards.

If the latter, just change the file extension.

 

[TSPenguin]

Does anyone know of a program that will let you convert files to .wav and back again.

for example if i wanted to hide a pdf i could convert it to sound with audacity. but i know of no means to convert it back.

so again I am looking for a program that can convert raw files in to .wav and then decode them.

thanks

That is awfully complicated and not even encrypted. Since you are not even using steganography, I'd rather rename a passworded rar.

 

[tblaxland]

for example if i wanted to hide a pdf i could convert it to sound with audacity. but i know of no means to convert it back.

Why not use some encryption software? By using .wav it sounds like you are trying to use a hammer where you want a screwdriver. I've never used any myself but there is a list here: http://www.dmoz.org/Computers/Security/Products_and_Tools/Cryptography/File_Encryption/

 

[n72.75]

Chaos Mash:

i guess i did not explain my self very well

what i was trying to do was write data to cassett tapes through the use of wav files, but also be able to read them

(thanks for the list tblaxland)

 

[TSPenguin]

You want a datasette then!

 

[Arthur Dent]

Well programs like Cooledit and probably the free Audiacity will try to play any file as a wav file, when the file ending is .wav

Then you can record it on tape. You can then record the audio file on a PC as an uncompressed wavefile and then just rename it to .jpg or whatever. But I doubt it works, because casette tapes can get very lossy with audio.

10 years ago I expermented with "embedding" images in to wave files and vice versa. The result was a mishmash of audio and images. If a played it with an aduio player, the image parts where noise but the audio part was okay. If I loaded the picture in a pictur viewer, the audio part looked like noise, and the image part was okay.

But I guess what you want is a datasette, just as TSPenguin said.