Software Picks

Here is a list of software that I use, and why.

Total Commander

Absolutely indispensable for managing my files. This is the first software I install on a new machine, so that I can get all the other software on there. Why do I use this? Many many features, but here are the critical ones to me:

• It is a very simple two-panel approach: each panel shows a list of files without any attempt to make this look like something else.
• Local file systems, remote drives, zip file contents, and ftp sites are represented in a consistent way. Transfer to FTP is same as to another drive.
• "Synchronize" feature that compares two folders (or a folder and ftp site) and allows you to transfer one way or the other (selectable file-by-file)
• Multi-file rename tool makes it easy to fix names on groups of files.
• Transfers happen in a queue so you can pick a bunch of things to transfer even though the transfer will take a while. There is a throttle on transfer rate so you can avoid saturating the connection.
• Speed: displays the list of file before attempting to display icons or determine if there are subfiles/folders. This makes navigation much faster in many cases.

Where to get:

• http://www.ghisler.com/

TextPad

A straightforward text editing tool that remains focused on editing text files. Starts quickly. Has syntax coloring for the types of files I use, but avoids getting in the way.

• http://www.textpad.com/

Mozilla Firefox

I feel it is safer in general, because there is a clear demarcation between its operation and the operation of the operating system (even though this is not always enough to be really safe).

Thumbs Plus

For image management, a good straightforward way to browsing files that happen to be images. Navigate through files on your disk exactly as they sit on the disk.

• http://www.cerious.com/

Infra-Recorder

An excellent open source software for creating and burning CDROMs. No ads, no extra features you don't need, just drag a bunch of files to a collection window, verify the list of files and burn the DVD. Works as well as any of the CD burners.

• http://infrarecorder.org/

Open Office

In 2008 I switched from Microsoft Office to Open Office, and was generally pleasantly surprised. The write module has done everything I need, and a few things I always wanted but couldn't before.

• http://www.openoffice.org/

There are many reasons that I prefer Open Office

• Spreadsheet "copy" function works normally. In most windows programs, you select something and press copy. At that point the thing selected gets copied into memory and stays there until you copy something else. With Excel, there is this strange behavior that some "crawling ants" start in a box around the area you had selected. Then you can go somewhere else and paste, but you must do so right away. There are many operations that will cancel the crawling ants, and lose the copy contents. Why can't they simply copy it to memory like everything else?
• OpenOffice has a "save to PDF" feature that is soo cool. Really works well and I use it a lot.
• Columns are much more straightforward. Creating and changing width of columns can cause strange things to happen, but I found creating columns in Open Office easy to understand and use correctly on the very first time.
• Opens old word files. I had some old word files in my archives. Tried to open them in Word, and I get an error saying (I am not kidding): "You are attempting to open a file that was created in an earlier version of Microsoft Office. This file type is blocked from opening in this version by your registry settings." Actually the message is misleading, because there are four old version of MS Word that it can not read regardless of the registry settings. LUCKILY Open Office can read them. They needed a little fix-up, but at least they opened them!

Downloader Pro (Breeze Systems)

• http://www.breezesys.com/Downloader/index.htm

• Keith Swenson