Freewares I want, and rant

Posted by: timtak

Date: June 11, 2010 01:56PM

The Freewares threads are nice, but having browsed a lot of pages, I have only found one keeper so far.

I want! (for double byte character coded win2k ideally):
1) An extension to the explorer file selection window, that remembers the last folders that I accessed so that I can access them again instantly without having to click through a folder heirarchy. There is a payware for this somewhere but it did not work with double byte characters and it cost money.
2) A folder/tree comparison backup utility that backs-up only files that have changed. There is a payware for this but it does not work with UTF8/double byte characters.
3) A useless process shut-downer. This is tremendously difficult. There is a German (.de) website that has a database of what processes are and are not needed, or are virial. But I am wondering if there is some software that will perform an analysis based on which processes are not being called, rather than on (shared) knowledge of what the processes are. This would mean it would not shut down spyware that was being actively called.
4)A reliable windows folder icon changer. There is a russian payware for this but again it did not work with double byte characters. The lady gave me the software for free after it changed my "My computer" icon into a normal folder icon, because it was in double byte characters.
5) An outlook express (mail software) to Excel pipe utility that allows me to analyse what senders are in an email folder. This would be very useful when accepting homework by email.
6) A Photoshopalike. I forget the name of the famous freeware because it is difficult for me to use has a sort of Linuxy feel. Oh, it is called Gimp. It is powerful but I hate the usability of GIMP. I have been using Ulead Photoimpact but I have lost my install disks and Corel who own Paintshop bought out Ulead and dumped photoimpact. Paint.net is the best freeware I know.
I don't use all that much freeware because:

A) The main or ubiquitous paywares have a virtual monopoly of usage due to the file types that they create. Particularly, my main reason for using a computer is for "office" type functionality. Open Office (.org) is truly great and only marginally worse than MSOffice but everyone is using the latter so to be fully compatible, I must ise M$Office too. Or even OS. Linux (Ubuntu, Vine etc) is also almost as good but software files that it allows me to use, or not use, particulary M$Office prevent me from using it. Freeware is thus limited to objectives that do not require file type standardisation, or when the standard file type is free. (I am thinking of photoshop-alike software, which produce jpg, but even in this case I use a payware.)

cool smiley

I have bought (slightly better?) payware for the things I need. E.g. Snagit, when MwSnap is almost as good. Or Captivate, when Wink is almost as good.

Freeware that I don't think I want
NLE video editor: I have Sony Vegas Pro. Virtual Dub is a million miles away.
Mailer(is this freware?): I have Outlook Express and it works for me. Ahmen.
Flash creator: I use Swish, have Flash, and I know of no freeware alternative.

And OKay, the freeware I use:
Browsers Firefox, Maxthon Classic, and now K-meleon
Text Editors: Sakura Editor (good for two byte characters). There are loads of text editors out there.

Zippers: Zip Genius, 7-Zip (just got it for the KM plugins, but I could/should have updated my install of Zip Genius. I have a plethora of unzippers, not sure why.)
FTP: FFFTP (two byte character compatible). Cute is cute but annoying.
Media file converter: Erightsoft Super. There is another one that seemed just as good on the Freewares thread by panzer, beginning with X? But Super works, super. Having said that I have recently purchased the annoyingly advertised everywhere one 4you.
Anti Virus: Avg, Panda, Adaware
Search: Google desktop (it has problems perhaps deliberately produced by M$?)
Illegal(I don't use these, honest): DVDShrink, Imgburn
Subtitler: VisualSubSync (great)

There is also the category of programs that I don't need but there is freeware.
E.g. Blender, is an *amazingly* powerful freeware animation program. But I do not produce animations. Perhaps if I did produce animations I would find that Blender is not quite as good as XYZ payware.

The browser market is kinda special. There are no paywares that are nearly as good as the freewares.

Finally, my tip for computer users...

Computers die because the hard disk dies. But if you use a hard disk cloning program (I have the payware, Acronis) then you can make your computer last pretty much forever. I discovered hard disk cloning and as a result continue to use win2k on old computers. I have many computers (office x 2, home, laptop, 2nd home). Updating them all to modern quad 64 bit or whatever would cost a lot of money. And lets face it, while Windows 7 is a good OS, what is wrong with win2k? (ME crashes). Why would I want to purchase another computer?

One reason why I might want to purchase another computer is because recent browsers (Ie8/9 Firefox) use a lot of memory.But KM is better. My old computers with cloned hard disks seem to want to keep going, faster even than my quad core Win7 using IE. Why bother with newer stuff?

Tim