Six Free Utilities for Expanding Your App Arsenal
January 3rd, 2008 (4:00pm) Samuel Dean 21 Comments
Not long ago, I was in a meeting with some of the people behind the Microsoft Office productivity applications. They were mentioning some data they’ve collected showing that it’s very difficult to get people to use more than about five software applications on a regular basis. People are creatures of habit, but if you spend some time looking around, you can find a lot more than five good software applications to use all the time. In this post, I’ll round up six free or nearly free examples.
Do you move a lot of large files around with colleagues or clients? If so, FTP (File Transfer Protocol) is a great way to do that and iFTP is a quick-and-dirty way to do it. With a footprint of about 900K, you can easily keep this little application on a pocket USB key. It’s completely free.
SnagIt is by far the best screen capture program I’ve ever used. It’s especially good if you do any blogging, as it integrates with all the top blogging applications very well. There’s a free trial for it, but you do need to pay $40 if you like the application.
With SnagIt you can capture whole screens or just partial ones, edit your images in numerous ways, add shadows and watermarks, and much more. I also like the video captures it does. If you’re determined to avoid the $40 fee to keep this program, IrfanView is an excellent free choice, although it doesn’t work with video like SnagIt.
If you’re a Windows user, you probably either don’t use the Notepad text editor or if you do, you get very frustrated with it. NotepadEx is a very good free replacement, and you can find a complete inventory of ways it beats Notepad on its site. Among the top reasons to use it is that it has no problem loading documents larger than 32K in size.
Launchy is a small-footprint utility that you can use to quickly launch programs. It’s an open-source offering, and comes in especially handy if you use a lot of different types of applications. Launchy sits in the background and when you type Alt-Space it will pop up a prompt for you to type an application’s name in. Usually, the app will be loading long before you finish typing its name.
Do you have any good tips on free utilities and applications for daily use?
21 Comments Post your own comment
Brandon says: January 3rd, 2008 9:40pm
Microsoft Power Calculator so that we can do iFTP + SnapIt + IrfanView + NotepadEx + Launchy = 5
dallent says: January 3rd, 2008 10:10pm
Haha, wow. Always leave the reader wanting something more, eh?
credogen says: January 3rd, 2008 11:01pm
atnotes is a free post it note software, it also has calendar feature and sending notes to any computer in a network
http://www.download.com/ATnotes/3000-2351_4-10246763.html
mrjigger says: January 3rd, 2008 11:36pm
2 terrific freeware apps that compete with the above:
Better than SnagIt is:
Screenshot Captor
http://www.donationcoder.com/Software/Mouser/screenshotcaptor/index.html
A LOT Better than Launchy is:
FindAndRunRobot
http://www.donationcoder.com/Software/Mouser/findrun/
maverick says: January 4th, 2008 1:27am
Snag-IT was recently giving licenses for free for a older version of snag-it.
maverick says: January 4th, 2008 1:47am
Bayden Slickrun is a another alternative to launchy. It allows you to define your own shortcuts also. I am using it for the last one year and feel uncomfortable on a system without slickrun.
PK says: January 4th, 2008 4:17am
As maverick said, you can get older Snagit version for free, see http://www.labnol.org/software/download/free-download-snagit-with-serial-number/1841/
theo says: January 4th, 2008 6:48am
Launchy is King!
Rescue Time is another good one to note. It lets you track your app usage throughout the week, and make pretty charts. http://www.rescuetime.com
grinder says: January 4th, 2008 7:53am
Notepad++ (Editor)
FastStone Capture (Screen Capture)
Both are free.
matthew maserati says: January 4th, 2008 1:01pm
Why not simplify it further and install add ons to the latest version of Firefox. Simple free update notification, free support.
I use FireFTP and Fireshot which address 2 apps in this article.
both free and available anytime I am on my pc. so many add on’s for firefox that work and work well.
whythulc says: January 4th, 2008 1:06pm
CompareIt! - Line by line comparison of documents (very good for working with source code)
IrfanView - Photo viewing, editing, cropping, etc. Small program and incredibly fast.
SlickRun - This one’s been mentioned before. Good alternative for Launchy. Very straightforward and simple.
WordWeb - This is a toolbar dictionary. Runs in the background and can be used to look things up by hitting Ctrl+Alt+W.
Chris says: January 4th, 2008 3:18pm
Another FTP alternative for “quick and dirty” transfer is the FireFTP Firefox extension. I use it every day for simple updates, etc. Thanks for the list.
Web Worker Daily » Archive Essential Free Online Video and Animation Tools « says: January 4th, 2008 4:00pm
[...] a blog post yesterday I mentioned SnagIt—a great tool for doing screen captures. However, even people who regularly use [...]
mmesh says: January 4th, 2008 5:54pm
For fast, stripped down capture of any part of your screen I like Lightning Navigator. Screen capture is treated as just one of many shortcuts, so it competes with Launchy, too. Basically it allows easy creation of Control+Alt+YourKey shortcuts for launching files, finding folders within browse windows, creating pre-addressed emails, shortcutting to pre-saved text and images, launching apps and more. It is a part of the productivity offerings at http://www.poingo.com Lightning Navigator
jhorneman says: January 5th, 2008 4:59am
Before I click any links - these are Windows apps, right? This is the first time I visit this site: I was kind of hoping for online or Mac / multi-platform apps. It seems more appropriate to web working. (And yes, I was also kind of hoping for 6 apps…)
Mike Gunderloy says: January 5th, 2008 5:08am
jhorneman - These particular applications are for Windows, but stick around (or check the archives): we cover plenty of online and Mac apps as well. One of our goals is to speak to web workers of all sorts, whatever their platform of choice.
Beer Meister says: January 5th, 2008 6:04am
I am a little uncomfortable downloading an application from an author who can’t find Edit, Replace in the Windows Notepad menus. Notepad has its limitations, but finding specific text, and globally replacing that text, isn’t one of them.
Rubinowicz says: January 5th, 2008 12:48pm
If you need PhotoShop style capabilities as well as screen captures, I recommend the inexpensive PaintShopPro (formerly JASC but now owned by Corel), which gives you both. I particularly like their one button photo enhancer for a quick start on retouches. Their screen capture utility allows multiple views, with or without cursor, and you can set up a hot button or a timer.
Simon says: January 6th, 2008 1:55pm
I use these tools daily:
1. iMacros IE/Firefox Add-On (free browser macro tool => also for Mac and Linux!!!)
2. Notepad++ (free editor, Win)
3. Total Commander (Shareware, Win)
Simon says: January 6th, 2008 2:10pm
links:
http://www.iopus.com/imacros/firefox/
http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/site.htm
http://www.ghisler.com/
Luke Gedeon says: January 6th, 2008 3:34pm
Google Desktop makes a great launcher and can also find any document on your disk and open it.