Some Nice Free Software / apps

[Hobby Dreamer]

Hi Guys,

 

I just got a new PC and have been trying to take advantage of the many free apps out there. To that end I thought a thread on this topic might be useful, since there is a lot out there and most of us look for tools AFTER a problem.

 

So here is a contribution to start:

 

Fences - an app that creates boxes on the Desktop to help sort files, programs, shortcuts, and other apps. Its great if you have more on the desktop than you can comfortably see, or if you want more shortcuts but don't have space (it can use scroll bars) and it allows you to re-size (up) the shortcuts to read them easier. Its what Windows always needed and since it is not an MS product, well you know its good! 

 

http://www.stardock.com/products/fences/

- the animation at the top (of this download page) is a quick look but more is here:

http://www.stardock.com/products/fences/screenshots.asp

 

Don't know if this will show up:

http://www.stardock.com/products/fences/images/screenshots/fences_image.png

but its an example; you can perform almost any custom change you like from new fences, the appearance, location etc..

 

I don't know of any shortcoming but this app was recommended by MaximumPC

 

Cheers

Rick

[Martijn Meerts]

Stardock programs generally all have 1 rather big disadvantage. They slow down your machine too much =)

[Hobby Dreamer]

Hi Martijn,

 

Agreed that apps, in general, slow things down but the problem is really MS. They just don't provide useful, and often essential tools and Windows takes way too many resources.

 

My old PC was getting maxed out so I stopped apps shopping long ago but that was letting MS control my sessions. Heck, its the 21st Century. FYI, if you don't yet have Win7, its not "really" an improvement. Some may argue that but there are core problems that MS never seems to address, probably because they are too busy placing secret "Easter Eggs" in their software. (MS places too much on the "look" and pizazz parts - indicator bars that shimmer and shine!! woo hoo)

 

Let's see: I have blue-screened my PC 5 times in the 1st week (actually its now a black screen)[each time but one it was after a "sleep mode" that is part of Win7, the other time was after running a simple video]; 2 MS diagnostics did not agree on the version of  DirectX (and there are a lot of similar quirks that a user just cannot fix) ; you can still click a button icon and watch it "depress" yet no action occurs; (e.g. you hit "OK", the button goes down but its as though you did not press it); they include a tool to help 32-bit software run (or run better, as it did on your old system) - you go to the MS site and watch a video where he right-clicks and select "compatibility", but when you right click, the options are quite different and "compatibility" is not even there!

 

Try finding info about your DVD/CD. There is no complete system summary without going through the help.

 

Even much of the "Help" is not that useful.  (For sluggish systems they say that one solution is to update RAM, but no where do they state the max RAM, which differs by the various Win7 editions). [i think the Home Edition is maxed at 16GB but the top edition can address 192GB! But no app can use more than 6 today, I believe (or was that yesterday)]

 

So, in the end you start acquiring freeware....

 

I got the best PC I could afford and maxed out in things like memory so I won't need to update for a while with the view that I can play out some older games, which bogged down on my old system.

 

But next time its Mac all the wayyyyyy!!!! 

 

* I've always thought that MS stood for "Mediocre Software" How is it that a small group of 20-somethings can design a game, say back in the early 90s before Win95, and include all drivers etc (because no one really had the internet then). And these games seldom crashed and worked out-of-the-box for 99% of people's PCs!! Unlike all MS OS's

 

** Oh yeah, MS provides a tool to "rate" your components. That the scores go from zero to 7.9 sums up MS quite well. How can the best ATI video card not get a perfect score? I mean Win7 is about a year old? This card is the equivalent to or even better than 2 of the previous best ATI cards mated together?

 

I do like the "sleep mode" that shuts power to your system after a selected time delay until you touch the mouse etc and then it powers right up to where you left off, or it crashes!

 

------------------------

If you do get Win7, then let "Ctrl - mouse scroll" be your friend, you will need it! Pressing Ctrl and then using the scroll on your mouse re-sizes text on the fly!  Its great for us geezers.

 

So Martijn, its not really the apps or the hardware, but good old MS.. Now, where is my 5.25" floppy.....

 

Cheers..

[Darren Jeffries]

One thing I'll say about windows 7, ATI graphics cards are problematic. Especially those built on to asus motherboards. It's to do with the memory allocation and will give you blue or black screens. The only way to fix it is to under clock the ram in the bios. Worked for me.

 

Also, only 64 bit windows can address memory above 3gb.

[Martijn Meerts]

Oh, I know about the problems with the various versions of Windows. I've been running it since windows for workgroups 3.11 (which in my opinion is still the best windows ever released ;))

 

The main issue I have with windows is the registry. I can't for the life of me think of a single reason why MS haven't replaced that yet. It has got to be the worst idea ever in the history of bad ideas ...

 

 

That being said, I've been a happy Mac user for a while now. When I started my previous job I had to start working with a Mac since the company only used Macs. It took about half a day to get used to OS X, and by the time I got a "real 2-button mouse" I was already so used to the standard single button Mac mouse that I never used the 2-button one =)

 

I have a Mac Pro and a Macbook Pro now, and they really do "just work".. Granted, my Macbook Pro has had a new logic board installed, but it broke because it was my own fault. Apple still replaced it for free. My Mac Pro is on it's 2nd video card, again because of my own fault. The original card was too loud, and while installing a new cooling fan I accidentally dropped the card which landed right on the GPU ...

 

The funniest thing though, I run bootcamp on both machines, with the Macbook Pro running Vista Home Premium, and the Mac Pro running Windows 7 Ultimate. Apple provides drivers for the systems, and I've *NEVER* had any crashes, blue screens, driver problems or anything else. And the best thing is, I don't have to reinstall every 3 months, because the only reason I run windows on the machines is for the occasional game I like to play, and for a cd-ripping tool for which there still is no real decent app for OS X =)

 

Sure, Macs are more expensive (even though a Dell with the same specs as my Mac Pro actually turned out to be even more expensive than the Mac), but my experience with them so far is that they just last longer. My Macbook Pro is about 3.5 years old, but it still runs better than most brand new laptops. The only thing I did fairly recently, was install a faster hard drive.

 

 

Oh, and as for Mac being more expensive.. My previous PC (and pretty sure it was my last one as well ;)) was a custom built machine. I bought and installed all the parts after weeks of researching which parts worked well together. The machine worked really well, but I had to keep upgrading it. In the end, I think I paid about twice the price of a Mac Pro in the course of the 2.5 to 3 years I used the thing. Right now it's been relegated to controlling my father's layout. Ironically enough, it has driver issues with the USB to Serial device needed to hook up the digital interface ;)

 

 

I'm not an Apple fan boy, and I don't blindly trust them. However, I do have the Macbook Pro, the Mac Pro, as well as an iPhone 3Gs and a 1st gen iPod touch (even though the sound quality is pretty crap). All the devices are always synched using a MobileMe account. I also have an Airport Extreme with a USB drive hooked up to it for Time Machine backups, which are so transparent that I tend to forget I even have backups in the first place.

 

Macs aren't for everyone, but for me they're working out pretty well =)

[nik_n_dad]

I second the kudos for Macs.  I got to resign my position as the household IT support tech when i switched everyone over to Mac.  Stuff just works and keeps working.  It's not for everyone (until you have one)   

[Hobby Dreamer]

Thanks Darren;

I have an ATI Video card and an Asus mbo. I'll have to look into this, but really MS should  resolve these issues even if they just provide instructions since they know what's in our systems at the "application" stage. Its not like this combo of hardware is rare, either.

 

At one point my system became unstable, not black screened, so it would not access most MS apps or commands but everything else worked fine... go figure...

 

Thanks Martijn;

games and software familiarity are the only reasons for a PC these days. You are 100% correct about the registry but isn't it silly that we have to find apps to clean that clunker out?  One hears few Mac complaints, their software appears intuitive and they have some top components such as their monitors. As for software wasn't Linux able to make a 486 run as well as a Pentium II running the MS OS at the time. So one student (IIRC) came up with an OS that trumped MS.

 

nik_n_dad;

Good to hear your experience.

 

My local big box electronics store (BestBuy) had a nice 24"; a 27" Mac monitor and a 30" TV side by side - does the Mac ever stand out! Dell, arguably has the best PC monitors but these are not LED back-lit. How does Apple get this right?

 

Cheers

Rick

[Martijn Meerts]

Thanks Martijn;

games and software familiarity are the only reasons for a PC these days. You are 100% correct about the registry but isn't it silly that we have to find apps to clean that clunker out?  One hears few Mac complaints, their software appears intuitive and they have some top components such as their monitors. As for software wasn't Linux able to make a 486 run as well as a Pentium II running the MS OS at the time. So one student (IIRC) came up with an OS that trumped MS.

 

The big difference is that Linux at first had support for almost no hardware. I tested Linux quite early on, before cable modems and ADSL and such were common. I had an ISDN line, and getting that to work with Linux was a nightmare. It required recompiling the kernel (not something the average Joe would like to do too often ;))

 

Windows supports a LOT of different hardware by default, and so requires huge amounts of drivers.

 

Macs have very limited hardware configuration, so it's much easier for Apple to write good drivers without having a huge team dedicated to writing drivers.

 

 

 

My local big box electronics store (BestBuy) had a nice 24"; a 27" Mac monitor and a 30" TV side by side - does the Mac ever stand out! Dell, arguably has the best PC monitors but these are not LED back-lit. How does Apple get this right?

 

The more expensive Dell screens actually use the same LCD panels as the Apple displays. Some of those also have LED back light. I don't actually have an Apple display myself, last time I bought a new one, Apple only had the glossy variant available, which is pretty terrible for any kind of design work. I went for a Samsung instead, also not the best for design work, but with some calibration it actually works quite well. I'd love an Eizo ColorEdge, but they're just too expensive =)

[Hobby Dreamer]

After a few weeks of Win7 use, I thought I'd share my experience.

 

Last night my system died!  It would no longer boot. I know that the problem is almost certain a partition problem (corrupt)that should be easy to fix with experience. It could also be a Hard Disk problem (its an SDD drive so not sure what really can go wrong??!!) And it could be a virus in the BIOS, which is probably very rare. I'm just too tired to do anything I might regret.

 

In the old days this problem would be quickly analyzed by CHKDSK and then remedied by FDISK, but the latter no longer exists. My problem seems to be common but there is a huge variety in postulated solutions, even from MS itself. My hesitancy is that I have 2 HDs that are mated together. That, and that the postulated solutions seem too varied - sort of hit and miss.

 

I am on my old system and so my views about Win7 are that it has a slightly nicer interface, its seems to be causing way too many problems (those that like it most compare it to Vista, which seemed to be a dog), so it does not feel robust, and it hides way too much. You have to know things exist to query them in Help. For example, MSPaint is included but it seems only accessible via Help. So if you don't know to look, you won't. A lot of people seem to have problems running old apps. In the Home edition there is limited support but the more expensive versions have, I beleive, an XP sector for older apps. The solution to my problem requires DOS command knowledge so anyone not having this is out of luck!

 

MS could easily post a fix on their site rather than post competing theories. One of the first things I did was create a Win7 repair disk that copies some key commands. It took many tries to finally give me an error code that one cannot look up on the MS site! One part of the repair is for you to restore your system to an older image you saved but no where in the help or other places do they inform you to do this. Even so, I get the feeling that my problem would not be fixable this way.

 

I did try to reinstall Win7 but the problem I have will not permit this. Its like the system knows there is data etc but its not smart enough to provide a fix. The error code I got is not to be found on the MS site. How hard would it be to post these and why does MS bother to give you a code that you cannot look up? But that is typical MS. (They should rename themselves BS to be more honest!). Since I cannot boot my system or reinstall Win7 I can neither take advantage of the OS or the internet etc or take advantage of a little effort to reinstall. Its the first OS that cannot be fixed via a clean slate it seems though I think I can do a reformat and lose everything.

 

There are some things with my new system that I like but considering its near top end and new, things should look to work a lot better. But Win7 seems to be the low point!

 

Martijn's point about the Registry is so right! As a result we spend a lot of time with our PCs cleaning up after MS when we should be doing our own productivity.

 

Cheers

Rick

[Martijn Meerts]

I'm quite happy with Win7, but then again, I was quite happy with Vista as well. Of course, I'm running them on my Mac Pro, and Apple takes care of the drivers and everything.

 

The only reason I boot to Windows is for games, I don't install/uninstall a lot of programs anymore, so the registry doesn't get as messed up =)