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Predator
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« on: August 03, 2007, 01:28:57 PM » |
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This thread is meant to let us share and discuss our experience with software of various kinds. Do you often use a program and think it's one of the best in its category? Or maybe you just like it and think some other people here would like it as well? Good, let us know about it. Recommend some software. In any category. I'll start with my list AntivirusAntivirFree. High detection rate. Great program. AvastFree. High detection rate. AVGFree. High detection rate although a bit lower than those of Antivir and Avast. FirewallComodo FirewallFree. Highly configurable and efficient. Very good results in various tests. Jetico FirewallFree. Very configurable and efficient. Very good results in various tests. Zone AlarmFree. Good/Average results in tests. File managerTotal CommanderMost excellent stuff! ArchiverTotal CommanderMost excellent stuff! Archives files using external (free) command-line programs. This is the best solution for me. 7-zipFree. Very high compression rates. Web browserFirefoxFree. Overall the best browser around. OperaFree. Fast. Many widgets. Mail clientThunderbirdFree. All you need and expect from a mail client. C/C++ compilerMinGWFree. Great solution for Windows, especially if you miss gcc/g++ from Linux. Notepad replacementNotepad++Free. Fast and small. Excellent features. Syntax highlighting for many languages. Great for programmers. OfficeOpen OfficeFree. Very powerful. MS Office support. PDF export on board with no additional downloads. Music playerFoobar2000Free. Advanced. Offers very good sound quality. Supports lots of formats with no additional downloads. Needs very little system resources. CD Ripper (audio-cd extraction)Exact Audio CopyFree. Very good sound quality. Can be used with command-line versions of flac, vorbis or lame encoders to output to flac, ogg or mp3. Encoder (audio)FlacFree. The best lossless encoder. Ogg Vorbis (ogg)Free. Advanced. The best lossy encoder. Lame (mp3)Fee. Advanced. The best free mp3 encoder around. Sound editorGoldWaveAdvanced. Very cool features. Numerous filters and effects. DVD playerPowerDVDOverall seems to be the best DVD player. Image browserIrfanViewFree. Very fast. Handy. Supports many formats. Lots of useful and cool features. Batch conversion. Slide shows. XnViewFree. Fast. Very useful. Supports many formats. Lots of cool features. Batch conversion. Slide shows. Image editingGimpFree. Very advanced. The best free image manipulation program around. CD BurningNeroOverall seems to be the best CD-burning program around. Modelling (3D)BlenderFree. Very powerful and excellent modelling program. |
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« Last Edit: August 04, 2007, 08:46:32 AM by Predator »
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Our knowledge can only be finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite. 
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goa
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« Reply #1 on: August 03, 2007, 02:55:59 PM » |
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great topic, thx Predator  KMPlayerKMPlayerThe KMPlayer is a versatile media player which can cover various types of container format such as VCD, DVD, AVI, MKV, Ogg Theora, OGM, 3GP, MPEG-1/2/4, WMV, RealMedia, and QuickTime among others. It handles a wide range of subtitles and allows you to capture audio, video, and screenshots in many ways. The player provides both internal and external filters with a fully controlled environment in terms of connections to other splitters, decoders, audio/video transform filters and renderers without grappling with the DirectShow merit system. Internal filters are not registered to user's system to keep it from being messed up with system filters. The KMPlayer includes almost all the essential decoders required for media playback. Furthermore, to get beyond the limitation of internal decoders, the external ones such as commercial h.264 decoders or cyberlink/intervideo audio decoders can be specified, so that KMP works optimally by the users' own customization. Even though the KMP is based upon directshow structure, it supports Winamp, Realmedia and Quicktime by the internal logic. Thus, it is possible to specify where to try to connect firstly the media in preferences. In short, the player provides a strong hybrid structure efficient for interconnecting various directshow filters, winamp input&dsp plugin, and internal filters. The most outstanding feature is that the player has the full control of filter connections to prevent a media playback from being messed. The player can set multifarious audio and video effects, slow down or increase playback speed with regular tone, select parts of a video as favorites, do an exceptionally powerful A-B repeat, remap the keys of remote interface for HTPC including overlay screen controls, change a skin dynamically depending on a media type playing, and many more. It is completely customizable thanks to a wide selection of skins and color schemes, and the configuration options are extremely extensive. |
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« Last Edit: January 22, 2008, 07:48:03 PM by goa »
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 If I gave you everything that I own and asked for nothing in return Would you do the same for me, as I would for you? Or take me for a ride and strip me of everything, including my pride But spirit is something that no one destroys |
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goa
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« Reply #2 on: August 03, 2007, 03:03:37 PM » |
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It has a great forum and the guys/gals really are worried to help...if you want to laugh, check my typo  at Feature Requests, (I asked help to play shn btw). Is spectacular to listen to boots, why? use Cristality, and add some more treble, if you want it, and the sound gets absolutely clear and shine. The last audiences of TM sound incredible. Also, the Normalizer, several times the sound on boots and specially in DVDs are quite low, and this help you to get a "normal" level. |
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« Last Edit: August 03, 2007, 03:05:17 PM by goa »
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If I gave you everything that I own and asked for nothing in return Would you do the same for me, as I would for you? Or take me for a ride and strip me of everything, including my pride But spirit is something that no one destroys |
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schnittstelle
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« Reply #3 on: August 03, 2007, 03:04:01 PM » |
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We only need an shn-player for goa... And I want an Mac OS X thread like this!  But it is interesting to read anyway. thumbsup |
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goa
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« Reply #4 on: August 03, 2007, 03:10:40 PM » |
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KMPlayer now plays shn |
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If I gave you everything that I own and asked for nothing in return Would you do the same for me, as I would for you? Or take me for a ride and strip me of everything, including my pride But spirit is something that no one destroys |
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Predator
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« Reply #5 on: August 03, 2007, 03:21:13 PM » |
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Thanks for the info on kmplayer - it looks interesting. I'll check it out.
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Our knowledge can only be finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite.
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Weesam
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« Reply #6 on: August 03, 2007, 03:57:33 PM » |
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We only need an shn-player for goa... And I want an Mac OS X thread like this! I thought we used Macs so we didn't have to worry about all this tecno-nerd stuff? |
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No-one ever asked: he was thirty
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117
The Pedant
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look. laugh. but don't touch.
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« Reply #7 on: August 03, 2007, 03:58:36 PM » |
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Additions / Alternatives to what's already been posted: AntivirusNOD32 - not free but regarded as one of, if not the best personal AV solution - it's fingerprint is very small (compared to the likes of McAfee, Norton etc), and it regularly has the highest and fastest detection rate ArchiverWinRar - not necessarily as good as, but I prefer the UI over 7-zip's Music PlayerWinamp - version 5 is a vast improvement on version 3 (there was no version 4), and with the ClearOne skin it looks awesome Video PlayerVLC - it'll play any video format you care to throw at it, unlike most any other player Audio CD BurningDeepBurner - Free and really simple to use |
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schnittstelle
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« Reply #8 on: August 03, 2007, 03:59:25 PM » |
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I don't want to highjack but some tips about useful software are always good.  |
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trevorhalvo
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« Reply #9 on: August 03, 2007, 07:14:36 PM » |
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CD & DVD COVERS MAKING PROGRAMhttp://www.undercoverxp.tk/ Free. Very simple to use. Even prints the cutlines, which are very handy when you have cover artwork that contains a lot of white in them.
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xuncat
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« Reply #10 on: August 03, 2007, 09:21:27 PM » |
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A few favourites... FirewallKerio/Sunbelt Personal Firewall(Free.) I have kept using the old Kerio free, even though it was discontinued some time ago - I have a hardware firewall as well, but appreciated Kerio because its small footprint compared to other firewall, and the fact that it has good application behaviour control options. Controlling outgoing connections is, of course, the prime reason why I run a software firewall in addition to the hardware one. Now the free firewall has been revived as Sunbelt took over Kerio. Same deal - the full version for 30 days after downloading, and the limited but quite adequate free version after that, unless you pay up. Tagging and renaming music filesTag & RenameI know there are others, but this is the one for me. The GUI may look a bit daunting at first, but it is really easy to use, making retagging/renaming a quick process once you know your preferences and how to do it. It's advertized as an mp3 tag editor, but the fact is that it will work with practically all kinds of music files. Splitting cue filesCUE SplitterFreeware. You know, those album ripped to one large file... if they are lossless and you decompress to wave, EAC can help you, but I do think that this app is easier to use, and it will work straight from FLAC or APE (or lossy formats), too. It leaves the original file untouched, so you can split the file for your own use but still keep seeding a one-track torrent after using this, with no need to make an extra copy. Converting, and perhaps even ripping, audiodBpowerampThe Swiss knife of conversion - this one can convert from almost any audio file format to almost any other (there are plenty of extra downloadable codecs). I use it a lot for (I hope you sit down!) conversion from FLAC to mp3 (V0). NOOOOO, I don't share FLAC downloads in lossy format - but I do like to convert them for my personal use, taking a select number of tracks with me for listening on train and bus, etc... One thing I especially appreciate with dBpoweramp is the batch mode - load a number of albums in the converter and let it work over night. I hear its reputation as a ripping tool is increasing, too (the latest Refernce version), but I'll admit I stick with EAC. Visual text file comparison and mergingWinMergeOpen source, free. The homepage says that it is "an Open Source visual text file differencing and merging tool for Win32 platforms. It is highly useful for determing what has changed between project versions, and then merging changes between versions." I say it's a life-saver! |
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There used to be a signature here...  |
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Predator
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« Reply #11 on: August 04, 2007, 08:45:26 AM » |
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CD & DVD COVERS MAKING PROGRAMhttp://www.undercoverxp.tk/ Free. Very simple to use. Even prints the cutlines, which are very handy when you have cover artwork that contains a lot of white in them. Hey, thanks for that link, I'll be needing something like that soon. As for dBpoweramp - thanks for bringing it up, I used to have an older version of that program long time ago, seems it has improved a lot since then. I'll check it out for sure. |
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Our knowledge can only be finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite.
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117
The Pedant
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look. laugh. but don't touch.
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« Reply #12 on: August 05, 2007, 04:33:34 PM » |
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Tagging and renaming music filesTag & RenameI know there are others, but this is the one for me. The GUI may look a bit daunting at first, but it is really easy to use, making retagging/renaming a quick process once you know your preferences and how to do it. It's advertized as an mp3 tag editor, but the fact is that it will work with practically all kinds of music files. oooh I forgot to mention my choice for that category: Mp3tag - like the one xuncat mentioned it does the tags of more than just MP3s (AAC, APE, FLAC, OGG plus plenty others), and it's real easy to use |
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Predator
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« Reply #14 on: December 07, 2007, 09:33:44 AM » |
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OK, it's time to ask you guys for a piece of advice - what torrent program (for Windows) would you recommend? Don't be surprised - yes, this is the first time I'm going to install a torrent program, I never felt a need for one in the past but I think it's about time for me to join this torrent madness that's going on on this site.   |
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Our knowledge can only be finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite.
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