[ul]
[li]Transmit - FTP server that’s quick, simple, and kicks ass.[/li][li]GraphicConverter - If GraphicConverter can’t read it, it ain’t worth looking at.[/li][li]iMovie - Absolutely essential if you have anything resembling a life. Saved my bacon one Thanksgiving, too.[/li][li]BBEdit - Text editor of the gods.[/li][/ul]
Windows 2000 SP2 - OS
Edit Plus - Text editor
Photoshop - Photo and image editing
Illustrator - Vector based 2d stuff
SoundForge - Audio editing
EAC - CD ripping
LAME - MP3 encoding
Winamp - MP3
MPTagger - MP3 tagging and renaming
Nero - CD burning
CloneCD - CD burning
Audio Galaxy - P2P
Morpheus - P2P
Effective Desktop - Hides tray icons/customizes start button (not menu)/allows virtual desktops
SmartFTP - FTP client
Dreamweaver - HTML/website
Flash - Flash animation
WebWasher - Ad/pop-up/cookie blocker
ZoneAlarm - Firewall
Ghost - Backup
InnoculateIT - Anti-virus
WinZip, WinRar - Compression
IrfanView - Image viewer/converter
VNC - Java based remote access tool
Word, Excel, Access, Outlook - Word processor, spreadsheet, personal database, email/address book/calendar
Stuff I use anyway:
Outlook Express (for news) - OK, but not great
Quicktime, Realaudio, WMP 6.4 - They all kinda suck
IE 5.5 SP2 - They got rid of support for plugins! Bastards!
IIS (web and FTP server) - Too many security holes
ACDSee - Image Viewer Photoshop - Image Editor, Creator WinRAR - Compression Tool Password Safe - Secure Password Database PIRCh - IRC Client Ad-Aware - System SPAM Cleaner Internet Explorer - Browser Visio 2002 - Diagram Drawing Program. I have a love-hate thing going on with this one, but it doesn’t have much in the way of competition. WinAmp - MP3 Player Token 2 - Telnet Client Fruity Loops - Digital Percussion Looper Sasami 2K - Media Player Lotus Notes - eMail and Collaboration Client. I hate it, but it’s for work.
And I also use a bunch of products my company makes, but it wouldn’t be right for me to mention them here.
I think just about all of these have already been mentioned:
WS FTP
ACDSee
Paint Shop Pro
Netscape (for web, mail and newsgroups)
Windows Media Player 7.0
File Maker Pro
Creative PlayCenter 2 (used to rip CDs)
WinZip
MS Excel
Wordpad
Windows Commander: the ultimate Windows Explorer replacement. It’s a perfect gem of a program, reminding me of a well made pocket-knife with all the nifty things it does in additon to being an Explorer replacement, from batch-file renaming, to compressed file utility (you can treat .zip-ped or .rar’d or .ace’d files as directories, adding and subtracting or uncompressing files on the fly), a built-in FTP client which lets you treat FTP sites as directories, etc. It’s a perfect program.
SecureCRT - powerful and versatile terminal program.
WS-FTP Pro - nice FTP program. I used to use FTP Explorer because you don’t need to start over on a download when it is interrupted with it, but I started using WS-FTP Pro at work because that was all I had and I’ve come to prefer it’s interface.
Netscape Composer - yes, I know there are much better web design programs out there, but this was the first I used and it’s the easiest for me, it’s so intuitive that I didn’t need to read any documentation or help files the first time I designed a page.
Oh, and TweakUI. I like to keep my system as simple as possible. I don’t know why it wasn’t included as part of the typical install of Windows, it’s very useful.
Sensiva is one I havent seen mentioned, it lets you use your mouse to issue comands by holding right click and drawing a shape, they dont have to be pretty to work and I was skeptical at first but I hate useing a pc without it now.
Netscape
BBEdit (The only game in town. I have 4.5. Is BBEdit 6.0 a big improvement?)
SimpleText
Photoshop 6
Illustrator 9
Dreamweaver 4
Fireworks 4
ImageReady 3
Outlook Express 5
IE 5
Gray Amp (low-end but useful MP3 player)
Vicomsoft FTP (the best!)
SoundJam (burning MP3s)
Toast (burning CDs)
Windows Software
Netscape
HomeSite 4.5
Cute FTP
EditPad (Love it)
CPU Cool (I have this weird thing with my PC overheating. This program fixes it.)
Dreamweaver 3
Photoshop 6
Illustrator 9
Easy CD Creator
Outlook Express
Office
Solitaire
I run programs out of zipped files, import files from zipped files. I turn directories into zip files from Windows Explorer by changing the name of the stuff directory to stuff.zip. I make self-extracting zips, test and repair zips, and that’s when I don’t just ignore the entire phenomenon of zips, which are just folders named .zip from my point of view.
This is the right idea about compression. It’s invisible, except that I don’t compress anything I don’t want compressed. Handles incoming files, and my virus scanner reads through the compression. (So does everything else, though.)
Great program.
AXicons
Icon editor. Extracts icons from DLL, and EXE files, imports images from files, screen capture, or devices. Save to ICL, or ICO formats, multiple size/color combinations. Pixel by pixel editing.
Saved my bacon one Thanksgiving, too.[/li][li]BBEdit - Text editor of the gods.[/li][/ul]