Whats your "cool" software?

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Flea77

Limp Gawd
Joined
Nov 9, 2004
Messages
143
I am sure we all have software we think is "cool". When I say cool, I mean not just because it is free, or just because it looks cool, or just because it does something cool, but software that is cool for many reasons. Let me start out:

Adobe Lightroom - Sure Picasa is free and fast, but Lightroom is downright cool. It's multiscreen features, ribbon bar at the bottom, slick gray and black layout, the whole package.

Synergy - One screen is OK, two is cool, a third one running on a second computer controlled with one mouse and keyboard for all the screens is wicked cool. Did I mention it was free?

NitroPDF - Almost as feature rich as Acrobat Professional, faster, cheaper, better interface, cool.

UltraEdit - Is there a cooler text editor? I think not.

So what software do you think is cool?
 
EAC, the best digital audio ripper ever made. Free, and offers features programs that are 100x larger can't touch.

DVDDecrypter, even now years after development stopped it rules above all.

DVDShrink, same thing as I just said about DVDDecrypter.

WinDVD 5, seriously. Been using it since day 1 and I still use it above and beyond all the others for DVD playback.

Newsbin Pro, the best Usenet binary leecher ever made. And 64 bit too...

Media Player Classic, a single .exe that does more than most any other media player.

Paint Shop Pro 7.04, the "Po' Man's Photoshop" and still my image editor of choice.

ImgBurn, my fave burning program outside of Nero 7 Lite.

UltraISO, if it's CD/DVD related and it's an image file, this can pretty much handle it.

CCleaner, what needs to be said.

QuickPAR, for us Usenet leechers is a true godsend, as is PAR itself.

Acronis True Image, for us beta software testers, this truly is Manna from Heaven.

Firefox, because when version 3 came out, they fixed all the things that kept me from using it up to that point, and with 3.1 in the works, it'll get even better.

Anything that is or can be turned into a proper portable app like the stuff at PortableApps.com

The list goes on... but my most valued application:

WinRAR, simply untouchable for ease of use and overall efficiency. The first thing I install on a clean fresh OS and most definitely the most used single application next to my browser and file explorer. And it was FREE earlier this year for a few days and I got my official legit license even though I paid for it 5 years ago. ;) It paid for itself thousands of times over in the past few years.

Before WinRAR, WinZip was my most valued application but they just turned into a bloated slow beast. WinRAR is still quick, tiny, efficient, and my fave app.
 
pfunkman: No, not the same. Not software you like and use, or even software you find irreplaceable, software that is outstandingly COOL.

Klob: First Ubuntu is an OS, not software that runs on an OS. And no, it does not do everything (Neither does Vista, XP, MacOS, etc).

Let me try to clarify a little. I am not looking to replace software with something more useful, not looking for something cheaper, I am looking for stuff that when people sit down at your computer and see this running they stop and say....."Cool! What is this?!?!?!" Software that makes you want it even if you cant afford it, even if you have very little use for it.

Allan
 
Foxit PDF - Small and fast.
Revo Uninstaller - Runs the main uninstaller app, then it searches the registry for left behind bits and deletes them, then it searches the hard drive for left behind files and folders and deletes them. Love it.
 
Why WinRAR over 7-Zip, Joe Average? Also cool (and surprising) to see someone else running PSP7 still for the same reason I do.

What do I use that fits Flea77's requirements? :)

Switcher - Basically Exposé for Windows. Nifty.

I think Windows DreamScene also fits this category.

Oh, oh, oh! My electric sheep always draw comments when guests are over. It's running on a 37" monitor at 1080p so it is understandably spectacular. :)
 
Samurize. Been really diggin it lately, but of course I've had quite a bit of spare time lately to mess around with it. It's definitely not anything that anyone needs, but you can put together some pretty cool configs if you take your time...

And I really like Gimp as well. Never been a PS user so the interface isn't foreign to me, I do understand that it can be a bit of a bitch for those used to PS... but it is pretty damn impressive for a free application.

 
Flea77 said:
Synergy - One screen is OK, two is cool, a third one running on a second computer controlled with one mouse and keyboard for all the screens is wicked cool. Did I mention it was free?
Click to expand...

Is there anyway to use this as an IP KVM tool or something? Be sweet if I could control all of my servers and desktops with something like this.

As far as tools: 7-zip and ImgBurn FTW!!! Microsoft should partner up or buy both of those tools to integrate into Windows 7 IMO.

digital_exhaust said:
Samurize. Been really diggin it lately, but of course I've had quite a bit of spare time lately to mess around with it. It's definitely not anything that anyone needs, but you can put together some pretty cool configs if you take your time...
Click to expand...
What's it do other than show you pretty looking amounts of disk usage and whatnot?
 
Flea77 said:
pfunkman: No, not the same. Not software you like and use, or even software you find irreplaceable, software that is outstandingly COOL.

Klob: First Ubuntu is an OS, not software that runs on an OS. And no, it does not do everything (Neither does Vista, XP, MacOS, etc).

Let me try to clarify a little. I am not looking to replace software with something more useful, not looking for something cheaper, I am looking for stuff that when people sit down at your computer and see this running they stop and say....."Cool! What is this?!?!?!" Software that makes you want it even if you cant afford it, even if you have very little use for it.

Allan
Click to expand...


OS = Software, and based on what your looking for you should look at ubuntu youll turn more heads and get more wows from a heavily customized linux distro with compiz fusion than you will most programs out there.

I think youll find most of the "cool" software is free or real cheap, dont overlook the cheap stuff.
 
pfunkman said:
OS = Software, and based on what your looking for you should look at ubuntu youll turn more heads and get more wows from a heavily customized linux distro with compiz fusion than you will most programs out there.
Click to expand...
That is if it works with all your hardware, I'd agree.
Customizing that is a ton more work than some of these apps for Windows.

pfunkman said:
I think youll find most of the "cool" software is free or real cheap, dont overlook the cheap stuff.
Click to expand...


"Cool" is an operative word. To me, "cool" is something that works really slick and helps you accomplish a goal. ImgBurn, 7-zip, DVD Shrink, etc... These are all cool.

*MOST* cool-looking softwares really do nothing in the arena of getting stuff done, other than just using system resources.
 
Random, but I LOVE this program called ReNamer (http://www.den4b.com/projects.php)

ReNamer is a small, yet very flexible file and folder renamer, that offers all the standard renaming procedures, including prefixes, suffixes, replacements, case changes as well as advanced options and support for Unicode file names. In addition, it can also remove brackets, add number sequences, remove digits or symbols and change file extensions. The program allows you to combine multiple renaming actions as a rule set, applying each action in logical sequence. Renamer supports 60 different meta fields, including EXIF, ID3 and others, that can be used as part of the new file name. Advanced users can use PascalScript to program their own renaming rules.
Click to expand...

Batch rename files so easily with support for meta tags. I rename all my pictures

mm-dd-yyyy hh.mm.ss.jpeg

month date year hour minute second, for the slow ones out there - the best part is that it took 4 seconds to do that, makes my computer SO much more organized.

Same goes for music, but I also use MediaMonkey there as well.
 
pfunkman said:
OS = Software, and based on what your looking for you should look at ubuntu youll turn more heads and get more wows from a heavily customized linux distro with compiz fusion than you will most programs out there.

I think youll find most of the "cool" software is free or real cheap, dont overlook the cheap stuff.
Click to expand...

I am only looking to turn one head, my own. Ubuntu, and linux in general, turn my stomach, not my head. While I do not overlook free software I also give few "cool" points just because something is free.

Allan
 
TechieSooner said:
"Cool" is an operative word. To me, "cool" is something that works really slick and helps you accomplish a goal. ImgBurn, 7-zip, DVD Shrink, etc... These are all cool.

*MOST* cool-looking softwares really do nothing in the arena of getting stuff done, other than just using system resources.
Click to expand...

We are just talking differing terms here. To me, software that works really slick and helps accomplish a goal is automatically "useful", but to be cool it needs to have a slick interface and/or accomplish a goal that is usually difficult with other products and/or does something no other package can do. Cool to me is above and beyond useful. For example, some that have been mentioned:

Switcher - Definitely cool! Useful with panache!
Samurize - Cool, but I have no need for it.
Electric Sheep - Very cool! Just not my kind of thing.
Renamer - Extremely useful, but not really cool.
Foxit - OK, but far from cool. Way too utilitarian.

Allan
 
Visual Studio 2008 - Does this count lol?
Eclipse - For Java programming, also I have used it for SQL
Dreamweaver - PHP, HTML, CSS
XAMPP - awesome package. Has PHP, Apache, and MySQL all in one package for easy installation. Great for web development.
Notepad++
Infranview - great image viewer and batch image resizer/converter.
meGUI - easy to use GUI for encoding h264 video.
AVISynth - used in meGUI. Useful for video post processing.
besweet - audio transcoder
BonkEnc - audio transcoder. I prefer this one when I am doing some simple batch transcoding.
Combined Community Codec Pack - latest version is WIN. You can setup media player classic home cinema to use your GPU for h264/avc decoding. My preferred package for video playback.
MKVMerge GUI - used for MKV mixing/demixing.
Synergy - one keyboard/mouse on multiple computers.
XdN Tweaker - Microsoft vista tweaks
 
TechieSooner said:
What's it do other than show you pretty looking amounts of disk usage and whatnot?
Click to expand...

Not much...... like I said, it's nothing anyone needs, but it's semi-cool, in an odd way to have MBM and some other infos on your desktop. It is for me at least, I like to monitor my temps and clocks... I fold ya know... good info to have.

 
Wise Registry Cleaner 3, the free version is finding exactly same stuff the paid version of JV16 is finding.
 
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