Open Source or Free web aps that make your life easier

[Andrew Schreiber]

Just came across a free application (for non commercial uses)
http://sol.gfxile.net/atanua/

It is a real time logic simulator. Very handy if you are designing digital circuits.

[daneelshof]

Here are the things I can't live without:

• TextWrangler (free, not open source) http://www.barebones.com/products/textwrangler/

This is a really neat text editor. It has so many features, you'll be amazed. It is like the free cousin to BBEdit. Mac only

• Synergy and SynergyKM (open source) http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/ http://sourceforge.net/projects/synergykm

This allows you to share one keyboard and mouse across several networked computers. It's really handy to only have one keyboard and mouse on my desk with three to four computers. Synergy is available in GUI form for Windows, command line for Unixes and Linux. SynergyKM is a pref pane for Mac OS X that makes it really easy to use.

• VirtualBox (open source) http://www.virtualbox.org

This is Sun's open source virtual machine. It works really well and has a good Windows seamless mode.

• Songbird (open source) http://www.getsongbird.com

Face it, iTunes is less than ideal. Songbird is a great alternative, built on Mozilla XUL and it has a ton of plugins. It is pretty stable although it leaks memory if you leave it open for a couple of days. All platforms.

[DMetalKong]

For anyone feeling a little adventurous in their CNC'ing capabilities, I found this neat little flash app that spits out the HPGL plot for a given gear.

[Zholl]

-Google Chrome it's fresh out of beta, so it can be a little buggy at times, but it's pretty darn fast and I like the streamlined feel it has, plus the ability to create application shortcuts makes using Docs and Gmail even more convenient. Unfortunately, it's not quite as functional in some aspects as Firefox, so I still use that as well.

-GIMP I actually use this in conjunction with Photoshop, since this I can run portably and there are a few tasks I can't seem to do with PS, and vice versa

-Google Docs Web based office suite. Not as functional as Office or OpenOffice (which I also use), but it's much more streamlined, which I like, plus its being online has saved my skin at school more than a couple of times

-Gmail nice web based email app that I've grown to like much more than my old Thunderbird setup

-Google Reader very convenient way of keeping up with any kind of news available through RSS. I've even been using this for our teams news, which is kind of redundant I guess, since I'm in charge of that...

-Launchy an application launcher that can be extended to do a number of other tasks, such as search Google, launch any websites you set, basic math, and anything else you can download for it

-Display Fusion a wallpaper manager for multi screen setups, lets you set up wallpapers on both screens however you want, instead of dealing with the limits Windows imposes. There's a pro version, which costs money, but the extra features aren't anything worth paying for

-Rainmeter a desktop customization program that lets you put anything on your desktop you can come up with, limited only by your programming skill or what you can find online. I personally use it to display a clock, todo list, and system usage

-Keepass an excellent password manager, compatible with all browsers, since it's an independent program. It can also be run portably, and generates more secure passwords, so you're no longer limited by what you can remember. Works with anything that uses a text box to enter login info, and can be fully automated so it works with a simple, custom keystroke

[richalex2010]

Google Apps - free for nonprofits, can customize, use your own domain (use the address someone@somesite.com with the Gmail interface, features, etc.), and such.

A couple of others:
XAMPP - invaluable for local testing of websites, themes, etc.
Free Download Manager - Downloads large files fast, with no continuity problemt(you can pause, restart from an unexpected shutdown, etc. unlike, say, the Firefox download manager). This works great for downloading things like 3DS Max or Inventor (faster and more effectively than the FIRSTBase downloader program from Autodesk)

EDIT: Just thought of this one (because I need to use it): nLite. It allows you to customize Windows XP installations (a similar tool, vLite, is available for Vista). It lets you slipstream updates (service packs, as well as normal updates), drivers, settings, etc. into the installation. You can preconfigure users, product keys, themes, network settings, etc. You can also tweak a few things, or remove unneeded things (that annoying dog in the search menu).

[JohnBoucher]

Two sites I check out for free apps are
Giveaway of the Day

Make use of

[JohnBoucher]

Pencil Add on for Firefox

The Pencil Project

The Pencil Project's unique mission is to build a free and opensource tool for making diagrams and GUI prototyping that everyone can use.
Top features:

• Built-in stencils for diagraming and prototyping
• Multi-page document with background page
• On-screen text editing with rich-text supports
• PNG rasterizing
• Undo/redo supports
• Installing user-defined stencils
• Standard drawing operations: aligning, z-ordering, scaling, rotating...
• Cross-platforms
• Adding external objects
• And much more...

[JohnBoucher]

Check out this posting from FreewareGenius . Replacing all your applications with freeware.

[pyr0b0y]

VisualSVN This is a great SVN sever to store team data

[JohnBoucher]

Web Based Project management
http://gantter.com/