Open Source or Free web aps that make your life easier

[Jeff Rodriguez]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Evernote yet. Keeps notes and things available on all your devices.

[JohnBoucher]

Originally Posted by Jeff Rodriguez

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Evernote yet. Keeps notes and things available on all your devices.

or Remember the Milk

[pogenwurst]

Originally Posted by daltore

-apropos - Type in a keyword and it'll give you every program, library, or general topic having to do with it

Sounds really useful.

Originally Posted by daltore

-aptitude - Linux package manager, fast, automatic, no dependency hell.

I can't put into words how much I love aptitude. I cringe now whenever I have to install software on a Windows machine.

Originally Posted by daltore

-Piklab - Clone of MPLab. Unfortunately, no clone of C18 yet.

SDCC has at least some support for PIC18s as targets. That said, it doesn't like the C18-specific extensions in the code for the old control system.

My contributions:
-> Eclipse can be a bit daunting, but it's really useful, if only because it, through plugins, supports more languages and development tools than you can shake a stick at.
-> GNU find is amazing. If you're unlucky enough to be tied to Windows, install Cygwin right now even if it's just to run find.

[bkwrm92]

Digsby

A very useful (if slightly bloated) application that links social networking sites (Facebook, Myspace, Twitter and others), IM clients (AIM, MSN, and others), and E-Mail clients (Yahoo, G-Mail, Hotmail, and others). It is nice to have everything in just one program, without having to open 4 different programs and 6 different browser tabs just to get caught up with the morning news. RSS feed integration is in the works, and I can't wait.

Best of all, it's free.

[DMetalKong]

Originally Posted by JohnBoucher

Irfanview Nice image editing. Best feature is the ability to batch process images. Want to make all images the same size for a web page? Use this.

You can also get the GIMP plugin David's Batch Processor.

[keen101]

just thought I'd post this link for Windows users. Most of the ones people are mentioning can be obtained here:

http://www.theopendisc.com/

[AustinSchuh]

Irfanview Nice image editing. Best feature is the ability to batch process images. Want to make all images the same size for a web page? Use this.

I use ImageMagick for command line batch image editing. Its probably just another way to do the same thing. My dad and I have used it in the past with a python script or two to decide which images are too big in our collection and scale those down accordingly.

I don't know if this quite fits on this list, but I use wpa_supplicant for wireless configuration, and am able to get it to fire off a script after it connects to the school wireless network. The script uses Lynx to navigate the website to log me in to the campus network.

I love the "locate" tool. It is similar to "find", but it uses a database, so you can search your entire hard drive an order of magnitude faster.

I don't know how I could live without VIM (text editor). I imagine that other people feel the same way about EMACS and Notepad++.

[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

[Xeno_117]

For 3d modeling, I recommend Google Sketchup. I'm surprised it was not mentioned. The only thing you can't do is make a sphere by drag and drop. also, you can use google earth export files (KMZ) and convert the innards of such into a .3ds file.

[Ryan Albright]

Gmail- Cant live without it

www.logmein.com - Don't know if this counts but I make all my relatives install it so I can log into there computer and fix it. None of them are tech savy

Joomla - for me who doesn't program website from scratch this is a great thing. so many extensions

Firefox

Openoffice - love that open office can handle almost any extension

Google Analytics - track my websites I run

Google Doc's

Wootylzer-- So I know when Woot up dates

Cannot think of anything else at this moment