The Open Source/Freeware Thread

[souzafone]

This is an awesome thread. Does anyone know of an app to eliminate or bypass rights management?

[Hain]

Originally Posted by souzafone

This is an awesome thread. Does anyone know of an app to eliminate or bypass rights management?

Are you really allowed to ask such questions here at TFP?

[AquaFox]

http://camstudio.org/
camtasia clone, screen capturing device (recording)

[Hain]

I can't believe I forgot this one.

[Click image for link]

Synergy lets you easily share a single mouse and keyboard between multiple computers with different operating systems, each with its own display, without special hardware. It's intended for users with multiple computers on their desk since each system uses its own monitor(s).

Redirecting the mouse and keyboard is as simple as moving the mouse off the edge of your screen. Synergy also merges the clipboards of all the systems into one, allowing cut-and-paste between systems. Furthermore, it synchronizes screen savers so they all start and stop together and, if screen locking is enabled, only one screen requires a password to unlock them all. Learn more about how it works.

[biznatch]

So I'm using MusikCube now, and it works great, except for one thing. When I open it up and click on a song or artist, my Motherboard beeps. WTF? I've googled this and nothing comes up.

BTW guys, this list is getting quite long and for readability and ease of use, is there any way to add links that would bring us to a specific point on the page?
Like have a link that says "Multimedia Applications", and clicking it would scroll down to that point in the post? If not, any suggestions for better organization are welcome.

[Cynthetiq]

Originally Posted by biznatch

So I'm using MusikCube now, and it works great, except for one thing. When I open it up and click on a song or artist, my Motherboard beeps. WTF? I've googled this and nothing comes up.

BTW guys, this list is getting quite long and for readability and ease of use, is there any way to add links that would bring us to a specific point on the page?
Like have a link that says "Multimedia Applications", and clicking it would scroll down to that point in the post? If not, any suggestions for better organization are welcome.

yes, you'll have to do something like this

1. <a href="#1">Searching First</a>
2. <a href="#6">General Quality</a>
3. <a href="#2">Creating Threads with Articles</a>
4. <a href="#3">Asking for Advice or Opinions</a>
5. <a href="#4">Choosing a Proper Title</a>
6. <a href="#5">Thread Moderation</a>

<a name="1"></a>Searching First:
<a href="#top">Back to top</a>

taken from the first post
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?t=105692

[biznatch]

OK, I found it, thanks Cynthetiq. Although, none of those links at first seemed to address my question, so I was wondering if I had done something wrong, asked a question wrong, or if there was thread before this one about freeware, etc.
Still, cool, looks much better now, I hadn't thought using about the hide feature.

[Hain]

How does one make the links such that it just scrolls to the point in the article and not open another page? I am not fantastic with HTML and do not know the terminology to get good search results.

[Cynthetiq]

augi,
read my sample and the link that it came from

[Hain]

Oh yeah. I'll be damned. I went straight to the original thread and was disappointed to find it closed (I couldn't view the source in a quote) that I completely forgot to quote your post.

Thanks.

[samurai_x44]

My personal favorites :

OS : Ubuntu, Debian, SuSe, Fedora
CD/DVD burning : K3B
Music palyer : amaroK, rhythmbox and songbird
Browsers : Firefox
Media player : mplayer and VLC
Torrents : azureus
Photo manager : F-spot
Image editor : GIMP
Calendar : sunbird
Compilers : gcc, g++ and other gnu compilers
IDE : Eclipse and KDevelop

[Hain]

I had some free time tonight because I was up all last night to drop a friend off at the airport. Having slept all day I am really awake and regret that now.

I updated all my links for fun! Instead of opening pages it takes you to the list directly. Check it out if you feel like it.

I also have a new program that I have been using for a while but not mentioned.

Rainlendar is a customizable calendar that displays the current month. It is a very lightweight application that doesn't use much system resources or take much space on your desktop.

[Lucifer]

I love this thread! I'm looking for an open source DVD software player for my laptop. For some reason, (actually not some reason, probably the fact that my Toshiba laptop, aside from being a Toshiba, has a HD-drive) my laptop will not play DVD's.

[Hain]

Originally Posted by Lucifer

I love this thread! I'm looking for an open source DVD software player for my laptop. For some reason, (actually not some reason, probably the fact that my Toshiba laptop, aside from being a Toshiba, has a HD-drive) my laptop will not play DVD's.

VLC...?

[Lucifer]

yes, that did it! Excellent, now I can delete the Toshiba crap!

[Lucifer]

I'm pretty sure that this hasn't been mentioned here before www.portableapps.com, it's a site of slimmed down open source applications that can fit on a usb flash drive, so you can take your favorites on the road. I use it at work a lot so i can use thunderbird to get my email using the company's internet connection, but without leaving a trace on the computer.

[Hain]

I had to help a friend find some low memory alternatives to her favorite programs, and it came down to my favorite of things to do: test media players.

I ran with ones I trust: Foobar2000, MusikCube, MediaMonkey, and Songbird. Winamp is a resource hog, as is WMP and iTunes.

I started of with my favorite: FB2K. After importing all my library, consisting of a variety of my old MP3s, my newly ripped OGG Vorbis, WavPack Hybrid lossless, FLAC images, etc etc, FB2K can play everything I throw at it (well Monkey's Audio APE requires you to download a plugin, but it is one of the recommended plugins). It foots about 36MB with the default skin and depending on how complex I wanted to make the skin, never went above 50MB. Given it is a swiss-army tool for audio conversion and tagging it is still my favorite Audio Tool. It is only for windows, but works in Wine pretty well.

Songbird is actually really cool. It is a media player and internet browser in one. It is built on top of the same code that makes Firefox, and has a similar sidebar interface as itunes (only black-- hawt!). It requires you to front a lot of memory however, running up 140MB. This is the newly made 0.5 beta and I know it will get better. Now it supports all common formats: MP3, WMA, M4A. It even supports OGG and FLAC. However not WavPack, nor images. Woop-die, how many of you are as crazy as me? I know Shuak knows what a CUE sheet is, though! Native media library and sorting capabilities. Songbird is cross compatible with all operating systems.

Next came Mediamonkey. Crap. Most of the features are only offered in the gold version. You can't even make it search a folder for media. It plays everything though, minus *-images. The gold version looks to have all the same features as FB2k. It sports low footprint, ~26MB. I don't like it any more.

MusikCube blew my mind! Native library and folder watch, standard as well as non-standard formats are playable (except for images, which is a big deal for me as all my lossless archives are images) and sports the smallest footprint- 9MB! It is excellent for what it is designed for.

For any normal use I recommend MusikCube. For advanced use, go with FooBar2000. For pretty go with Songbird.

I know FB2K and Songbird can be made to work with iPods, no clue on MusikCube.

[Speed_Gibson]

Originally Posted by Augi

I had to help a friend find some low memory alternatives to her favorite programs, and it came down to my favorite of things to do: test media players.

I ran with ones I trust: Foobar2000, MusikCube, MediaMonkey, and Songbird. Winamp is a resource hog, as is WMP and iTunes.

I started of with my favorite: FB2K. After importing all my library, consisting of a variety of my old MP3s, my newly ripped OGG Vorbis, WavPack Hybrid lossless, FLAC images, etc etc, FB2K can play everything I throw at it (well Monkey's Audio APE requires you to download a plugin, but it is one of the recommended plugins). It foots about 36MB with the default skin and depending on how complex I wanted to make the skin, never went about 50MB. Given it is a swim-army tool for audio conversion and tagging it is still my favorite Audio Tool. It is only for windows, but works in Wine pretty well.

Songbird is actually really cool. It is a media play and internet browser in one. It is built on top of the same code that makes Firefox, and has a similar sidebar interface as itunes (only black-- hawt!). It requires you to front a lot of memory however, running up 140MB. This is the newly made 0.5 beta and I know it will get better. Now it supports all common formats: MP3, WMA, M4A. It even supports OGG and FLAC. However not WavPack, nor images. Woop-die, how many of you are as crazy as me? I know Shuak knows what a CUE sheet is, though! Native media library and sorting capabilities. Songbird is cross compatible with all operating systems.

......

MusikCube blew my mind! Native library and folder watch, standard as well as non-standard formats are playable (except for images, which is a big deal for me as all my lossless archives are images) and sports the smallest footprint- 9MB! It is excellent for what it is designed for.

For any normal use I recommend MusikCube. For advanced use, go with FooBar2000. For pretty go with Songbird.

I know FB2K and Songbird can be made to work with iPods, no clue on MusikCube.

That MusikCube sounds interesting. My only media player for quite some time has been Foobar2k (have used to at least some degree since pre .4.0 I think) . Many, many moons back I used winamp and other options but need support for ogg-vorbis/wavpack/ape/mpc/flac/whatever else is in my collection and the 'out of the box' support along with the sleek clean look is very nice in my opinion.
Have read about cue sheets on Hydrogen Audio for years but never have played with those. I finally have some actual hard drive space now and will be expanding my digital collection though

My favourite open-source programs are the GIMP (running 2.4.4, might go 2.4.5 one day), and OpenOffice.org. The only thing keeping MS word 2000 on my systems is the poor pre-word 97 table creation in OO.
Firefox sees a lot of use from me as well, that shares duty with Opera as they both have their own 'must have' features that complement each other nicely depending on what I am doing. This forum gets nothing but the best though - Opera. But that is strictly my opinion and such comparisons belong in another thread obviously. Which gets me thinking about posting my thoughts on my own website for those people probably not interested in them.....
edit:fixed spelling

[Hain]

I am looking for good remote desktop software. I have tried the flavors of VNC (real, tight, and ultra) with little success. These applications would constantly crash or freeze while viewing my server (desktop) back home.

Anyone ever try LogMeIn? I haven't yet but want to.

[Hain]

For anyone interested, found some new software:

desktop Screenshot application
Bilderman

Seems the site has recently reached its bandwidth limit... oops.

[RickB]

I use it all the time. It works great. The only limitation of the free version is no file transfers.

Originally Posted by Augi

I am looking for good remote desktop software. I have tried the flavors of VNC (real, tight, and ultra) with little success. These applications would constantly crash or freeze while viewing my server (desktop) back home.

Anyone ever try LogMeIn? I haven't yet but want to.

[Hain]

Originally Posted by RickB

I use it all the time. It works great. The only limitation of the free version is no file transfers.

That is what their Hamachi is for.

[Hain]

So I am working on a project were the members (over 20 in all) have been documenting and reporting their work as PDF printouts. I can't blame them. For the past three years every task presented to us must have been submitted in the form of a printed PDF.

However, none of them realize the pain it is to go through those PDFs, copy the text out, paste it into a new document only to have to print it out again. I have a program that is commercial trialware, and it places this nasty watermark on every page. It isn't overbearing, just unprofessional.

I know there are plenty of pay-for PDF tools, however I don't have the money for them, and I don't require all the editing features. I merely want to take multiple PDF pages and collate them into a single document.

Any freeware tools out there?

[RickB]

Try PDF Split and Merge. This is a open source program. There is a commercial program with the same name but this one is free.

[Hain]

Originally Posted by RickB

Try PDF Split and Merge. This is a open source program. There is a commercial program with the same name but this one is free.

Thanks a million. This works great!

[Hain]

All right, new task. Find a bandwidth and upload limiter. Some requirements:

I hate working with ports, I would rather limit by application.

My tenant installed Netlimiter on the computers however I doubt in the program's legality... So I am looking for a new one and will show it to him as a free and legal alternative.

[Hain]

I'm looking for a program that will display system information:
CPU temp
in/out traffic rates
hard drive read/write rates
RAM usage, etc

Like a crack addict I keep coming back to Samurize, however never create a working model.

[Hain]

Deleted-

Hit quote instead of edit.

[Jetée]

Thank you very much to all the contributors to this thread, especially biznatch for getting it started, and Augi, for keeping it updated and quite comprehensive. Kudos.

Afterthought: Although I don't rightly need any new apps., I do have a very keen interest in FB2K thanks to your summary of its capabilities, Augi. I'll look into it, and see if I'll like using it better than Realplayer plus. Thanks again, all.

[Hain]

No problem. It is our pleasure.


Some of you may have noticed and wondered what the TFP thread generator is that Cynthetiq has used. Well I finally asked what the hell it is. It is nifty at best... but I am addicted to it now. I am trying to master FASS (Forum ASSistant) so that it works a little bit more intuitively, that and doesn't copy the wrong provider name for news articles.

I read on HA forums how to make a Lite version of FB2K. It runs at 20...22MB, and minimizes to 2.2MB. Awesomeness.

[Hain]

Some updates:
I've included alternatives to Pidgin, the multi-protocol instant messenger, they are Miranda and Trillian.

An additional browser is added: Maxthon. It is very much like IE but without the loop holes, supposedly. A friend of mine recommended it to me after a long and faithful run with Firefox. He prefers the features and site compatibility.

Added Security application: Tor- maintain your network anonymity.

[Lucifer]

There is an multi-platform messenger available for Firefox called 'meebo', it opens just like another tab, and it is available as a download from Firefox extensions.

[Jetée]

Originally Posted by Lucifer

There is an multi-platform messenger available for Firefox called 'meebo', it opens just like another tab, and it is available as a download from Firefox extensions.

Meebo.com

Meebo is a website for instant messaging from absolutely anywhere. Whether you're at home, on campus, at work, or traveling foreign lands, hop over to www.meebo.com on any computer to access all of your buddies (on AIM, Yahoo!, MSN, Google Talk, ICQ, and Jabber) and chat with them, no downloads or installs required, for free!

Meebo launched in September 2005 and received funding from Sequoia Capital in December 2005 and Draper Fisher Jurvetson in January 2007. Today, our 29+ million users exchange over 150 million instant messages daily. We (the Meebo team) are just a fun bunch of people trying to bring IM to the Web!

The site is basically a free version of Trillian, Chatzilla, and other multi-messaging programs that offer to bundle your messaging accounts. The benefit of such a program is that makes it easier to keep in contact with your friends over many different platforms designed for instant messaging.
It can log you into your MSN, AIM, Google Talk, and Yahoo accounts at one time so you have the ability to talk with any and all your friends on those networks.

[troit]

I can't believe that I never stumpled across this thread - a truly incredible resource. Thanks to all those who contributed!!

[Hain]

On a recent excursion with fellow colleagues, I have a rather large collection of pictures and movies from various cameras. I use Exifer to handle all the incorrect date and time info for the photos, but now is the challenge to do the same process to the videos.

I have a utility, Bulk Rename Utility, that does a good job at renaming movies based on the creation date, but I need something that will do batch changes to the creation dates of files.

I know, it would have been so much simpler to tell these folks to set their date and time correctly on the cameras.

[Hain]

I have just configured Tor and I love it. It is ready to use right of the box (installer) for Windows, and configuring applications to use it was a little weird at first.

Some things I have noticed are one should use localhost instead of the 127.0.0.1 IP... might be my issue though. Using Tor I have bypassed my ISP's finicky service with my instant messengers and I have yet to lose my IM services.

Currently, I am experimenting with torrent applications, but I am having complete technical difficulties with that.

[Cynthetiq]

I don't really like Tor for daily usage since it creates such a lag.

[Hain]

Originally Posted by Cynthetiq

I don't really like Tor for daily usage since it creates such a lag.

I must agree with you. However, Tor handles my email, instant message, and VOIP since my ISP refuses to acknowledge my technical issues with these functions through his service.

[Sion]

I scanned quickly through the entire thread and didn't see one of my favorite programs:

Media Player Classic

http://www.free-codecs.com/download/...er_Classic.htm

has the look and feel of WMP 6.4, but plays just about anything (including Apple qt/mov files, with appropriate codec, as well as RealMedia files).


if this has already been mentioned, my apologies and feel free to delete

[Hain]

Originally Posted by Sion

Media Player Classic

has the look and feel of WMP 6.4, but plays just about anything (including Apple qt/mov files, with appropriate codec, as well as RealMedia files).

Not a fan of media player classic because so often you have to install the codec packs with it. Users think they must have all these codecs until they install the wrong one and it was laced with a virus. Even worse, the last time I ever played Real Media was the last time I got a virus.

VLC is cross platform and plays everything media wise, except Real Media. Foobar2000 plays everything audio and has a media player and converter...