What is so cool about software is its ease of replication where all it takes is only the software itself and a Ctrl+c. And to model its coolness in the real world, it’s like buying a hamburger and able to produce the exact hamburger as many as you can. And if you are thinking of selling all these duplicates of burgers to other people, piracy kicks in
Open source software in another word is actually free hamburgers. It can be produced by just anyone as long as they know how to make hamburger and these hamburgers will be duplicated and give it to the world for free. In another word, it’s free lunch and open source is the cure for starvation.
But the question is, with so many hamburgers in the market right now, how can we identify the juicy one? And there is only one way to find out, which is to take a bite because what’s delicious to others may not be as delicious to you. Below are some of my favorite common free hamburgers which I found tasty and even better than those expensive ones:
Notepad++
When it comes to text editor, I think this one is the best free source so far and it can do anything Notepad (which comes with the expensive Window) does. Some of its cool functions are like tabbed window, language syntax highlighting, case conversion and its additional plugins. Other editors worth mention are like PsPad and Crimson editor.
Get it from: http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/site.htm
Firefox
The battle between Firefox and Internet Explorer is one of the most debatable topics and I’m a fan of Firefox because IE 6 disappoints me deeply and I didn’t experience much with IE 7 since. Some of the cool functions are like session restore and tab reopen in Firefox 2, convenience bookmarks, themes and extensions.
Get it from: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/
7-zip
Supports all popular archive format like .zip .tar and .gz. It also provides password authentication for archive and able to split and combine large files. There is a battle between 7-zip and winrar over compression level and speed too but do note that winrar is not free
Get it from: http://www.7-zip.org/
CcCleaner
Able to clean internet files, history, cookies and even yr recycle bin in on go and you will be surprised how much space those stuffs has occupied. Able to add and remove application as well
Get it from: http://www.ccleaner.com/
FoxItReader
It’s a pdf viewer and it’s so lightweight till you don’t even need to install it. It even defeats the conventional Adobe Viewer in terms of speed.
Get it from: http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php
Picasa 2
All picture files will be automatically searched, sorted and displayed in thumbnails and you will be amazed by its fast smooth and clean interface. Some simple picture editing features like cropping and special effects are available too and since it’s from Google, it provides additional features for Blogger user. Its instant search box comes in handy during picture file searching too.
Get it from: http://picasa.google.com/
freeCommander
If you do not like your conventional Windows Explorer and would like to have a more serious file manager, then freeCommander is for you. You will experience having 2 Windows Explorers in one with lots of convenient shortcut buttons
Get it from: http://www.freecommander.com/
