- Paint.Net(getpaint.net) - This is firmly in my "are you kidding me?!?!" in a good way category. This is a freeware/donateware (recommended $12) graphic editor (of the jpg/png/bmp/gif sort). For free, THIS ROCKS. For windows, I would not recommend you buy nerf-ware like Photoshop Essentials, etc. Just download this, throw a 20 spot at them to thank them for a job well done and to encourage them, and have fun. While it won't replace Photoshop for professional graphic artists, the reality is that for my needs, it is way more than enough. My needs are retouching photos and doing images for web sites, buttons and the like. Seriously kids, check this out. I've not really seen free graphics editors that weren't quirky or buggy til I saw this. Use it. Love it.
- Notepad++ - Alright, after close to 10 years, I've gotten over Text Pad. I'm now using NotePad++. This is open source, using the scintilla text editor component. All the to be expected joy of syntax highlighting, etc. What I haven't found yet is a wat to use the right mouse button to directly open a file in the app from Explorer for Win7 64 bit.
- Scrivener - For Mac. Yes, I use a Mac at home. This tool is an Author's notebook essentially. It lets you organize your writing in a fairly intuitive way. I went looking for a Mac alternative to OneNote, and turned this up. It's reasonably cheap (~40US), and just plain works. No, it's not word processing/semi-desktop publishing like Word or iWork/Pages. It's what you do your brain work in to import into a desktop publishing or word processing application for final formatting.
- Pandora - Ok, you might not think this is a utility, but really, it is for me. If I had to not listen to music and work, I'd go nuts. Pandora's a 'build your own radio station' web site. Basically, you create a station by telling it what kinds of songs/artists you want to hear and it figures out more to include from there. Tell it Dan Fogelberg and Dan Hill, Kenny Loggins and it will find Barry Manilow without you telling it! You can then tweak it so you fire Air Supply from your station and never hear their junk again. When you're in the mood for non-sappy, non-proto-emo, real music, you can create another station with Guns-N-Roses, Dropkick Murphys, Metallica, etc. Anyway, I don't know if there's a limit to how many stations you can have, meaning it's more than the 8 or so I have now. Primarily plays through a Flash Player embedded in the web site or a stand alone Adobe Air player.
The next post will probably include more Mac tools as I've been using that at home more than the Win7 machine. I've been using it enough that I get to work and have to remap my brain to use the correct key on the key board for cut-n-paste.
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