I like these things. You can use with confidence.
Food
- Stash Darjeeling Organic Green Tea – Men’s Health July/Aug 2006 rated it at 100 catechins, the essence of the antioxidant value of tea and 22mg of caffeine. The next highest was Peet’s at 76, and Lipton Green is a pitiful 29.
Software
Misc
- Lloyd’s Free PayPal/Chase CSV to QIF Online Converter Website. Used to convert PayPal CSV downloads into Quicken QIF files. Easy and cheap. Donate please.
- Vault
- PSA Cards personal information manager. Nicely done, holds phone, email, web info, multiple addresses, groups. Elegant. I think is now orphaned. Google and find it.
- MusikCube plays FLAC, MP3 with a fast database and reliable GUIwww.musikcube.com
- FreeMind is a free mind mapping tool
http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page - Dia, an open-source Visio clone. Missing some templates, but you can create them!
- SlickR is a screen saver that displays your Flickr pix. Nice.
- POPFile, an open source naive Bayes spam filter. Kind of a pain to set up for non-geeks, but very effective.
A small, light, fast PDF reader.- BareTail, a free Windows version of the highly useful tail utility.
Audio & Video Tools
- VirtualDubMod
- Bink and Smacker
- Exact Audio Copy is a CD ripper that is able to detect and retry when errors are found, instead of getting those stupid clicks.
- AutoFLAC works with EAC to get CD info from freedb, rip, and name the tracks. Nice. Make sure to do the setup in the readme before you use.
- Sound Forge 9 from Sony Media Software Audio editing. Intuitive interface, rock solid stable, and a pleasure to use. Good at large files. I have been working with this for 10 years.
- ACID Studio from Sony Media Software Loop based music, acidplanet.com for loops and contests. I use it to make edits for the pom squads.
- Vegas Movie Studio from Sony Media Software. Easy to use video editing software; little brother of the full-feature Vegas package. Highly stable and adept at large files.
- VueScan from Hamrick Software. I have a ScanMaker X6EL, and the bundled scanner apps always stink. VueScan runs any scanner, with repeatable workflows and color management. Get the Pro edition. Updates every week to include new scanners and fix things.
- IPTCExt shows IPTC metadata in the properties dialog of JPG and TIF files.
- FLV Extract – Extracts video and audio from FLV files without decompressing or recompressing.
- FLV Input Plugin – An input plugin for VirtualDub that allows it to open FLV files.
- GSPot Codec Information Appliance – Establishes what codecs (audio and video) are required to play an media file; Determines whether these codecs are installed on your system; Isolates problems associated with these codecs. HIGHLY USEFUL!!!
Dev Tools
- FastCopy is a ruggedized copy util to optimize transfer speed and reliability. Standalone app, vs. CopyHandler which is an installed shell extension, and shows a nice aggregate progess dialog while copying.
- The DJProject has some cool desktop and shell extensions for Java programmers.
- Eclipse www.eclipse.org
- Eclipse toString() plugin
http://www.prysme.net/java/updateSite/ - Eclipse CopyPath plugin – copies java, file or project path of resources
http://jacobweber.com/copyPaths
- Eclipse toString() plugin
- Cody Batt’s File Hash Shell Extensions. Put an tab for MD5, SHA1 and CRC-32 for a file in properties box. UPDATE: Now updated for x64!
- WinMerge file difference util for Windows. Almost as powerful as Araxis merge for free. (Does not support 3-way merge or SCM integration.)
- Winspector, a Spy-like utility, much improved. When you need, you need it bad!
- SmugSaver, a screen saver that plugs into your SmugMug account. Mine is here.
- Rapid Environment Editor. It shows the User and System environment vars in a separate tree, allowing you to individually edit each entry in the PATH, for example. AND it shows in red the segments that are INVALID! Duh! Click save, and you are done.
Firefox Extensions
Vital
- All-In-One Sidebar, mimics the Opera browser in Firefox. Very nice.
- Web Developer – Probably the single most useful plugin ever.
- DOM inspector
- Live HTTP Headers – See what the HTTP session looks like.
- NoScript
- Firebug
- Adblock
- Google Toolbar
- IE Tab
- User Agent Switcher
- Greasemonkey
- Popup ALT Attribute – What ALT does in IE and is not standard — but everyone does it.
- del.icio.us
Good Stuff
- Download MAnager Tweak
- MetaProducts Integration
- SW Firefox Organizer (S3Fox)
Ok
- Down Them All
Outdoor and Sports
- Paxton’s Sandal Saver — nice, cleans the footbed of Birkenstock sandals to remove stench. Works great! UPDATE (11/07) Not made any more? paxtonsiscool.com is nothing. I just bought 2 bottles from the UK branch but the dollar is worth cr*p now…cha-ching! UPDATE: No more website. Why can’t Matt open source the formula?
- Asolo TPS420 boots. Replaced my LL Bean Cresta Hikers
- Marin Rocky Ridge
Misc
- Etymotic ER20-CCC earplugs. Flat 20db reduction across the audible spectrum and a comfortable design. Required for any concert.