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If you do not quite like the software here http://alternativeto.net is a great site that shows alternatives.

Table of Contents

Office and Day to Day

  1. PicaView 2.0 (Old but really great for previewing multiple images and converting images with a right-click) * Does not work on Windows 7 64-bit. NConvertwith a plugin for the Windows Shell may be a replacement.
    1. Right-Click image and turn off:
      • PicaView Options
        1. Image file extensions only
        2. Uncheck Preview Multimedia Files
      • Displays
        1. Uncheck Zoom to fit resized window
  2. PDF-XChange Viewer 64-bit (fastest and most stable one out there + allows basic editing)
    • I find I like to Uncheck add in for browsers (makes things more stable)
  3. PDF Creators
    1. PrimoPDF (Note this is still not as good as Adobe's PDF creator. You might want to verify the output on an Adobe Reader first). However, it is the only free product so far that passes the printing of a Word Document with an embedded Visio diagram test.
  4. VLC Media Player - play DVDs and almost any video format
  5. Microsoft Office - Really I tried alternatives but this is the de facto standard for work.
  6. Microsoft Visio Professional - Again the best drawing tool out there.

Video Conferencing

http://www.yakity.com/ - No install as it just uses flash. I believe it is powered by http://www.tokbox.com/

Essential Utilities

  1. HoeKey* - Make use of that Windows key and many other key combos. Here are my keys combinations.
  2. PureText* (Strips away formating when you paste using Winkey-V) As there is no install,
    1. Copy to the directory of your choice
    2. Start the program and it will appear as a PT icon on your system tray
    3. Right click the icon and choose options
    4. Check the box to "Automatically run PureText each time...."
  3. Araxis Merge 64-bit - Best diff tool I have ever found. (disable Ribbon Interface, check do not show splash window, add folder filter to ignore .svn folders and make the default encoding UTF-8 No BOM). DetalWalker looks promising and cheaper.
  4. 7-Zip - I am starting to use this now as my primary compression software (even over WinRar).
  5. WinRar 64-bit - better than winzip (does all the same stuff with zip files) plus allows you to create self-extracting splittable files and has a superior compression format called rar.
  6. VMWare Workstation - allows you to virtualize operating systems. If you do not know what this means you are missing out.
    1. I map the host apps and vmdata folder and then generate c:\apps\ and c:\vmdata\ symbolic link using,
      1. mklink /D C:\apps Z:\apps
      2. mklink /D C:\data-vmshared Z:\data-vmshared
  7. RamDisk* - Use some of your memory as a hard disk to speed things up. Currently using 3.5.10 RC20. On very first use I create C:\RAMDisk.img with my temp folders setup, save it and then uncheck "Save Disk Image on Shutdown".

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ExpandDrive (create a map drive over SSH for easy development). ExpandDrive hands down is the best tool I found yet for Windows.

Browsers

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  1. Firefox 3.x US version for compatibility + plugins, 
    1. TextMarker Go - Does not work with FF 8. Now my new favourite highlighter that works with Firefox 7. Additional features F2 to jump to next highlight is also nice. Change colour using CTRL or SHIFT. F12 to use keyboard to highlight.
    2. Highlighter by Terry Yen - My favourite highlighter but it no longer works with Firefox 3.6.3. Update, the latest working version is now at http://netticat.ath.cx/MyAddons/MyAddons.htm
    3. Highlighter TexMarker Go - The simplest alternative I found (I don't like the other ones that might slow down my system
    4. MM3-ProxySwitch - Simple UI for switching proxies but still a bit too complicated for novices.
      1. After install Right click on white space beside the help and choose Customize
      2. Scroll down and look for the mm3 icon
      3. Drag icon to where you want on the browser, I put it on the right of my address bar
    5. Spell checking in forms will only be enabled unless if you have a dictionary. Right-click on a form field and Add Dictionaries...
    6. Disable anti-virus scanning on downloads
      1. about:config
      2. browser.download.manager.scanWhenDone
    7. New Tab Homepage - show homepage on new tab create.
    8. English Canadian dictionary or whatever dictionary you want and change it to the default.
  2. Firefox 5.x (all above plugins are compatible with the exceptions listed below),
    1. TextMarker! - Similar to Highlighter, but as of 0.3.4 missing features for printing and saving with highlights. Still, it is at least up to date.
  3. Chrome
    1. Proxy Switch! - Quick proxy switcher and because Chrome shares proxy settings with IE using this more often then Proxy Switcher.
    2. Control cache folder via command switch "...chrome.exe" --disk-cache-dir="CACHE_DIR" --disk-cache-size=N
  4. TCP View (Systernal utility to watch all open connections, good for network troubleshooting).
  5. Proxy Switcher Lite - only free decent utility to quickly proxy switch in IE. Not too happy with it though.

Video Conferencing

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Networking

LAN Speed Test v2.0* - Simplest tool to measure your network speed.

Developer Utilities

General

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