List of Useful and Free Software v2

[Quintillus]

It surprises me that Apple didn't patent it.

I don't think Apple invented it. This seems to be a variation on X-Mouse, which was an option in Windows 95, and I'm pretty sure was around on Unix for some time before that.

I'm also mildly interested in The_J's calendar question. I was looking into that several months ago, and didn't find anything better than Outlook or Sunbird.

 

[Takhisis]

Why don't you use one of those, um, square on things on, erm… I think it's called paper. It's, like, those things that you put into printers that come out with letter on them, but they already have stuff written on them.

 

[Zelig]

I use Outlook, I'm not sure what the problem is?

Otherwise Google Calendar for Windows Client is alright.

I'm automatically writing off any non cloud-connected calendar apps as worthless.

 

[The_J]

I'm going to say "No", due to principle (and nothing more, because I don't want to have a political discussion ^^).
I saw this http://www.ccalendar.net/ on Sunday evening, but haven't tested it yet.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

For a calendar, you might want to check out Chaos Manager. Its also got a contact manager and a notebook and such.

If you're in need of a dual-pane file manager, check out tabbyFile. Not much in the way of features, but its lightweight and works pretty well.

And not free, but for Christmas I went ahead and bought a license for LinkStash. Standalone (offline) bookmark manager; for me, it was very much well worth the money. Other people might prefer something cloudy though.

Also, the Pale Moon browser. Its great.

 

[Loppan Torkel]

I've started looking for an Iphone app that lets me take notes easily. Not for sharing, organizing or anything. Just for taking a note, for example for shopping, and delete it after I'm done. One click to start the app and then be able to write what I want. Like in notepad, texteditor or similar. There should be a free app like this... Anyone know one?

Edit: I think I found one: abc Notes Lite seems to be suitable.

 

[Zelig]

I particularly like OneNote.

For my regular shopping I use a note that I type up on my PC, which syncs to my phone. I check off items as I buy them on my phone, and then next time I'm writing a new shopping list I just write it over the old one on my PC.

 

[Quintillus]

For a calendar, you might want to check out Chaos Manager. Its also got a contact manager and a notebook and such.

That does look like a fairly good, straightforward calendar program. Although in the interim my e-mail provider came out with an online calendar that's also pretty slick. Both appear to be decent options for the sort of intermittent "planning to go to such and such one-time event in 3 weeks" type of thing I'd use them for.

I'm surprised the iPhone doesn't come with a notes program by default. I've never had a dumbphone that didn't come with a notes program, so I figured that, like alarm clocks, it was a default for both dumbphones and smartphones. The one on my dumbphone works quite similarly to Notepad, and I have indeed used it for shopping lists in the past, though I've also used paper for that purpose and neither is clearly superior.

We seem to be lacking useful and free software lately. So I'll mention one that I've found useful - MyPhoneExplorer. It lets you sync information between your dumbphone (and, according to the website, Android phone) and your computer, so you can back up contacts, text messages, photos, pretty much whatever you want. Pretty convenient, too.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

VistaSwitcher makes a slightly nicer-looking alt+tab dialog (at least in my opinion). It also supports multiple monitors.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Just tested Xinorbis, which is a hard disk analyzer. So far I like it - so it's a keeper.

 

[Ron Starc]

FTP Manager Lite is a better freeware FTP and SFTP client software. The clean interface is super easy to use. It will perform your files transfers quickly and efficiently. One of the best freeware FTP clients that also supports FXP.

 

[IglooDame]

I particularly like OneNote.

For my regular shopping I use a note that I type up on my PC, which syncs to my phone. I check off items as I buy them on my phone, and then next time I'm writing a new shopping list I just write it over the old one on my PC.

I've been using Evernote in an identical way, and can recommend it.

 

[caketastydelish]

How do you turn off perspective zoom on an iPod 5th gen with the latest OS/update installed? The tutorials online are not helping; their instructions seem to be obsolete.

 

[Samson]

Bellingcat have created/linked a load of social media and web network analysis tools. Useful if you want to analyse someone, worth knowing about if you post on social media.

Examples:

Socnet Dynamic Image Search, developed by the developer Ulysses, is a tool for identifying VK social media accounts of interest. The tool generates a social network by scraping the profile of a specified VK account and that account’s friends and friends of friends. It then uses OpenAI’s clip model to allow users to search for accounts within that network that posted pictures matching a given phrase, for example “soldier” or “flag”. Judges liked how well the image search worked, and the clear applicability of the tool to open-source investigations involving the Russian-language internet. This tool could be used if a researcher has a VK account of a Russian soldier and wants to find the accounts of other soldiers associated with them.

Graphinator, developed by Alex Trefilov, is a tool for creating network graphs. It allows users to add, edit, and remove nodes, export the graph visualisation and expand the graph using built-in scraping modules, including a Twitter scraper.

Sugartrail, developed by Sean Greaves, is an interface to the UK business registry, Companies House, that allows users to find companies and individuals that are connected in various ways, for example companies with the same individual on their board or companies registered to the same address.