Author Topic: Top programs that you should have!  (Read 623 times)

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xboi209

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Top programs that you should have!
« on: April 07, 2012, 10:42:44 am »
Many of us use our computers to do a variety of things, wither it be watching a video on Youtube or chatting with your friends on Facebook. You may run into some computer problems here and there and maybe need some enhancements to your computer. Today I'll be covering the top programs that you should have on your computer.

1) Google Chrome - https://www.google.com/chrome
Internet Explorer 8 and below is off track for today's internet browser standards. Many of us are STILL on Windows XP for a couple of good reasons and Internet Explorer 9 does NOT support Windows XP unfortunately.
Firefox users know that the best advantage they have over Chrome is their large community of plug-ins, extensions, and themes. Chrome is currently trying to be on par with Firefox on that situation, there's already built-in support for user scripts(no need for greasemonkey) and more.
As many of us heard already, Chrome is the fastest web browser available. It caches many things on a website, basically it downloads things like scripts and images that you see on a website and it will reuse it again when you come back to that website, so it stops you from unnecessarily downloading things over and over again, saving you bandwidth too!
HTML5 is increasingly being used by web developers, however there isn't a single web browser that fully supports it. Chrome however currently has the BEST HTML5 support, making it a preferred choice by web developers.
It also has 2 features that's hard to miss out on: Built-in Adobe Flash and PDF Viewer. Those 2 features are a great advantage to using Chrome especially since many websites use Flash. Another thing about Chrome is its security. Google Chrome is mostly open-sourced by now so the techy guys can look on the inside to see any security holes. Surprisingly, Google PAYS hackers to find security flaws and exploit it, further helping Chrome's security.

2) CCleaner - http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/download/standard
CCleaner is a program that many people appreciate, it's simple and easy to use. But what is it you may ask? Hopefully you guessed it, it cleans your computer! If you read above about Chrome, it caches many things on a website. Thing is however, you may probably visit a website a couple times to read an article or something then forget about it. That cache continually adds up and can even reach above 1 GB in size. Your computer has lots of junk on it too. CCleaner does the job to remove all of this junk.
It also has a feature to clean your registry which helps your computer go a bit faster.

3) 7-Zip - http://www.7-zip.org/
Many files are compressed into 1 file so that users don't have to install a program but they can extract multiple files from 1 big file and it decreases file size so that the user won't have to wait so long to download something than if it weren't compressed.7-Zip easily does the job and can open many different file formats just like Winrar and even has its own compression format, .7zip which is proven to be better than .zip and .rar formats.

4) MBAM - http://download.cnet.com/Malwarebytes-Anti-Malware/3000-8022_4-10804572.html?part=dl-10804572&subj=dl&tag=button
I'm pretty sure many of us has had a virus, malware, or some sort of malicious program on your computer one time. Some viruses and malware creators have been smart enough to disable anti-virus programs so that leaves you in a situation to bring your computer to a professional which will cost money or reinstall your computer. These things are scary, you forgot to back up your files, you let your siblings on the computer, or maybe you just carelessly downloaded stuff. It just happens, luckily there's an anti-malware program called MBAM. It's highly recommended among many people because it simply does better at detecting and removing malware from your computer versus anti virus programs. In my experience, it seems that updates roll out hourly which makes me feel confident that the developers are hard at work to bring us security. This is something I highly recommend and it's worth paying for the paid version that has real-time protection and more.

5) VLC Media Player - http://www.videolan.org/vlc/
Many people are missing out on a program called VLC Media Player. You may of just used the built-in software such as Windows Media Player to watch videos and such. The problem with Windows Media Player is that it supports a limited amount of codecs and formats. VLC Media Player is far superior to other programs and is free as well! It can play so many different video and music formats and codecs that it feels like there isn't any competition. It has features like playing videos in 16:9 ratio when the video wasn't widescreen. Other great features is that it can convert videos to different formats and it can stream videos off the web. It can play almost any media and that's what I like the most! It's open source and plays on a large variety of OSs(http://www.videolan.org/vlc/#download look at all of that!).

6) JDownloader - http://jdownloader.org/download/index
Description to be added...

7) GIMP - http://www.gimp.org/downloads/
Description to be added...

8) Notepad++ - http://notepad-plus-plus.org/download/v6.0.html
Description to be added...
« Last Edit: April 07, 2012, 12:22:13 pm by xboi209 »

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Chiprocks1

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Re: Top programs that you should have!
« Reply #1 on: April 07, 2012, 11:02:32 am »
I use Chrome exclusively. I haven't used Explorer in about 6-7 years. Hated it. FireFox does have some cool features, but it became such a CPU Hog that I bailed on it a few months ago.

CCleaner is great for cleaning up my PC, which I do at least once a week. More if I need it. The fact that it's free is even better.

I use Malwarebytes and I've never had any issues. It's always been pretty good at getting all that  s h i t  taken care of for me.

GIMP is a fantastic alternative to Photoshop and it's free. But I work in Graphic Arts and Design and use Photoshop as my go to program since I need a lot of the specialty tools that PS offers that GIMP does not. But for those that are on a budget, you absolutely can't go wrong with GIMP.

Thanks Xboi for all the suggestions. Very informative.
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xboi209

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Re: Top programs that you should have!
« Reply #2 on: April 07, 2012, 12:20:42 pm »
All of these programs are free as well with MBAM having a paid version option.

Chiprocks1

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Re: Top programs that you should have!
« Reply #3 on: April 07, 2012, 12:32:31 pm »
Definitely gonna look into MBAM.
Chip's Rockin' Art
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Chiprocks1

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Re: Top programs that you should have!
« Reply #4 on: April 08, 2012, 08:35:52 am »
The first time I ever used CCleaner and did Analyze, I couldn't believe how much  s h i t  I had clogging up my PC. Believe it or not it was 99 GB's of useless garbage. On average of every few days I get anywhere from 1-2 GB. The stuff piles up pretty damn fast.
Chip's Rockin' Art
Michael Scott To Meredith: "You've slept with so many men, your starting to look like one. BOOM! Roasted! Go here.

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Re: Top programs that you should have!
« Reply #5 on: April 08, 2012, 08:53:30 am »
Thanks for this stuff. I'll look into them.
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Re: Top programs that you should have!
« Reply #6 on: September 16, 2013, 01:10:17 pm »
So I'm needing a graphic's software program. I'm just now remembering this thread. I don't recall GIMP at all.

But I seem to remember you talking about some other software... Maybe a vector graphic software or something?

I just need to manipulate pictures to some degree. Also work with fonts.

I use to own PaintShop Pro years ago.... can't find it now.
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Chiprocks1

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Re: Top programs that you should have!
« Reply #7 on: September 16, 2013, 01:19:52 pm »
If you're on a budget (i.e. free)...

GIMP for Image manipulation

Inkscape for Vector based projects

Both are great programs and ones that I personally use from time to time.

If you're rich (i.e. give me some f*cking money you b*tch!!)....

Photoshop for Image manipulation

Illustrator for Vector based projects
Chip's Rockin' Art
Michael Scott To Meredith: "You've slept with so many men, your starting to look like one. BOOM! Roasted! Go here.

Neumatic

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Re: Top programs that you should have!
« Reply #8 on: September 16, 2013, 09:40:15 pm »
I don't know if Writeroom is still available (I downloaded mine YEARS ago) but it's a great text-writing program that turns your whole screen black and then it's just you and your typing.  In native green.  The first few months I had it, I kept instinctively typing in "would you like to play a game?" in before I did anything (I use Monaco as the font in that program but VT100 looks so much more "accurate").

Chiprocks1

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Re: Top programs that you should have!
« Reply #9 on: September 16, 2013, 09:44:52 pm »
Never heard of it till now.
Chip's Rockin' Art
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Neumatic

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Re: Top programs that you should have!
« Reply #10 on: September 17, 2013, 01:49:26 am »
It's not very well known (like I said, might not even be around anymore) but it's mostly a textedit-based thing that frees you up from any distractions.

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Re: Top programs that you should have!
« Reply #11 on: March 02, 2014, 11:07:17 am »
Where can I get Photoshop for free?

An old copy is fine.

I just have some minimal stuff I wanna do. I see all kinds of great instructional video's with regards to Photoshop.

I do have GIMP and Inkscape, but not sure there are good tutorials out there.
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Chiprocks1

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Re: Top programs that you should have!
« Reply #12 on: March 02, 2014, 11:20:06 am »
Not sure if the older versions will even work on the newer OS. As far as free goes, there isn't any such thing. But they do have Basic or Lite versions that are really cheap. Well, cheaper when compared to the Full versions. I remember Staples having a few of these on their shelves a while back.
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Re: Top programs that you should have!
« Reply #13 on: March 02, 2014, 04:31:03 pm »
Hmmmm. Thanks.
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