Great Downloadable Tools
Cool Tools Overview
by Jean Fudge and Tom Staubitz
If you missed the September meeting, here's a review of our discussion about useful and affordable tools available via download from the Web.
| Name | Description | Price | Tom’s Comments |
| Printing | |||
| Fineprint | Print only the web pages you want, in single, two-up, four-up format. Saves paper. | $49.95 | Keeps track of savings so you can tell your boss. |
| Screen Capture | |||
| Hypersnap | Screen capture and text capture with autoscrolling, paste with tab. | $35 | Extremely frequent updates. Immediate bug fixes. |
| Word Processing | |||
| Foxit Reader | PDF document viewer and printer, with incredible small size (only 2.1 M download size), breezing-fast launch speed and amazingly rich feature set. Can convert to simple text file. | Free | While Adobe is showing asplash screen, Foxit opens a 15 MB document open in Foxit. Plus – Adobe runs a Helper in background. |
| Foxit PDF Editor | Edit PDF files without Acrobat. | $99 | Some international fonts – strange. Other than that – perfect. |
| Utilities | |||
| Clip Cache | Clipboard manager. Keeps multiple text and image captures in a file structure you create and manage. Enables boilerplate info for reuse. | 29.95 | Works like Word’s clipboard manager should have. Unlimited, in all applications. |
| Linkstash | Store and organize favorite links with comments, ratings, password, date last visited, etc. Uses color-coding to make bookmarks easy to find. | $19.95 | Works with IE, Firefox, and Opera. |
| Passwords Plus | Stores passwords with several levels of encryption against hacking. Runs in system tray. Groups passwords; clipboard aware. Password-protected. | $29.99 or $32.99 with 10 downloads in 12 months | |
| Graphics | |||
| Irfanview | The ultimate graphic format converter.Re, crop, resample, and change contrast, brightness, color, etc. | Donation 10 Euro | Everyone should have this. |
| Graphic Workshop Pro | Perform Photoshop-compatible edits of graphics. Convert between over 50 popular image formats. | $44.99 | Poor man’s Photoshop. Even uses Photoshop filters. |
| GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) | Photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. Works on many operating systems, in many languages. | Free: open source | Has own Wiki. Maintained by committee–many contributors. |
| GIF Construction Set Pro | Wizard-based animation assembly; creates banners and animated transitions; manages GIF files; adds transparency to existing graphics. | $24.99 | Great for animated GIF work. Companion – Text Effects Pro |
| Advanced GIF Animator | Creates animated GIF images. Duplication, mergers, cropping, re-sizing, rotation and frame flipping. | Free trial, $35 personal, $50 bus | |
| Font Wrangler | Installs/removes TrueType fonts in batches; previews fonts before installing, browses font files; views copyright information; changes font names; prints font "contact sheets." | $24.99 | Works well. For serious font work. |
| Miscellaneous | |||
| Winamp | Improved version of Windows Media Player. | ||
| Filebox eXtender | Navigates through folders with buttons added to file boxes. Accesses favorite/recently visited folders and documents with one mouse click. Adds push-pin button to keep windows on top, and roll-up buttons to hide contents. | Free | Well supported. Works well. Not for Vista. |
| Tucows | Collection of information about freeware, shareware, and software. “5 cow” ratings. | Free | Web site. |
| Gmail | Free email account | ||
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