thechangelab.com

Useful Software

Useful as in having some practical, meaningful use.Reality is harsh. Most software simply doesn’t fall into this category. And that includes operating systems. Of course, the term “useful” can be very subjective. Some of us adore eye candy. Some of us hate it. Some of us prefer a command line. Some of us wouldn’t know what to do with it.What follows is a list of some software – in no particular order – that I’ve found useful. Stuff I’d have a hard time living without. First off, this short list is limited by the fact that, I’m basically a Linux and Windows user. (Getting a handle on OpenSolaris and the BSD’s are on my to do list. OS X – when I have some cash to burn.) Also, I’m no graphic designer, professional sysadmin nor programmer.

I’ve also excluded OS’s, distros, web browsers, email readers and servers. They tend to be covered far too well, if not, unendingly. I should also mention that I’m not a gamer. (Yes, I can hear the ghasts.)

Midnight Commander

category: unix
I first started using this file manager/editor after my first install of Slackware. I was having some trouble navigating the filesystem as a newbie and using simple commands like copy or mv. Well, this one truly saved saved my ass. Even now, it’s hard to live without. A CLI file manager with two vertical panes. Very simple and powerful. Lets you do all your copy, mv, editing, etc. While, apparently, there are some issues with editing javascript, it works well whether you’re editing a simple file or html. Even better, it has a read-only viewer that can render html files. Finally, you have a small space at the bottom for those shell commands. Of course, if I had more patience, I’d be doing something with Vi or Emacs for my editing.

OpenSSH

category: unix
This is an exception since, it’s both a client and a server. Plus, I think it’s worth mentioning. This is THE ONE. If you don’t know about it and still telnet sans ssl, you deserve whatever DoS or script kiddie attack you get. OpenSSH comes from the team at OpenBSD. These are the people who know to write secure code. Security is number one for them.

OpenSSH lets you:

• do command line functions over an unsecure wire – namely the Internet or your wireless connection.
• copy files between hosts, if FTP just isn’t safe enough for you.
• tunneling other applications through it -> my favourite being TightVNC.

If you must use a Windows box to communicate with a ‘nix one to issue commands, download a free copy of Putty and ssh away.

Mplayer and codecs

category: namely unix
Ever wanted to play audio and video files on the command line via a framebuffer? (It even comes with a gui, if you don’t like that blinking cursor.) Sick of trying to play the annoying range of file formats that only seem available to Windows or OS X? Welcome to THE audio/video player. I won’t list all the possible options you can pass off to this package as they are too numerous to mention. Nor am I going to go into the legalities of the codecs. Just check it out here. Personally, I use the one courtesy of Christian Marillat’s Debian package here.

ncftp

category: unix
Once long ago, I read my first few articles about the advantages of using a CLI over a GUI interface. This lightweight ftp client, besides mc, became the best example of this concept for me. Bookmarks, saved passwords, and my all time favourite: tab completion in both remote and local directories. And of course the point is that, IT’S FAST. However, if you’re stuck with Windows, try Filezilla.

TightVNC

category: unix, Windows
Though I already mentioned this one, it deserves a special place here since there are both unix and Windows versions.TightVNC does that remote desktop function.

While you’re stuck with serving up one desktop for the Windows version, the unix one scoffs at such limits. For example, while there is no desktop running on my ‘nix box, by running “tightvncserver,” I can get one served on TCP port 5901. Need another for a different user? They issue the same command under that user’s shell, and it runs on 5902. This way you don’t have to enable X11 forwarding over an insecure channel. Use the TightVNC viewer to login to the correct port with the user’s vnc password and voila. Also, if you don’t have the viewer, you can even use a java-enabled web browser. There’s more, but suffice to say you can access multiple desktops on one box. I’ve used it from over a LAN and even a dial-up connection.
Note: TightVNC is a fork of RealVNC.
Note: while the user name and password sent to login is encrypted, the rest of the traffic isn’t.

NoteTab Light

category: Windows
This lightweight editor is the freeware version of NoteTab from Fookes Software. It’s beauty lies in its ability to replace your notepad.exe It’s not only an editor of text files, etc., but html, php, etc… It’s tabbed at the top and bottom. Top tabs are for all the stuff you’re looking at and/or working on, just like in Firefox. The bottom tabs changes a vertical toolbar pane on the left for quick links to stuff like HTML or CSS1. (It IS the freeware version…) It has a preview in web browser function. You can also set it to reopen all the files you were working on the last time it ran. There’re lots of other things that you can customize too, including tools and templates. Some prefer the power of Dreamweaver, Quanta, or Bluefish. But if you’re doing something simple and don’t need that design view… It’s a quick way to code something, like this article. Incidentally, it’s never crashed on me.

Microsoft Excel (MS Office 2000 version)

category: Windows
I hate to say it but, yes. Excel still lives on my Windows machines. Even if I hardly ever run Word or Outlook, Excel has been my mainstay. Of course there are lots of open source replacements out there but… for some reason I continue to use it. Crucify me later.

Nero Ultra

category: Windows
My first experience with burning was with an external USB cd writer. An HP 8200 that came with some rather unuseful software. It couldn’t even burn ISO’s. The old EasyCD Creator came after that. Finally, I got a copy of Nero. Actually, it was Nero Express in an OEM bundle. Something that handled a variety of disc image formats and discs to be burned. The current full version has it all: from burning your backups to video/audio editing and authoring. Of course it’d also be nice to see someone come up with something like K3b for Windows.

ClamWin

category: Windows
If you use Windows like I do, you take extra precautions. (Never been infected so far and don’t plan on it anytime soon.) You try to keep your box as safe as you possibly can without crippling it. Unfortunately, we all don’t have current generation machines. That is to say, we may not exactly have a Ferrari engine under the hood. Mine feels like an old, second-hand station wagon sometimes. This is why most commercial anti-virus products are simply too much. That’s why lightweight is important sometimes. It doesn’t have features like on-access scanning, i.e. you have to manually scan or schedule scans of files. What sets this one apart though is that it’s the Windows version of the ‘nix one ClamAV. Open source and constantly kept up to date. It can integrate into your Windows context menu and MS Outlook 97/2000.

Bittorrent

category: unix, Windows
Yes the one and only. There are many clients based on the original. Most of us have used some version of it since it first started. At first, I could never get my head around the .torrent files, as I was so used to the old and seemingly simple winmx. Nowadays, I stick w/utorrent for Windows and qtorrent for ‘nix. My friend though, swears by Transmission for OS X. As he puts it, runs 24×7 on his Mac.

– toshiya