Can anyone comment on the value of truecrypt encryption? If I set a 15 character password with random numbers/letters, how long would it take to decrypt the drive at minimum?
I've got a little windows utility called "open". If I'm in a dos box and want to open a windows explorer instance in the current directory, I just type "open .". It globs too, so if I'd like to view all the pdf files in the current directory, I can "open *.pdf". I use it all the time.
NTP has been ported to windows, and I run it on all my machines.
rsync, of course.
NSIS for building install programs. Maybe there's something better out there--I haven't looked in a while.
Why is VMWare and Beyond Compare listed as shareware? VMWare Player is free, but not Workstation. And I doubt Server is either (haven't looked). Beyond Compare is great, but it costs $30.
I spend most of my time in a tiling window manager in linux and I'd go insane without some half-decent tiling support. GridMove isn't perfect, but its enough to keep me happy when I use Windows outside of gaming (where I obviously don't need tiling) or running Visual Studio (which I run in full screen, so also don't need tiling).
It's worth noting that Windows 7 obsoletes a bunch of those utilities:
TrueCrypt - Bitlocker comes with it
Locate32 - Indexed search is now built-in
Launchy - Start menu now defaults to search
DUMeter - Part of the Task Manager
Taskbar Shuffle - Finally possible directly in windows
Honestly, I haven't even tried anything else because I'm just so used to HotChime. I've been using it for 7-8 years now and can't work without it. I know it's not polite to toot your own horn but I would have said this about HotChime regardless of who wrote it. While I can't compare it to Launchy or others, I can tell you how HotChime works.
No matter which app you're in, press [pause] and type anything. If it has a space character in it, it will Google it. Otherwise, it will launch default browser to www.[whatyoutyped].com. If you have predefined [whatyoutyped] to something else, it will open that (website, file, folder). I have HN mapped to 'h', Slashdot mapped to '/.' (literally) and my local weather to 'w'. You can also setup custom %s searches for F1-F5 key. I have F2 = Wikipedia (mapped to chir.ag/wiki/%s e.g. http://chir.ag/wiki/hacker ), F3 = Dictionary, F4 = Thesaurus, F5 = PHP manual.
It's not that useful for average users but for powerusers/keyboard-types, it works great. Also, it's a single 37kb exe, no install/uninstall. Do realize that I wrote this in 2003, long before every browser had a search box and before Google had maps/local-searching. Yahoo was the first browser with zip-code searching. If I made a new version, I would add lots of small features like built-in calculator, suggest, file-browsing etc. But for now it works well for me.
Sounds nothing like Launchy. Launchy searches for apps of similar names as what you searched, and ranks them in order of usage. Makes the Start Menu obsolete.
Your app sounds not quite as good as mapping your browser's address bar to I'm Feeling Lucky.
1. Notepad++ (though I'm almost 100% Emacs at this point)
2. Filezilla
3. imo.im client (because I need Skype for work, but the latest client does Bad Things with MS Office 2007)
4. Cygwin
5. PowerShell
6. Paint.NET
7. Wireshark
8. SysInternals Process Explorer
9. Reflector
It's rare that I use Windows these days, but Crimson Editor, AVG, Malwarebytes, Digsby, Launchy, TinyGrab, PuTTy, WinSCP, Winamp Classic, VLC.... then there's a lot of everyday, non-windows specific (not that everything in the previous list is) stuff that I use, like git, Skype, FF, Photoshop & Illustrator, etc.
If you can get over that it's made by Microsoft, Windows Security Essentials is free and IMO better than AVG. I also saw somewhere that it outperforms it but I don't recall the source.
Cool, thanks for the tip. I don't have a problem with "made by Microsoft" I'd just always used AVG, had never had any problems with it, so hadn't bothered to switch to anything else.
I recently wrote this up after switching back to Windows from OS X--it's mostly a bunch of apps that mimic Mac functionality (Expose, etc), but also some useful generic utilities linked:
I've found that the windows key + start typing is pretty nice in Win 7, removes the need for many other utilities.
1. Display Fusion (In UltraMon the font on task bars in my 2nd and 3rd monitor is unreadable)
2. Ditto - clipboard manager (free, open source )
3. Used so be Foxit Reader, now it's Sumatra PDF
4. Used to use Foxit's ifilter for searching PDF's but now I see it's commercial: http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/ifilter/
72 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 144 ms ] threadI can't think of any identifiable group of users for whom this list can be the list of must-haves..
what.
NTP has been ported to windows, and I run it on all my machines.
rsync, of course.
NSIS for building install programs. Maybe there's something better out there--I haven't looked in a while.
I'm still on the fence about dropbox...maybe.
Under cygwin, I'd do this for an equivalent to what you describe as 'open':
cygstart is much the same as cmd start, except it understands Cygwin paths.Almost forgot about another one--I still use some of the MS powertoys.
WTF
LOL
Beyond Compare - I have yet to find a comparison tool which is as versatile as Beyond Compare.
ClipX - It will change your life! :)
Vim - Can't live without it.
The PrtSc key on your keyboard does the same. Fire up MS Paint and paste into it :-D
Is SFTP bad? I have problems with WinSCP using SCP all the time I don't have with the same app using SFTP.
Example, if you're wondering: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-general-1/scp-...
Probably the best $30 I ever spent on software, given how many many times I use it per day.
I spend most of my time in a tiling window manager in linux and I'd go insane without some half-decent tiling support. GridMove isn't perfect, but its enough to keep me happy when I use Windows outside of gaming (where I obviously don't need tiling) or running Visual Studio (which I run in full screen, so also don't need tiling).
TrueCrypt - Bitlocker comes with it Locate32 - Indexed search is now built-in Launchy - Start menu now defaults to search DUMeter - Part of the Task Manager Taskbar Shuffle - Finally possible directly in windows
Windows apps I can't live without in order of importance:
1. StrokeIt
2. HotChime (disclaimer: I wrote it)
3. EmEditor (text-ed of choice)
4. Popular stuff: Thunderbird, Pidgin, Chrome, FF
5. ChimeNote (disclaimer: I wrote it)
6. FileZilla
7. MySQL Front v2.5 (all other versions suck)
8. UltraVNC
9. PuTTy
10. Paint Shop Pro / Paint.NET (either works)
No matter which app you're in, press [pause] and type anything. If it has a space character in it, it will Google it. Otherwise, it will launch default browser to www.[whatyoutyped].com. If you have predefined [whatyoutyped] to something else, it will open that (website, file, folder). I have HN mapped to 'h', Slashdot mapped to '/.' (literally) and my local weather to 'w'. You can also setup custom %s searches for F1-F5 key. I have F2 = Wikipedia (mapped to chir.ag/wiki/%s e.g. http://chir.ag/wiki/hacker ), F3 = Dictionary, F4 = Thesaurus, F5 = PHP manual.
It's not that useful for average users but for powerusers/keyboard-types, it works great. Also, it's a single 37kb exe, no install/uninstall. Do realize that I wrote this in 2003, long before every browser had a search box and before Google had maps/local-searching. Yahoo was the first browser with zip-code searching. If I made a new version, I would add lots of small features like built-in calculator, suggest, file-browsing etc. But for now it works well for me.
Your app sounds not quite as good as mapping your browser's address bar to I'm Feeling Lucky.
Tableau (hands down the best analytics tool for web traffic)
Balsamiq Mockups (great wireframe software, just like paper/pencil!)
http://www.welton.it/articles/windows_for_linux_users
HarddiskOgg - record music playing from soundcard (eg from grooveshark, youtube) into a file format of choice.
WiFi Hopper - shareware - very accurate overview of wifi points in the area. It shows points that don't appear in other programs.
Spyware Doctor - the most powerful spyware remover
Startup Manager - disable unneeded processes carefully
MediaCoder / ColorPic / GTalk
http://www.matthewwegner.com/switching-back-to-windows/