Software
December 31st, 2009
This page contains a list of software that I personally use, have used or recommend. Note that any issues that you may have as a result of using or attempting to use this software are NOT my responsibility! If you have used some interesting or good (and preferably free) software that you think would look good in this list then please feel free to let me know via the comments section at the bottom of this page.
Operating Systems
An operating system is what you load when you turn the computer on (normally Windows…).
There are loads of free operating systems that you can choose from, normally based around
Linus Torvald’s Linux Kernel. My favourite versions of Linux are as follows:
- Ubuntu – Ubuntu is the most “user-friendly” & popular version of Linux available.
- Fedora – Another easy to use version of Linux.
- OpenSuse – A nice looking and popular Linux distro.
Office Software
- OpenOffice – A FREE Office Suite that does pretty much everything Microsoft Office does…and just as well!
- The GIMP – A picture editing tool that is comparable with Adobe Photoshop.
- Freemind – A Mind-Mapping tool with reams of functionality
- Notepad++ – A nice replacement for the Windows Notepad utility, incidentally, what this website was written in…
- Firefox – The BEST web browser around.
- Thunderbird – It’s free, it’s fantastic. It’s the best available!
Entertainment/Media Software
- Amarok – A really cool Music player (no video on this one) for Linux – but in October, there is a Windows-based release too….take a look.
- VLC – The VideoLan Media Player can play pretty much anything (I’ve yet to find a format that it can’t play)…Try it!!
Security Software
- Avira Anti-Virus – A free anti-virus tool. Works nicely. One of the highly recommended free virus tools according to online reviews
- Avast! Anti-Virus – Another free anti-virus tool. Also one of the highly recommended free virus tools as above.
- Comodo Personal Firewall – A free Firewall tool. One of (if not the) most highly recommended firewall tools according to online reviews.
- Zone Alarm – As above!
Software Development Tools
- MySQL – A nice Relational Database Management System that I use in software I develop
- Subversion – An Open Source Version Control System – I use it at home, at work and I know it’s used in industry too!
- TortoiseSVN – A Subversion client for Windows that works within Windows Explorer
- AnkhSVN – A Subversion plugin for Visual Studio (works with VS 2005 and perhaps 2008)
- VisualSVN – A nice graphical utility for managing subversion repositories.
- Trac – Is a web-based project management/bug tracking application, easy to configure, easy to use. Like SVN, used at home, work and in industry.
February 20th, 2010 at 2:02 am
Great article. There’s a lot of good information here, though I did want to let you know something – I am running Ubuntu with the up-to-date beta of Firefox, and the design of your blog is kind of funky for me. I can read the articles, but the navigation doesn’t function so great.
February 26th, 2010 at 6:19 pm
Hi, maybe i’m being a little off topic here, but I was browsing your site and it looks exceptional. I’m making a blog and trying to make it look neat, but everytime I touch it I mess something up. Did you design the blog yourself? Could someone with little experience do it, and add updates without messing it up? Anyways, good information on here, very useful.
March 10th, 2010 at 10:59 am
My web host provided a plethora of different content platforms that I could install to my webspace. WordPress – the platform this site is built on, is free and easy to install and use, and makes things look quite neat. Plus the admin stuff at the backend is great. Try it at wordpress.org
March 10th, 2010 at 11:02 am
Maria – I’ll try and fix it – I’ve not got Ubuntu installed myself at the moment but I will shortly, then I’ll check it out.