February 6th, 2008

A dozen free & essential apps for Windows

Posted by George Ou @ 4:07 am

Categories: Security, Vista, Desktop, VoIP, Microsoft, Build it yourself

Tags: Application, DivXNetworks, Antivirus, Dr., Codec, Microsoft Windows Vista, Skype Technologies S.A., Computer, FastStone, Productivity

Every time I build a new Windows computer, there are a dozen free and essential applications that I always install for other people. These applications all seem to fill essential functions and they all seem to be well-behaved installers and uninstallers, in other words it won’t crash your computer or drag it down with gunk. Since they’ve served me so well, I thought I’d compile the list here and share them with you. Without spending a dime of your hard earned money on software, you can now make the most of your computer.

	Image Gallery: I’ve created a gallery of screen shots of these 12 free Windows tools.

uTorrent - This is the BitTorrent client that is a must have for anyone who wants an effective file sharing application that allows you to download large files. It was developed by a lone old-school programmer Ludvig Strigeus who wrote a BitTorrent client in a few hundred kilobytes (yes, that’s not a typo) which is a real pleasant surprise in this age of bloated Java applications with 100 MB memory footprints. It was bought out by BitTorrent Corporation which raised some concerns among the user base but the client has retained all of its functionality and the new owners have done a good job of maintaining it.

Skype - This is another killer-app for the modern personal computer. If you haven’t already heard of it and installed it, go get it. It’s the first and one of the few VoIP applications on the market that “just works”. Couple it with a good analog microphone or something like the Polycom Communicator and you will be able to send superb wideband audio which is amazing compared to the normal narrow band audio you get on a telephone. If you add Whiteboard Meeting which has a free limited version, you now have a mission critical business collaboration application.

Add a Logitech Quickcam Pro 9000, Quickcam Pro for Notebooks, or Quickcam Orbit AF for as little at $80 for the first two models and you have yourself a very high-quality 640×480 video conferencing solution. Skype’s HQ (High Quality) video conferencing is something you just have to see to believe. The only downside to the HQ mode is that Skype does not support IEEE 1394 camcorders so you have to buy those Logitech webcams if you want the HQ mode. The camcorder supporter would have allowed much longer zoom for use in the living room but unfortunately they don’t have that feature yet. Also note that you need a minimal of 384 kbps uploads to maintain HQ mode.

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