Picking up the meme from Jeff who got it from Frugal for Life, here is the free software I use everyday:
- Emacs. Bar none, this is the most useful computer program I have ever used. I use it for statistics analysis, webpage development, computer programming, calendaring, email, Bible study, network administration, and more. Mine is customized to the gills. Runs on all modern platforms (including my big three, Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux).
- Firefox. King of all web browsers, and the reason why I don’t worry too much about spyware and so forth on my Windows systems. Useful extensions include the Google Toolbar, Adblock Plus, and the Sage RSS reader.
- OpenSSH and/or PuTTY. I have to administer Unix systems, and this is how I do it. I nearly always have a terminal window open to somewhere. At home I do this to connect to the Linux systems in the house that provide the backbone of my home network.
- Audacity, LAME, SoX. Audio multitrack editor, MP3 encoder, and all-purpose sound tool respectively. I use these mostly for managing recorded sermons and teachings for church.
- Palm Bible+. Incredibly featureful Bible software for the Palm Pilot, especially considering the fact that it’s free. I loaded a copy of the NASB77 into it and look something up nearly every day (but Sunday, when I’ve usually got a text Bible handy, and even then it’s handy for looking up Hebrew, Greek, or a word search).
- Weasel and JMakeZTxt. Text reader and text converter for Palm OS. It can directly download and convert Project Gutenberg files.
- NeoOffice. OpenOffice.org plus Java and native bindings to make it work seamlessly in Mac OS X. It’s slow but it works and I didn’t have to pay for it.
- WordPress. That’s the software that runs this weblog. There aren’t too many things left that WordPress doesn’t do as far as managing a simple website goes.
- NcFTP. Most useful command-line FTP client in the world, although the FTP in the free BSDs has been giving it a run for its money for some time.
- PasswordSafe. Bruce Schneier was originally behind this one. Very handy, although a little feature-limited compared to non-free software.
OK, now for software I use everyday that isn’t actually free (as in speech) but is gratis (that is, I didn’t have to pay for it):
- BCF Assistant. Windows software with the 1677/1689 Second London Baptist Confession of Faith and references built-in.
- iTunes. No big surprise there, right?
Oddly enough I can’t think of anything else at the moment. I purposely didn’t count free operating systems or free programming languages, although Perl, Python, and PHP get daily use by me, and certainly Linux is the number-one free operating system and one on which I absolutely rely.
13 Comments
In addition to some of the ones you mentioned (e.g., Firefox, OpenOffice), I’ll note that I use the free edition of AVG anti-virus as well as Ad-Aware and Spybot Search and Destroy, and Zone Alarm’s free version. But they’re only because I have to have some form of protection, not because I like them or anything. Windows machines sure are high maintenance! I really need to go back to a Mac. I also find Google Earth and IRCFree super cool and handy, but I don’t use them every day.
BTW, I noticed that our comments are automatically posted now, without moderation. Did you do or enable that? If so, wow, cool! Thanks.
Regarding moderation, I set WordPress to allow a person’s comments if they’ve been allowed in the past, and send them to moderation if they haven’t been. So everybody passes through a one-time approval and then that’s that.
This is a test.
I am just putting two newlines between each paragraph here.
Didn’t work.
Now let’s try p tags.
OK, why did that work?
Now let’s try this: just a closing p tag here:
And an opening one here. Hm.
Can I just officially say that I hate WordPress’s comment functionality (or lack thereof)?
Does a regular br tag work?Re: PalmBible+–I actually had it for awhile, but when I went back and did a bit of research, it appeared to me that the NA26 & RSV texts are actually being used without permission. Stinks, I know, but I quit using it b/c of that.
And no, BR tag does not work.
I never promised anything about the BR tag. *smiles*
Regarding the NA26… oh. I believe in copyright (well, I believe in a person’s right to decide what people can and can’t do with his work, within reason), so I will have to check into that. But one doesn’t have to use those texts to use PalmBible+. (Unfortunately NA26 is one of the major reasons I use it.)
The BR tag should work now.
For future comments, that is.
Thanks Charlie!