The NightOwl - Computing - Software TopList

A very fast and compact graphic viewer. IrfanView is innovative, bringing new and/or interesting features

Although the program is packed with features, it attempts to be simple for beginners and powerful for

It supports nearly all graphic file formats, has thumbnail/preview options, batch conversion (with image-

processing options) and it supports all image viewing and browsing functions you need to manage your

Besides all the basic functions, the program can be used to create full-featured Slide shows, and it has

Photo Processing features, Photo Effects and Filters. Included is also a Paint option to draw on images.

Other features are image-capture function, icon-extraction, Unicode support, many hotkeys, command-

Besides all this, IrfanView comes in only one executive-file, it's non-evasive to the system and runs in a

FastStone Image Viewer

A fast, stable, user-friendly image browser, converter and editor. It has a nice array of features that

include image viewing, management, comparison, red-eye removal, emailing, resizing, cropping and color

Its innovative but intuitive full-screen mode provides quick access to EXIF information, thumbnail browser

and major functionalities via hidden toolbars that pop up when your mouse touches the four edges of the

screen. Other features include a high quality magnifier and a musical slideshow with 150+ transitional

effects, as well as lossless JPEG transitions, drop shadow effects, image annotation, scanner support,

- True Full Screen viewer with image zoom support and unique fly-out menu panels

- Image modification tools: Resize/resample, rotate/flip, crop, sharpen/blur, brightness/contrast, etc.

- Image special effects: watermark, annotation, drop shadow, framing, bump map, lens, morph, waves

- Draw texts, lines, highlights, rectangles, ovals and callout objects on images

- Image management, including tagging capability, with drag/drop and Copy To/Move To Folder support

- Compare images side-by-side (up to 4 at a time) to easily cull those forgettable shots

- Configurable batch processing to convert/rename large or small collections of images

- Slideshow creation with 150+ transition effects and music support (MP3, WMA, WAV...)

- Create fully configurable Contact Sheets - just like the pros (and save on ink)

- Create memorable artistic image montages from your photos for personalized desktop wallpapers

- Powerful Save As interface to compare image quality and control generated file size

- A portable version of the program which can be run from a removable storage device

ShoView

A very basic image viewer-browser with build-in slideshow feature.

It can be used to automatically search for graphics sorted by

image-type ; it displays windows icons and cursors as well.

License : FREEWARE

WEBSITE : The NightOwl's Home - Freeware

Photo Processing

PhotoFiltre

An easy to use photo processing and image retouching program with lots of features you

normally only expect in expensive graphic software packages.

The very intuitive interface makes photo-adjustments from simple to advanced done by

a mouse click. Creating photo-frames, setting transparency, advanced text effects and

more can de done in an easy way.

Features include an image browser, plug-in management, image scanning, input from digital

photo camera or webcam, printing, transparency management, exporting to icons,

advanced text effects, textures, image-assembling, and many more.

License : FREEWARE

WEBSITE : http://www.photofiltre.com

Paint.NET

Paint.NET started development as an undergraduate college senior design project mentored by

Microsoft, and is currently being maintained by some of the alumni that originally worked on it.

Originally intended as a free replacement for the Microsoft Paint software that comes with Windows,

it has grown into a powerful yet simple image and photo editor tool.

Features

Simple, intuitive, and innovative user interface

Every feature and user interface element was designed to be immediately intuitive and quickly

learnable without assistance. In order to handle multiple images easily, Paint.NET uses a tabbed

document interface. The tabs display a live thumbnail of the image instead of a text description.

This makes navigation very simple and fast.

Layers

Usually only found on expensive or complicated professional software, layers form the basis for a

rich image composition experience. You may think of them as a stack of transparency slides that,

when viewed together at the same time, form one image.

Active Online Community

Paint.NET has an online forum with a friendly, passionate, and ever-expanding community.

Be sure to check out the constantly growing list of tutorials and plug-ins!

Special Effects

Many special effects are included for enhancing and perfecting your images. Everything from

blurring, sharpening, red-eye removal, distortion, noise, and embossing are included. Also included

is our unique 3D Rotate/Zoom effect that makes it very easy to add perspective and tilting.

Adjustments are also included which help you tweak an image's brightness, contrast, hue, saturation,

curves, and levels. You can also convert an image to black and white, or sepia-toned.

Powerful Tools

Paint.NET includes simple tools for drawing shapes, including an easy-to-use curve tool for drawing

splines or Bezier curves. The Gradient tool, new for 3.0, has been cited as an innovative improvement

over similar tools provided by other software. The facilities for creating and working with selections is

powerful, yet still simple enough to be picked up quickly. Other powerful tools include the Magic Wand

for selecting regions of similar color, and the Clone Stamp for copying or erasing portions of an image.

There is also a simple text editor, a tool for zooming, and a Recolor tool.

Unlimited History

Everybody makes mistakes, and everybody changes their mind. To accommodate this, every action

you perform on an image is recorded in the History window and may be undone. Once you've undone

an action, you can also redo it. The length of the history is only limited by available disk space.

Open Source and Free

Paint.NET is provided free-of-charge, and the source code (all 140,000+ lines of it) is also available

for free under generous licensing terms. The bulk of Paint.NET is written in C#, with only a small

amount of code related to setup and shell-integration written in C++.

Paint.NET is a trademark of Rick Brewster. All other trademarks are the property of their respective

owners. Paint.Net / Text is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United

States License. For more info see the Paint.NET website.

License : FREEWARE

WEBSITE : http://www.getpaint.net

The Gimp

A freely distributed complete digital imaging solution - maybe the very best you can get !

Extremely powerful functions and tools create nearly endless possibilities making it possible

to do just about anything from simple image editing to the most complex photo processing

and image authoring procedures.

GIMP is an acronym for GNU Image Manipulation Program.

The GIMP is released under the GNU General Public License (see below).

License : FREEWARE

WEBSITE : http://www.gimp.org

Drawing - Painting

Artweaver

Artweaver provides the tools for creative painting, together with all standard image editing tools.

The program offers lots of artistic effects and a wide range of brushes. The brush simulation is nearly

as realistic as possible (e.g. chalk, charcoal, pencils and many, many more,...). Photos can be loaded

It includes the standard photo processing tools like gradient, crop, fill and selection tools and effect

Duplicate Search

DubDetector

Most large image collections often contain duplicate images under different names,

DupDetector will find and delete those duplicate or near duplicate images from your

Image Renamer

PixRenamer

PixRenamer is a small file renaming utility for the most common renaming tasks. It's basic features

include the automatic preselection of different graphic file-formats and numbering options.

Handy tool for renaming lots of photos imported from digital camera's, scanners or other sources.

Although the program is merely intended for the renaming of large quantities

of images, it can rename other kinds of files as well.

To make the -sometimes tricky- renaming process safer, by default the

program will warn about renaming system critical files.

The straightforward interface is very easy to use, while the build-in safety

features and alerts make it safe and suitable for everyone.

License : FREEWARE

WEBSITE : The NightOwl's Home - Freeware

EXIF Tools

MetaEditor

MetaEditor is one of the very few (and free!) EXIF editing programs which will allow you to edit every

EXIF and IPTC tag, and GPS information hidden within your digital photos.

Once you've taken a few moments to become familiar with the interface, MetaEditor is fast, easy and

secure to use. Maybe it's the best photo exif-editor you can get.

The program can also create and remove tags and the metadata can be exported to and imported from

a file. Besides other advanced features, batch processing is possible on a unlimited number of photos.

License : FREEWARE

WEBSITE : http://www.kiwiczech.net

Animated Gif Creator

UnFREEz

An incredibly tiny, super easy to use animated gif creation program. Just drag and drop, the program
will take care of the rest. Maybe the most simple and easy anigif creator you can find.

License : FREEWARE

WEBSITE : http://www.whitsoftdev.com

Animated Photo Effects

Popims Animator

Popims Animator is a full-featured photo animation creator, designed for home and professional use.

It can create all kinds of image animations, starting from a single image or from an image combination.

The results are many artistic effects, 3D animations, image-"warp's" and "morph's", and a lot more.

Image "warping" consists in a progressively modification of the shape of an image. Image "morphing" is

the process of mixing two or more images together in such a way that preset corresponding points will

overflow into each other, resulting in a smoothly fading, moving image.

The animation can be exported in the (animated) GIF-format, or as an image-sequence, or as an AVI-

video-file.

Besides this, Popims Animator has a lot of features to create other effects and to adjust the animation

results.

License : FREEWARE (basic free version)

WEBSITE : http://www.popims.com

Reflet - Animated Water Reflections

Reflet is an easy to use program to generate water reflection effects.

Besides for creating water reflection photo effects, it can also be used to create animated logos,

texts and web page decorations.

Various parameters are available to adjust the animation result. The animation can be exported in

the (animated) GIF-format, or as an image-sequence, or as an AVI-video-file.

License : FREEWARE

WEBSITE :http://www.photofiltre.com (look for "Reflet")

Media Players

Media Player Classic Home Cinema

Maybe the easiest all-round music and movie player you can get...!

It's a very good alternative to the standard Windows Media Player.

Media Player Classic Home Cinema is an extremely light-weight and low resources-usage media player,

yet, behind the rather "minimalistic" design, all necessary functions and many additional features are

packed, making it a full featured player, capable to play nearly all music and video formats.

In most cases it's simply the only player you'll ever need.

Technical info:

if you're not computer-savvy... then just skip this, and download the player right away ;-)

(it doesn't need an installation procedure, just download, unpack and run...)

Supported Decoding:

PEG-1, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 playback. Media Player Classic is capable of VCD, SVCD and DVD playback,

without the need to install any additional software or codecs.

It has built-in codecs for MPEG-2 video and codecs for LPCM, MP2, AC3 and DTS audio, and also contains

an improved MPEG splitter that supports playback of VCDs and SVCDs using its VCD/SVCD/XCD Reader.

A *.mp4 and MPEG-4 Timed Text support added. An AAC decoding filter makes MPC suitable for AAC

playback in MP4.

MPC Home Cinema also has H.264 and VC-1 with DXVA support, DivX, Xvid, and Flash Video formats is

available in MPC HC. MPC can also use the QuickTime and the RealPlayer architectures.

Media Player Classic supports native playback of OGM and Matroska container formats.

Supported Video, Audio and Image File Formats:

WAV, WMA, MP3, OGG, SND, AU, AIF, AIFC, AIFF, MIDI, MPEG, MPG, MP2, VOB, AC3, DTS, ASX, M3U,

PLS, WAX, ASF, WM, WMA, WMV, AVI, CDA, JPEG, JPG, GIF, PNG, BMP, D2V, MP4, SWF, MOV, QT, FLV

Additional Player Features:

- option to remove tearing

- support for Windows 32 and 64-bits platform

- support for EVR (Enhanced Video Renderer)

- supports subtitles

- playback and recording of television if a supported TV tuner is installed

- creation of mini-dump when MPC HC crashes

- OSD (On Screen Display)

- shuttle PN31 remote control support

- support multi-monitor configuration

- pixel shader to convert BT601 - BT701

- YV12 chroma upsampling pixel shader

- language translations

- all features from the Guliverkli MPC Project from Gabest (see remarks)

Media Player Classic Home Cinema allows you to enhance, decode and accelerate a broad span of

movie formats like x.264 with GPU assisted acceleration and image quality enhancing.

The WMP Classic Home Cinema player does not require many system resources than the rest of the

video media players to run smoothly. This is a low PC resources windows media player that runs on

slower machines with older CPUs. Modern graphics card offer the possibility to decode partially or

completely a video stream using DirectX Video Acceleration (DXVA), in order to reduce CPU usage

dramatically. MPC-HC includes an embedded video decoder that uses this technology, to decode

x.264, H.264 and VC-1 with hardly any CPU time required.

Remarks:

The Media Player Classic Home Cinema project is based on the original "Media Player Classic" and was
created after Gabest, the original author, stopped working on it. Several new features have been
integrated in this player.

Media Player Classic Home Cinema is released under the GNU General Public License (see below).

License : FREEWARE

WEBSITE : http://mpc-hc.sourceforge.net

MPlayer for Windows / SMPlayer (front-end) Package

MPlayer is the award-winning Open Source Media Player.

It's an all-round, complete alternative for the standard Windows Media Player.

SMPlayer intends to be a complete front-end for MPlayer, from basic features like playing videos,

DVD's, and VCD's to more advanced features like support for MPlayer filters and more.

Thanks to the MPlayer engine, more than 192 video- and 85 audio-codecs are supported natively.

For maximum performance the package includes optimized MPlayer binaries for various CPU types;

furthermore the Full-Package includes the Binary Codec Package to enable even more media-formats.

This way you get a fantastic, full-featured media player package:

everything you need to play virtually every media-file in one self-contained download !

Among the many features:

- configurable subtitles (font and size and even colors)

- playlist-function with auto-repeat and shuffle features

- video-seeking by mouse wheel

- SMPlayer remembers the settings of all played files

- audio-equalizer

- video-equalizer (allows to adjust brightness, contrast, hue, saturation and gamma of the video image)

- multiple speed playback (play at 2X, 4X,... and even in slow motion)

- several filters (de-interlace, post-processing, de-noise,... and even a karaoke filter (voice removal)

- audio and subtitles delay adjustment (allows to sync audio and subtitles)

- possibility to search automatically for subtitles in opensubtitles.org

- advanced options, such as selecting a demuxer or video and audio codecs

- preferences dialog to configure every option

- translations: currently SMPlayer is translated into more than 20 languages

- multiplatform: binaries available for Windows and Linux

The MPlayer for Windows / SMPlayer (front-end) Package is released under the GNU General Public

License (see below).

License : FREEWARE

WEBSITE : http://smplayer.sourceforge.net

Video Tools

VirtualDub

VirtualDub is a video capture and processing utility for 32-bit Windows platforms.

The program is streamlined for fast linear video operations, without the need of the full editing power
of a general-purpose video-processor. It has batch-processing capabilities for processing large numbers
of files and can be extended with third-party video filters. VirtualDub is mainly geared toward processing
AVI files, although it can read (not write) MPEG-1 and also handle sets of BMP images.

VirtualDub is released under the GNU General Public License (see below).

License : FREEWARE

WEBSITE : http://www.virtualdub.org

RAD Video Tools

The RAD Video Tools give you everything you need to create, use, convert and distribute your video
files. Nearly all video file-formats can be handled. The RAD Video Tools include both the popular codecs,
Bink and Smacker. They include the compressors, sound mixers, players, and general graphics and sound
converters.

The RAD Video Tools can even compile Bink or Smacker files into EXE files for self-running stand-alone
videos (the player is bundled into the EXE file, so the user doesn't need to download anything else); and
the creation of windows screen savers is also supported.

The Bink and Smacker players can be distributed free of charge, and a pop-up credit window will appear
at closing (you can license a non-logo/credit window version of the player as well).

License : FREEWARE

WEBSITE : http://www.radgametools.com/bnkdown.htm

Video/Audio Codecs

info: codec stands for "compressor-decompressor" - it's a piece of software needed for the

encoding and decoding (playback) of the different sorts (formats) of multimedia files

codecs are used in combination with a media player and will allow the player to open (play)

the appropriate file format - codecs may come as a single codec or bundled in a "codec pack"

K-Lite Mega Codec Pack

Maybe the best solution for playing virtually all your media files.

The K-Lite Mega-Codec-Pack is a very complete codec and codec-related tools package,

containing everything you need to play all the popular and even some rare media formats.

The package is always up-to-date with the latest versions of the codecs.

It's very well tested, so that it doesn't contain any conflicting codecs, and it tries to avoid

potential problems with existing codecs and even fixes some problems.

The user-friendly installation can be set to default or fully customizable for advanced users.

Remarks: READ THIS !

As there are different packages from small to extra-large (the Mega Codec Pack), you

can select which package is the most suitable for your needs (all info at the link below).

The K-Lite Mega Codec Pack may also include Media Player Classic (Home Cinema), and the

QuickTime and Real Alternatives, making it possible to play nearly all your media files with just

one player. Carefully select to install or not to install these player(s)/alternative(s), depending

on your needs and preferences.

Maybe it's a good idea to download and run the stand-alone Media Player Classic Home Cinema

first (download: see above under Media Players) and play your files. Afterwards you can decide

if any other codec packs and/or system files are needed on your system.

License : FREEWARE

WEBSITE : http://www.codecguide.com/index.html

Sound Recording

Audacity ®

Cross-platform sound editor: Audacity is an easy-to-use audio editor and recorder for

Windows, Mac OS X, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems.

Audacity can record and edit sounds, record live audio, convert tapes and records into digital

recordings or CDs. It can edit Ogg Vorbis, MP3, and WAV sound files, cut, copy, splice, and

mix sounds together, change the speed or pitch of a recording, and more.

Audacity is free open source software, developed by a group of volunteers and distributed

under the GNU General Public License (see below).

License : FREEWARE

WEBSITE : http://audacity.sourceforge.net

MP3 Tag Tools

info: besides the filename of an mp3-soundtrack, several other information is embedded into the
music-file, such as the name of the artist, the music genre, the year and so on; this information is
stored in several fields, known as the mp3 "tags", which can be edited, corrected, deleted and/or
completed using an Mp3 tag utility program.

Mp3tag The Universal Tag Editor

Mp3tag is a powerful and yet easy-to-use tool to edit metadata (ID3, Vorbis Comments and APE) of
common audio formats.

It can rename files based on the tag information, replace characters or words from tags and filenames,
import/export tag information, create playlists and more.

The program supports online freedb database lookups for selected files, allowing you to automatically
gather proper tag information for select files or CDs.

License : FREEWARE

WEBSITE : http://www.mp3tag.de/en

Audio Convertor

Free Mp3 to WMA Converter

A very handy tool to convert different audio file formats into each other (Mp3, Wma, AAC, Ogg vorbis,
Wav). It includes a Tag Editor and all the necessary options you need.

License : FREEWARE

WEBSITE : http://koyotstar.free.fr

Jodix Free WMA to Mp3 Converter

Free WMA to Mp3 Converter converts Windows Media Audio (wma) and Windows Media Video files

(wmv, asf) files to Mp3 with just a few clicks. Files can be selected or dragged one by one or

processed in batch.

License : FREEWARE

WEBSITE : http://www.Jodix.com

Voice Techno

DeskBot

Free multi-functional text and clipboard reader featuring animated talking characters.

License : FREEWARE

WEBSITE : http://www.bellcraft.com/deskbot

Music Notation

Finale NotePad ®

Your invitation to the world of music notation software: find out how fun and easy it is to

transform your musical ideas into beautifully printed music!

License : FREEWARE

WEBSITE : http://www.finalemusic.com

CD/DVD Burner

ImgBurn

ImgBurn is a complete, highly configurable top solution for all disk burning needs.

The program works in several modes to read, build image files, write, verify and more.

It provides lots of expert features that are often lacking in other tools.

Although the program is designed to work perfectly straight out of the box, advanced users will
appreciate how flexible and configurable the program is.

ImgBurn supports nearly all disk-image file formats, and it can burn audio CD's from nearly any
music/sound file type.

It can be used to build DVD Video discs, HD DVD Video discs and Blu-ray Video discs with ease.

ImgBurn supports all the Windows OS's, including all the 64-bit versions. If you use Wine, it should

also run on Linux and other x86-based Unix'es.

License : FREEWARE

WEBSITE : http://www.imgburn.com

InfraRecorder

Excellent, full featured and easy to use CD/DVD burning solution.

Easy to use application interface with Windows Explorer integration.

Create custom data, audio and mixed-mode projects and record them to physical discs as well as

disc images.

Supports recording to dual-layer DVD's.

Blank (erase) rewritable discs using different methods.

Record disc images (ISO and BIN/CUE).

Fixate discs (write lead-out information to prevent further data from being added to the disc).

Scan the SCSI/IDE bus for devices and collect information about their capabilities.

Create disc copies, on the fly and using a temporary disc image.

Import session data from multi-session discs and add more sessions to them.

Display disc information.

Save audio and data tracks to files (.wav, .wma, .ogg, .mp3 and .iso).

InfraRecorder is released under the GNU General Public License (see below).

License : FREEWARE

WEBSITE : http://infrarecorder.org

CD Burner XP

A free application to burn CD's and DVD's, including Blu-Ray disks and HD-DVD's.

It also includes the feature to burn and create ISO-files.

Very easy to use.

Features:

- burn audio-CD's with or without gaps between the tracks

- data verification after the burning process

-creation of bootable discs

- bin/nrg / ISO converter

- simple cover printing

- and more

License : FREEWARE

WEBSITE : http://cdburnerxp.se

Ashampoo Burning Studio (Free Full Version of commercial software)

Ashampoo Burning Studio is a compact, powerful and easy to use disk burning program, optimized for
fast and smooth performance and maximum compatibility. It contains all the necessary disk burning
and authoring functions you would expect from a burning suite.

The clean install, and the straight-forward, stream-lined interface make it amazingly easy to find
everything you need without any hassle. Just choose from a list of tasks and the software guides
you through every step.

Features include:

Burn data to discs and update previously burned discs by adding and removing files and folders.

Data-back up and restore.

Rip music from CD's and burn it to audio CD's and MP3 discs.

Burn movies and photos to DVD's and data-discs.

Author and burn video DVDs, Video CDs (VCD), Super Video CDs (SVCD) and data video discs.

Copy CD's, DVD's and Blu-ray discs. Just insert a disc, select Copy and you’re ready to burn.

Create and burn disc images.

Quick and easy erase functions for reusing rewriteable discs.

Easy to use "point-and-click" label-, cover- and booklets-designer.

License : FREE FULL VERSION OF COMMERCIAL SOFTWARE - Register to obtain a free license

WEBSITE : http://www.ashampoo.com

Audio-CD Ripper

CDex

Handy tool to do all sorts of things audio related - mainly focused on ripping and converting.

Easily convert your home cd collection into a mp3 collection.

Built-in support for many encoders.

License : FREEWARE

WEBSITE : http://sourceforge.net/projects/cdexos

FairStars CD Ripper

Powerful audio-cd ripping software with a well-designed, easy-to-use interface (skin support).

Rips audio tracks to WMA, MP3, OGG, VQF, FLAC, APE and WAV format files on-the-fly.

Supports normalization (automatic volume adjustment) when ripping - supports ID3 tags.

Playback with built-in player.

Supports multiple CD/DVD drivers.

Free CDDB (querying/submitting cd disc info from/to the freedb (Internet CD Database).

License : FREEWARE

WEBSITE : http://www.fairstars.com

Audiograbber

Audiograbber grabs digital audio from cd's.

It copies the audio digitally -not through the soundcard- which enables you to make perfect copies of
the originals. It can even perform a test to see that the copies really are perfect. Audiograbber can also
automatically normalize the music, delete silence from the start and/or end of tracks, and send them to

a variety or external MP3 encoders, such as Fraunhofers L3enc, or even use some MP3/WMA encoders
internally for automatic creation of MP3's.

Audiograbber can download and upload disc info from freedb, an Internet compact disc database.
You can even record your vinyl LP's or cassette tapes with Audiograbber and make wav's or MP3's

of them. There are a lot more functions in the program, nearly anything one can wish.

All that comes with a nice and easy understandable user interface and a good help file with

descriptions of all functions and settings. The program is very flexible and configurable and

still easy to understand. It works with almost all CD-ROM drives that can read digital audio.

Another great thing with this software is that it does not put a single file in your windows

directories! No DLL's, OCX's, device drivers, spyware, adware or whatever else that messes

up the system. Not a single entry in the registry or win.ini. If you delete the Audiograbber

directory it's all gone, that's it!

Audiograbber used to be shareware but is now released as freeware!

License : FREEWARE

WEBSITE : http://www.audiograbber.com-us.net

CD/DVD Authoring

DVDFlick

A simple but powerful DVD Authoring tool.

It can take a number of video files stored on your computer and turn them into a DVD that will play back on your DVD player, Media Center or Home Cinema Set. You can add additional custom audio tracks and subtitles, as well as a menu for easier navigation.

Features

- Burn near any video file to DVD

- Support for over 45 file formats

- Support for over 60 video codecs

- Support for over 40 audio codecs

- Easily add a menu

- Add your own subtitles

- Easy to use interface

- Burn your project to disc after encoding

License : FREEWARE

WEBSITE : http://www.dvdflick.net

DVD Styler

DVDStyler is a cross-platform free DVD authoring application for the creation of professional-looking

DVDs. It allows not only to burn video files on DVD that can be played practically on any standalone

DVD player, but also the creation of individually designed DVD menus.

DVDStyler is Open Source Software and it is completely free.

Features:

- creation and burning DVD video with interactive menus

- support of AVI, MOV, MP4, MPEG, OGG, WMV and other file formats

- support of MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, Xvid, MP2, MP3, AC-3 and other audio and video formats

- support of multi-core processors

- allows using MPEG and VOB files without re-encoding

- allows putting files with different audio/video formats on one DVD (support of title-set)

- a user-friendly interface with support of drag & drop

- flexible menu-creation on the basis of scalable vector graphics

- import of image-files for background

- placing of buttons, text, images and other graphic objects anywhere on the menu-screen

- changing the font, color and other parameters of buttons and graphic objects

- scaling of buttons and graphic objects

- coping of any menu-object or whole menu

- dvd-scripting

License : FREEWARE

WEBSITE : http://www.dvdstyler.org

WordProcessing

AbiWord

AbiWord is a complete, full featured free and open source Word Processing program, suitable for a wide

variety of word processing tasks. It's well-packed in an easy to use interface, and it supports many

languages and operating systems.

AbiWord allows you to collaborate with multiple people on one document at the same time. It is tightly

integrated with the AbiCollab.net web service, which lets you store documents online, allows easy

document sharing with your friends and performs format conversions on the fly.

AbiWord has been created by a worldwide group of volunteers and is released under the GNU General

Public License (see below).

License : FREEWARE (open source)

WEBSITE : http://www.abisource.com

OCR Software

Simple OCR

OCR stands for Optical Character Recognition. When a document is scanned, the scanner sends an
image to the computer. To make a scanned document editable in a word-processor, the text must
be recognized by OCR software and converted to a normal text-document.

SimpleOCR has accurate character recognition capabilities without the complexity and expense of
many other high-cost programs.

License : FREEWARE (machine-print recognition)

WEBSITE : http://www.simpleocr.com

Integrated Office Software Packages

OpenOffice.org

The complete free and open source solution for all home and business needs, including word-processing,
database, and spreadsheet programs.

Runs on all major platforms.

OpenOffice.org is available in many different languages.

License : FREEWARE (open source)

WEBSITE : http://www.openoffice.org

Remark : "Open Office" is a registered trademark of the company Open Office (automation in Linux and
open source). It has no formal relation with OpenOffice.org (open source office package).

Benelux - Dutch translation

Open Office is een geregistreerd handelsmerk van het bedrijf Open Office (automatisering met Linux en
open source). Het heeft geen formele relatie met OpenOffice.org (open source kantoorpakket).

URL Managers

AM-DeadLink

Website Rippers

HTTrack

Easy to use offline browser utility. It allows you to download a website to a local

directory, building recursively all directories, getting HTML, images, and other files from

the server to your computer. HTTrack arranges the original site's relative link-structure.

Simply open a page of the "mirrored" website in your browser, and you can browse the

site from link to link, as if you were viewing it online. HTTrack can also update an existing

mirrored site, and resume interrupted downloads. HTTrack is fully configurable, and has

Instant Messenger

Miranda IM

Miranda IM is an open-source multi-protocol instant messaging client for Microsoft Windows.

It supports nearly all Instant Messaging protocols, so you just need only one program to chat.

Supported protocols are AIM (AOL Instant Messenger), Gadu-Gadu, IAX (Inter-Asterisk Exchange),

Miranda IM is small, easy, very light on system resources and extremely fast. Featuring a powerful

plugin-based framework, boasting over 350 plugins, Miranda IM is one of the most flexible and

Pidgin

Pidgin is a multi-protocol Instant Messaging client that allows you to use all of your IM accounts at once.
The program can log in to multiple accounts on multiple IM networks simultaneously.

Pidgin supports many features of the various networks, such as file transfer, away-messages, and typing
notification. It also goes beyond that and provides many unique features. A few popular features are
Buddy Pounces, which give the ability to notify you, send a message, play a sound, or run a program
when a specific buddy goes away, signs online, or returns from idle; and plugins, consisting of text-
replacement, a buddy ticker, extended message notification, iconify on away, spell checking, tabbed
conversations and more.

VirusScan

AntiVir (Personal Edition)

AntiVir Personal Edition offers a complete and very effective protection against

Anti-Spyware

Bazooka

It detects a multitude of spyware, adware, trojans, keyloggers and trackware components;

Text Tools

TXTcollector

TXTcollector grabs all text-files (*.txt) files from the directory of your choice and combines them into
a new (larger) text file. Handy to grab a cd full of readme's and read them all in one go, or for combining
lots of info files, network log files and more.

License : FREEWARE

WEBSITE : http://bluefive.pair.com/txtcollector.htm

PDF Tools

PDF-XChange Viewer

The free PDF-XChange Viewer offers all the feature's you would expect such as support of all PDF file
formats from Version 1.0 all the way to the latest version.

It will speed up and improve your PDF Viewing experience. You might be surprised just how quickly your
large PDF files will open smoothly refresh as they are scrolled.

In addition to the standard viewing features, PDF-XChange free viewer includes features to:

- add comments and annotations to any PDF file (subject to security settings)

- add and apply custom stamps from any image or PDF File and even from the Windows clip board

- mark-up pages with text and objects

- type directly on any PDF page in the Typewriter mode.

- export PDF-pages or files to any one of the supported image formats (BMP, JPEG, and more)

- extract text from a PDF page/File

- make the navigation both simple and enjoyable with the extended functionality tools

- full Javascript Engine included

- plug-in's for both MS IE and Firefox Browsers included

- includes comprehensive Help file

- portable version also available

License : FREEWARE

WEBSITE : http://www.docu-track.com

Sumatra PDF

Sumatra PDF is a small and very fast PDF viewer for Windows.

It has a minimalistic design: simplicity has a higher priority than a lot of features.

As such, it's an extremely efficient and "no-nonsense" solution for viewing PDF-documents.

Sumatra PDF is portable "out of the box": just one file to run from the system or from

external media (such as an USB drive).

Sumatra PDF is open-source software distributed under the GPLv3 license (see below).

License : FREEWARE

WEBSITE : http://blog.kowalczyk.info/software/sumatrapdf/index.html

File & Dir Tools

JR Directory Printer

A fine file and directory printer utility which allows you to print a listing of every file contained within
a directory and/or subdirectory. The result will be displayed in NotePad or in the default text editor,
making it easy to print, modify and save the listing.

The program comes with some very handy options to modify the output, such as recurse sub-dir.'s,
file-name formatting (lowercase, dos-style, name length), show file-attributes,...

License : FREEWARE

WEBSITE : http://www.spadixbd.com/freetools

YourDir

An easy to use program to printout the directory structure and optionally the file listing.

The program can also create a jpeg-image of a the listing and/or export it to a CSV-file.

License : FREEWARE

WEBSITE : http://www.primeoption.com.au/FreewareYourDir.htm

Lupas Rename

One of the best file and folder renaming utility. Besides simple renaming, it offers a lot of useful features,

such as replacing/inserting substrings, crop-function, case-conversion and many more.

License : FREEWARE

WEBSITE : http://rename.lupasfreeware.org

or : http://www.azheavymetal.com/~lupasrename/lupasrename.php

Bulk Rename Utility

Outstanding and probably the most complete program for file and folder renaming based upon extremely

flexible criteria.

Features include:

- add/change file creation and modification date and time stamps

- replace numbers and add/replace/insert text into file names

- convert case

- add auto-numbers

- remove or change file extensions

- rename photos using EXIF meta data

- rename MP3 files using ID3 tags

- and more

It works fast, reliable and safe, and it presents a detailed preview before renaming.

License : FREEWARE

WEBSITE : http://www.bulkrenameutility.co.uk

File Archiving/Compression

7-Zip

A good and easy file unpacking/packing tool, suitable for the most common archiving tasks.

Supported archive-formats:

Packing / unpacking: 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2 and TAR

Unpacking only: RAR, CAB, ISO, ARJ, LZH, CHM, MSI, WIM, Z, CPIO, RPM, DEB and NSIS

High compression ratio in the new 7z format with LZMA compression

Strong AES-256 encryption in 7z and ZIP formats

Self-extracting capability for 7z format

Integration with Windows Shell

Powerful File Manager

Powerful command line version

7-Zip is open source software. Most of the source code is under the GNU LGPL license (see below).

The unRAR code is under a mixed license: GNU LGPL + unRAR restrictions. License information can

be found at the 7-Zip website.

License : FREEWARE

WEBSITE : http://www.7-zip.org

File Format Converters

Format Factory

A multifunctional media converter, probably the best and easiest you can get.

Format Factory features:

- convert all popular video, audio and picture formats to other formats

- repair damaged video- and audio files

- reducing multimedia file size

- support for iphone and ipod multimedia file formats

- picture converting supports zoom, rotate/flip, tags

- DVD-ripper

format-conversions:

- converts to MP4/3GP/MPG/AVI/WMV/FLV/SWF

- converts to MP3/WMA/AMR/OGG/AAC/WAV

- converts to JPG/BMP/PNG/TIF/ICO/GIF/TGA

- MP4 files support - iPod/iPhone/PSP/BlackBerry format

- supports RMVB, Watermark, AV Mux

ripping:

- rip DVD to video file

- rip music CD to audio file

License : FREEWARE

WEBSITE : http://www.formatoz.com

Font Viewer

NexusFont

A very good font viewer and manager. NexusFont makes font comparision, installing and removing fast,

safe and simple. Besides this, the program has many useful functions to manage font files, such as

Duplicate Font Search, Print, Export as Image, Anti-Aliasing, Rename, and more. TrueType, OpenType,

Adobe Type1 fonts are supported.

License : FREEWARE

WEBSITE : http://xiles.net

Icon Design

IcoFx

IcoFX is an excellent freeware icon editor.
It's an all-in-one solution for icon creation, extraction and editing.

With a wealth of tools and more than 40 effects at your fingertips, there’s virtually no limit to the
icons you can create. You can easily convert your favorite images into icons, or icons into images.

IcoFX gives you the possibility to create icon libraries or change icons inside exe files.

- support for icons with PNG compression

- create icon libraries, favicons for websites,...

- easily convert images to icons

- add, change or delete icons inside exe files

- support for transparency (alpha channel)

- batch processing for import, export and extraction

- more than 40 effects

- resolutions up to 256x256 pix

- data types: 2, 16, 256, True Color, True Color + Alpha

- transparency, brighten/darken, blur/sharpen tools

- and more,...

License : FREEWARE

WEBSITE : http://icofx.ro

A selection of fine system power tools and advanced utilities... intended for the power user

and everyone who likes to become one... Don't let the system control you anymore, take

Warning: These programs may contain extremely powerful features and are not intended to be

used by the novice user. Remember, "don't change a winning team": if your system is running

fine by now, don't try anything just for fun or without the need to modify your system,

unless you know exactly what you're doing and which may be the results of your actions.

Tweakers

WinBubble

Featuring lots of handy customization, security and optimization tweaks, WinBubble will help you

Beginners who have great difficulty in applying registry tweaks can customize and optimize

Intermediate users may learn registry tips and tricks, without the need to memorize them.

Advanced users can create their own tweaks, using the commands inside the application

X-Setup Pro

X-Setup Pro is the ultimate system configuration or tweaking tool. It's not just another Windows Hacker; it's the ultimate tool for black belt system tuning and tweaking.

From simple boot options up to server settings and hardware settings, internet settings or Office options, X-Setup Pro allows you to change nearly 1800 (!) settings with some simple button clicks.

X-Setup Pro logs every action and, no matter how many changes you have made the Restore Log can restore them all to their original settings. This feature works completely independently from the Windows Restore Points and can therefore be used on any Windows system.

X-Setup Pro can record all modifications and generate a *.reg-file on the fly that can be deployed on any other system without installing X-Setup Pro.

Although the program offers a lot of features, it's Explorer-like look make it easy to use. In addition, X-Setup Pro offers wizards that can assist you when changing the configuration.

Ms Powertoys - TweakUI (Win XP)

Ms PowerToys contains a set of extra programs, adding more functionality to the Windows system.

The Ms TweakUI tweaking tool offers many features to fine-tune the system without the need of

manually editing the registry. A fixed value in tweaking, personalizing and optimizing your system in

Registry Tools

Cleansoft Free Registry Fix

Free Registry Fix optimizes the system registry by finding and removing errors and invalid entries,

For maximum safety, Free Registry Fix will make a backup of the repaired entries, making it possible

Nirsoft FileTypesMan

FileTypesMan displays the list of all file extensions and types registered on the computer.

For each file type, the following information is displayed: Type Name, Description, MIME Type,
Perceived Type, Flags, Browser Flags, and more.

FileTypesMan also allows you to easily edit the properties and flags of each file type, as well
as it allows you to add, edit, and remove actions in a file type.

Default Programs Editor

Default Programs Editor is a powerful but simple file association utility for Windows.

It is a context menu editor, an autoplay editor, and default programs association editor; essentially,

the settings in the "Default Programs" Control Panel page. It's a replacement for the "File Types"

dialog in Windows XP, and brings some key features of TweakUI to Windows Vista/7.

- add or remove default associations (possible to check, but not un-check, in Windows)

Unassoc - Ramesh Srinivasan

This utility will un-associate a file type quickly in Windows Vista or Windows 7.

Nirsoft RegFromApp

RegFromApp monitors the Registry changes made by a selected application, and creates a standard
RegEdit registration file (.reg) containing all the Registry changes made by the application.

The generated .reg file can be used to import these changes with RegEdit when it's needed.

SpyMe Tools

SpyMe Tools detects Registry and File changes by creating and comparing snapshots. If any application
installs spyware, adware, dlls, programs, files, or any other type of file, picture, or program, etc. or
when it makes any changes to the Registry's content, you will be able to see exactly where the
modification occurred so you can take measures. Other features are the possibility to run in real-time
modus and to create/restore registry backups.

System Cleanup

nCleaner

Powerful system cleaner and optimizer to clean your disk and registry. Fix Windows errors and improve
stability and speed, increase available free space, increase privacy protection and system performance.

Permanently erase (using shredder) all unnecessary information from your system and applications and
tweak your system and startup list to improve speed and privacy protection.

nCleaner contains an advanced system and application cleaner with over 90 cleaning items available,
a Registry Cleaner, a Tweak Manager, an advanced Startup Manager, a Junk Finder, a Free Space
Shredder, a System Resource Monitor, a System Adviser; it supports logging and statistics as well as
advanced Scheduling.

- monitor the system using the System Advisor and correct critical Windows errors

- protect your privacy by shredding all deleted cleaned items using professional algorithms, so they

- tweak the system to protect your privacy by enabling or disabling different Windows features
- tweak the system to make it faster and stable by disabling unnecessary features and services
- manage system Services. Disable, start, stop Services
- use predefined Tweak profiles to enable the best Tweak configurations
- use the advanced Startup Manager to see all objects launched at startup
- powerful Startup Manger allows to spot hidden viruses or unwanted applications and disable them
- find unnecessary files (backup files, log files, invalid shortcuts and many other) and remove them
- schedule cleans at startup, shutdown, on browser close at specific time based intervals
- maintain log file with all actions and the time when they occurred
- maintain advanced statistics on how you use nCleaner and its effects
- choose one of 4 shredding algorithms for best privacy protection or clean speed
- password protect key, sensitive features in the application while still allowing cleaning the system

System Info

SIW - System Info for Windows

A powerful read-only / display-only system information tool that gathers detailed information

about system properties and settings. It displays detailed specs for motherboard, BIOS, CPU,

devices, memory, video, disk drives, ports, printers, operating system, installed programs,

processes, services, serial numbers (CD keys), users, open files, system uptime, network,

network shares, as well as real-time monitors for CPU, memory, page file usage, network

traffic and currently active network connections; it displays also passwords hidden behind

asterisks, installed codecs, and more SIW is a standalone tool that does not require installation.

Ms Sysinternals - BgInfo

A very handy tool for everyone who manages multiple computers. BgInfo automatically displays relevant
information about a Windows computer on the desktop's background, such as the computer name,
IP address, service pack version, and more. You can edit any field as well as the font and background
colors, and can place it in your startup folder so that it runs every boot, or even configure it to display
as the background for the logon screen.

Because BGInfo simply writes a new desktop bitmap and exits, it does not consume the system
resources, neither does it interfere with other applications.

System Power Tools

Ms Sysinternals - Autoruns

This utility shows you what programs are configured to run during system bootup or login, and shows you
the entries in the order Windows processes them. These programs include the ones in the StartUp folder
and the ones in the Run, RunOnce, and other Registry keys. Autoruns has the most comprehensive
knowledge of auto-starting locations of any startup monitor (a starting list of auto-run locations was
obtained from David Solomon's "Windows Internals" seminar). A "Hide Signed Microsoft Entries" option
helps you to zoom in on third-party auto-starting images that have been added to your system.

An undispensable utility to get accurate and complete start-up system info and also a fine tool to detect
any malware starting up and running on the system.

Ms Sysinternals - Process Explorer

Process Explorer shows information about which handles and DLLs processes have opened or loaded.
The Process Explorer display consists of two sub-windows. The top window always shows a list of the
currently active processes, including the names of their owning accounts, whereas the information
displayed in the bottom window depends on the mode that Process Explorer is in: if it is in handle mode
you'll see the handles that the process selected in the top window has opened; if Process Explorer is in
DLL mode you'll see the DLLs and memory-mapped files that the process has loaded. Process Explorer
also has a powerful search capability that will quickly show you which processes have particular handles
opened or DLLs loaded.

The unique capabilities of Process Explorer make it useful for tracking down DLL-version problems or
handle leaks, and provide insight into the way Windows and applications work.

Ms Sysinternals - Process Monitor

Process Monitor is an advanced monitoring tool for Windows that shows real-time file system, Registry
and process/thread activity. Its uniquely powerful features will make it a core utility in your system
troubleshooting and malware hunting toolkit.

Hard-Disk Tools

HD Tune

Hard Disk utility including benchmark test, detailed disk information, disk health check, temperature
display, error scan. HD Tune may also work with other storage devices such as memory cards, USB-
sticks, etc.

HDD Health

Full featured hard-disk failure prediction agent. HDD Health installs in the system tray and monitors
hard-disk(s) activity. It will send alerts in case of possible hard-disk troubles.

Hex Editor

Hexplorer

A good binary (hex) file editor for Windows with an innovative visualisation and interpretation

If you want some info, read this: a hex-editor is a program to view and edit the raw file data.

Contrary to a text editor or a graphic editor, it doesn't format the file content, but it displays

it as it is; that's simply as binary data, allowing you to edit it hexadecimally. So it gives you

Un-Installer

Revo Uninstaller

An innovative uninstall utility, complete with a set of handy powerful cleanup tools

With its advanced and fast algorithm, Revo Uninstaller analyzes an application's data before uninstall
and scans after you uninstall an application. After the program's regular uninstaller runs, you can
remove additional unnecessary files, folders and registry keys that usually are left over on your
computer. Even if you have a broken installation, Revo Uninstaller scans for an application's data on
your hard disk drives and in the Windows registry and shows all found files, folders and registry items
so you can delete them.

With its unique "Hunter mode", Revo Uninstaller offers you some simple, easy to use, but effective and
powerful approaches to manage (uninstall, stop, delete, disable from auto starting) and to get
information about your installed and/or running applications.

Revo Uninstaller also comes with a set of handy and powerful tools to clean up your system.
Included are an Auto Start and Windows Tools Manager, a Junk Files Cleaner, several Cleaners for
Browser, Office and Windows history files and more.

The Unrecoverable Delete Tool and the Evidence Remover are secure delete tools which will erase files
and folders without the possibility of recovering them.

Install Creator

Inno Setup

Maybe the best free installer creator you can get; the program rivals and even surpasses many
commercial installers in feature set and stability - amongst its many features are:

- supports all versions of Windows in use today; support for install of 64-bit applications

- register DLL/OCX's and type libraries; install fonts; creation of registry and .ini entries

- creation of shortcuts anywhere, including in the Start Menu and on the desktop

- integrated Pascal scripting engine (full source code is available (Borland Delphi 2.0-5.0))

Unit Conversion

Converber

Converber is a powerful software utility that will help make easy conversions between 1277 various

units of measure. Units are sorted in 33 handy categories. Converber converts everything from length

- options to select decimal-point precision and to select scientific notation only

Chemistry - Periodic Table

Periodic Table

Application containing all the elements of the Periodic Table along with images of the

Lots of features included: detailed information on each element, images, glossary, graphs of important
element properties, biographies of the element discoverers, and more. Interactive display allows you to
view the states of the elements at any temperature.

Astronomy

Stellarium

Wonderful program to view, explore and search the skies above. Stellarium renders 3D photo-realistic
skies in real time. It displays stars, constellations, planets, nebulas and others things like ground,
landscape, atmosphere, etc. The nice and intuitive interface makes Stellarium easy to learn.

Linux

The Linux Operating System

Linux is a free Unix-type operating system originally created by Linus Torvalds with

Public License (see below), the source code for Linux is freely available to everyone.

Linux - Ubuntu

Ubuntu - "Linux for human beings"

Ubuntu is a complete Linux-based operating system, freely available with both community and
professional support. It is developed by a large community and we invite you to participate too!

The Ubuntu community is built on the ideas enshrined in the Ubuntu Philosophy: that software should be
available free of charge, that software tools should be usable by people in their local language and
despite any disabilities, and that people should have the freedom to customise and alter their software
in whatever way they see fit.

These freedoms make Ubuntu fundamentally different from traditional proprietary software: not only are
the tools you need available free of charge, you have the right to modify your software until it works
the way you want it to.

Ubuntu is suitable for both desktop and server use. The current Ubuntu release supports PC (Intel x86),
64-bit PC (AMD64), UltraSPARC T1 (Sun Fire T1000 and T2000) and PowerPC (Apple iBook and
Powerbook, G4 and G5) architectures.

Ubuntu includes more than 16000 pieces of software, but the core desktop installation fits on a single
CD. Ubuntu covers every standard desktop application from word processing and spreadsheet
applications to web server software and programming tools.

Remark: click below to read more about free, open-source software distributed under the

Image Viewers-Browsers

IrfanView

FastStone Image Viewer

ShoView

Photo Processing

PhotoFiltre

Paint.NET

The Gimp

Drawing - Painting

Artweaver

Image Effects

Photo Black & Color

Microsoft ICE (Image Composite Editor) - Panorama Creator

Duplicate Search

DubDetector

Image Renamer

PixRenamer

EXIF Tools

MetaEditor

Animated Gif Creator

UnFREEz

Animated Photo Effects

Popims Animator

Reflet - Animated Water Reflections

Media Players

Media Player Classic Home Cinema

MPlayer for Windows / SMPlayer (front-end) Package

Video Tools

VirtualDub

RAD Video Tools

Video/Audio Codecs

K-Lite Mega Codec Pack

Sound Recording

Audacity ®

MP3 Tag Tools

Mp3tag The Universal Tag Editor

Audio Convertor

Free Mp3 to WMA Converter

Jodix Free WMA to Mp3 Converter

Voice Techno

DeskBot

Music Notation

Finale NotePad ®

CD/DVD Burner

ImgBurn

InfraRecorder

CD Burner XP

Ashampoo Burning Studio (Free Full Version of commercial software)

Audio-CD Ripper

CDex

FairStars CD Ripper

Audiograbber

CD/DVD Authoring

DVDFlick

DVD Styler

WordProcessing

AbiWord

OCR Software

Simple OCR

Integrated Office Software Packages

OpenOffice.org

URL Managers

AM-DeadLink

Website Rippers

HTTrack

Instant Messenger

Miranda IM

Pidgin

VirusScan

AntiVir (Personal Edition)

Anti-Spyware

SpyBot - Search & Destroy

Pc Tools ThreatFire (Free Edition)

Bazooka

Hijack This

Text Tools

TXTcollector

PDF Tools

PDF-XChange Viewer

Sumatra PDF