Top Freeware Applications / Software (That’s Right — Entirely Free!)

I think free software is simply awesome. You get so much functionality and power out-of-the-box, and most of the time, these software developers are really passionate about what they do, and even release frequent updates. Here’s a list of my top freeware applications. There are some programs that I just have to pay for, so I’m not including them in this list.

• FileZilla is an open source FTP client with a full set of features. It rivals commercial-grade software in its functionality, and is user-friendly with an attractive UI.
• Audacity is a powerful audio editing software, great for recording music, tweaking sound files and also for podcasts.
• Winamp is a great music player for those looking for a alternative to the relatively bloated and slow “iTunes”. It’s the defacto audio player that supports almost all kinds of audio formats and is extensible through the use of plugins.
• Miranda is a fast and lightweight all-in-one messenger that uses very little resources. It is plugin-driven and you can enable support for MSN, AIM, ICQ, JABBER(G-Mail Chat), YAHOO, and even IRC out-of-the-box. Great piece of software, especially if you are using more than one messenger service.
• Paint.Net is a free image editing software that’s incredibly easy to use and powerful as well. For those of you who don’t have Photoshop and don’t want to use GIMP, this is the best you can get.
• UltraVNC is a remote desktop control software. It comes in 2 parts - a server and a client. You run the server on a computer that you want to control, and run the client anywhere else that you want to control the server computer from. With this freeware, you can remotely do anything with your computer - it’s just like you were there physically.
• TrueCrypt provides industry-standard encryption features that enables encryption of any drive. The cool thing is that you can create hidden volumes, and as you move files to that drive, the files encrypt automatically. TrueCrypt is great for keeping important information away from prying eyes.
• Skype is a voice over IP (VOIP) program. While pc-to-pc calls are usually free, and are supported by many other instant messenging services, Skype actually allows pc-to-landline or landline-to-pc calls at a cheap price.
• Antivir is a powerful anti-virus software that’s lightweight and uses very little resources. The Personal Edition is free, and comparison studies have shown Antivir to perform better than AVG and Avast! in terms of virus detection.
• ImgBurn is the answer to people who find Nero to be a little too overwhelming. Fast and lightweight, this is a great free program for burning CDs/DVDs.
• VLC Player is incredible because it can play almost any video formats that you throw at it, out-of-the-box! It supports subtitles and screenshotting, and also can play files with multiple sound streams.

If I’m looking for a software that doesn’t have a freeware version, I usually check out online software download sites that offer a list of commercial software.

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Toastmasters Table Topic Ideas for Impromptu Speaking – Sales Training

A great Table Topics idea is to have your Toastmasters practice their selling skills! Have your Toastmasters give a sales pitch about a particular product. The sales pitch can be in the form of a TV commercial or as if they were actual sales staff at a sales booth. For the products, you can either bring actual physical products, or print out pictures of them, both work equally well.

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Logitech Ultraslim Keyboard Dark Pearl (with Soft Touch Technology) Review

Urgh. I wanted to get a new keyboard for myself because I’m using a 17″ LCD monitor to extend my desktop from my Thinkpad notebook, so an external keyboard and mouse makes things easier to use.

I thought keyboards were all the same, and the only difference was the touch or feeling of the keys. Well, I thought wrong.

Logitech has an ultraslim keyboard that has really nice Soft Touch keys — they’re soft of like the keys that notebooks use, so it’s really comfortable and easy to type.

What I didn’t count on what that the key layout was totally different. It’s not like the full 104 key keyboards where the arrow keys live in an isolated area of their own, as with the numpad keys and the group of Page Down, Page Up, Insert, etc keys.

In this logitech keyboard, the keys were all squeezed together. That’s right — there’s no gap at all between any group of keys, arrow keys, numpad, or otherwise. That makes this keyboard really hard to use. It’s fine if you type without mistakes or require very little editing because the main group of keys are FANTASTIC to type on. It’s still by far the most comfortable keyboard I’ve used.

It’s just that the key layout really annoys me. This surfaces when I try to use the keyboard to navigate around (with the arrow keys) or perform editing operations (shift-home, shift-end, delete, backspace, etc). Normally I can do it without even looking at the keyboard, but with this particular Logitech keyboard, I have to actually look down and make sure I’m pressing on the right key. I’ve tried not looking, but I’m always hitting on the wrong key. That makes it really slow and awkward for me.

It got to a point where I couldn’t stand it anymore and pried out the less-important keys so that I could regain some of my productivity back. You can see from the picture above that I took out the Insert key and the Numpad 0 key. Things are slightly better this way, but it’s still a temporary measure.

Verdict? I’m going to sell off this keyboard, and get a better keyboard. One which is full-sized, so all the keys are where they should be, but also with the Soft Touch technology, which makes typing such a joy.

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Recursively Delete Selected Files or Folders In Windows

I was looking around for a way to recursively delete files and folders of a specific name in Windows. For example, imagine having “/folderA/folderB/file1.doc” and “/folderA/folderC/file1.doc”, and I wanted to remove all instances of file1.doc. Now imagine this file1.doc being presented in hundreds of folders. Deleting each file manually would drive anyone crazy.

I know Unix has a more powerful commandline interface, so operations like this should be a snap, but I was certain Windows had a similar functionality too. So I went about searching for a simple solution to do so. I was so intent on finding a simple batch file or DOS command that would do the recursive delete that I didn’t think of anything else until it suddenly slammed into me like a bullet train.

I could just use the search function in Windows! Yes that’s right — the normal Windows search is already a powerful enough function that accepts wildcards and does recursive searching. So I went to Windows search, specified my folder, and put in my filename. Sure enough, all the hundred or more instances of that file popped up almost instantly. From there it was just a matter of selecting all of them and deleting them. Everything took less than 10 seconds!

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Toastmasters Table Topic Ideas for Impromptu Speaking - The Best Job

Write down several professions on pieces of paper, then have your Table Topics speakers come up and explain why the job on the paper in front of them is the best job in the world (or the worst!)

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