Free Download A Day

Does your head ever get just too full? People to see, things to do; sometimes it’s all too much. A monitor covered with Post-Its; several legal pads scattered across your desk and floor. How do you keep track of it all?

VoodooPad Lite is a desktop wiki that allows you to record your thoughts and observations–notes, URLs, to-do lists, etc.–in ways that make sense to you. Spin multiple files together into a desktop web of information. Create new pages, tie them together. Hyperlinks allow you to jump from page to page as you subdue the information overload. Tabs let you look at multiple pages at once. An integrated search facility helps you to find what you’re looking for; Spotlight is supported also. You can even run shell (or other language) scripts from within VoodooPad Lite. Sheets, drawers, and all that swell OS X stuff is supported natively.

VoodooPad Lite is a Mac app, and requires Tiger (10.4.6+).

Download VoodooPad Lite

Inkscape is a free, open-source vector graphics editor. Unlike with raster or “bitmapped” graphics, vector image elements can be resized with no loss in quality–no jagged edges. While apps like Photoshop are great with photos and bitmap images, tools like Inkscape or the commercially-available Illustrator or Corel Draw work better for more precise work, like technical drawings, especially where text is incorporated into images, and are vital in applications where images may be resized, as with logos.

Inkscape imports most bitmapped format files. It stores its images in files that conform to the W3C’s SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) format, which is directly readable by many newer web browsers. Along with this native format, you can also save your work to .png files, guaranteeing access by all.

Along with the obvious price advantage, Inkscape has a much shallower learning curve than its shrink-wrapped peers. This means that you will be up and running, creating real work much sooner.

Inkscape is available for Linux, OS X, and Windows, as complied packages, as well as source code for the adventurous.

Download Inkscape

Merge is a freeware application that allows you to merge two separate image files into a third that incorporates both originals. An obvious use for a tool like this is to watermark images, and Merge does this very well. You can watermark an individual picture, or a whole directory of images in very short order. With up to ten lines of text, you will be able to put just what you want onto your pictures.

Merge also allows you to merge images for other purposes as well. Fade one image into another, effectively superimposing one picture over another. You can also do a “quadrant merge”, where you combine for individual images into one large composite image, with one original in each corner of the result.

Merge gives you several options for your merge, so you can get just the right result. And the best thing is that your originals are left untouched. Don’t like the result? Go back and try again.

Merge runs on all 32-bit Windows systems.

Download Merge

Sometimes you need to create a tool that’s not too big, but not too small. Scripting may be a bit underpowered, but you don’t want to roll out the “big guns” and build some huge C++ monster either. Like Baby Bear, you want something that’s “just right”: something basic, or maybe something BASIC.

FreeBASIC is a free, open-source, 32-bit BASIC compiler, reminiscent of Microsoft’s QuickBasic. If you know any BASIC syntax, you can start coding right away with FreeBASIC. Using a superset of QuickBasic commands, you can put FreeBASIC through its paces and get the job done.

Use FreeBASIC to write console apps, or add graphics libraries to create “pretty” programs. FreeBASIC doesn’t come with a fancy IDE, but will integrate with many editors. There is even a list of candidates on the FB website. Most C libraries can be used directly, opening up all kinds of possibilities for you.

FreeBASIC is available for Linux, Windows, and even MS-DOS (ask your parents, kids).

Download FreeBASIC

Web pages change all the time. While subscribing to RSS Feeds is a good way to keep on top of that changing content, it’s a fact of life that not every webmaster provides you with one, and even the ones that do may not be tracking what you want to look at. Going back and checking the site multiple times a day may drive you nuts. Isn’t there some way to have that done for you?

Take a look at ChangesMeter. You can configure it to check on your favorite pages, with each URL configured individually for the interval between checks; update as frequently as hourly, or as little as just once a day. ChangesMeter can also do something that the best RSS feed can never do: keep track of changes on your local system.

Just set ChangesMeter to watch your pages or files and walk away. It sticks a little icon in the menu bar to let you know when things are changing, but stays out of your way the rest of the time. It’s easy to add, tweak, and remove locations to monitor.

ChangesMeter is a Universal Binary, so it will run on PowerPC- and Intel Macs. It requires OS X 10 4.8 or better.

Download ChangesMeter

Smart PC Recorder will take sound–any sound–and record it to to a high-quality .wav or .mp3 file. If you can hear it through your computer, Smart PC Recorder can record it. Taking input from a microphone, line-in, audio cassettes, CDs, or even other applications, Smart PC Recorder works with your computer’s sound card to convert analog signal to digital and record it.
Introduce your vinyl collection to your iPod. Record Internet radio broadcasts. Save your own virtuosity with the kazoo. The list goes on.

You can choose the encoding method, bit rate, and sampling rate for your recordings, and decide whether to record in stereo or monaural. Save as .wav files to maintain full fidelity, or store as .mp3 to save space.

Smart PC Recorder doesn’t require that your PC be too smart: it will run on any Windows system, from Win98 onward.

Download Smart PC Recorder

In the Beginning was the Table. Every website was built in tables. It was a crude, but relatively effective way to enforce the visual layout of your website. And it was the only game in town.

Enter Cascading Style Sheets. Now the table can be used–for tables! All modern browsers support CSS, and this is a much more versatile technology for visual layout implementation.

Cascade DTP is a page composition tool that makes it easy to implement CSS in your page design. You can easily format your page elements–font, color, location, etc.–and really control how your pages look. Precisely position design elements on the page; specify point size, justification, and line spacing for text, place images just so, choose border colors, and even define how your scrollbars appear.

Pages built using CSS rather than tables tend to load faster, and because you are removing extra code from the pages, it is easier for search engine robots to index your site, helping improve your chances of ranking higher in the search engine results.

Cascade DTP is compatible with all 32-bit versions of Windows, from Win95 on up.

Download Cascade DTP

SSH, the Secure SHell, is an important-but-not-so-easy-to-use tool. Like most Terminal apps, it offers no real help to the user in typing just the right combination of command and parameters from the system prompt. SSH is the safe way to run remote systems, eclipsing Telnet as the tool-of-choice here. Setting up a secure tunnel with VPN allows you to use a public channel to transmit private data.

JellyfiSSH puts a GUI front end on this vital tool. Rather than having to memorize a raft of arcane commands, let JellyfiSSH do the heavy lifting. You enter the appropriate data–user name, the host you’re connecting to, etc.–and let JellyfiSSH take care of the details. Save your settings to bookmarks and next time you need to connect, all you do is choose from your saved settings, and you’re good-to-go.

Download JellyfiSSH

There are all sorts of open source video format conversion tools out there, but each one is different, and some may be trickier to learn than others. Isn’t there somebody who has taken all these, bundled them together, and slapped an easy-to-use interface on them so that they are easy to use?

Yes there is, and they call it Any Video Converter.

Whether you are converting one file, or have a directory full of files to convert, Any Video Converter may be the tool for you. With the power to convert between all popular video formats, use built-in profiles, or create your own, you can now convert just about any video file format to run on your iPod, PSP, phone, or MP4 player. Users report very fast conversion speeds, and excellent file size compression. You can choose the sample rate, bit rate, and other parameters, to make your new videos work best for you. Trim your videos to keep just the sections you want.

Any Video Converter runs on any Win32 system from Windows 98 on up.

Download Any Video Converter

Do you type the same phrases over and over again? Do you type the same phrases over and over again? Whether a simple “best regards” at the end of a quick note, or an entire email or document template, much of your day is spent typing the same text over and over again.

With Phrase Express, you can cut your typing down to a much more manageable size. While Microsoft Word and other productivity tools have “auto text” or “auto complete” functionality, there’s a good chance that your email client, or your favorite IM tool, or other program that you use all the time does no;. you can even use Phrase Express with your browser to fill in web forms.

You can use Phrase Express the way that best supports your work style: select phrases from a popup menu, use autocomplete, or even take advantage of hotkeys to enter text into your documents.

Phrase Express stores your phrases in XML-compatible files and makes backups or distribution to multiple workstations easy and painless, or you can configure a workstation to act as a server and share a single phrase file across your organization.

Phrase Express requires WinNT, Win2k or later.

Download Phrase Express