Free Download A Day

They may not be glamorous, but FTP programs are vital to getting through the day. Whether it's uploading new web pages, posting downloads, or sending that huge spreadsheet to headquarters, you've really got to use a dedicated tool. Sure, if you're gutsy enough-or nerdy enough—you can do all that from the command prompt, but who needs that kind of grief, right?

Core FTP LE is a free FTP client. With an easy-to-understand GUI, it helps you get your work done, instead of becoming a job in its own right. Along with standard quick-and-dirty FTP transfers, Core FTP LE supports secure SFTP as well. With regular FTP, all your data, including passwords, travels out in the open across the Internet; with SFTP, everything is secure, so you don't have to worry about who's looking at your data as it moves up the wire. It's even HIPAA compliant, so you know that your data is secure.

Core FTP LE is free for personal and educational use. It's a Windows application and runs under Win98 or later.

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What is that color? If your color perception is challenged like ours, you may not be able to tell whether that's magenta or puce, or just plain red. Trying to match it? Forget it, you're out of luck. Maybe some help is in order.

Pixie is a color picker for Windows. Start it up, point it at your screen, and it'll report back the color you've currently selected. You get color values reported back as RGB, hex, CMYK, and HSV values, so no matter what you're doing with this data, you'll have what you need in the right format.

The app itself is super small, so you won't be giving up your precious disk space or processing power to use this tool every day.

Pixie is a Windows tool. It runs under any Win32 O/S, from Windows 95 on up.

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We've all been there: the only copy you have of some critical file is all messed up. The diskette is munched, the CD is scratched, the hard drive has crashed. You know that there is bound to be some lost data, but you also know that there's a lot of data that is just fine, thank you. Your trusty operating system, however, thinks it knows better. Problems with that track? Can't read that cluster? No need to bail out here.

Unstoppable Copier is a utility for Windows and Linux that will do its dead-level best to read whatever you throw at it. It takes whatever pieces of a file it can get its hands on and try to knit them back together, You can control just how deep you want to go here, from a "take forever and get me everything you can" approach, or dial it back and just skip the unreadable files, with all levels in between.

While half of a binary file may not be of much use to you—depending, of course, on what it is—certainly half a text file is better than nothing.

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Most spreadsheet apps, like Excel, give you the opportunity to create charts and graphs based on your data. Enter sales performance for the month, and you can turn that textual data into pretty pictures which, frankly, are often easier to comprehend than are a page full of numbers. There are times, however, where the limitations of tools like this are apparent. You may need more horsepower to take care of business here.

Plot is a free 2D scientific plotting program. Since it plots graphs as its primary purpose, it will probably do a better job. With Plot, you can enter the data to be graphed directly, or you can import it from other tools. You can export your plots to several different formats, useful for inclusion in presentations or display on the web. With a built-in macro language, you can automate tedious tasks.

Plot is a Mac application. It runs under OS X 10.3.9 and is distributed as a Universal Binary, so it'll run on either PowerPC or x86 machines.

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Working together and collaborating on projects is vital to getting things done. With members of project groups often located in different offices, or different time zones, it can be a real challenge to make sure that everybody is current of the status of projects and schedules. Enterprise tools are available to keep track of this kind of stuff, but they don't come cheap and maintaining them can take a platoon of IT guys.

Sosius is an online workspace and collaboration platform. Accessible from any Internet-connected computer, it puts all the tools in one place needed to manage files, contacts, schedules, and more, with 200MB of secure storage space. Whether it's just a place to put files you're working on at home and the office, or you want to collaborate with co-workers, it's all there.

You can create and maintain a blog to get your thoughts out there. Threaded discussions allow folks to work together and make sure everybody's on the same page. You can set permissions to all of your content, so that you can make sure that only people who "need to know" can access selected information.

Sosius is a free online service. It should be available to most anyone with a modern web browser, regardless of the platform they're running on.

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How secure is your data? Whether it's on your hard drive, moving across your network, or even out on the 'Net, there is always a real danger that your important private information may fall into the hands of folks you would rather not have see it. There are plenty of precautions that you can take to secure your data, including firewalls, antivirus tools, secure connections, and more. Here's another arrow to add to your security quiver.

Kruptos 2 is a personal encryption tool that allows you to secure your files with 256-bit encryption. You can change filenames when you encrypt them, so that obvious signs, like files named AllMyPasswordsAreInThisFile.doc don't give away the store. It also has the ability to shred and securely dispose of files you really want to get rid of. In addition, it allows you to create self-decrypting files. This last feature means that you can encrypt a file, email it to somebody else, and then they can decrypt it without having to install this tool, something that generally isn't available with encryption tools.

Kruptos 2 integrates with Windows Explorer, so it's available via a simple right-click of your mouse.

Kruptos 2 is a Windows application. It requires Windows 2000 or later.

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So here's an interesting one: a simulator for the Enigma Machine. As you may (or may not) recall, this tool was used to encode and decode secret massages during the Second World War, primarily by the German Wehrmacht. Built on a combination of mechanical and electrical components, it was pretty state-of-the-art for its day in securing communications. For an in-depth description of its design and functionality, check out the Wikipedia article.

The Enigma Simulator is designed to look and sound like the original, and maybe more importantly, to encrypt and decrypt accurately as well. With keys, rotors, lights, and the plug board, you'll get a good sense of what it was like to use this machine. You have the option of "printing" the output, simulating the paper tape printer that was used with some later models of the original machine.

The Enigma Simulator is a Mac application. It requires OS X 10.2.9 or later.

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Gliffy is a free online tool that lets you draw flowcharts, floorplans, network diagrams, and more. Since it's used online, you don't have to worry about system compatibility, and it'll run on just about any system that supports a modern web browser.

You create your drawings online. There are several palettes of shapes, so it's easy to drag-and-drop your way to completion. Several types of lines let you tie your elements together and indicate the direction that your process flows. You can save your creations online, or you can download them as JPEG, PNG, or even SVG files. You can share online images by publishing them and sticking their URL into another page, or by choosing other users with whom you want to collaborate. You are, however, limited to five public documents with a free account, and by definition, every document in the free version is public.

Even though this application is free, it's clear these folks would rather have you sign-up for the paid version. At $30, an annual subscription won't break the bank, but they're not at all subtle about urging you to upgrade to the premium edition.

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One of the fun things about living in the Mac world is the ease with which you can change file and folder icons. In Windows, you're pretty much stuck with the generic folder image, or the canned icon that comes with an application. On a Mac, it's pretty easy to customize those and make your machine your own. If only there were enough icons to get it all done.

Img2Icns is a free tool that lets you create icons out of other images. With its simple interface, you just drag the file with the picture you want to icon-ize (is that a word?) and drop it on the app, and you've got an instant icon. If you want to change the icon for a file or folder, just drag it over the application window, and you've got your new icon in place.

It supports oodles of image formats, so the sky's pretty much the limit here. All the proportions and transparencies of your originals are preserved, so there are no surprises when you're done.

Img2Icns is a Mac application.

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You know you've gotten this email: "Oh my goodness, will you look at THAT?!?!" There's inevitably a URL attached, indicating that you've just GOT to look at that page. You dutifully click on the link, look at the page, and decide that your friend / coworker / spouse must be nuts, 'cause you don't see anything of note on that page. Sure, they could have given you a hint in the subject line of the message, but where's the excitement in that?

You don't need to return the favor. When you run across that web page that you've just got to share—will you look at the price they want for widgets?—it's easy to take pity on your reader and make sure they know just what's gotten your knickers all up in a knot.

Awesome Highlighter does one job, and it does it well. When you run across that all-important page, simply enter its address into the Awesome Highlighter address box. It'll take you to your page, and let you highlight the section you're interested in. What's more, it then gives you a special short URL. Send that to your intended audience, and when they click on it, the page you saw with your highlights intact, will display on their browser. No more guesswork. Neat.

Awesome Highlighter is a free online service, so it should run on any system with a modern web browser. You don't have to register, so it really is quick and easy to get going.

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