Free Download A Day

Are you hopelessly addicted to music? Is iTunes set to run whenever you boot up your Windows or Mac machine? You may be a good candidate for Anywhere.FM.

Anywhere.FM is a free service that lets you share your music with…yourself! You can upload your music—as little or as much as you want—and have access to it from anywhere. Don't have an iPod? You can still listen to your tunes while you're away from home or the office.

The Anywhere.FM player is a Flash app that you run in your web browser. You can upload and listen to your own music, or you can listen to others' shared music. Not to worry—these guys are fully licensed by the various performance rights agencies to stream this music, so you don't have to be concerned about racking-up any bad juju from "stealing" content. And if you hear something you like, they're hooked into Amazon, so you can buy the track or album right away for yourself.

Anywhere.FM is a free service, and at least for now, there is no limit to the amount of music you can upload.

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Can't get enough YouTube? Whether it's the latest viral video, some slick "how-to" program, or any of a zillion other types of content, we've all grown addicted to YouTube. Here's a tool that helps you download YouTube videos to your machine, so that you can enjoy them again and again.

Free YouTube Downloader does exactly what the name suggests: it enables you to grab those videos and save them locally. Just copy and paste the URL of the content you want, and press the button. It couldn't be easier. It supports multiple downloads as well—just type several addresses into the box, each on a separate line.

Free YouTube Downloader is a Java application, which means that it will run on Linux, Macintosh, Windows, or just about any other platform that has Java Runtime Environment Standard Edition, with Java version 1.5 or better.

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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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Tired of Guitar Hero? Beat all the songs and looking for something more? How about playing a real guitar?

TuxGuitar is a multitrack tablature editor and player. You can write, edit, and play tracks and songs. With its graphical interface, it's easy to add notes, rearrange them, lengthen or shorten, and so forth. You can use multiple instruments, allowing you to write and arrange for the whole band at once. With its ability to use both regular five-line musical staves or tablature to represent the notes, it doesn't matter whether you can read music or not.

You can vary the speed of song playback, so that you can play along on your own Strat or ES-335. The "speed trainer" function allows you to practice by playing back a passage that you're learning ten times, gradually increasing speed as you become more confident.

TuxGuitar is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux platforms.

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How's your grasp of music theory? Do you know an Allegro from a G-clef? Whether you're an an experienced musician or have problems playing a radio, Aquallegro can give you a hand with all things musical.

It includes a series of quizzes about the "stuff" of music, and with real-time feedback, you will know where you stand as you progress through them. In addition, there are detailed help files to make sure you're grasping key concepts.

The content runs the gamut from note names, intervals, and lengths, as well as chords, scales, and sight singing. With built-in administrative tools, Aquallegro can be customized by teachers to use as part of their music programs.

While there's no guarantee that you'll be playing in the Philharmonic anytime soon, Aquallegro can help you can gain a greater appreciation for all things musical.

Aquallegro is a Mac application and requires OS X 10.4 or better.

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Juice Receiver is all about podcasts. Those little media-rich RSS feeds are a way of like for many of us. Juice plays the part of the aggregator of content.

You can set Juice to receive podcasts the way you want to collect them. Whether it's once or twice a day, or even every 30 minutes, you get to call the shots. You can also configure it to grab all back-episodes that you might have missed along the way.

Juice doesn't incorporate a media player, so you can use it in conjunction with your favorite player. It interfaces automatically with iTunes, Windows Media Player, and Winamp, or you can choose "No player" and have it use your default media player, or you can even handle the details yourself. Either way you will know that you have the latest and greatest and that you will get to listen and view the latest podcasts on your own terms.

Power users can even set Juice to run a command, batch file, or shell script after each download, making Juice even more useful as you get your fix.

Juice Receiver is available for Linux, Mac (OS X 10.3+) and Windows (Windows 2000+).

Download Juice Receiver

Okay, the truth is out: we all love Legos! There's always been something very satisfying about the look and feel of those little plastic blocks. From the simplest construction–look, I made a cube!–to complex animated beasts, everything just kinda' looks cool when it's made out of Legos.

In fact, the only real drawback with these little Danish blocks is when you step on them in the middle of the night. There is nothing in the world as sharp as those little plastic corners at 4:30 in the morning when you've just GOT to go.

Logo Digital Designer protects you from that danger, while giving you much of the fun of the Lego experience. Whether using a pre-built model as a starting point, or just starting with a blank screen, you can build just about whatever you want. The Camera Control lets you rotate your virtual model, and to zoom in and out, getting a better view of your handiwork from all angles. You have an unlimited number of bricks, so you'll never run out. Once you're done, you can check the Price Window to see how much your project would cost if constructed with real Lego bricks. Heck, you can even click through to the online store to buy them right now.

Lego Digital Designer is available for Windows (XP) or Mac (OS X 10.3+).

Download Lego Digital Designer

Air guitar is all the rage. Keyboard simulators are pretty easy to find. What if your predilection run more toward the percussive end of the spectrum?

MacDrumset is a drum simulation app for the next Buddy Rich (or John Bonham, without the whole dying part). Using nothing but your computer keyboard, you can play your heart out on a virtual drum kit with a kick drum, three snares and toms, two cymbals, and even hand claps to round out the collection. There are also a couple of built-in rhythms, for times when you just feel like phoning it in.

There's nothing too fancy about MacDrumset, but it is a fun little diversion, and hey, if you're going to be drumming your fingers on the desktop, why not include a good rimshot or crash from time to time.

MacDrumset is a MacOS "Classic" app. It runs under OS 9 or in "classic" mode for OS X systems so equipped.

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Are you an air guitar aficionado? Do you lust after that sunburst Strat hanging in the music store window? If you've got a computer keyboard, this may be your lucky day.

Frets On Fire is a keyboard-based guitar playing game. Using a combination of Function keys and the the Enter key, you play along with individual notes and chords to rack up a big score. You can start at Easy level to learn the moves; graduate to Medium as you gain confidence, and eventually you'll be at Amazing, shredding with the best of them. There are tons of songs available, or you can import from Guitar Hero, or even create your own songs.

It may not be time to quit your day job yet, but with Frets On Fire, you'll feel like that big recording contract is just around the corner.

Frets On Fire is available for Linux, Mac (x86 processors), and Windows.

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Mark Twain suggested that "everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it." While WeatherSnitch can't do anything about the weather, it can keep you up-to-date with current conditions and forecast information.

WeatherSnitch is always available, running in your menubar, meaning that you lose no space on your desktop. By default, it displays current conditions for your selected location. You can configure it to add additional locations, so you can enjoy basking in the sun in San Diego while keeping track of the latest storm in Buffalo, where your brother is.

You can configure WeatherSnitch to specify how often it should update its information. You can cycle through your locations, so they will each appear in turn on your menubar. Click on the menubar to open the detail window for more info. With built-in links to weather.com (The Weather Channel's website), you can drill down even further for complete weather information for your selected locations.

Maybe you can't really do anything about the weather, but with WeatherSnitch you will certainly know all there is to know about it.

WeatherSnitch is a free Mac app that requires OS X 10.4.

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