Useful stuff: Software

Here is some well-known and relatively unknown software I like:

• Break Reminder - a pretty good RSI prevention program. Every 10 minutes, it blacks out the monitor and forces me to take a 20 second break.
  
• dbPowerAMP - rips your CDs into mp3s. It's fast.
  
• TexPoint - Add-on to Windows version Powerpoint. It allows you to add LaTeX equations and characters to your presentations. It's easy to use; you can even made the equations colored with the appropriate LaTeX commands.
  
• Opera - The best web browser ever. 1) It's not Internet Explorer so it won't be exploited as much, 2) It has shortcut keys to magnify the text on the screen (so I don't get bleary-eyed while reading the New York Times), 3) You can navigate text links and image links (but not Javascript stuff) with the keyboard (the mouse hurts my hand), 4) It's fast. Occasionally, there is a webpage that Opera can't read, but those are rare cases.
  
• Picasa - image processing and organizing software. I really like the web galleries that it generates.
  
• WinSCP - nice interface for sending and receiving files between your home and remote computers. If your remote account doesn't have an FTP server, this software allows you to send files anyway by SCP protocol.
  
• Weather Watcher - a nifty widget that checks the Weather Channel every hour or so for the temperature and conditions outside. It's especially handy if your computer is continuously connected to the internet.
  
• WebGrab - a utility that will automatically download all files of certain type (say .pdf) on a webpage. This is handy if you're a pack rat like me and want to download a bunch of documents from a course webpage.
  
• WinAlarm - a plugin for WinAmp allows you to use your computer as an alarm clock. Some nice features: you can set how long the music plays after the alarm has gone off, you can pick a playlist or directory for its music selection, the plugin can fade in and fade out the volume (helpful for people who like waking up to "Ride of the Valkyries"). I like waking up to a random selection of my favorite mp3s.