Handy Things
These applications are the main reason I would find it difficult to switch operating systems. I have Windows right where I want it. Hope someone else finds them useful. In alphabetical order:
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Adds a 'Minimise to Tray' option when you right click the title bar of a window (ie next to minimise, close etc). Does various similar things but I turned them all off, that's all you need really. Most handy. Free version is not full but does the job and does not expire.
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Shows you your directories in a pie chart representing how much space they're taking up on your harddrive. Useful when you start running out of space.
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I doubt I need to explain that. But. Extensions! They're where it's at:
Bookmark backup backs up bookmarks, settings etc every time you close your browser, in case of crashes
All-in-One Gestures is so useful you'll get annoyed other applications don't have it
Googlebar - for those who want to use Google/I'm feeling lucky/search this site/image search with minimum hassle
Adblock Plus kills banners, and is a nice improvement on the old version, as you can now unblock things easily
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Makes taking multiple screenshots very easy. Saves to jpgs instead of copying to the clipboard.
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Open source, opens and saves to Microsoft Office files, and the Word equivalent can export to PDF. Wave Clippy goodbye.
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Allows you to easily make a window stay always-on-top, so you don't have to arrange everything around it when say watching a video on one quarter of your screen.
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is a decent FTP client, although with some annoying quirks. Free version is full and does not expire, you just don't get support.
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One of the best text editors I've ever seen. No formatting, only saves to .txt (or .html etc). Has some incredibly nifty features such as block select mode (drag a square to select text, in the same manner as you can do on your desktop), split the text to two separate scrollbars on your screen so you can view the very top in one while editing the middle in the other, customisable profiles for different file endings, colours code for you, sophisticated find & replace... the works. Melikes.
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...can be whatever you want it to. I prefer it discreetly tiny and always on top somewhere unintrusive. Or it can be a big full screen beastie. Can hide in the systray, or show on the taskbar. Global hotkeys, or not. So very customisable. Nice media library. What can I say, I like it. A lot.