Free Software List | nicktech.org-2


Google Chrome google.com/chrome Windows	Google's newly launch web browser Chrome has got to be the fastest one out there for Windows. You can tell they put a lot of thought into it's clean design (what they are calling "one box") and interesting features (favorite thumnails, application shortcuts, crash control, etc).
SyncBack www.2brightsparks.com Windows	A simple yet powerful backup utility for Windows. Can be used to backup or synchronize critical folders to backup drives, or network shares. Contains many advanced options like email notifications, encryption, compression, filtering, and will even close active programs if you like.
NeoOffice neooffice.org Mac OSX	What could be better than the free feature-rich OpenOffice program suite? How about an OSX native version (no need for X11)! In addition to word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations with NeoOffice you can create drawing documents, HTML pages, business cards, and master templates.
PHPList www.phplist.com Web-Based	An open source news letter manager which is easily integrated into an existing school/district website. It features RSS aggregation, scheduling, mailing-list opt in, tracking, and a bunch of other useful functions.
Gawker gawker.sourceforge.net Mac OSX	Makes time-lapse photography/movie making extremely easy using the built-in iSight on the new macs, or any attached camera. Just input the interval between frames, and what movie output you would like. Interesting also is it's ability to attach to remote cameras attached to other macs through bonjour.
Free Ruler pascal.com Mac OSX	The name says it all. Measure things in pixels, inches, etc with this nice looking screen ruler. Found it helpful for object placement in web development. And in the creation of object reports for powerschool.
KeyPass keepass.info Mac OSX, Windows, Linux	A lightweight open source password manager. The perfect way to keep track of passwords and other sensitive notes. KeePass is a strongly encrypted database which is searchable, portable, and is unlocked with a single master password or password disk (for the 007 types).
Cyberduck cyberduck.ch Mac OSX	An easy to use FTP client for OSX. Even comes with a widget interface and example applescripts showing how to automate FTP transfers.
Phpicalendar phpicalendar.net Web-Based	So I have my school's event calendar in iCal and want to post it to the district's web site. Well PHPiCalendar was created for just that purpose. The program is simply a folder full of PHP pages that will read an .ics file and make it into a web site, with all the navigation built in. PHP iCalendar is compatible with a large number of calendaring programs other than iCal.
Picasa picasa.google.com Windows	An excellent piece of software made by the folks at Google to organize, edit, and share your digital photos. Very much the equivalent to iphoto for those poor people not fortunate enough to have a Mac.
Img2icns www.img2icnsapp.com Mac OSX	Img2icns is a converter tool for your images. Enjoy creating thousand of icons from your pictures.
Tux Paint www.tuxpaint.org Mac OSX, Windows, Linux	A kind of open source version of KidPix. TuxPaint is a drawing program for children, and as such has big easy to use controls, lots of color, and lots of sound effects. The developer's site has some great videos of the software in action. While your there remember to download the additional rubber stamps for the program.
Onyx http://www.titanium.free.fr Mac OSX	There are many system utilities people have written to access the hidden command-line options in OSX. Onyx is my favorite of the bunch. It allows you to do such things as show hidden files/folders, deactivate dashboard, alter the login window, increase the speed of Safari, clean every cache, run maintenance scripts, etc.
Image Tricks www.belightsoft.com Mac OSX	This is not so much a image editing program as it is a image manipulation program. With Image Tricks you can apply a large number of effects to pictures using the core image filters built into OS 10.4.
Angry IP Scanner www.angryziber.com Mac OSX, Windows, Linux	Angry IP scanner is a very fast IP address and port scanner. It can scan IP addresses in any range as well as any their ports. Useful in analyzing firewall rules and security concerns. It is cross-platform and lightweight.
TextWrangler barebones.com Mac OSX	A free scaled down version of the popular BBedit program. A big help for projects that require a pure text editor (one that does not apply formatting), such as unix scripting, javascript, plist editing, or HTML coding. See their site for the long list of features.
Otis www.wonderwarp.com Mac OSX	Does anyone remember the game "Jawbreaker"? This is an OSX version of that highly addictive game. Enjoy!
NHR tools.mconserv.net Mac OSX	Network Home Redirector is a series of install packages for OSX which simplify's the task of redirecting the cache stores for things like fonts and Microsoft Office when you are logged into a network home folder. Before now this process was complex to setup, but essential in districts using Network home folders in conjunction with Microsoft office.
Smell-O-Mints www.jschilling.net Mac OSX	The periodic table of elements never looked so good. With an aqua and brushed metal interface, this periodic table will display basic characteristics of each element when you click on them.
Bonjour Browser www.tildesoft.com Mac OSX	The application will scan the LAN for any nodes which are Bonjour enabled, and present them in a single window.
Galerie myriad-online.com Mac OSX	A favorite of elementary teachers who take large amounts of pictures. Galerie is an easy way to make great looking web pages to showcase pictures. Just point the program to either a folder of pictures or iphoto album, specify a few settings, select a template, and the program will create a nice looking web site with click-able thumbnails of the photos. All you have to do to publish is throw the entire folder created on the district web server. There are a large number of user created templates you can download from the publisher's web site.
QuickSilver blacktree.com Mac OSX	Possibly my favorite utility ever created for OSX. It is hard to describe what the program does exactly. But I guess it could be called a application launcher. Basically you press the specified shortcut key, and then start typing the title of what you want to launch be it a program, address book entry, bookmark, etc. Sounds simple, but it can have a big impact on the way you navigate OSX.
MyHome software.relevantwalk.com Mac OSX	An excellent addition to any elementary school who uses locally managed accounts in OSX and has students manually mount their home folders. Just put MyHome in the dock, and no more "I forgot how to get to my server."
NmapFE faktory.org/m/software/nmap/ Mac OSX	A popular port scanning and network security utility; NmapFE for OS X is a no hassles, GUI version for us Mac users.
JumpCut and Clipboard Buddy Jumpcut Clipboardbuddy Mac OSX, Windows	Both programs are what is commonly called clipboard-buffers. This means they will quietly sit in the background on your computer and store things that you cut or copy to the clipboard. After using one for a bit you will find yourself wondering how you ever got by with only copy/pasting one bit of text at a time. JumpCut is for OSX and Clipboard Buddy is for Windows.

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