[Last updated: 3-April-2011] Let's start a thread where we share our favorite utility programs--those "little apps" that we use: To make us more productive Or do that little job quicker and easier with Articulate or PowerPoint Or help us troubleshoot things. Also, identify if Windows or Mac. And if free or a cost. As we add things below, I'll update this list here. For measuring things on the screen: Pixel Ruler (Windows) - FREE For resizing any window to an exact, predefined size: Sizer (Windows) - FREE For getting color values on the screen: Pixie (Windows) - FREE ColorPix (Windows) - FREE For troubleshooting HTTP calls under the hood with Articulate content: HTTP Watch (Windows) - Free Version or Full Version ($395) HTTP Analyzer (Windows) - Trial version of Full Version ($119-$169) Fiddler - web debugger (Windows) - FREE For Sound Editing: Levelator (Windows or Mac) - FREE but "tip" suggested Audacity (Windows or Mac) - FREE PowerPoint Add-ins: Motion Path Tools (Windows only?) - FREE (Thanks to Tom K. for this one!) Print2Flash - print to Flash Office docs/PPTs (Windows) - FREE Jigsaw Maker (Windows) - $29.99 For Creating/Converting/Playing Media (e.g., videos): Format Factory (Windows) - FREE (but donation suggested ) - (Thanks to Brian B. for this one) Any Video Converter (Windows) - FREE YouTube - converting videos to MP4 (Browser) - FREE (see Will's post for how to do this) Xtranormal text to video (Windows or Mac) - FREE Account plus Charged Account Handbrake - media transcoder (Windows or Mac) - FREE SWIFF Player for playing Flash videos (Windows) - FREE VLC for playing any media file (All platforms) - FREE XVID for converting Windows LiveMeeting files to other formats (Windows) - FREE Codec Information Appliance or GSpot for finding out how a video was encoded and all the details about the video's file format (Windows) - FREE For Screen Captures: SnagIt (Windows/Mac) - $50 Windows 7 Snipping Tool (in Windows 7 itself) - FREE Screenpresso - simple screen captures and editing (Windows) - FREE Greenshot - simple screen capture tool (Windows) - FREE Zoomit for highlighting or annotating parts of the screen (Windows) - FREE For Web Development: FancyBox for displaying images, html content and multi-media in a Mac-style "lightbox" that floats overtop of web page - FREE FoxReplace: Useful FireFox Extension if you are editing content within a web browser (in wiki for example) and you need to do search-and-replace (Browser) - FREE Web Developer: FireFox extension that helps in web design. Especially useful for troubleshooting layout problems or figuring out how someone did something on a page (Browser) - FREE For graphics/photo work: ArtWeaver paint program (Windows) - FREE version or Plus version @ 29 EUROS TinEye reverse image search (Windows or Mac) - FREE GIMP for photo retouching, image composition and image authoring (Windows/MAC) - FREE Fotosketcher converting digital photos into art, automatically: (Windows) - FREE Poladroid create easily Polaroid-like pictures from your digital photos:(Windows & Mac) - FREE For picking color schemes (browser-based) - FREE Color Jack for help with color schemes (browser-based) - FREE Color Hunter - create a color palette from any image (browser-based) - FREE Color Scheme Designer - color scheme designer - (browser-based) - FREE Big Huge Labs - color palette generator: create a color palette from any photo (browser-based) - FREE Color Contrast Check - calculating / validating color combinations for readability - (browser-based) - FREE Color Contrast Visualizer - calculating / validating color combinations for readability (browser-based--requires Flash player) - FREE Official Seal Maker - adding seals to your course (browser based) - FREE Storytboarding/Idea-Generating/Mind-mapping Tools: Adobe Ideas Digital sketchbook (iPhone/iPad) - FREE Corkulus idea board (iPad) - $4.99 Evernote (Windows or Mac) - Free acount or $ for premium account FreeMind mind mapping (Windows/Mac) - FREE Online File Sharing and Storage: Dropbox - FREE or account (price varies on amount being stored) Text-toSpeech: Inova Text to Speech (Windows) - $ varies Text Effects/Editing: Wordle a toy for generating “word clouds” from provided (browser-based) - FREE PureText tool for pasting without formatting across all Windows applications (Windows) - FREE Notepad ++ source code editor and Notepad replacement (Windows) - FREE PDF to Word Converter (Windows) - FREE Office Suite: OpenOffice - open-source office software suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, and databases(note the Impress PowerPoint-like program does not work with Articulate Presenter) - (Windows/Mac) - FREE Browsers/Web/FTP: Delicious social bookmarking service (browser-based) - FREE FireFTP cross-platform FTP/SFTP client for Mozilla fitreFox - FREE iMacros for Firefox - record and replay repetitious web work - FREE but donation suggested Google Analytics - enterprise-class web analytics solution for website traffic - FREE Search/Replace: Effective File Search advanced search/Windows search replacement (Windows) - $29.95 grepWin simple search and replace tool which can use regular expressions (Windows) - FREE Desktop Productivity Tools: Fences desktop organizer utility (Windows) - FREE for basic; $19.95 for Pro version Soluto a utility that gives you easier control over what programs start up (Windows) - FREE

A great resource for these kinds of lists is here: http://c4lpt.co.uk/Directory/index.html Jane Hart is the Wonder Woman of free tools collections and general resources and info here: http://c4lpt.co.uk/handbook/openresources.html

For creating very cool text art, Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. This is a FREE web service. You can either take a screen grab or print to .pdf to save what you have created.

Video tools:For video conversion (something I'm betting is similar to FormatFactory) I use Any Video Converter (Free, Windows). If you deal with Windows LiveMeeting files (which uses a strange fussy but highly compact codec), I have found it particularly useful in converting these meeting videos to other formats (I would convert them to XVID format, which is then editable in Camtasia).Another useful transcoding trick is to upload a video to YouTube, mark it as private so it isn't viewable to anyone but you, and then download the transcoded version (MP4) for use in Articulate or other locations. You can then simply delete the file from YouTube. This gives you the power and reliability of YouTube's transcoding software, but the video is never made public.A good tool for video is the free Windows utility Codec Information Appliance (I'm using the alternate title) which is a gem for finding out how a video was encoded and all the details about the video's file format.web tools:I love FancyBox (not platform dependent) for making those Web 2.0 "Lightbox" windows that allow you to pop-up a video or image on a web page without making someone navigate to a new page. FoxReplace: Useful FireFox Extension if you are editing content within a web browser (in wiki for example) and you need to do search-and-replace. Web Developer: Another great FireFox extension that helps in web design. Especially useful for troubleshooting layout problems or figuring out how someone did something on a page. Audio:foobar2000: With this free Windows sound (and other media) player you can designate "global hotkeys" to control the playback of audio. If you create screencasts and you record the audio separately from the video this can be handy because it allows you to start/stop/rewind the audio while the audio player is minimized.Windows Utilities:PathCopy: Allows you to right click on any file and copy the path to that file. In my opinion this should be built into Windows. Useful when you need to send the path of a file on your network via e-mail (which helps avoid sending big attachments).I love software tools.

I had lost Pixie thanks Gerry! Artweaver - Graphic Editor - Free for basic program. Can buy full version. TinEye - A reverse Image Search - Free to a max search amount daily (donations accepted) Xtranormal - Text to Video - Not as free as they used to be but still pretty cool.

This is a great idea for a thread, Gerry. Something I have on my "list" of things to do when I get time is create a Screenr of iPad apps I use as part of my work as an ID. Even though we can't output Articulate things to iOS devices (a whole other discussion), it is a great tool with lots of possibilities. Two apps I use together are Adobe Ideas (free unless you want the layer capability) and Corkulous. Corkulous is currently $4.99. I use Adobe Ideas to do rough sketches of screens for a kind of pre-storyboard or what I've heard referred to as a low fidelity prototype. Then, I send those rough sketches to my photo album which Corkulous can import. Then, in Corkulous, I can create the pre-storyboard which I can email as a PDF to a SME to review my thinking about how a learning object I'm proposing might flow. The other thing I like about Adobe Ideas is that it does smoothing of whatever you draw so I've used it to draw arrows or other things to bring into PPT for creation of Articulate learning objects. So, maybe in the next couple weeks, I'll squeeze in the time to do a demo of these things. Currently, there is also the challenge of not being able to do a screen recording of iPad activity so will have to use another approach.

Forum Discussion

GerryWasiluk

Community Member

14 years ago

Your Favorite Utility Programs

[Last updated: 3-April-2011]

Let's start a thread where we share our favorite utility programs--those "little apps" that we use:

To make us more productive
Or do that little job quicker and easier with Articulate or PowerPoint
Or help us troubleshoot things.

Also, identify if Windows or Mac. And if free or a cost.

As we add things below, I'll update this list here.

For measuring things on the screen:

Pixel Ruler (Windows) - FREE

For resizing any window to an exact, predefined size:

Sizer (Windows) - FREE

For getting color values on the screen:

Pixie (Windows) - FREE
ColorPix (Windows) - FREE

For troubleshooting HTTP calls under the hood with Articulate content:

HTTP Watch (Windows) - Free Version or Full Version ($395)
HTTP Analyzer (Windows) - Trial version of Full Version ($119-$169)
Fiddler - web debugger (Windows) - FREE

For Sound Editing:

Levelator (Windows or Mac) - FREE but "tip" suggested
Audacity (Windows or Mac) - FREE

PowerPoint Add-ins:

Motion Path Tools (Windows only?) - FREE (Thanks to Tom K. for this one!)
Print2Flash - print to Flash Office docs/PPTs (Windows) - FREE
Jigsaw Maker (Windows) - $29.99

For Creating/Converting/Playing Media (e.g., videos):

Format Factory (Windows) - FREE (but donation suggested ) - (Thanks to Brian B. for this one)
Any Video Converter (Windows) - FREE
YouTube - converting videos to MP4 (Browser) - FREE (see Will's post for how to do this)
Xtranormal text to video (Windows or Mac) - FREE Account plus Charged Account
Handbrake - media transcoder (Windows or Mac) - FREE
SWIFF Player for playing Flash videos (Windows) - FREE
VLC for playing any media file (All platforms) - FREE
XVID for converting Windows LiveMeeting files to other formats (Windows) - FREE
Codec Information Appliance or GSpot for finding out how a video was encoded and all the details about the video's file format (Windows) - FREE

For Screen Captures:

SnagIt (Windows/Mac) - $50
Windows 7 Snipping Tool (in Windows 7 itself) - FREE
Screenpresso - simple screen captures and editing (Windows) - FREE
Greenshot - simple screen capture tool (Windows) - FREE
Zoomit for highlighting or annotating parts of the screen (Windows) - FREE

For Web Development:

FancyBox for displaying images, html content and multi-media in a Mac-style "lightbox" that floats overtop of web page - FREE
FoxReplace: Useful FireFox Extension if you are editing content within a web browser (in wiki for example) and you need to do search-and-replace (Browser) - FREE
Web Developer: FireFox extension that helps in web design. Especially useful for troubleshooting layout problems or figuring out how someone did something on a page (Browser) - FREE

For graphics/photo work:

ArtWeaver paint program (Windows) - FREE version or Plus version @ 29 EUROS
TinEye reverse image search (Windows or Mac) - FREE
GIMP for photo retouching, image composition and image authoring (Windows/MAC) - FREE
Fotosketcher converting digital photos into art, automatically: (Windows) - FREE
Poladroid create easily Polaroid-like pictures from your digital photos:(Windows & Mac) - FREE
For picking color schemes (browser-based) - FREE
Color Jack for help with color schemes (browser-based) - FREE
Color Hunter - create a color palette from any image (browser-based) - FREE
Color Scheme Designer - color scheme designer - (browser-based) - FREE
Big Huge Labs - color palette generator: create a color palette from any photo (browser-based) - FREE
Color Contrast Check - calculating / validating color combinations for readability - (browser-based) - FREE
Color Contrast Visualizer - calculating / validating color combinations for readability (browser-based--requires Flash player) - FREE
Official Seal Maker - adding seals to your course (browser based) - FREE

Storytboarding/Idea-Generating/Mind-mapping Tools:

Adobe Ideas Digital sketchbook (iPhone/iPad) - FREE
Corkulus idea board (iPad) - $4.99
Evernote (Windows or Mac) - Free acount or $ for premium account
FreeMind mind mapping (Windows/Mac) - FREE

Online File Sharing and Storage:

Dropbox - FREE or account (price varies on amount being stored)

Text-toSpeech:

Inova Text to Speech (Windows) - $ varies

Text Effects/Editing:

Wordle a toy for generating “word clouds” from provided (browser-based) - FREE
PureText tool for pasting without formatting across all Windows applications (Windows) - FREE
Notepad ++ source code editor and Notepad replacement (Windows) - FREE
PDF to Word Converter (Windows) - FREE

Office Suite:

OpenOffice - open-source office software suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, and databases(note the Impress PowerPoint-like program does not work with Articulate Presenter) - (Windows/Mac) - FREE

Browsers/Web/FTP:

Delicious social bookmarking service (browser-based) - FREE
FireFTP cross-platform FTP/SFTP client for Mozilla fitreFox - FREE
iMacros for Firefox - record and replay repetitious web work - FREE but donation suggested
Google Analytics - enterprise-class web analytics solution for website traffic - FREE

Search/Replace:

Effective File Search advanced search/Windows search replacement (Windows) - $29.95
grepWin simple search and replace tool which can use regular expressions (Windows) - FREE

Desktop Productivity Tools:

Fences desktop organizer utility (Windows) - FREE for basic; $19.95 for Pro version
Soluto a utility that gives you easier control over what programs start up (Windows) - FREE

General E-Learning

GerryWasiluk
Community Member
14 years ago

First thread updated with additional contributions to date. Also added HTTP Analyzer, Fiddler, OpenOffice, Screenpresso, FreeMind, GIMP, Effective File Search, etc.

Keep 'em coming . . .
WillFindlay
Community Member
14 years ago

Here are a few more I use:

Another good free Windows screenshot alternative (although I still prefer Snagit for the way it keeps a library of your screenshots) is Greenshot.

When someone comes to you with a DVD (which they own the rights to distribute of course) and they want the video available online, Handbrake comes in handy. (For example, converting an orientation video from DVD to online).

A couple of Windows utilities for making Windows a better experience (not all of us get to use Macs) are Fences (a desktop organizer utility) and Soluto (a utility that gives you easier control over what programs start up with Windows).

Thanks for the Polardroid recommendation -- I just used it today for a project and it worked out really well.
SteveFlowers
Community Member
14 years ago
Ah, that reminds me. One of the utilities I use that I take for granted is Grepwin. I love it. It allows you to search and replace or search and find within files using text or regular expressions from the context menu. This is really powerful. Similar to Dreamweaver's Search and Replace within a folder but better since you don't need to crack open Dreamweaver to use it.
GregDoughty
Community Member
14 years ago

Hi all. One of my favorites that I use with screenr is zoomit. It is great for highlighting parts of the screen.

http://zoomit.en.softonic.com/
amulkapoor
Community Member
14 years ago

Will Findlay said:

Here are a few more I use:

Another good free Windows screenshot alternative (although I still prefer Snagit for the way it keeps a library of your screenshots) is Greenshot.

When someone comes to you with a DVD (which they own the rights to distribute of course) and they want the video available online, Handbrake comes in handy. (For example, converting an orientation video from DVD to online).

A couple of Windows utilities for making Windows a better experience (not all of us get to use Macs) are Fences (a desktop organizer utility) and Soluto (a utility that gives you easier control over what programs start up with Windows).

Thanks for the Polardroid recommendation -- I just used it today for a project and it worked out really well.

Many thanks, I'll use it !!
WillFindlay
Community Member
14 years ago
For picking color schemes: http://kuler.adobe.com/
AliciaPennin888
Community Member
14 years ago
I'm going to have to try some of these. I've used Gadwin for screenshots for years. Seeing the utilities to change photos into graphics would be a good way to use, and not use, employees in courses. I can take a photo of an employee, change it into a graphic using FotoSketcher and be left with a "likeness" of them. This way if they leave the company, I would not feel compelled to change the graphic.
CarolineWilliam
Community Member
14 years ago

For help with color schemes.

http://www.colorjack.com/ - Color Jack

http://www.colorhunter.com/ - Color Hunter - create a color palette from any image

http://colorschemedesigner.com - Color scheme designer

http://bighugelabs.com/ Big Huge Labs - Color palette generator: create a color palette from any photo.
SteveFlowers
Community Member
14 years ago

There are quite a few tools available for calculating / validating color combinations for readability. Here are a couple that I've used:

http://www.snook.ca/technical/colour_contrast/colour.html

This one provides a nice visualization for selection:

http://www.stainlessvision.com/files/ColourContrastVisualiser.swf
GerryWasiluk
Community Member
14 years ago

First thread updated with additional, wonderful contributions. Also, some minor combination and rearragement of categories.

What a great community! Send more--especially if they fill a need not yet expressed.

Gotta find time now to try a few of these myself.