Forum Discussion
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:
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:
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:
I suggest:
Video Converter Pro - a good video converter which supports more than 300 video formats and devices.
DJ Music Mixer - a complete dj mixing software with sampler, effect, recorder and equalizer.
My first post on this forum, so please forgive me if it may not be perfect...
Since the opening list featured word processing software, I think it is not too irrelevant to recommend here WordWeb, a FREE off-line "one-click English thesaurus and dictionary that can look up words in almost any program" and is available for Windows, Android, and iPhone. Its pro version is only $25, but the free version (with 150,000 root words and 120,000 synonym sets) is still better, at least in my experience, than any other dictionary/thesaurus software I have tried in the last 23 years. For old-fashioned wordsmiths who do not always want to rely on an Internet connection, it is simply an indispensable tool. :)
Another neat little tool I have been using in my teaching forever is EclipseCrossword. a FREE (and lovely) crossword puzzle generator. It may not be as sophisticated as many of its commercial counterparts, but it is so simple, powerful, and easy to use with a series of variable parameters that I cannot let it go unmentioned. Best of all, with a single click you can generate a puzzle and save it in HTML format (with JavaScript created by the app itself, so no high-level wizardry is required) that is ideal for online publishing, and makes the results highly interactive.
I am not affiliated with either software, but I am a gushing fan of anything that makes writing and learning - and my life - more effective and easier.:)
It would be great to resurrect and update this thread. Very useful.
For graphic design gimp is good but if you want to make your job so perfectly then Photoshop is the best, and Photoshop's tools panel so similar to gimp.
