What 5 or 6 programs can you not live with out on your iMac or PC?

[Eric Rose]

I just got a new laptop and now is the time to decide which programs I can't live with out. Already loaded Microsoft Office, Photoshop, Filezilla, Irfanview and Dreamweaver. Besides these programs what are your most used? Doesn't have to be photography related either.

[Preston]

CCleaner (http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner). There is a free version for Mac and Windows. This little program makes it easy to clean temporary files, your trash bin, cookies, etc.. It also has a Windows Registry cleaner-upper, but I don't use it--too risky. You can also clean up any programs that run in the background that you don't need. I have it on my desktop and laptop machines.

Bit Defender Antivirus. It gets very high marks, and is not a resource hog.

If you do a lot of screen shots, check out Snag It. It is very flexible and has lots of goodies that may be useful.

I use PhotoSupreme for digital asset management (cataloguing/keywording). It's made by IDImager. There are both Mac and Windows versions.

--P

[Kirk Gittings]

+1 for CC Cleaner....reminds me I need to run it.

[Light Guru]

Dropbox!

It's one of the first things I install on any computer.

[Mark Stahlke]

I use PhotoSupreme for digital asset management (cataloguing/keywording). It's made by IDImager. There are both Mac and Windows versions.Thanks for the recommendation. I just downloaded IDImager. Attention Mac users: It's only $19.99 at the Mac App Store.

[jp]

No need for MS office; I am happier with Openoffice/Libreoffice. The menus that hide items you want, and the mix of hieroglyphic buttons and menus and rearranging things with new versions drives me crazy.

alternate browser like Firefox or Chrome (I don't like or trust IE)
WinSCP for file tranfers
Synctoy for doing backups of my photo work
If you're not going to do photoshop, gimp is acceptable. I think highly of photoshop at the moment.
Foxit for a better/faster PDF reader
tightvnc for remote controlling the PC

[BetterSense]

feh
pdftk
imagemagick
figlet
\LaTeX

[Darin Boville]

Photoshop
Autopano Pro
Handbrake (with Batch interface)
Final Cut X
Aperture
Better File Rename (using for a major photo project right now--a godsend)
Vuescan
Plus all the other free stuff that comes on a Mac

--Darin

[IanG]

Aurora (firefox)
Open Office
Paintshop Pro
Dreamweaver
Sony Vegas


Ian

[Otto Seaman]

fortube.com
teenexplorers.com
facefulls.com
deviantterror.com
wifemonsters.com

[DrTang]

Office (really only use word and access)

corel suite (esp corel paint with alienskin filters - especially exposure)

ie and chrome

historykill

thumbsPlus - been using it since forever..there is probally a lot better stuff out there..but..eh

an old, old copy of HotMeTaL pro -webpages w/o a shit tonne of tables

ftpPro

winZIP

Akrobat and distiller

[Daniel Stone]

•Photoshop
•Capture One (still running v.6 but plan on upgrading to 7) *great tool for RAW digital conversions. also great if shooting rollfilm, and you want to do global edits and apply them to multiple frames. "not just for digital capture" ;)
•Chrome browse (Safari STILL sucks!)
•Skype (great for calling friends FREE :))
(Edit)•Google Phone(not really a "program" ,but in Gmail you can call US numbers for FREE, so I like to use it in lieu of my cell phone when possible(save the minutes and all that ;)). Not sure if this is possible globally?

have been using Office and Adobe for pdf stuff, but really only use the two for invoices and the like(mainly Word), but going to move to OpenOffice soon.

[Michael Graves]

Office 2010 (I'd be perfectly happy with Open Office, but my publisher requires that we us "genuine" Microsoft)
Adobe CS6
Firefox Browser
Camtasia (for video acquisition and editing)
Civilization (Hey. I ain't gonna work all the time!)

[Eric Rose]

Great suggestions! I've downloaded a couple of them already.

Keep it coming folks!!

[Jody_S]

CCleaner (http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner). There is a free version for Mac and Windows. This little program makes it easy to clean temporary files, your trash bin, cookies, etc..


--P

Is there any way to download this without installing all the spyware and add-ons and other crap? The installer asks me if I want to install a bunch of crap, then when I decline to install the add-ons the installer exits without installing CCleaner.

[stormpetrel]

Winpatrol (a great little gem)
Lightroom
Google earth
Autodesk Inventor
Altium Designer
C++ Builder

[mijosc]

I use my PC almost exclusively for photo editing. My iPad handles most of my other daily tasks. Give me a browser if some sort (slight preference for Chrome) and the following applications, and I'll be just fine.
Lightroom
Photoshop
Vuescan
Office (I don't use it much, but I'd miss it if it weren't there)

[Preston]

Is there any way to download this without installing all the spyware and add-ons and other crap? The installer asks me if I want to install a bunch of crap, then when I decline to install the add-ons the installer exits without installing CCleaner.

I don't know, Jody. I certainly didn't have a problem like that. Weird.

--P

[Ken Lee]

Transmit (http://panic.com/transmit/) (an FTP client) Mac only

Carbon Copy Cloner (http://www.bombich.com/ccc_features.html) (for backing up files and drives) Mac Only

VMWare Fusion (http://www.vmware.com/products/fusion/overview.html) (for running Window under OS/X to print via Quadtone RIP)

Quadtone RIP (http://www.quadtonerip.com/html/QTRoverview.html) (for making monochrome images with better quality than obtainable via Epson drivers) Windows and Mac but best version on Windows

KeePass Password Safe (http://keepass.info/)(for storing passwords securely) Windows and Mac

EasyFind (http://www.devontechnologies.com/download/thank-you-for-downloading.html?productid=900000013) (improved file search tool for Mac)

Firefox (http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/) browser (best tools, bookmarks, plugins)

Picasa (http://picasa.google.com/) (for browsing images) very fast, free, now supports 16-bit Photoshop files

[Eric Rose]

I might as well chime in and give you a list of my favorite programs. Notice I say "programs" rather than "apps". I hate that term. Ya I know I'm a grumpy old man.

Blurb Bookmaker
Sonar X2
Simple CSS
Raw Therapee
WAMP Server
Camtasia Studio
e-Sword
DropBox
Kaspersky anti virus
Logmein

This is in addition to the ones I mentioned in the OP.

[MMELVIS]

Is there any way to download this without installing all the spyware and add-ons and other crap? The installer asks me if I want to install a bunch of crap, then when I decline to install the add-ons the installer exits without installing CCleaner.

Get the portable version, extract from zip, run the application, no install required.
http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/builds