Most of the software listed here works under multiple operating systems,
and most of it is free (as in ‘free speech’, not
‘free beer’) and/or open-source software.
See Richard Stallman’s discussion of
Why ‘Free Software’ is better than ‘Open Source’.
Zotero works within Firefox
to grab bibliographic information from Web pages and
store it in a searchable database along with
notes and attached files; a Zotero extension for
OpenOffice.org Writer allows one to insert formatted
citations and bibliographies into a Writer document.
Ghostscript:
Good for viewing PostScript (PS), Encapsulated PostScript (EPS)
and PDF files. Ghostscript itself is a command-line viewer.
Once you've installed it, you can install GSview which has a GUI.
Alternatively, once Ghostscript is installed, you can
set it up as a plug-in for Gimp by copying
gswin32c.exe to some directory specified in
the Path environment variable or by defining
an environment variable GS_PROG which points
to gswin32c.exe.
Tools for collaborating on text
(these look interesting but I haven't used them):
OpenOffice.org Draw is another
general-purpose 2-D drawing programme
Dia
is a 2-D drawing programme specifically for
diagrams such as flowcharts and circuit diagrams with symbols
connected by lines and arrows. Many different
symbols are available, and custom symbols can be created.
The native file format is XML, normally compressed with GZip.
Gnuplot: very
flexible general data-plotting software.
Sweet Home 3D:
an open-source, multi-platform interior-design application.
As of 2012 Apr 1, the latest version is 3.4 dated 2011 Dec 21;
this version added multiple-level features.
It is relatively easy to to create a 2-D floor plan with vertical
dimensions and to see a 3-D preview.
There is a library of furniture and other 3-D objects,
and models can be imported using several different file formats
(currently OBJ (text), DAE (COLLADA, XML text),
3DS (old Autodesk 3D Studio, binary) and LWS (LightWave, text)).
They recommend
Art of Illusion
and
Blender
as open-source programmes for creating 3-D models.
OpenSCAD:
does 3-D
CAD using scripts, based either on constructive solid geometry
using 3-D primitives, or on the extrusion of 2-D geometries
defined in, for example, DXF files created by QCAD or Inkscape.
QCAD: 2-D;
I haven't tried it yet;
an open-source ‘community edition’ is available.
ImageMagick:
image manipulation – format conversion, scaling,
annotation, etc., etc.
Problem (as of 2011 Feb 12, version 6.6.7.6):
the 64-bit version of imdisplay crashes if invoked
with a filename on the command line or via a context menu, but
works OK if invoked from the command line with no filename;
see
problem report and developer's response from 2010 Nov.
When I used convert to combine a set of still images
into a video clip, the resulting .mpg file worked
well but .flv and .avi were not viewable
in other players.
Video
vnc2flv
screen recorder for Unix, Microsoft Windows and Mac. Once installed,
it is run from the command line. See the Web site for clear
instructions.
Tesseract-OCR:
free/open-source, for Linux, MS Windows and Mac OS X;
as of 2011 May 17, latest version is 3.00.1 dated 2010 Nov 5.
gImageReader is a nice GUI for Tesseract;
as of 2011 May 17, latest version is 0.9-1 dated 2011 Mar 24.
Tesseract comes with zero, one or more language-specific
‘trained data’ files, depending on how it's installed.
Language data can be
downloaded and installed, or languages can be installed
from within the installer for Windows, either when first installing
or by rerunning the installer to specify different languages
(which appears
to do more than just put the .traineddata files in
place, since gImageReader didn't work with Japanese after I'd
tried adding it by doing that).
gImageReader comes with no spelling dictionaries installed.
The manual describes how to install the required .dic
(dictionary) and .aff (affix) files.
OpenOCR:
based on Cognitive's Cuneiform, which was made open-source
2007 Dec 12. As of 2011 May 17, latest version is 0.1.0
dated 2009 Feb 14. I've used this quite successfully.
Binary download for Windows only.
OCRopus:
free/open-source, no binary downloads provided;
as of 2011 May 17, latest 'official' version is 0.4 dated 2009 May,
but there is a version 0.4.4 dated 2010 May and
active development is going on.
I haven't used this.
See DIY Book Scanner
for information about book scanning, both hardware and software,
including OCR.
3-D
CosmoPlayer 2.1: VRML viewer.
Download the English-language cosmo_win95nt_eng.exe
(previously named cp21setup.exe) or the corresponding
French or German version (_fr or _du).
(Private
local copy.)
If installing for Netscape 6 or 7 or Mozilla,
create a file called netscape.exe (it doesn't matter
what's in it) in the directory where the browser executable
and its plugins subdirectory reside.
Run cosmo_win95nt_xx.exe. Check
the box for Other (unsupported browsers).
(I don't know what difference the
Previewing in Cosmo Authoring Applications checkbox
makes if no such applications are installed.)
Check the box for either Netscape or Microsoft IE. (Apparently
it's not a good idea to do them both at the same time; install
CP for one browser and then for the other. CP can also be installed for
multiple versions of Netscape and Mozilla.) Follow the rest of
the instructions. For Netscape or Mozilla, you'll need to
browse to specify the plugins directory (e.g.,
C:\Program Files\Netscape\Netscape 6\Plugins).
Cosmo Player should work fine in versions of Windows from 95 to XP.
(Cortona
VRML viewer is an alternative to CosmoPlayer. See
Karmanaut
for a brief summary of alternative VRML viewers and some useful links.)
Kid3,
for editing ID3 tags in MP3 and other audio files;
free, open-source, cross-platform
VLC media player:
free, open-source, cross-platform. To rip a track or all tracks
from an audio CD:
Media ▶ Convert/Save
Select the Disc tab,
select Audio CD, make sure the
correct disc device is selected.
Under Starting Position set the
desired track number. If the track number is set to zero,
it will rip all the tracks; sometimes I seem to get all of the
tracks into a single file, and sometimes only the last track.
Click on Convert/Save
In the Convert dialogue window,
use Browse to specify the destination
file. (It doesn't remember where you went the last time.)
Specify the filename extension (e.g., .ogg.
Under Settings specify the
profile corresponding to the filename extension
(e.g., Audio - Vorbis (OGG)).
Edit the profile if desired. Click on Start.
There doesn't seem to be a way to get it to rip all of the tracks
into separate files.
Clementine
music player and library organizer: free, open-source, cross-platform.
Amarok is an alternative.
Apparently some people didn't like the changes in Amarok 2, and
Clementine is ‘inspired by’ Amarok 1.4. Clementine
uses Qt, Amarok uses KDE. See Bruce Byfield's
comparison.
As of 2011 May 8, Clementine can't play or rip from an audio CD.
I chose to use Clementine because Amarok doesn't yet really
support MS Windows. The edit-track-information feature
seems a little flaky: in addition to some transient issues, I could
not get some manually entered album-artist information to stick.
Info-ZIP,
including Zip and UnZip, and also WiZ,
a Zip/UnZip graphical front end for Windows.
The
Windows binaries
may be a bit hard to find sometimes.
Note that a self-extracting archive can be created just by
concatenating a special version of UnZip
(unzipsfx.exe for Windows)
with a regular .zip file. For example, to build a Windows
executable under *n*x:
cat unzipsfx.exe name.zip > name_sfx.exe
UnRAR, a command-line
unpacking utility (not open-source) for the RAR format
PuTTY -
free ssh client by Simon Tatham. Also includes sftp and scp
clients. Download installer for Windows and run it.
Or download putty.zip for Intel x86,
unzip it in, e.g., \Program Files\PuTTY\ and
(if desired) set up an icon for putty.exe. Run PuTTY.
Right-click on window title bar to get PuTTY Configuration dialogue
box. Set desired default settings within different categories, e.g:
Session: Protocol = SSH
Session:
Close window on exit =
Always, if desired
Window:
Rows = 36
Lines of scrollback = 2000
Window ▶ Appearance:
font = Lucida Console, size = 9
Window ▶ Colours:
Default Foreground = 0/0/0
Default Bold Foreground = 255/0/0
Default Background = 255/255/255
Default Bold Background = 255/255/85
Connection ▶ Data:
Auto-login username, specify if desired
Connection:
Seconds between keepalives = 300, if desired
Select category Session, select
Default Settings, click on Save.
To create a profile for a particular host, using the current
default settings,
enter a host name, then type a profile name under
Saved Sessions and click on Save.
To create an icon which runs a PuTTY session with a particular
saved profile, create an icon for
putty.exe and then add @profilename to the
command line within the shortcut definition. Certain settings
can be changed
during a session by right-clicking on the title bar and selecting
Change Settings. To get to the full Configuration
dialogue box from within a session, right-click on the title
bar and select New Session.
WinSCP
is an open-source SFTP (SSH File Transfer Protocol) and
SCP (Secure CoPy) client for MS Windows. Tip: to delete a session
from the list of stored sessions, do
Session ▶
New Session; in the collapsible tree on the left,
select Session ▶
Stored sessions; in the list of sessions on the
right, select one and click on Delete.
GnuWin32
‘provides Win32 (MS Windows 95 / 98 / ME / NT / 2000 / XP) ports
of tools with a GNU or similar open source license’,
including grep, gzip, tar, and many others. After installing
one or more of the utilities, add
C:\Program Files\gnuwin32\bin
to the system environment variable Path.
WinDirStat: a Windows clone
of KDirStat,
both being GPL'd tools for visualizing the contents of a
disk, conceptually related to
DiskMapper
(an excellent programme for Windows, commercial but inexpensive,
of which we have 1 copy) and SequoiaView
WinDiff: this comes as part of MS Visual Studio and also as part of
Digital Visual Fortran; it is so useful that it makes sense to add
a shortcut to it in the Start Menu.
See Wikipedia article
for information about where to find it, and an improved front end.
Dale Nurden`s
TClockEx is a
nifty freeware utility which modifies the Windows taskbar clock
so it displays the date as well as the time. It also includes
a cute little pop-up calendar and some other features.
TClockEx was last updated in 2000, and
I was unable to install it in Windows 7.
(Windows 7 itself can display the date
in the system tray but only if the taskbar is set to double height.)
Stoic Joker's
T-Clock 2010
is a worthy successor that works under Windows XP, Vista and 7.
Mozilla Firefox, Web browser
OpenOffice.org/LibreOffice suite
includes word processing, spreadsheet, drawing, presentation, database
and equation editor.
The Unicode® Standard
and the STIX Fonts.
See also my
Language(s) ▶ Typography & fonts.
Zotero works within Firefox
to grab bibliographic information from Web pages and
store it in a searchable database along with
notes and attached files; a Zotero extension for
OpenOffice.org Writer allows one to insert formatted
citations and bibliographies into a Writer document.
GNU Emacs, text editor
Alpine e-mail client
Blender: 3-D modelling
GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program):
2-D paint (pixel-oriented).