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Your most used SPECIAL programs

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Curt:
We have had some threads before, about which programs we use the most, but this time I was hoping we could tell each other about the more specialized kind of apps we use. Could we exclude Internet browsers, e-mail clients, launchers, PIMs, Calendars, Clipboard, Clocks, etcetera, and instead include the more special kind of programs. Maybe you don't use them every day all around the year, but for seasonally kind of jobs...

As an example, and as the first post:

I have recently taken interest in HDR images from Flickr, so at the moment I use Bulk Image Downloader every day. It was merely $17.95, but makes it so easy for me to download all original sized photos by any photographer at Flickr's (and of course many other sites), in just a couple of clicks.

Some of the photographers at Flickr don't care to give their visitors the large dimensioned files, but merely uploads big thumbnails... (in my opinion, 500x375 pixels is not an image, but a thumbnail, if you know what I mean). For this reason I also use Image Compressor 2008 Pro - obviously not for compressing, but for enlarging. It gives a very fine quality, but if I hadn't received it from Giveawayoftheday, I wouldn't know about it, because the listed asking price is $99 - so I cannot afford to update... Well, they offered me to update for $50, but that is still a lot of money to me when I only want half of the program, so to speak. But as I said, it gives a very fine quality.

A lot of the downloaded photos are equally named, "beautiful_sunset.jpg" etcetera. The easiest way to handle this problem is to bulk-add the photographers name, "Beautiful Sunset © Photograher's Name.jpg", so yet another important program to me at the moment is the $20 [now FREEware] File Renamer Deluxe Turbo, from Kristanix Software. It is really good looking, and easy to operate - and more importantly, it doesn't confuse me the way some other renamers will do.

---

Passing on the torch...  :tellme:

f0dder:
Hm, upscaling thumbnails? Why? You never get better quality than the thumbnail :s

And why pay for a file rename when you've these two DC threads? :P

Curt:
It was really uplifting to read your post, f0dder.  :-\

You are of course also welcome to tell what kind of special programs you are using a lot, and for what.

f0dder:
It was really uplifting to read your post, f0dder.  :-\

You are of course also welcome to tell what kind of special programs you are using a lot, and for what.
-Curt (August 01, 2008, 09:07 AM)
--- End quote ---
Sorry, you just left me a bit puzzled, so I had to ask :) - I'd like to know why you upscale those "thumbnails" (for use as a desktop wallpaper? That's the only reason I can personally think of), and which features file renamer has, that made you purchase it instead of using a free alternative.

I don't use any programs that I consider really special - or well, perhaps there are a few.

IDA Pro - I sometimes deal with malware analysis and software protection, where this disassembler very useful. Heck, even when doing normal program development, I sometimes use it to check what my compiler spits out (often it's more readable than a compiler-generated assembly listing). And yes, I actually do own a license for this. It wasn't cheap, and there was a lot of hassles involving registering it, including faxing stuff to DataRescue.

Exact Audio Copy, or EAC among friends. I'm in the process of converting my CD collection to high-quality audio files (lossless FLAC), using a single file and a .cue sheet per album. EAC, helped by AccurateRip, guarantees I get perfect rips. I believe that dBpoweramp is superior to EAC (ripping smarter instead of harder), but unfortunately it doesn't support single-file-per-album mode.

I use MyEnTunnel to keep certain subversion connections secure, and I use The Regulator when messing around with Regular Expressions. Probably not quite up to the level of Regex Buddy, but I don't use regular expressions enough to warrant a $46 purchase (not that I think that's an unfair price, and I'll probably end up purchasing it sometime, unless somebody can tell me a free alternative that's about as good :)).

So, there were a few somewhat-special apps after all :) :)

fenixproductions:
It was hard to decide which applications are irreplaceable for me. I know that in this thread I should not mention PIMs, file managers, IMs, etc. but my "three little guys" are somehow related to the rest of my software and my whole PC also. I had heard about them and started to use many years ago. And I've never been unsatisfied.

These handy tools were provided by Sysinternals (now it is a part of MS) and are called:
1. Autoruns
2. Filemon
3. Regmon

The first one helped me many times to fix someones computer remotely and clean-up my own. With last two I have never had non-fixable problems with the other software I use. I am pluginoholic when it comes to Miranda IM or Total Commander and these guys always helped me to diagnose the source of the problems. I would really be ungrateful to Mark Russinovich (or/and Bryce Cogswell) if I said that I can replace their tools with something else.

These are small, powerful and can be treated like debuggers for my own OS.

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