Author Topic: 4 (Maybe more) Absolute top go-to programs (Read 60,486 times)

tomos · « **Reply #25 on:** May 07, 2014, 10:54 PM »

Quote from: cyberdiva on May 07, 2014, 09:35 PM

Quote from: Curt on May 07, 2014, 09:03 PM
Almost all of my favourite programs from the past have been abandoned, so I guess my favourites of the present also may be abandoned some time in the future - so what if I like (FastStone Capture) this (Pale Moon) or that (jetAudio was updated!!) program (Dynamic-Photo HDR 5)? Tomorrow will be a different story.
Wow, Curt. Sounds like you've had a bad day/week/month. Yes, it's true that nothing lasts for ever, but that's no reason not to enjoy programs while they're useful and no reason not to be interested in what other people like. And for that matter, I've continued to find some programs very useful for a decade or more. HyperSnap and I go back 17 years; there almost never a day that I'm at my computer without using it. Mulberry is still my primary email client after 14 years of use (in spite of my trying unsuccessfully to find a more modern replacement). UltraEdit has been my default text editor for about the same amount of time. Someone turned me on to ActiveWords ten years ago, and I still use it every day. Carpe ~~diem~~ program.

cyberdiva, that inspired me to comment on my (still) most used work tool - Freehand 9.
I even have it running under Windows 8.1 (14 years after release/purchase) - it doesnt like my trackpad (I dont either, but it works okay with a mouse), no compatability business required:

screenshot of 8.1 use

[attachimg=#]

[FWIW I have a copy of Illustrator, but, apart from it's slowness, I'm just too set in my ways to change that easily

]

Curt · « **Reply #26 on:** May 10, 2014, 10:47 AM »

Quote from: cyberdiva on May 07, 2014, 09:35 PM

Wow, Curt. Sounds like you've had a bad day/week/month.

-yeah, diva, you're right. Two blood clots, one in each leg, two days before Eastern. I was lucky, no symptoms, except for pains in the muscles - but it clearly was reflected in my mood. To my defence, I did answer the question about my 4 top go-to programs ;-)

-------

Tom, your screenshot is scary; thank you for hiding it!!!

cyberdiva · « **Reply #27 on:** May 10, 2014, 01:19 PM »

Curt, I'm very sorry to hear about the blood clots. I hope they don't give you any more grief. Can they be treated? dissolved? Given your worries, I'm impressed that you answered the question about your go-to programs. I doubt I could have done that.

Curt · « **Reply #28 on:** May 10, 2014, 05:40 PM »

-thanks a lot, diva. I was so ecstatic to find no symptoms, that I simply didn't think to call for an ambulance, but merely made a normal reservation after the holiday at my private doctors', via her homepage. This was stupid, very stupid, because there is nothing there can be done, if one is not at the hospital, and she could not even write down my incident as being Real Life, because of the lack of evidence.

----------
True Launch Bar
Chameleon Startup Manager Pro (and AnVir Task Manager Pro)
CFi ShellToys
IrfanView

-I use them each and every day, but now ShellToys seems to be abandoned...

tomos · « **Reply #29 on:** May 10, 2014, 05:51 PM »

Yeah, likewise, gute besserung Curt!

Quote from: Curt on May 10, 2014, 10:47 AM

Tom, your screenshot is scary; thank you for hiding it!!!

I can think of reasons, but I'm not sure why you find it scary

multiple choice:
(a) desktop colour
(b) win8
(c) the working plan-drawing,
(d) simply seeing something of such antiquity on 8
or, none of the above?

Tbh, I only ever really use it on my Win7 desktop, but it works fine on the 8.1 laptop)

TaoPhoenix · « **Reply #30 on:** May 10, 2014, 06:13 PM »

Quote from: Curt on May 07, 2014, 09:03 PM

Almost all of my favourite programs from the past have been abandoned, so I guess my favourites of the present also may be abandoned some time in the future - so what if I like (FastStone Capture) this (Pale Moon) or that (jetAudio was updated!!) program (Dynamic-Photo HDR 5)? Tomorrow will be a different story.

PaleMoon would be my other one, esp in light of the big surge in it away from FF29 around here. For some reason I discarded browsers as a category.

But this is a fascinating note about how favorites of the past change, so this thread five years ago could have been different!

TaoPhoenix · « **Reply #31 on:** May 10, 2014, 06:20 PM »

Quote from: Curt on May 10, 2014, 10:47 AM

Tom, your screenshot is scary; thank you for hiding it!!!

I can think of reasons, but I'm not sure why you find it scary

multiple choice:
...
(c) the working plan-drawing,
...
or, none of the above?
[/quote]

I found it scary too! Since there are too many other silly threads about Win 8.1, C is m choice. Just that level of complexity is jaw dropping!

mouser · « **Reply #32 on:** May 10, 2014, 06:27 PM »

Website Watcher
TheBat
VmWare
My own apps

40hz · « **Reply #33 on:** May 10, 2014, 07:31 PM »

Quote from: mouser on May 10, 2014, 06:27 PM

Website Watcher
TheBat

VmWare
My own apps

I used to use TheBat ages ago. It was ok. But I never developed the degree of reverence some users seem to have for it. Has it since gotten that much better than all the other email clients out there?

superboyac · « **Reply #34 on:** May 10, 2014, 08:01 PM »

Quote from: 40hz on May 10, 2014, 07:31 PM

Quote from: mouser on May 10, 2014, 06:27 PM
Website Watcher
TheBat

VmWare
My own apps

I used to use TheBat ages ago. It was ok. But I never developed the degree of reverence some users seem to have for it. Has it since gotten that much better than all the other email clients out there?

What other email clients? That's the question. There aren't many good options. The Bat has LOTS of minor issues, but no real major ones. Most of my complaints are interface related or "nothing written about THAT!" related. It's hard to figure out how to do anything fancy because there's no updated manual or forum where you can search and find answers. it has a stupid old listserv where most of the activity occurs, and the crowd there is of a very *particular* sort...i.e old school.

Anyway, I've never found a good client option. I hate Outlook. i don't much like thunderbird. What else is there? the other options seem to either be really old and unsupported or too new and overly simple.

mouser · « **Reply #35 on:** May 10, 2014, 08:21 PM »

I make no claim that thebat is better than any other client these days -- i have no idea. just listing the programs that *i* depend on and appreciate.

xtabber · « **Reply #36 on:** May 10, 2014, 11:56 PM »

Quote from: superboyac on May 10, 2014, 08:01 PM

Anyway, I've never found a good client option. I hate Outlook. i don't much like thunderbird. What else is there? the other options seem to either be really old and unsupported or too new and overly simple.

I personally use SeaMonkey for email. It's sort of like Thunderbird for grown-ups. Being based on the Mozilla code, it is kept up to date with Thunderbird (and Firefox), but the email UI is much simpler and more palatable to me.

40hz · « **Reply #37 on:** May 11, 2014, 03:14 AM »

Quote from: superboyac on May 10, 2014, 08:01 PM

Anyway, I've never found a good client option. I hate Outlook. i don't much like thunderbird. What else is there? the other options seem to either be really old and unsupported or too new and overly simple.

I'll agree. I never found an e-mail client I've much cared for either. And I've tried at least a dozen (or more) over the years. Closest I ever came to one I respected was Eudora when it still used the mbox data structure. And that was ages ago.

Outlook is what it is. And unless it's wedded to an Exchange server back end, most of it's real usefulness is absent and it's just 10 lbs of 'stuff' crammed into a 5 lb. bag. With the advent of Office365, access to an Exchange server is now affordable and doable even for an individual. But Outlook is still more geared towards use by workgroups and organizations than it is for individuals because its collaborative features are really what it's all about rather than its being just an e-mail client/PIM.

Scary thing is, Outlook may be as good as it gets right now. (And I don't like Outlook at all.)

Jibz · « **Reply #38 on:** May 11, 2014, 08:19 AM »

I was a big fan of The Bat! for years, and I still think it's one of the best clients out there for "old-school" email use. I think I just got to the point, where for my personal use, there was no real change between versions, and I was still buying upgrades every year. I know I could just stick with the old version, but I always used the upgrade discounts. I tried Thunderbird at some point, and it worked fine for what I needed, plus had way better search at the time, so I figured I would stick with that and save the money.

My only real complaint about The Bat! was the proprietary format the mailboxes are stored in. You can't use things like MailStore for backups, and if something corrupts the mailbox you're pretty much screwed if you don't have a recent backup. As I remember it, it was not straightforward getting your email out of The Bat! and into another program either.

CleverCat · « **Reply #39 on:** May 12, 2014, 09:14 AM »

I use Voyager (Bat portable) and just export a batch of messages to a folder then import to Mail Store.

CleverCat · « **Reply #40 on:** May 12, 2014, 09:22 AM »

I CANNOT live without:

FARR
Desktop X
Ethervane Echo
Fences

joiwind · « **Reply #41 on:** May 12, 2014, 12:41 PM »

Quote from: superboyac on May 10, 2014, 08:01 PM

Anyway, I've never found a good client option. I hate Outlook. i don't much like thunderbird. What else is there? the other options seem to either be really old and unsupported or too new and overly simple.

If you're still looking for a client option have you looked at Sylpheed ?

It's been my major choice for a long time - there's also Claws of course which is a version/fork of Sylpheed.

40hz · « **Reply #42 on:** May 12, 2014, 02:11 PM »

^I ran into some stability issues with Claws under Windows when I tried it. But that was some time ago so I'm guessing it was either me - or they fixed it?

superboyac · « **Reply #43 on:** May 13, 2014, 04:52 PM »

Quote from: joiwind on May 12, 2014, 12:41 PM

Quote from: superboyac on May 10, 2014, 08:01 PM
Anyway, I've never found a good client option. I hate Outlook. i don't much like thunderbird. What else is there? the other options seem to either be really old and unsupported or too new and overly simple.

If you're still looking for a client option have you looked at Sylpheed ?

It's been my major choice for a long time - there's also Claws of course which is a version/fork of Sylpheed.

Ha! Thanks.
I don't have much motivation at the moment to find another email client. It already caused me much anxiety years ago when mouser convinced me to switch to the Bat from Pegasus, lol! Now it's all set up, backed up, no real issues. All the filters and colors and interface tweaks, ugh.

http://www.pmail.com/
Pegasus is still going strong! Damn! I used Pegasus for such a long time, must have been 12 years. Top notch program. Man, that's a trip down memory lane. One of the first pieces of software I used intentionally as a power user. I was in college and got one of those gigantic computer review magazines. THere was an email client roundup, I was using Eudora at the time. It talked about all the powerful and free features of Pegasus, I tried it and was hooked. Now look at me...I'm a crazy software nut. Addiction is a sad thing.

joiwind · « **Reply #44 on:** May 13, 2014, 05:50 PM »

Quote from: 40hz on May 12, 2014, 02:11 PM

^I ran into some stability issues with Claws under Windows when I tried it. But that was some time ago so I'm guessing it was either me - or they fixed it?

I don't know as I use Sylpheed

40hz · « **Reply #45 on:** May 13, 2014, 06:56 PM »

Quote from: superboyac on May 13, 2014, 04:52 PM

I was in college and got one of those gigantic computer review magazines. THere was an email client roundup, I was using Eudora at the time.

Interesting...I switched from Eudora to Pegasus around the same time - and happily used it as my main e-mail app for several years afterwards...

(I used to install a lot of their Mercury Mail Transport System mailservers back in the Netware/WinNT4 era. I see Mercury is still around too!)

rjbull · « **Reply #46 on:** May 13, 2014, 09:11 PM »

Quote from: Jibz on May 11, 2014, 08:19 AM

My only real complaint about The Bat! was the proprietary format the mailboxes are stored in.

It's worth noting that Archivarius 3000 can index and search The Bat! e-mail messages and their attachments, provided your TB installation isn't encrypted, of course.

TaoPhoenix · « **Reply #47 on:** May 13, 2014, 10:55 PM »

Heh wow this is turning into an awesome thread! There's some *forty* programs combined of which each is part of someone's list of four(ish) super must have programs!

app103 · « **Reply #48 on:** May 13, 2014, 11:27 PM »

Quote from: TaoPhoenix on May 13, 2014, 10:55 PM

Heh wow this is turning into an awesome thread! There's some *forty* programs combined of which each is part of someone's list of four(ish) super must have programs!

I wouldn't say all of mine are "super" but they are my must haves, for daily use.

Target · « **Reply #49 on:** May 13, 2014, 11:59 PM »

Quote from: TaoPhoenix on May 13, 2014, 10:55 PM

Heh wow this is turning into an awesome thread! There's some *forty* programs combined of which each is part of someone's list of four(ish) super must have programs!

what this thread needs is for someone to consolidate the list into something that's readily accessible/digestible, something like...

program 1 (10 votes)
program 2 (9 votes)
program 3 (6 votes)
etc...

the ideal would be for Tao to edit his first post to incorporate the 'results' (hint hint...)