Audio/Music

• Foobar 2000 (free)
  A nice little MP3 audio player for Windows. Launches fast. Doesn't try to make me subscribe to crap like MusicMatch Jukebox.


• Free Mp3 Wma Converter Ripper Cutter (free)
  Haven't used this one, but it looks interesting, and a colleague says it works well.


• MP3 Tag (free)
  A great little program for properly tagging all your MP3 files.

Internet

• Firefox (free)
  Take back the web baby! This is the official web browser of St. Norbert College.


• PuTTY (free)
  A secure program for ssh access to all my Linux boxes.


• Thunderbird (free)
  A standards-based e-mail client. Handles POP and IMAP quite well. It's the official e-mail client of St. Norbert College.


• Trillian (free)
  The only way to IM!

Startup
These are some programs that help you manage and keep control of your Windows startup process.

• Startup Control Panel (free), by Mike Lin
  This is a control panel applet that allows you to easily see what's in your startup process. You can also remove anything that doesn't belong.


• Startup Monitor (free), by Mike Lin
  This program monitors your startup areas of your computer, and when something is added (so that it runs every time you boot), it pops up a window immediately asking if you approve.


• Tiny Watcher (free), by Olivier Lombart
  This program takes a picture of crucial areas of your computer. Each time you startup, it compares the current picture with the previous one, and shows you the differences.

Video

• MP4Cam2AVI (free)
  Convert MOV files to AVI. Many digital cameras create MOV files which aren't always compatible with other programs (i.e. Windows Movie Maker). Also takes many MOV or AVI files as input, and combines them into a single AVI output file.


• IPOD Video Converter (free)
  Haven't used this, but it was mentioned in this article.

Miscellaneous Utilities

• BGInfo (free)
  A great little program that displays system data like current IP address, processor info, reboot time etc. all in my Windows wallpaper. It also has options that allow me to have it display my network password expiration date, and current weather conditions.


• Cygwin (free)
  Great for a linux geek who uses Windows every day.


• Free Launch Bar (free)
  A cool little replacement for Windows quick launch bar. It allows me to put launch icons into folders which translate to pop-up menus.


• Google Earth (free)
  Holy cow! Got an extra minute? Can't afford to go on vacation? Use Google Earth to soar around the world. It's cool to check out my childhood stomping grounds.


• Kirby Alarm (free)
  A very nice task scheduler. Much more flexible and more options than Windows Task Scheduler.


• LDAP Browser (free)
  The name says it all. Allows me to browse my LDAP data. Great for testing to see which LDAP users have access to what data.


• LView Pro ($40)
  A small and efficient image editing program. Perfect for quick converting, sizing and optimizing of images for display on web pages.


• Password Safe (free)
  A great program to organize all my web site login passwords. Never use the same login id and password on multiple web sites, and never allow your browser to manage them for you. Use Password Safe.


• Process Explorer (free)
  Tells me what programs are running. Much more detail than Windows Task Manager. Shows easily what programs launched other programs. Very easy to kill a program.