<p>Okay, yeah there's tons of programs to choose from for each different platform... I thought this would be an interesting way to find out what other people use AND find some good new programs. (a lot of the $$$s have free trials if your interested)</p>
<p>Off the top of my head Window platform
Mozilla/Firefox [for browser] -freeware
Picasa [picture management] -freeware
Gaim [multi-messenger] -freeware
rainlendar [cute little calendar with to-do list on desktop] -freeware
Photoshop [img editing] -$$$$
Paint Shop Pro [img editing -- I have it left over from the past, has some useful little functions] -$$$
GIMP [img editing on par but not quite photoshop] -freeware
Flash MX [to create nifty flash] -$$$$
WS_FTP [uh ftp-ing] -$$
Wavepad [sound editing] -freeware
Realplayer [music player-- good quality] -freeish
Editpad Pro [Notepad on steroids-- good for web-building] -freeish
Adobe Acrobat 7.0 Professional [let's you make notes/edit/highlight on PDF files-- coolish] --$$$$
MS Office ['coz everyone else uses it!] -
And of course a whole bunch of study related applications like Autocad [engineering/structural design $$$], Endnote [Awesome bibliography tool $$$] and LaTex [formulas editing/pdf power/ -freeware]. Can't think of any more.</p>
<p>ps. I am looking for recommendations a good calendar program (perhaps with money management functions and stuff built in) and a GOOD digital video editor (prefereably freeware).</p>
<p>There's no reason for an average college student to have half those programs. You have like $10,000 of software listed there...why would you need Acrobat Pro, Photoshop, Flash if you don't make professional documents, design professional graphics, or maintain professional websites????</p>
<p>You should buy Fireworks and Dreamweaver if you want to make websites, not Flash.</p>
<p>Regarding the video editing, I recommend Vegas. I know it's expensive, but you really get what you pay for. You can get it with student discount for around $150. I edited a film with it and would never use anything else, except maybe Final Cut Pro but I'm not a Mac person.</p>
<p>^Great! Thanks! I've found v-editing to be so frustrating because of a series of crappy programs that I've worked with. I will def. look at the program.</p>
<p>True now that you mention it, most people don't really need some of them. :P I use PS/Flash/etc. because I make professional websites/document creation/edit (for a sidejob) but programs like GIMP are free and as good as PS for students who want to do graphic editing but can't afford the high price-tag.</p>
<p>I've been using firefox for a while, but recently i downloaded the new internet explorer. It's still in beta, but I think it's pretty user friendly.</p>
<p>Replace Firefox with Swiftfox (it's the same thing, but faster)
Replace Photoshop with GIMP (same thing, but free/open source) (EDIT 2: Oops, didn't see that this was already on there)</p>
<p>EDIT:
And OpenOffice.org in place of MS Office (again, same thing, but free/open source)</p>
<p>I have Studio 8, it's cheaper than Vegas, but has less functions. Also I find the editing to be a little choppy. However it has a lot of built in sound effects, and it has great features for adding sound (i.e. fits the sound to the exact clip length, etc.).</p>
<p>Since your job involves editing and stuff, though, I guess you'd just go with the higher end off the bat. Anybody who wants to dabble in editing I suggest Studio 8 to, though. Pinnacle makes some good stuff, I don't know what version I have, not the best one anyways.</p>
<p>I've been looking to upgrade for awhile now >>.</p>
<p>Eh, I really don't like RealPlayer. It's full of advertising, gimmicks, and automatic changes to your system configuration. </p>
<p>Quintessential Player, is a free media player that can also convert sound files into different formats (ie wav to MP3, MP3 to wav, wav to .ogg, etc.) </p>
<p>For sound editing, Audacity is the best program. It's free and has every feature you might need. </p>
<p>Get IrfanView to view almost any graphic image type, and also edit the image as well. It's free.</p>
<p>And of course, anti spyware programs like AdAware, SpyBot Search and Destroy, PestPatrol, Spyware Blaster, Hijack This, Spyware Guard. All free and functional, though there are full versions you can pay for too.</p>
<p>Realplayer is the most annoying media player around. I hate the video quality as well.</p>
<p>Here is my list:
-K-lite Mega Pack (freeware; includes a bunch of video/audio codecs some that you may need in rare ocassions and others that are commonly used (such as DivX); it comes with a media player classic as well to play your videos and allows you to have QuickTime/RealPlayer/Windows Media Player all-in-one instead of having to use all three separately.)
-iTunes (free; I assume most people are familiar with this music player)
-Internet Explorer 7 beta 3 (free; web browser with tabbing an a great feature that allows you to see all the tabs in one page kind of like Expose on the Mac OSX but for tabs)
-MS OneNote ($$$; great program to take down notes with)
-Filezilla (free; FTP program)
-Spybot Search and Destroy (free; anti-spyware program)
-Windows Defender (free; anti-spyware program)
-Azerus (free; bittorrent application)
-WinRAR (free; compression program, similar to WinZip but better)
-Bandwidth Monitor Pro 1.3 ($$/free; after the trial is over you can still use it; it allows you to check how much you've downloaded/uploaded in your internet connection; especially important for those people that have ISPs that have download/upload limits)
-DVD43 (free; takes away encryption from original DVDs exactly while you're making the copy, doesn't make you create a new image of the DVD without the encryption which is awesome)
-IsoBuster (free; allows you to see cd/dvd images)
-Nero ($$$; CD/Burning program)</p>
<p>Another note: if you are currently buying a new computer and the company offers you Microsoft Office 2003 don't bother to take it unless it is free. At the moment you can sign up for Microsoft's Office 2007 Beta program. It allows you to download all Office Suite programs such as Word, Excel, Publisher, PowerPoint, Outlook, Access, OneNote, and other programs like Groove, InfoPath, etc. The beta is free, signing up is free, and best of all you can use the Beta products for free until Office 2007 is released which will be in Feb 2007 if I'm not mistaken. Have a free Office Suite (that is backwards compatible as well with all previous versions of Office) and if you really want to spend the money then buy Office 2007 when it comes out instead of buying Office 2003.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Another note: if you are currently buying a new computer and the company offers you Microsoft Office 2003 don't bother to take it unless it is free. At the moment you can sign up for Microsoft's Office 2007 Beta program. It allows you to download all Office Suite programs such as Word, Excel, Publisher, PowerPoint, Outlook, Access, OneNote, and other programs like Groove, InfoPath, etc. The beta is free, signing up is free, and best of all you can use the Beta products for free until Office 2007 is released which will be in Feb 2007 if I'm not mistaken. Have a free Office Suite (that is backwards compatible as well with all previous versions of Office) and if you really want to spend the money then buy Office 2007 when it comes out instead of buying Office 2003.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Yeah but it is beta for a reason... I'm sure it works fine on most systems, but you can never be completely sure it'll work on yours. Once you start installing things and downloading things and customizing stuff especially.</p>
<p>What's great about it though is that the program is great in fixing itself up. It tells you when if the program has crashed, and it'll automatically repair itself not compromising your system at all. It detects errors, always makes backups, and if it can't run on your machine then it wouldn't install to begin with. I'm using it on my desktop which is a 4-year-old machine. I don't see why it wouldn't work on new machines.</p>
<p>Best of all you can have Office 2007 Beta 2 along with Office 2003. I have both running at the same time and no problems at all.</p>
<p>I have a good portion of the programs mentioned: Firefox, some old version of AIM because the new ones suck and Trillian still has some buggy features, smartftp, Office 2003 and Symantec a/v which I get for free from the school; Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, Flash, Vegas, Soundforge, 3dsmax, Maya, Combustion, and Autocad (yes, I use them all for class); winamp and vlc player for music and movies and some random spyware programs. I should look in to getting Acrobat Pro because mucking around with pdfs in Illustrator gets tiresome.</p>
<p>btw if you want to make homepages you don't really need anything else besides your friendly notepad. XD you can also download some free html programs but dreamweaver etc is not always needed...Just some basic html knowledge.</p>
<p>I would say also have some basic virus and firewall protection... and i use gom player and jetaudio because they both freakin' play everything with tons of features.</p>
<p>Im surprised no one mentioned Skype. The Internet phone service. It is free to call all other people who have it, and until the end of this year, u can call other phones, such as home and cell phones. U can call friends and family all over the world who have downloaded it also. FREE. I just moved out from home and both my parents and I bought a Logitech webcam, we set it up and it works with skype. You can also do conference calls with it. <a href="http://www.skype.com%5B/url%5D">www.skype.com</a></p>