THESE ARE TOOLS AND SERVICES I RECOMMEND
I've posted this page to share my favorite tools and
services.
I consider these the most-valuable,
can't-live-without Programs, Web sites and Utilities.
ARTISTS TOOLS
These are the graphics tools I find most useful.
I USE A WACOM
Graphics Tablet.
WACOM's Bamboo Medium FUN
At $199.00 I
don't know why I waited so long to get this tool. Since I
began
to use it I find I use my regular mouse more seldomly.
It not
only draws and with pressure sensitivity, but it serves as a low-stress
navigational tool that feels
about 10 times as free as a mouse.
Wacom
site Amazon
Most everyone has heard of Photoshop by now unless they live under
a rock.
If you happen to own a copy, great.
If
you
don't,
then check out Paint.Net before you shell out $400.00 for Photoshop.
This is a must-have tool for all of your image editing.
Get Paint.Net
ArtRage Studio
ArtRage
gives you pen, pencil ink, oil, chalk, airbrush, watercolor, markers
and is essentially the complete 'studio' for drawing & painting
electronically.
I used ArtRage to produce all of my clients illustrations in my latest project. Remarkably
low price for such a powerful and useful program and they feature
a free version so you can try a sample of their features.
File Security
iDrive
online backup
Whether
to use online backup or not depends on the value (and size) of your
files. You can easily secure photos and other files on CDs or
external drives. I began using online backup when I realized I
could lose several hours of creative work - between backups - costing
me far more than the small monthly fee. You'll pay the same
whether you use Carbonite, Mozy or any of the others, so the deciding
factor for me is IDrive's explorer. With IDrive I can access
exact files - even a single image - from any computer anywhere.
You can right click a single file and back it up on the spot.
Any of the brands will work and they pretty much cost the same,
so IDrive's usability is their strong suit. They offer 2GB
free backup so people will try them. Try it now
Most
Essential Web Applications
Firefox
web browser
Anyone
that surfs the web does so using what is called a web browser. Every
PC sold today (with few exceptions) has had Internet Explorer
preinstalled, and most people just use it, unaware of the alternatives
available.
Why
use a different browser? There are so many reasons I could
fill a
couple of pages to cover it all. In fewer words?
Security. Speed.
Flexibility. Usability. Once you try it
you'll discover a whole
world of improvements.
Why
is it different? The
creators of Firefox have a different motivation than Microsoft.
Microsoft is oriented toward having their product direct YOU
- to buy
certain products, to watch certain inputs. Mozilla is founded
with the
stated purpose to
supporting a free internet and having a safer web.
Firefox
addons make customization a breeze, allowing you to tailor the
appearance and the individual features to your exact personal
preferences. So you can set
it
up to be and do exactly
what you want the web to be.
Gmail
Gmail can check for the mail at your other email accounts. You can retrieve your mail (new and
old) from other email accounts and answer them in Gmail. A customized 'From:' address
lets you send messages that appear they were sent from another
one of your email accounts.
Skype
Skype is software that enables you to make
free calls anywhere in the world. Skype uses P2P (peer-to-peer)
technology to connect you with other users. It offers several features,
including low rate calls from Skype to regular and mobile phones
worldwide, conference calling, and secure file transferring. You can
also now share your screen with other users. Skype's video
and audio quality is superb, and your calls are secured with end-to-end encryption. With
Skype’s free software you can chat away with free
Skype-to-Skype calls and never worry about cost, time or
distance.
Download
Skype
LastPass secure
password manager
You
can get get a web browser to remember a password for you, which is fine
as long as your current computer never crashes and you always work from
the same computer. But once you have several email accounts,
blogs, forums etc you discover you're maintaining some 40 to 50
passwords! Ever come back to a site you haven't accessed for
several months and discover you haven't a clue what you'd picked for
it's password ? Lastpass is
an online web service that allows you to create secure encrypted
passwords for each site you use and access them via your vault on any
computer you happen to be at and with any browser you like to use.
Oh - and their service is free.
Find out more
Object
Dock desktop icons dock by Stardock
I
learned about Object Dock from a friend and have been using it with
great happiness since. ObjectDock allows you to arrange your
desktop icons across an animated docking bar and create a better
looking desktop. It's easy to set up and I rapidly found I can
select from 100's of attractive icons from the web or create my own. (
Tasty ! )
Download
lastest version from CNet
VideoLAN
project's VLC Media Player
I
first learned of the VLC Media Player when I discovered my
computer's Windows Media Player DOESN'T happen to work on
every
video format. Once you start trying to find players that
work
for different types you can end up with a bunch of junk on your
system and a confusing mess.
Just
download the player from the project website and you'll have one that
can play any type of media you care to throw at it. Feature-wise,
it runs fine right out-of-the-box, but this thing can do some
amazing stuff - more than I can cover here. Changing its
"skin" is
relatively
easy and have mine set to appear as a clone of the Media Player version
11.
Download from
VideoLAN project
PDF
Creator
"PDF" stands for
Portable
Document
Format.
The PDF format was created by Adobe to accurately represent
documents regardless of the type of program that created them.
PDF Creator is freeware that works like a printer allowing
you to save a document or web page as a PDF file. You'll save
money - and trees - and ink if you archive files as PDFs.
You can later print any of these to paper if or
when needed.
Download
from SourceForge.net
OpenOffice
productivity suite
Open Office is a free alternative to Microsoft's Office. Like Office, it's a productivity suite, with
alternatives
to Word, Excel, Power
Point, et cetera. With Open Office you can edit Microsoft Word
Document, Excel spreadsheets, create your own Power Point type
presentations and use it to read/write to those formats.
Download
from Site Picasa
3.6 and Picasa Web Albums
Fast and easy photo sharing
from Google
Together, Picasa & Picasa Web Albums make it easy for you to
organize and edit your digital photos, then create online albums to
share with friends, family & the world.
Learn
More
Indispensable Freeware
First is Security
avast! Free
Antivirus
avast!
Has a clean, beautiful interface. It runs smoothly and doesn't
slow your system down. It can scan on boot, before Windows loads. Its
real-time scanning
watches files arriving through email, newsgroups,
IM,
and more and notify you in several ways if it does detect a
virus. I've been using Avast! trouble free for over the last 2
years and this one is
my pick for great security.
download here
Malwarebytes'
Anti-Malware
Malwarebytes is an application that thoroughly removes even the
most advanced malware and spyware. 
Their free version
is powerful, offering one of the fastest, most
effective quick scans and malware removal capabilities on the market,
so I recommend that you add this to your PC's defenses. The full
version of the product (just 25 bucks) adds real-time
malware protection module that blocks malicious processes before they
even start. `
Get
Malwarebites
System Speed & Housekeeping
CCleaner
i
IIs the "politely correct" rename for Crap Cleaner - which is what
it does. This prorgram smoothly handles a great set of PC-cleaning
and tune-up chores.
I use it daily as it takes seconds to run,
keeping your pc free of "crap" that the Windows Operating Sytem
accumulates. offers a neat tool to reduce the number of programs which
launch at startup, effectively speeding your boot time. It now offers a
free space wipe feature which cleans files that remain on your disc
AFTER you have 'deleted' them.
download fromCNet
Auslogics
Disk Defragmenter
Why Defrag?
Most people think that when you
delete a file from your computer it is gone. Many bits and and pieces
are left in various places, causing systems to get sluggish or
crash. When you add more files to the system
these
are then written onto varying places on the drive, eventually giving
you a very broken arrangement for your system to track, making it
slower and unstable.
Auslogics' uses an advanced storage optimization technique
to remedy system sluggishness and crashes caused by file fragmentation.
This tool will speed up your computer and make it run more smoothly by
moving system files to the faster part of the disk and clearing the MFT
Reserved Zone from regular data files.
Auslogics' Disk Defrag also prevents
further fragmentation by merging free space on the disk into a
large contiguous block.
This program can easily
defragment large disk volumes of several terabytes, so you'll find it
runs MUCH faster than the one currently provided in Windows, while using less system resources.
Find it Here
WEBSITE
AUTHORING TOOLS
You can build your own web pages
using these free tools
KompoZer KompoZer is a free website editor
available here at Kompozer.net
Like
DreamWeaver or FrontPage, Kompozer is a What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get
styled web page editor. This website was edited using Kompozer.
Notepad++
HTML text editor 
Latest
version from SourceForge.net
AMP
Font Viewer
AMP Font Viewer is a great tool that helps you manage the fonts on your
system. When you design you want a large selection of fonts, but
having too many installed at one time can slow programs. AMP Font
Viewer allows you to organize and categorize your fonts and features a
scratchpad area where you can insert your text and view it in various
fonts. It allows you to install a font temporarily for a project,
while preserving system speed.
Download
from site
FireFTP
is
a Firefox addon that handles File Transfer Protocol easily. FTP is used
to upload your pages and keep them up to date. Get FireFTP
HERE
