Mighty Joe's Freeware Tried and Refused

Powerdraw
I've been searching for a replacement for Visio. When I was a technical software salesperson I used it to map out the customer's overall architecture. Powerdraw is more sophisticated than Inkscape. It is more of a CAD type drawing package but it is easy enough for everyone to use. I am still not able to create my organizational charts and architecture maps. Powerdraw uses something called "blocks" which is evidently a CAD term. These blocks are a lot like clipart but I think they might support more dimensions, so they are great for some things, but they don't have the org. chart symbols or computer symbols like Visio does. It would seem like such a simple thing to add but I can't find it in the freeware download. Therefore, Inkscape and Powerdraw are both great freeware drawing applications that have slightly different verticals but I am still left searching for my Visio replacement. If you are interested in designing a "true" 3d or architectural/CAD like drawing then you should definitely check out Powerdraw. It looks like a sophisticated program with a lot of value for no cost and on top of everything else, it is pretty easy to use!

http://www.tekhnelogos.com/powerdrawindexEn.html

Labels: drawing

Inkscape

Inkscape is a very impressive drawing program. It has all the bells and whistles of the fee based programs and this one is freeware. I really like it because of the robust environment for creating layers and defining your objects. The only thing that I did not get in my initial install were objects (ie computers, disks, signs...) that have been already built. I did find clipart and lots of it on their web site. I am still looking for the more formal objects like you would find in Visio. This is a great program so check it out if you need a good drawing package. A picture is worth a thousand words and it should not be harder to draw the picture than write the thousand words. I think Inkscape will surprise most people with its capabilities.

http://www.inkscape.org/download.php

Labels: drawing

This is another product to clean the RAM cache. It works well but I've been using a product named Ram Saver Pro, which is a fee based product. However, I have noticed a cracked version that is available on most of the torrent sites out there ;).

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RamBooster

This is another RAM cleaning system. It’s a good one. ran this for a long time before I found Cachman and Bysoft FreeRAM. I now run all three on my system. It’s probably overkill for most people but there are features in each that I like. I actually have another that I run occasionally that defrags the RAM. Ram is a precious commodity on my CPU. I only have 256MB and I do a lot with it. It’s my next upgrade but it’s always hard to throw new money into an existing CPU.

http://www.sci.fi/~borg/rambooster/download.htm

Explorer XP was the file management solution that Xplorer2 knocked out on my 'best of breed scale. As mentioned in another post, my most recent recommendation is Free Commander for several reasons outlined in the main blog. But if you still want to check out Explorer XP you can do so by downloading it from the link below. It is still a fine file management solution and a good piece of freeware that someone else may prefer for some small vertical reason.

http://www.explorerxp.com/index.html#download

Labels: file manager

I used Xplorer2 lite as my file manager of choice for the last 4 years and I was very happy with it. There were a couple of things I didn't like, there was no control over the colors, the extended features that were disabled... I tried a product named Free Commander not expecting very much and I was so impressed that I switched. It gave me total control over color and highlighting and most of the features that were disabled in Xplorer2 were readily available in Free Commander so I've switched my opinion and now I'm recommending Free Commander. So Xplorer2 is out and no longer in my mix of 'best of breed' but you can download it at the link below if you are interested in seeing for yourself.

http://zabkat.com/x2lite.htm

Labels: file manager

I am sorry to see photofilter go. It was one of my most used freeware products. I spent hours getting proficient with their interface and learning everything I could about editing images. However, they have come out with a new version of their software and it is now shareware that runs about 35 dollars US. The name of the new product is Photofilter Studio and they have added some new things. Most noticeably is that a lot of the artistic filters are now available through a nozzle with a defined radius. It is pretty hot stuff... but I wish it were free :( They owe the freeware community a lot but we owe them plenty too. You can still download the older version of photofilter from here.

http://photofiltre.free.fr/frames_en.htm

I have replaced them with GIMP, which everything that photofilter was and probably even more closely matched with their new product. So enjoy! Please find the link for GIMP on the main blog (link on the top right column).

Labels: graphics, graphics editor