Grouse's Essential Software List of Doom

[snowgrouse]

These are all my favourite programs for Windows, from XP to Win7. These are just my essential pieces of software--you might prefer different ones, and there are tons of programs that work just as well or better, so these are just my personal picks. I've found all of these pretty damn useful. I've also tried to link to older, less bloated versions

Comments

[rob_t_firefly]

Much love for your softwares, especially PSP9. I adore that thing so much.

[snowgrouse]

It's a handy little thing that I've used for +5 years now. It's so good. After Corel bought them, they just got so bloaty and blah and useless, but it's definitely my favourite way of sorting out my pics. And if you have hundreds of thousands of pics on your HD, it's pretty much invaluable. And Animation Shop was so simple for animated gifs that I used it for ages before grudgingly updating to ImageReady (and now Potatochop) to do my animated icons. It's all great stuff.

[rob_t_firefly]

I started using PSP after downloading the shareware version 3.11 from CompuServe in 1995, and I kept constantly upgrading all the way up to 9. I don't think there's a single other application I've been happily using for that long. *counts the grey hairs*

Corel did butcher the poor thing, didn't they? It was so sad. But as long as PSP9 still boots, I'll keep using it. I actually prefer it to Photoshop and the others, even for pro-grade stuff.

[snowgrouse]

Around ten years ago, I was still resistant to Photoshop just because PSP worked so well for cutting and pasting heads on people and stuff, and it wasn't as complicated as Photoshop. Of course, the images I made were much simpler back then, but it was still nice for some basic manippage and iconage. Corel just bloated it up and made it counter-intuitive, so it became much poorer than some older versions. I still use PSP9 when I have to quickly paste in a screenshot or open an image in a separate application, because Photoshop is not worth opening for small things like that. It's nifty and I love it. (Using my awful old B7 icon for Animation Shop nostalgia...)

[spacefall]

I love PSP, though version 7 is my flavour of choice. Doesn't do everything, but that's what oC and Photoshop are for.

[snowgrouse]

7 is lovely as well, I used that one for years. I remember 9 felt bloaty in comparison.

oC?

[spacefall]

openCanvas is my usual drawing app.

[snowgrouse]

Oh, *that* one! I remember I downloaded it at some point but it kept crashing or something because I was on a crappier machine. I should try it again once I get a replacement lappy. I liked the ability to play back your drawing and stuff, although god knows I never draw anything the same way twice.

[therru]

Oh! The twitterless thing looks interesting. I get really annoyed by those disjointed twitter feeds on my friends page.

The new versions of WinAmp are really bloated and annoying. I installed an older version on my Eee (I tend to save all my downloaded installer files in a specific folder, and hardly ever throw any of them away). But the one I chose was a bit too old and unfunctional -- thanks for the v.5.24 tip!

ETA: Hm. I can't seem to install the twitterless thingy -- I do have Greasemonkey, but it won't install, it just shows a page with the plain text code when I click on the "Install" button. *feels stupid*

[snowgrouse]

"lol@bob exactly"
"eating bread"
"omg"
"@sharona that's what she said"

...yeah, those can be annoying. And eek. Possibly the script won't work with newer versions of Firefox. And Greasemonkey takes a while to figure out. I can't even remember how to install some of that stuff myself. I'm on the folks' lappy and don't have Greasemonkey installed, so can't help you at the mo, but there should be instructions somewhere.

And I hate bloatware myself, so Winamp 5.24 is love. The later ones have ugly interfaces and everything, and I'm not interested in bloating it all up even further with customisable skins. I only want to play music, damn it, not have the app hog my memory because of non-music related stuff!

[therru]

Ah, that's probably why, then. Too bad... Apparently just clicking on the Install-button should open an install window in Greasemonkey, so it's *supposed* to be pretty simple. But it didn't work for me. :\

[glitterboy1]

Lots of fun programs!

Even though I now have others, PSP (version 7) is still the graphics package I open first. This is the third new computer I've just installed it on.

I was looking at prices for CS4 last night. Sheesh. Yes, I could, but I refuse to!

[snowgrouse]

PSP is love! I'm really glad to see I'm not the only one who still uses one of the old versions:).