futt dot org

Tools

Thought I’d do the fashionable thing and make a list of a few neat things I’ve got running to make my Windows box a bit more usable. So here you go, in no particular order, Futt’s tools!

Launchy

Launchy is a free windows utility designed to help you forget about your start menu, the icons on your desktop, and even your file manager.

Launchy indexes the programs in your start menu and can launch your documents, project files, folders, and bookmarks with just a few keystrokes!

µTorrent

µTorrent is an ultra-light bittorrent client, weighing in at just 170kb. It’s minuscule disk- and memory footprint makes it extremely fast, and you’ll hardly even notice it’s running. Despite it’s size it has all the features of the larger clients, and more. I currently use the Beta version with webUI, which lets me remote control the download queue from anywhere in the world.

MinGW/MSys

MinGW: A collection of freely available and freely distributable Windows specific header files and import libraries combined with GNU toolsets that allow one to produce native Windows programs that do not rely on any 3rd-party C runtime DLLs.

MSYS: A Minimal SYStem to provide POSIX/Bourne configure scripts the ability to execute and create a Makefile used by make.

Why? Primarily to be able run bash (the Linux shell, vastly superior to Windows’ built-in command interpreter) and the GNU- and other Linux command line utilities I’ve come to depend on such as sed, grep, less, wget, ssh etc.

Game Jackal (not free)

Using your game’s original CD or DVD, create a Game Jackal profile that enables you to play your favourite games directly from the hard drive… CD-Free! Once a profile has been created the CD or DVD can then be put away for safe keeping, protecting your gaming investment for years to come and ensuring hunting for and inserting a game’s disc is a thing of the past.

Free productivity software

Replacing some of the more expensive Windows productivity apps such as Office, Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator etc. can be a pain. There are alternatives though! I use OpenOffice.org for word processing/spreadsheets/presentations etc. The Gimp for bitmap images and photo editing. Inkscape for vector drawings.