Well, I can see myself doing some serious downloading to get most of that software - nifty list, Rob!! I have got TotalRecorder, a cheap - about $20 or so - downloaded mp3 recorder application, which records from any source, online and offline, have been using it for a few years for recording RealAudio content from various sources (no names, no pack drill hehe), and then using WavePad to edit the resulting mp3. But I am really looking forward to trying out NetTransport if it saves doing the recording in real time. Again, nifty list, Rob!
11:37 pm
Anonymous said...
good list guys, even though you don't actually read these comments.... Anyhow just in case you do read this, VideoLan is excellent but there is also Media Player Classic which is a very slimline media player compared to most nowadays. I also use Real Alternative, it cuts down on the clutter in WinXP for sure.
The artwork thing didn't work, it didn't automatically add to the new episode, I guess you have to add it manually to each one. Unless of course the podcasters embed it into the RSS feed. ;)
Yup, I do actually read the comments - it just takes me ages to get round to as I spend forever trying to delete these comment spam posts all the time. Blogger isn't helping by using a verification system that doesnt work!
Good list, I'll be giving some (if not all) those a try.
www.openoffice.org is also an excellent replacement for Microsoft Office and it's completely free.
2:05 pm
Anonymous said...
Id say some of my favorite peices of software are Paint.NET a fantastic PS substitute. Really userfriendly. Google Desktop, iTunes and of cource Mozilla Firefox. I couldnt live with IE.
2:36 pm
Anonymous said...
Hi
Spookily I was stripping the text from a Word doc when I started listening to your podcast and the first thing you talked about was a utility to do that! I'll check out the utility you mentioned, but a simple way to do it is just to paste in to Notepad and then copy that.
Also, your number one was Foxit, I've tried it but I found a better solution. Acrobat is so slow because it loads loads of totally unnecessary add-ons by default. Try PDFSU to remove all these add-ons and it starts in a jiffy! It's really wonderful - and free! Get it here http://www.fileplanet.com/143098/140000/fileinfo/AcroPDF---SpeedUp or search for 'pdfsu.exe'.
My post should have been "The GIMP" as a link followed by that text. I think if the link is first, before any text, then Blogger makes the text the link? Weird. Preview worked fine, only went odd when I published. I'll try to remember next time :-).
Bazza, good point, OpenOffice, yes. Switched a while ago, dumped WordPerfect (never liked MS Office).
i love the fact that open office can save in office formats, as im the only person i know that uses it, so i need ordinary office files to use elsewere.
8:22 pm
Anonymous said...
A handy web-based tool for web-designing is the nice colour-mixer at :
I can't live without RSS Radio, because it's what I use to get all these wonderful podcasts down onto my MP3 player !! No-one ever mentions it, but it's free for 5 subscriptions and only about £8 for the unlimited version. Support is instant and immediate (new beta released within hours to fix any bug you may find). Top class work by the developer. Find it at http://www.dorada.co.uk/
11:23 pm
Anonymous said...
that adsense site you posted looks like BS to me, don't spam.
Sorry, By the way, if you notice any crap in the comments board could you email us to let us know where it is. We do get notification from Gmail, but occasionally we miss some. I think we are spam free at the moment as I have just deleted a few.
Anyway, speak to you all next week...
Jonathan www.topofthepods.com Almost Daily Top Ten Lists
Have a good week off, lads, you deserve it!! Loads of solid entertainment for months now, no-one should be deprived of a holiday...
7:26 pm
Anonymous said...
What is the open office thing? seemed intrested but what is it? how useful, useless is it compared to office, mainly to keep track of school assigments?
Saw an episode of Call For Help that mentioned a great MP3 organizer program The GodFather Downloaded it and going to give it a test drive. Leo recommended it highly, so it can't be bad.
eerm, is calender part of office? it has the important bits of all the office apps. but, the only reason i use it is that its free, as theres no way im paying for the crap that is office.
Sam, I don't think there is a calendar in OpenOffice. I have it installed and I see nothing like that. Tried Snapfiles-Freeware and got this EssentialPIM Check the reviews, 5, looks like it might be what you are looking for?
ph, what is your verdict on The Godfather mp3 organizer program? I know I need to get something to sort out my mp3 files, it is getting to be a serious problem...!
Bryan, I installed it, but have not played with it yet. I respect Leo's opinion on such matters. If he says it does a great job of organising, then I take him at his word. When I get a chance to play with it I will post my first hand opinion. Thinking of setting up a central music server for the home too. Have a home network, would be good for all family users here to have access to our family library of CDs. Either using an old PC set up as a Linux file server, or get an off the shelf unit. Got more important projects to finish first though :-).
11:54 am
Anonymous said...
Typical Nerdy List - YAY!!!
But you guys missed my absolute must have..
Beyond Compare
For only US$30 it is the best value money I have ever spent on an application... great for deploying your changes to a huge website (it compare directories locally and over FTP) and absolutely awsome for when it comes to comapring an individual file, as you can copy individual lines from one file to the other, etc...
We also mentioned Microsoft Max - http://www.microsoft.com/max - it views your JPEGs in lovely 3D fashion, and a great way to melt your graphics card. The colour picker for web designers is called Pixie and you can download it for free at http://www.nattyware.com/pixie.html.
The other thing we talked about was the BBC 'Have Your Say' form - please spend 5 minutes filling this in and you really can drag Auntie into this century.
Follow all the items Jon has for sale on ebay on our comments board, when he's sold his PS2 I'm sure there will be more stuff to follow.
33 Comments
Close this window Jump to comment formWhoops - we had some really bad settings on the mic for the first couple of minutes - put up with it as the show does get better, honest.
10:28 pm
Well, I can see myself doing some serious downloading to get most of that software - nifty list, Rob!! I have got TotalRecorder, a cheap - about $20 or so - downloaded mp3 recorder application, which records from any source, online and offline, have been using it for a few years for recording RealAudio content from various sources (no names, no pack drill hehe), and then using WavePad to edit the resulting mp3. But I am really looking forward to trying out NetTransport if it saves doing the recording in real time. Again, nifty list, Rob!
11:37 pm
good list guys, even though you don't actually read these comments....
Anyhow just in case you do read this, VideoLan is excellent but there is also Media Player Classic which is a very slimline media player compared to most nowadays. I also use Real Alternative, it cuts down on the clutter in WinXP for sure.
2:58 am
The artwork thing didn't work, it didn't automatically add to the new episode, I guess you have to add it manually to each one. Unless of course the podcasters embed it into the RSS feed. ;)
8:00 am
Yup, I do actually read the comments - it just takes me ages to get round to as I spend forever trying to delete these comment spam posts all the time. Blogger isn't helping by using a verification system that doesnt work!
10:29 am
Freeware photoshop-esque program, originally Linux only
1:44 pm
Good list, I'll be giving some (if not all) those a try.
www.openoffice.org is also an excellent replacement for Microsoft Office and it's completely free.
2:05 pm
Id say some of my favorite peices of software are Paint.NET a fantastic PS substitute. Really userfriendly. Google Desktop, iTunes and of cource Mozilla Firefox. I couldnt live with IE.
2:36 pm
Hi
Spookily I was stripping the text from a Word doc when I started listening to your podcast and the first thing you talked about was a utility to do that! I'll check out the utility you mentioned, but a simple way to do it is just to paste in to Notepad and then copy that.
Also, your number one was Foxit, I've tried it but I found a better solution. Acrobat is so slow because it loads loads of totally unnecessary add-ons by default. Try PDFSU to remove all these add-ons and it starts in a jiffy! It's really wonderful - and free! Get it here http://www.fileplanet.com/143098/140000/fileinfo/AcroPDF---SpeedUp or search for 'pdfsu.exe'.
4:37 pm
this app is one step ahead of the notepad thing because it does 1 key stripping rather than a lot of cutting and pasting.
great feedback guys BTW, thanks for this!
i've tried a couple of other ones people have mentioned.
Rob
TOTP
5:05 pm
It's h.264, isn't it? The new Quicktime codec.
Simon.
http://slamidol.tripod.com
5:14 pm
My post should have been "The GIMP" as a link followed by that text. I think if the link is first, before any text, then Blogger makes the text the link? Weird. Preview worked fine, only went odd when I published. I'll try to remember next time :-).
Bazza, good point, OpenOffice, yes. Switched a while ago, dumped WordPerfect (never liked MS Office).
You are doing a good job, btw, Rob!
7:53 pm
i love the fact that open office can save in office formats, as im the only person i know that uses it, so i need ordinary office files to use elsewere.
8:22 pm
A handy web-based tool for web-designing is the nice colour-mixer at :
Colour-mixer remix
Very cool for playing with colour schemes :-)
Billy.
11:11 pm
I can't live without RSS Radio, because it's what I use to get all these wonderful podcasts down onto my MP3 player !! No-one ever mentions it, but it's free for 5 subscriptions and only about £8 for the unlimited version. Support is instant and immediate (new beta released within hours to fix any bug you may find). Top class work by the developer. Find it at http://www.dorada.co.uk/
11:23 pm
that adsense site you posted looks like BS to me, don't spam.
7:28 am
Hey everyone,
We are a bit snowed under this week what with work and the fact that it is Yom Kippur too, so we are not going to be around until next Monday.
Sorry for being a pain in the arse!!
Jonathan
www.topofthepods.com
Almost Daily Top Ten Lists
10:39 am
Thanks for the 'heads up', Jon.
You guys take it easy, eh.
10:42 am
Sorry, By the way, if you notice any crap in the comments board could you email us to let us know where it is. We do get notification from Gmail, but occasionally we miss some. I think we are spam free at the moment as I have just deleted a few.
Anyway, speak to you all next week...
Jonathan
www.topofthepods.com
Almost Daily Top Ten Lists
10:43 am
Next Monday??? How are going to cope?
Just when the number of subscibers was getting high, who's betting it drops about 50 a day?
12:29 pm
no TOTP until monday is like taking coke away from boy george.....
3:39 pm
Have a good week off, lads, you deserve it!! Loads of solid entertainment for months now, no-one should be deprived of a holiday...
7:26 pm
What is the open office thing? seemed intrested but what is it? how useful, useless is it compared to office, mainly to keep track of school assigments?
12:40 am
office is too big and buggy for older pc's i find.
its alot smaller, less features. but quicker.
www.openoffice.org
8:21 pm
does it have a calender and stuff? how many less features are we talking about? just curious...
11:45 pm
Saw an episode of Call For Help that mentioned a great MP3 organizer program The GodFather
Downloaded it and going to give it a test drive. Leo recommended it highly, so it can't be bad.
2:40 pm
eerm, is calender part of office? it has the important bits of all the office apps. but, the only reason i use it is that its free, as theres no way im paying for the crap that is office.
3:32 pm
Sam, I don't think there is a calendar in OpenOffice. I have it installed and I see nothing like that.
Tried Snapfiles-Freeware and got this EssentialPIM
Check the reviews, 5, looks like it might be what you are looking for?
7:33 pm
i didnt say there was or wasnt, as i never use any calender programs.
9:07 pm
MS Outlook contains the calendar in MS Office. But if you switch to Openoffice.org , I'd recommend using calendar for Firefox or Thunderbird as a replacement http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/download.html
11:55 pm
ph, what is your verdict on The Godfather mp3 organizer program? I know I need to get something to sort out my mp3 files, it is getting to be a serious problem...!
12:57 am
Bryan, I installed it, but have not played with it yet. I respect Leo's opinion on such matters. If he says it does a great job of organising, then I take him at his word. When I get a chance to play with it I will post my first hand opinion. Thinking of setting up a central music server for the home too. Have a home network, would be good for all family users here to have access to our family library of CDs. Either using an old PC set up as a Linux file server, or get an off the shelf unit. Got more important projects to finish first though :-).
11:54 am
Typical Nerdy List - YAY!!!
But you guys missed my absolute must have..
Beyond Compare
For only US$30 it is the best value money I have ever spent on an application... great for deploying your changes to a huge website (it compare directories locally and over FTP) and absolutely awsome for when it comes to comapring an individual file, as you can copy individual lines from one file to the other, etc...
10:52 pm