Yalin is a co-worker and good friend of mine at USOE and he recently posted a page using the new Google Page Creator [pages.google.com] that lists all of his favorite freeware [ykececi.googlepages.com/]. He’s pointed me in the right direction on a few things in the past, so I think this list is worth having a look at. Some of it I already use, but it’s nice to have a place to go to find some other good stuff that’s already been tried and tested.

Stuff on the list that I vouch for and currently use includes:

• Billy [sheepfriends.com] (an extremely small audio player with global hotkeys)
• Notepad++ [notepad-plus.sourceforge.net] (a great lightweight notepad program, I use it to write HTML, with a few extra frills; like numbered lines for debugging Line Number errors)
• Open Office [openoffice.org] (an office suite that doesn’t cost a dime and is compatible with Microsoft Office products.)
• Firefox [getfirefox.com] (and all its extension goodness)

Stuff on the list that I’m going to check out:

• SuperFast Shutdown (for when my ride home comes in and says “let’s go!”)
• FreeCommander
• Unlocker
• Orphan’s Remover

Stuff that Yalin should add to his list:

• AVG Free Antivirus [grisoft.com] (I’ve been using it for years on my personal computer and it’s been doing great!)
• A few in the “Video Tools” category, which category doesn’t exist on his list.  I’ll blog on those another day.