35 FREE Tools for IT/Developers And Business

Simon — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 08:29:43 +0000

The Open Source movement continues strongly, and with it comes a greater number of more powerful free tools and applications. After a long week of scouring the web for the best free programs, I’ve compiles a list below where you will find a great selection of tools and applications for those in the IT/Development and Business.

Thunderbird Email Client

Thunderbird is a must have, open source email client that lets you share, receive, and keep track of your emails.

OpenOffice

Open Office is a free and open source with applications for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases. If your looking for an alternative to Microsoft Office products, OpenOffice is the way to go.

AbiWord

Abiword is another free, open source word processing tool. Works on most operating platforms.

FreeMind

Freemind is a really unique and free mind mapping application, allowing you to easily create your own mind maps.

Skype

Skype is an extremely popular (and in my view the best) tool to communicate with anyone on the internet for free. You can also dial to phone and landlines for very cheap. A must have tool for any freelancers.

Pidgin IM

Pidgin IM is a free online IM system for windows that allows you to talk with any other IM platform such as Yahoo! or IRC.

CC Publisher

CC Publisher allows you to tag video and audio files with information and licenses, they also allow free file hosting for certain audio and video files. Why not your next meeting for those who missed it?

Nmap

Nmap an open source (license) utility for network exploration or security auditing. Many systems and network administrators also find it useful for tasks such as network inventory, managing service upgrade schedules, and monitoring host or service uptime.

ClamWin

ClamWin is a quality and open source antivirus scanner for windows, excellent for detecting viruses or trojans.

NotePad ++

Notepad ++ is a free source code/html editor, which has attained a very high following due to its ease of use.

Programmers Notepad

Programmers Notepad is much like Notepad ++ but much more aimed towards computer programmers.

Kompozer

A fantastic and free WYSIWYG html editor that runs on linux, windows, and mac os x.

Graph

Graph is a free tool made for graphing mathematical points that can be copied to most other programs. It can also handle many math equations. Great for copying into word to send to your boss.

The GIMP

The free and open source alternative to photoshop. Though not quite as powerful, the GIMP is quite capable of sprucing up your documents, images, presentations etc.

Inkscape

Inkscape is a free vector editing graphic program (a rival to the expensive Adobe Illustrator), great for touching up or making that company logo. Or drawing inappropriate cartoons of your boss.

Blender

Blender is a really cool free tool that lets you build and shape 3-d objects and animations. Great for when your supposed to be working and want to try something fun.

WordPress

WordPress is a very popular and powerful open source CMS and blogging platform, great for setting up and managing your portfolio.

Drupal

Drupal is another open source CMS system, with a lot of really nice shopping cart and e-commerce plugins and add-ons available for free.

Joomla

Joomla is yet another very popular CMS with many of the same features and functionality of Drupal.

Dark Copy

Dark Copy is a unique text editor/writing tool created to help you focus soley on writing the task at hand.

WriteRoom

WriteRoom is much like dark copy, but for mac os x.

PrintablePaper

Printable paper is a really cool website where you can download graph paper, lined paper, financial paper, music paper, and more.

LectureFox

LectureFox is a website that allows you to watch free lectures from top colleges such as Yale and MIT.

Circle Up

Circle up is a completely free tool that allows you to create and plan meetings and communicate with those inside of your business or corporation.

RotaBoard

RotaBoard is a free online tool that allows you to organize and track your employees work schedules. Great for small businesses.

Wrike

Wrike is free to try for 30 days, and is a really powerful tool for managing business projects and employees.

Website Grader

Free online tool that generates a full marketing report of a website, creating suggestions and also allowing you to compare your data to competitor websites.

WebSnapr

Captures screenshots of any page you wish, great for showing off a product before a customer downloads it.

AnyClient

A free no-download ftp/sftp online applet.

FileZilla

Arguably the most popular FTP client, FileZilla is free and available on all platforms.

PingAbility

Pingability is a free application that will monitor a website of your choice for as long as you like, ensuring you are aware of any down time that occurs.

7 Zip

An open source file archiver with a very high compression ratio.

Audacity

Audacity is a free and open source program that allows you to create and edit sound files, this can be useful for setting up presentations or mock-ups.

pdfForge

pdfForge is a free tool to create PDFs easily from nearly any application.

TrueCrypt

TrueCrypt is a free open-source disk encryption software for Windows Vista/XP, Mac OS X, and Linux. And there you have it, tools to surely help any IT person or Developer.

SimonStapleton.com» open source

35 FREE Tools for IT/Developers And Business