Our Freeware Recommendations (Graphics Editor, Audio Recorder, Screen Capture, and Others)

Seriously.  Who owns, personally owns, all the software they need?Nevermind want. No one does. No one I know at least.  Adobe, Microsoft, Corel all rock. Of course.  They’re great.  But they might as well be Pretty Pony  Design Software, as far as my home computer endeavors are concerned.

Thank god for freeware. There is some pretty damn impressive software out there of no charge, that can handle most of our domestic computer needs competently, if not sometimes a little awkwardly. Here’s a list of some of my favorites, plus some popular ones I’ve heard good things about. Check into when your 30-day Adobe Whatever CS4 trial is up.

1. GIMP [freeware graphics editor.] It is amazing this is free. If don’t have PhotoShop or an Adobe equivalent, and have been screwing around in Microsoft Paint (futile, isn’t it?) for 4 hours, then go Gimp. Gimp was originally developed by two students in 1995 at Berkeley as a semester-long project. Since then, it has steadily improved and expanded, spawning numerous variations, sister programs, derivatives, and is now, by far, the most powerful freeware graphics editing program around.

2. Audacity [free audio recorder and editor]. Audacity is a digital audio editor and recorder; the best freeware substitute I’ve found for recording and editing audio.  It was developed by a grad student at Carnegie Mellon University, and released in 2006. It supports multiple tracks, each individually editable, and imports and exports most kinds of sound formats.  It also includes noise removal tools, loads of effects, an unlimited undo, and the capacity to change speed without changing pitch.

3. Paint.net [freeware graphics editor]. If you’re looking for something a little simpler, this is a totally decent graphic-editing program,  I used to use all the time. Originally developed in 2004 at Washington State University as an alternative to Microsoft Paint, it has evolved to support many graphic design tools including layers, blending, transparency, and plugins.

4. Blender [free 3D graphics application]. Blender is a powerful 3D graphics application, and does loads of stuff; here’s the list. It can be used for modeling, UV unwrapping, texturing, rigging, water simulations, skinning, animating, rendering, non-linear editing, compositing, and creating interactive 3D applications. This one I’ve only heard very highly spoken of, having never used it. It was developed by an animation studio that went bankrupt, and released the code for $100,670.00US.

5. OpenOffice [free word process0r, spreadsheet application, presentation program, and others]. OpenOffice is a popular application suite that basically does all the same stuff as Microsoft Office, as well as a few other things. It supports all Microsoft Office formats, and as of March 2009, over 80 languages.  The source code was released in July 2000 in hopes of weakening Mircrosoft’s grip on the office application market. To Microsoft’s Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and Access, OpenOffice offers Writer, Calc, Impress, and Base, respectively. It also includes a vector graphics diagramming tool, and an equation/formula creator/editor.

7. CamStudio [free screen capture program]. CamStudio is a screencasting program. This program is about as simple as they come. It has no editing capabilities though, so don’t mess up. If all you need to do is capture screen activity and audio in AVI and AWF format, then go with this.

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got for now, but I am sure more will come to me; I’ll try to remember to come back and post them.

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Add your own freeware recommendations in a comment. Thanks.

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