Great Gratis GUIs, Part 1
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Yes that’s correct. Free software. And not just free, it’s actually usable, too!
Just going to list some of the amazing free/open source software that tends to make my electronic life a little more bearable each day.
Free Download Manager
From the site:
Free Download Manager (FDM) is a full-featured download accelerator and manager. It is absolutely free! Using this software product you can easily download a list of files and whole web sites from any remote server via HTTP, HTTPS and FTP. With FDM the downloading process will be as easy as never before!
To be honest I have used an abundance of download managers in my day, and nothing compares to the usability of FDM. Highly recommended.
Google Talk
If by now you don’t have a gmail account, then what is wrong with you? Gmail is the most amazing free web-based email system on the internet, and coupled with gmail comes an integrated browser based chat client! Keeping in touch with your friends has never been simpler.
Along comes Google Talk. With integrated voice chat, file transfers and offline messaging… what more could you want? Webcam support maybe >:/ Other than that it’s a very minimalistic and non-intrusive chat client.
WinRaR
Probably one of the oldest and most used compression formats today, .rar archives are all around us. Look around you for a bit and see if you can spot one! Their natural habitat includes the pantry, bathroom sink, behind bookcases and even under your chair!
Regardless of their unusual choice of living locations, the WinRaR archive manager has been my favorite compression GUI for a long, long time. It is so advanced that it takes advantage of space-age DUAL CORE technology, and it handles just about any compression format you dare to throw at it. A+
Deployment Tool for the bootable Unattended Windows installation
Fantastic little utility to create custom ISO images from Microsoft Windows installation CDs. This program was probably mostly used to create slipstreamed Windows CDs with integrated SATA drivers so that the Windows setup could actually recognise your hard drives. Nothing more annoying than not having an old floppy drive with which to add drivers to your running Windows setup.
Other features include:
- Service Pack Integration
- Component Removal
- Unattended Setup
- Driver Integration
- Hotfixes Integration
- Tweaks
- Services Configuration
- Patches
- Bootable ISO creation
So if you’re a “hax0r” then this piece of software is the right thing for you. Also, it makes your internet faster.
