Software

Software stores have been catching on lately. Apple has the App Store, Google has the Android Market and the Chrome Web Store. But none of these stores are exclusively for Windows. The App Store, for example, is for iOS. And now, even Intel couldn’t hold back, launching the Intel AppUp Developer Program (hereafter IADP). Intel AppUp is different from the others. It’s a software store made specifically for the “Windows” and “MeeGo” operating systems. Through AppUp, programmers can turn their ideas into products and upload them there. If the idea is good, getting rich isn’t hard! The most important thing is that IADP is currently free. Normally, software stores charge an annual fee. AppUp was going to charge too, at 99 US dollars a year. But since IADP is brand new, Intel generously offered a free first year. Right now, IADP members are still free, but I don’t know when this offer will end. ...

GIMP is an image editing program that comes close to Photoshop, and it is open source. Although it is free software, meaning you can use it at no cost, its features are by no means inferior to the commercial Photoshop. Basic drawing tools are built in, it supports layers, and most importantly, you can extend its functionality by installing plug-ins. As far as I know, there are hundreds of plug-ins available. ...

FileZilla is an FTP client that many people use today, and one handy feature is Site Manager. Because I manage websites myself, I often need FTP. Every time I wanted to connect, I had to enter the address, username, password, and other details, which wasted a lot of time. But once I set up Site Manager, I only need to fill in the details once, and from then on I can connect directly without typing all that information again~ ...

If you use a VPS or play with Linux, you're probably no stranger to SSH. It's something every Linux user has to learn. SSH is like remote control, except it's text-based instead of graphical. Normally I use PuTTY for SSH connections. On iOS devices (iPhone, iPad, and so on), I use iSSH. But what about in a browser? With the FireSSH add-on, you can make SSH connections right while you browse, without opening another program~ ...

Firefox 4 has finally joined the ranks of browsers with streamlined interfaces~ Now the three major browsers on the market, Chrome, IE, and Firefox, have all made their interfaces quite minimal. But Firefox was a bit late. A big reason I switched from Firefox to Chrome back then was that Google Chrome’s interface was fresh, stylish, and clean, which made it feel fast (a psychological bonus…). Still, Firefox has many advantages. For example, customizability! Although Chrome can install extensions, Chrome’s extension library is nowhere near the size of Firefox’s, so with Firefox you can do so much more XD ...

Microsoft has finally delivered something respectable this time. There’s no denying that each Microsoft update brings some progress, but the progress has usually been small. When it comes to IE, the difference between IE7, IE8, and IE6 was really minor. Unlike Firefox and Chrome, which almost always deliver a shock with every update, IE9 is honestly a big step forward. At the very least, it’s fast enough now. Security has improved too. And the tabbed browsing, which IE8 was heavily criticized for, is now much more usable. Opening tabs in IE8 could even make it crash… ...

Since I recently started writing articles about Linux, I have been paying attention to the helper tools for writing under Linux, such as screenshot and screen recording tools. On Linux, I recommend Shutter for screenshots. For screen recording, I recently found a fairly well-known one called XVidCap. I tested it myself and it works pretty well. I’m not sure whether that’s because of the software itself or because I tested it in a virtual machine, but the video quality from XVidCap isn’t very good. The main feature of XVidCap is that it supports many formats built in. It can save directly in common formats such as avi, mpeg, and swf, without needing another program to convert them. It has two small drawbacks, though: it doesn’t support keyboard shortcuts, and it doesn’t have a Chinese interface. ...

I introduced Google Desktop to you before. It can quickly open files and programs. Launchy works in a similar way, but it focuses on quickly launching programs, so it doesn’t have as many features as Google Desktop. Google Desktop can search files and has a sidebar, while Launchy only does file search. Its file search works differently, though. You specify folders, and Launchy builds an index of the files in those folders before you search. Google Desktop indexes the files on every hard drive. The difference is that when you type a keyword, Launchy may show more accurate results, while Google Desktop may show results you don’t want. ...

PuTTY is a well-known SSH client, and it’s very easy to use. But it has a drawback: it’s in English, and when you connect over SSH with PuTTY, you can’t type Chinese characters. That’s very inconvenient for users in Taiwan, which is why Pietty was born~ In short, Pietty is PuTTY with Chinese input and a Chinese interface. Pietty also offers many helpful extras, such as transparent windows and SFTP transfers. ...

Google Desktop is one of the programs I install every time I reinstall my computer. It matters to me even more than Yahoo! Messenger! Simply put, Google Desktop is a file search and management program. You can find the files you need by searching for keywords. Windows has this feature built in too, but honestly the built-in Windows search is... slow and awful. It can take me 30 seconds to get results for a file, while Google Desktop returns results in just 1 to 3 seconds! Google Desktop isn't only for searching files, either. It has a built-in sidebar where you can add small gadgets such as Google Calendar, a to-do list, news, weather, and more. You can even write your own gadgets and put them in the sidebar~...