TOP 5 BEST/ POPULAR PROGRAMS BY CATEGORY...

hdmi said:

Well then, there's your problem, like I already tried to explain (twice).

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madVR is a niche feature. Few people need it. Regardless of that, the program is noticeably slow compared to VLC, making it a non-default video player for me.

jimbo45 said:

Hi there

For Windows install and running on internal or external devices -- instead of WintoUSB simply install to VHDX (Virtual hard drive) . You can make proper "Win to go" systems easily enough - I've a few posts on this in the Forum and on the W11 Forum.

Winamp is still good for "auto tagging" and ripping CD's (to FLAC as well) - especially if you like Classical Music as it accesses the
Gracenote CDDB which is far better for Classical music than the various free Music DB's around used by other programs.

Slyfox (Now Redfox ) is good for ripping DVD's and Blu Ray's to isos - these play perfectly on VLC / KODI etc (with menu's too if required) and de-regionalises them. I've archived all my old DVD's to these iso's. They also play on remote TV;s easily enough via VLC or KODI - if you aren't using a smart TV then use an Amazon Firestick device or similar- you can sideload these apps on it as they are anfroid devices.

Vmware workstation for Virtualisation - for me far better than vbox. Hyper-V good but needs W10/W11 pro -- although some have I think got it working on W10 Home edition.

Classic old W7 games from Winaero - still love playing Spider solitaire and Hearts during boring meetings etc !!! - the versions are far better than the current offering from the Ms store.

Filezilla -- Free fast safe secure sftp protocol type of FTP server

probably a few more

cheers
jimbo

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I'll check out your posts. They are very interesting. But I am currently sorting out a few other stuff, then may be I'll try doing things using your tutorials. They are completely new to me.

TheMystic said:

madVR is a niche feature. Few people need it. Regardless of that, the program is noticeably slow compared to VLC, making it a non-default video player for me.

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That's why "best" and "popular" are very often excluding each other, as a lot also depends on what your expectations are. MS DOS starts faster than Windows.

hdmi said:

That's why "best" and "popular" are very often excluding each other, as a lot also depends on what your expectations are. MS DOS starts faster than Windows.

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Yes, that's correct. 'Best' is a personal opinion, while 'Popular' is a fact. While a list populated using these two criteria can have different composition, what cannot be excluded (generally) is that both are likely to comprise good quality members.

Hi,
Not sure why anyone would still be using a torrent seeing how many free movie sites are around now days.

Davinci resolve in video editing. Net uptime monitoring with Home assistant uptime monitor

ThrashZone said:

Hi,
Not sure why anyone would still be using a torrent seeing how many free movie sites are around now days.

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Hi there

@ThrashZone

Some things are "Geo Blocked" - I.E not available in different jurisdictions, or also are released weeks later than in other areas -- good example is for example a TV series on Showtime in USA - Dexter New blood the latest episode : -- S01E04 -- in places this series is only available on Amazon with an EXTRA payment (when it says available to RENT - that means PAY extra) -- even if you have subscribed to Amazon Prime. The episodes appear much later than in the USA in this case -- and as I've paid for Amazon Prime I'm not paying more so thanks to people who've made it available on various sites.

A lot of current movies are just rubbish so TV series are often better these days than "half baked movie re-boots or re-makes" - also there's just too many content providers now -- nobody is going to pay for 27 different subscriptions for example !!! -- so the days of "Torrenting" are by no means over. Traffic actually is rising on some well known sites -- blocking torrent sites by ISP's is a totally puerile process - even TOR browser works to get round that.

Cheers
jimbo

TheMystic said:

'Best' is a personal opinion,

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Yes and no. Video quality related factors can still objectively be measured, even though human perception and perceived quality can be subjective of course, and different people have different priorities when it comes to the importance of each different quality related factor. Different priorities, which either can be subjectively determined or can be objectively determined─or the pragmatic combination of both. Similarly, popularity numbers can also be skewed. The context also plays a role. What does "popular" factually mean? Popular among which group or subgroup of people? Do most people compare different players by looking more closely at the video quality that the players produce, or do they just want instant gratification so they just conveniently grab whatever it is that looks to be popular and so they can hold on to it like an anchor? Immediately it becomes clear the fact that, no, generally, good quality is not that popular, although it sometimes can be. Good quality takes effort. As does finding it. Not to mention the fact that it also takes a certain amount of knowledge and experience, and skills, to be able to make fair comparisons. Whereas personal choices based purely on first impressions (the initial wow factor) are always easy to defend, and, using what's popular can make you more popular as a person, especially due to how the modern internet works. So, mediocre quality is what most people end up with. Quite unfortunately, that is.

Hi,
OBS studio is looking better than shareX already seeing it has a pause hotkey option for recording.

ShareX reason for not supporting pause and resume hotkey is pretty lame lol

Screen shot wise I've not looked at on obs seeing it's not something I'm needing it to do anyway just full screen recording which I'm testing atm and see what the file size/ quality is compared to shareX using mp4 file type.

Did not know obs is good for linux to so that's new info

Another for the pdf category is PDF-XChange​

Editor.​

Most of the features I use are free and there is a portable version too.

PDF-XChange Co Ltd :: PDF-XChange Editor - The Best Free PDF Editor

The product page for PDF-XChange Editor. Download the free version of PDF-XChange Editor here.

www.tracker-software.com

I noticed that you don't have Search Engines listed. And there are many!

My personal preference is DuckDuckGo because it doesn't track or save any information about you or your searches.

Wynona said:

I noticed that you don't have Search Engines listed. And there are many!

My personal preference is DuckDuckGo because it doesn't track or save any information about you or your searches.

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While it's in a browser I think this is about standalone programs that you install on your PC/Device.

trevo said:

Another for the pdf category is PDF-XChange​

Editor.​

Most of the features I use are free and there is a portable version too.

PDF-XChange Co Ltd :: PDF-XChange Editor - The Best Free PDF Editor

The product page for PDF-XChange Editor. Download the free version of PDF-XChange Editor here.

www.tracker-software.com

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Gets my vote!

BunnyJ said:

While it's in a browser I think this is about standalone programs that you install on your PC/Device.

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Pretty much all search engines can be used by all browsers; therefore, it's my opinion that Search Engines should be included.

Case in point: I remove all Search Engines from Firefox except for DuckDuckGo. So do most of my students. Even those who of necessity use Chrome also remove everything but DuckDuckGo.

It isn't necessarily the browser that tracks you, but the Search Engine.

Wynona said:

Pretty much all search engines can be used by all browsers; therefore, it's my opinion that Search Engines should be included.

Case in point: I remove all Search Engines from Firefox except for DuckDuckGo. So do most of my students. Even those who of necessity use Chrome also remove everything but DuckDuckGo.

It isn't necessarily the browser that tracks you, but the Search Engine.

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Well,, I disagree.

...well..., c'mon kids..., I'm certain, about 17 of you are itchin to chime in on this!!!

Wynona said:

Pretty much all search engines can be used by all browsers; therefore, it's my opinion that Search Engines should be included.

Case in point: I remove all Search Engines from Firefox except for DuckDuckGo. So do most of my students. Even those who of necessity use Chrome also remove everything but DuckDuckGo.

It isn't necessarily the browser that tracks you, but the Search Engine.

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Included now, item number 37.

39 - Backup Software

I find that Aomei OneKey Recovery is incredibly useful for creating a disk image tat enables easy recovery of a machine

Request: 47: Automation tools

CMD or PowerShell works, if you know how to program in Batch/PowerShell
Autohotkey works well, as a keyboard macro, a automation tool, and some others

You want Windows to open ElevenForum every hour, it's easy with Automation tools.

jbcarreon123 said:

Request: 47: Automation tools

CMD or PowerShell works, if you know how to program in Batch/PowerShell
Autohotkey works well, as a keyboard macro, a automation tool, and some others

You want Windows to open ElevenForum every hour, it's easy with Automation tools.

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• Selenium
• Microsoft Power Automate (former Softomotive WinAutomation)

For enhanced scripting, I also like to use various tools and utilities (from NirSoft, etc.) in concert with:

• AutoIt
• AutoItX

But I also use the VB compiler (vbc.exe) that comes included with the .NET Framework, that, in turn, comes included with every standard installation of Windows 11. For anyone already familiar with VBScript/VBA, it is much easier to work with than PowerShell, albeit most of the stuff I wrote tends to be a bit of a mixed cocktail or "mish mash" of code snippets, as the most important thing aside from making it work is to also be able to understand how each individual part of it works, to still be able to make changes to it all, whenever I need to. So, I like to spend the extra time it takes to document all the important details, NOT waste time trying to convert each part to a different language in order to consolidate excessively after which it will do exactly the same as before and that will very often only make it more difficult to read (and modify) as opposed to make life easier.