Code Editor:
gedit

• http://projects.gnome.org/gedit/
  
• OS: Linux, Windows XP/Vista/7, Mac OS X
  
• An extremely versatile and user-friendly code editor with plugin support.

Free Commander:

• http://www.freecommander.com/
  
• OS: Windows
  
• A program which is a major improvement to the default windows explorer, allowing dual panel display, tabs, favorites of locations, multirename tools, editing attributes of files [date and time modified + created], and much more.

I started using this recently and it leaps and bounds ahead of the XP explorer, it makes a lot of things very convenient.

Freeware Games:
Stranded 2

• http://www.stranded.unrealsoftware.de/s2_infos.php
  
• OS: Windows XP, although there is a fix available to get it to run on some vista and 7 PC's.
  
• My favorite freeware game ever, you start washed up on an island with the only goal being to survive. You can gather wood to build shelters and fires and other essentials to remain living. Plus, the game has a built in island builder to keep you from getting bored.

Anybody have any opinions on winamp and foobar? I'm trying to decide which to use because I'm leaving iTunes.

I found Foobar2000 far superior to Winamp, it uses barely any RAM and does exactly what I want it to with a ton of extra functions. I'd try both of them if I were you and decide which you like better though.

This is how I have Foobar2000 set to look with its default GUI editor:
http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g316/sgt_deacon/foobar-1.jpg


For me I most like the ability it has to assign a hotkey to anything as well as it supports global hotkeys. For example I have ctrl + shift + z set to lower the volume of the player and another one to raise the volume, this way I can lower and raise the volume of my music whenever I want to when I am running a game. I also really like the 'add to playback queue feature, essentially creating a new playlist quickly.

Server

http://filezilla-project.org/download.php is a tool that you need to maintain a FTP-site. It's free and easy to use with multiple languages.
Available to Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7 - Linux (built for Debian 5.0) - Mac OS X 10.5 or newer

Anyone know of a good converter that changes MP4 video to just MP3? Thanks in advance.

you can't convert video to audio, that just can't be done.

However, you can extract the audio and convert it. There are different ways to do this, the most elegant way involves using FFMpeg and the command line to identify, extract, and transcode (if necessary) the audio.... not something I think most are up to.

More up most people's alleys would probably to use Avidemux (can be found in the video editor section), open the video with it, go Audio->Save... and save the audio (don't forget to include the extension). Ideally you would make sure to save it the same file format as whatever the embedded audio stream is, but if you don't know that, you can save it as a .WAV file, the later convert it to whatever format you so please.

Much obliged, Defron!

Misc XXXVI
Program Name

• http://sourceforge.net/projects/batchrenamer/
  
• OS: All 32bit MS Systems, OS Independent
  
• Batch Renamer - An Application that allows you to rename multiple files at the same time, with specific character/number strings, and ascending markings to order them.

Didn't notice this app listed, quite useful in situations

So I've decided to use foobar, but I'm not sure whether to install it as portable or not. Can anyone explain what this means to me?

Portable just means that all of the files are self-contained wherever you installed it, this includes themes and preferences. If you do not install it portably (sp?) then it keeps preference and theme files separate from the installation directory, in your 'my documents' folders.

If you don't know what it means to install a program as a portable app you don't need to worry about it, just do it as the default so it acts like every other program.

It should be noted that some third party skins require a portable installation.

Email:

http://www.pmail.com/index.htm - License: Freeware

Just wanted to point out, in Pinnacle Studio, it is possible to convert audio directly from the video. http://i438.photobucket.com/albums/qq102/Starforce9/video-audio.jpg (The only thing I found to be annoying with that is, the file sizes for the audio are slightly larger then they should be, but nevertheless its useful)

And its not freeware, but still.

I don't think I saw clam-xav on there.
http://www.clamxav.com/

Daum PotPlayer is the spiritual successor to The KMPlayer and is supposedly gonna get updated much more often.

http://www.dvbsupport.net/download/index.php?act=view&id=236
http://www.dvbsupport.net/download/index.php?act=view&id=230

I need to kill the HDD LOW virus on windows Vista. Whatcha got?

Anyone know a good freeware FTP program..?

Nevermind, Manualed it.

Games
Continuum

• http://www.getcontinuum.com/
  
• OS: Windows
  
• I first played this as Subspace in the late '90s. It is an arena style 2D spaceship shoot'em up MMO. Lots of fun! Their motto is "Meet people from all over the world...then kill them."

Oooo didnt see this one. I'll try it out.

System Information

http://www.freshdevices.com/freshdiag.html

License: Free for non-commercial user, OS: Windows in general (not sure about 32/64-bit version), Registration key through e-mail
Feature: System information and Benchmark of many hardware parts

Code Editor:

Vim

• http://www.vim.org/
  
• Feature filled modal text editor. (The learning curve is a brick wall)

Oh, this is probably a stupid question, but here it is anyway: What's a good program to open .ace files? I know, 7-zip says it can, but it doesn't (unless it has been updated in the past year or so and can now open .ace files).