Sometimes I find myself coming across strange file formats I want to convert and converters aren’t always free. It just so happens this one is and has no limit on the lines you want to convert. It will take a .DBF file and convert it to .TXT, .XLS, .CSV and a bunch of others. This came in super handy especially for our statistics project. Here is their official web page
Category: Software
Kexi 
There have been a lot of people over the last few months who have been quite clear in stating that they do not feel Open Office Base is a solid replacement for Microsoft’s Access. My answer to these individuals is to look into Kexi instead. It offers a solid, consistent UI, an active community of users and a future that looks pretty darn bright to me. I see this cross-platform data management application as a means of freeing your company from an otherwise expensive alternative.
VirtualDub
Video editing for Windows is certainly not limited to the Windows Movie Maker. VirtualDub allows its users a clean, user –friendly tool to capture, edit and produce their videos without sacrificing quality or spending any money on an application with unneeded features. Thanks to VirtualDub, which rovides decent documentation and frequent revisions, this is one of the better, yet lesser known open source video editing applications for the Windows OS.
WinMerge 
Personally, I am shocked that this program is not OEM released into every Windows desktop released from the factory floor. WinMerge does a fantastic job at helping to manage projects, making sure that the data inside the file is always the newest, not just the file itself. For example, take two of the same files and use the program to compare them. You’ll see, instantly, using colors to guide you, which syntax has changed and which is missing from one file vs. another. This is a have must for programmers and web designers.
Pentaho BI Suite 
Business intelligence is not a minor issue for most companies – having a solid open source application that can legitimately compete with the big boys is nothing to sneeze at. Pentaho Open BI Suite provides businesses with enterprise class tools to help in this critical data gathering. Reporting, analysis, dashboards and process management: the Pentaho suite does it all.
I don’t know how I missed this one on my blog. This program is an awesome time saver and super light weight. Also with the new version you can do math and stuff right in the window without having to launch calculator. Very handy and pretty much the only way I launch programs any more for Windows.
If you are in the need of a light weight photo editor that is easy to use and cross platform XnView makes for a good option. It gives you some of the quick editing features I have only been able to find in Photoshop which is um…not free. Also I find that the gimp can be clunky for quick photo editing. It allows you to change formats and edit meta tags easily as well.
I have not heard of this before until today where they have made some headlines in the blogs that I read. This is an open source business intelligence tool that includes a server, developer, and an ETL tool. Of course the have the paid model which allows you some support and access to some developed applications to run this stuff but this sounds like a solid idea that might take off really well. It has a J2EE background and a JBoss server behind it.
JkDefrag is a powertool replacement for the regular windows defrager. As you know windows likes to get heavily fragmented with its files so this tool allows you to optimize how those files are to increase power and speed
This program is a great idea, it searches all the programs you have and then goes online and finds out if you have the latest version of the application. That is of course assuming that it can find the program on the Internet through its database. Of 118 programs it found about 20, not too bad considering most of the ones it found were all open source apps which is good as those tend to be the ones that update the most.
As usual the price is right, $0 and super easy install and run.
vs 
Well after playing with these two Windows desktop blogging applications I would have to say that I am shocked, I am actually going to pick the product that is done by Microsoft! So Windows Live Writer is the winner. Both products are in beta still but Live Writer has a big leg up.
Zoundary:
- Automatically copies the URL to the link to dialog box
- Easy setup, and auto discovery of blog
- Ability to easily change and edit posts
- Spell Check automatically
Windows Live Writer:
- All the above in addition to plug-ins
- Ability to add maps, tables, video on the fly!
- Cleaner interface
- Shorter load time
- Doesn’t download all your blogs only selectively updates them
- Easier manipulation of photo’s and text
- LONG time to run through install but easy to setup
- Ability to add categories to your blog
- Better WYSIWYG interface and better interpretation of CSS sheets from the blog
PHPBB – this has proved to be super useful especially with communication with my teammates for school. It gives a central repository for files and for communication so we all know what’s going on
WordPress – well duh! you are using it right now to read this!
Coppermine – The photo management system for my web-site, easy to use and super reliable
Gallery – The photo management system for Laura’s web-site super easy to use and has a nice interface for uploading
WebCalendar – great for allowing everyone access and the ability to add events to a calendar
Well looks like Microsoft has thrown in their hats for a desktop blogger so this is my first attempt with it. You can download it from here
There are also some plugins that you can download and install for the writer here.
Verdict is still out if this is better than Zoundary but thought I would give it a try and play with it for a couple of days before I make a decision.
