About a month ago I decided to upgrade my current workstation to Windows 7 64 bit, in order to use Adobe After Effects and Premiere 5 (they only run on a 64 Bit OS).  In the process of re-installing all my programs I realized there are quite a few Opensource and Free Programs that I have come to rely on for my day to day work.  Since I have found these programs invaluable to my workflow, I felt I would share them with the community.

Filezilla:

Filezilla is a Free and Open source FTP Client that while not being the prettiest interface, it does provide a great two window drag and drop enabled file browser (local and remote), as well as a site manager and quick connect with history.

One nice feature of this project that is worth mentioning is that there is also a “Filezilla Server” application.  The server application allows you to quickly set up an ftp, through GUI, and add users on a Windows computer.  this can come in handy if you need a fast way to send someone a large directory of files, as they can download them directly from your computer without the wait time to first upload them to an external service.

Filezilla can be found here: http://filezilla-project.org/

PuTTY Tray:

PuTTY Tray is an extended version of PuTTY (a free Telnet / SSH client).  When you need to quickly establish a terminal connection to a web-server or other linux/unix machine, PuTTY is a simple client that saves sessions and supports several protocols.

PuTTY Tray is available for download here:  http://puttytray.goeswhere.com/

WinSCP:

WinSCP is a free and opensource SCP and FTP client. SCP (Secure Copy Protocol) allows files to be transmitted securely between two hosts. The protocol is based off of the SSH Protocol meaning that you can transfer files to a machine running SSH.  Win SCP gives you a graphical user interface (that is drag and drop enabled), to facilitate file transfer over SSH.

WinSCP can be found here: http://winscp.net/eng/index.php

7-zip

Whenever you need to archive or un-archive files, 7-zip is a no-hassle way to get the job done quick. It has a user interface however I personally have never used it as almost everything can be done from a “right click” of the mouse in windows explorer.

7-zip is free and open source. It can found here: http://www.7-zip.org/

KeePass

If you are like me, you have literally hundreds of user-names and passwords you need to remember, I shouldn’t have to stress the importance of using different passwords for each account!

KeePass keeps all your usernames and passwords safe in an encrypted database. Simply select the KeePass database file, enter your user-name and password, optionally select a key file. That’s it! you now have access to your list of passwords.  You don’t have to worry about someone peeking over your shoulder and seeing your user-names or passwords, because they are starred out, and are only accessed by copying and pastingeither the user-name or password from the interface.  (the copy data is purged as soon as you paste.)

KeyPass is available from here: http://keepass.info/

OpenOffice.org

Now there is absolutely nothing wrong with Microsoft Office. But Open Office is a great opensource alternative that is very feature rich and has a workflow very similar to Microsoft Office (pre-Ribbon).  One thing to note is that, if you are used to building scripts or macros in MS Office, they may not transfer over. However, Open Office does have its own scripting framework that supports multiple languages, mainly: BeanShell, JavaScript, Java, Python, and OpenOffice.org Basic. You can learn more on OOo Scripting here.

OpenOffice.org can be found at; you guessed it: http://www.openoffice.org/

Pidgin

Pidgin is a multiple protocol instant messenger client.  it supports the following chat networks:

Facebook Chat is available via a plugin found here.

You can download Pidgin here: http://www.pidgin.im/

Those were my top 7 Free and or Open Source Applications that I use on a daily basis. Do you have any favorites that you can’t live without? Would you like to learn more about any of the programs mentioned above? Leave a message below or drop me an email on the contact page, I would love to hear from you!

Daniel artfully blends video and lighting, with music and spoken word in this fascinating study of the human body in its peak physical condition.

Priced to rival the new RED Scarlet system, canon has chosen to focus on color reproduction over a raw workflow similar to RED I won’t touch the arguments for and against 4k footage, if you want more information click on over to this article by Panavision VP John Galt @ Creative Cow.

Here is a demo of the camera ans some of it’s features: (by Jonathan Yi):

No longer just tools for international espionage, Homebrew USB ‘Dead Drops’ have been appearing all over the world.

“‘Dead Drops’ is an anonymous, offline, peer to peer file-sharing network in public space. USB flash drives are embedded into walls, buildings and curbs accessable to anybody in public space. Everyone is invited to drop or find files on a dead drop. Plug your laptop to a wall, house or pole to share your favorite files and data. Each dead drop is installed empty except a readme.txt file explaining the project. ‘Dead Drops’ is open to participation.” -link

 

As of the publish date of this article, deaddrops.com (a website that maintains a user submitted database of drops worldwide.) lists the locations of 767 USB drops containing approximately 2,385 GB of data that can be accessed by anyone with a laptop or other USB enabled device.

The first USB Dead Drop project was started in 2010 in New York City, USA, by Artist and member of the “Free, Art & Technology Labs” (F.A.T.) Aram Bartholl, who embedded 5 usb drives into brick walls and other public spaces around New York City.  Adam Explains the project and shows you how to make your own dead drop in the video below:

Dead Drops ‘How to’ – NYC from aram bartholl on Vimeo.

LINKS:

Photo Credit (ADACTO – FLICKR) http://www.flickr.com/photos/adactio/5398569344/

Interactive Map of dead drops worldwide: http://deaddrops.com/dead-drops/db-map/

Adam Bartholl: http://www.datenform.de/indexeng.html

F.A.T. Labs NYC: http://fffff.at/