Websites, Apps & stuff on t'interweb that makes life easier...

[dj_bollocks]

Seeing as there's virtually a site or an app that does everything bar wipe your arse these days maybe you want to share your worldly knowledge on good stuff to know on the inter web for us mere mortals...

 

Might be a bit basic for some, but I've been using this for the past few days to convert pictures to pdfs...

 

http://www.convert-jpg-to-pdf.net

 

Also I'm sure most who use them will know but all the wares and torrent sites can be found here thanks to most of the UK Interweb providers being wanks and blocking them...

 

http://come.in/#

 

Always looking to broaden my internet horizons... Got anything to share ?

[rumpus]

Whats ap is great.

 

You can phone anyone wo has it for nothing if they have it on their phone from anywhere for next to nothing.

[Ke1t]

Splashtop is one of my favourite remote access programs, if that's any help?

 

It's not exactly Sub7, like, but handy as a bastard.

 

I used to be a bit of a Script Kiddie... do they even use that term any more?... thought I was going to hack into the Pentagon

 

Back in the day no fucker used Antivirus software, so you could more or less just scan your way through a swathe of ip's untill you hit some silly bastard who had installed a trojan while surfing their 56k pornographies. Then spend a few happy hours popping their CD tray out, hijacking their mouse, and checking out the discretely hidden porn folders where they kept the pictures of their missus with a cucumber jammed RIGHT u...

 

Anyway, if you like the idea of remote access, get hold of Splashtop 2.

 

You won't be 'hacking' anyone with it, but you'll be able to access your PC from remote locations.

 

Dropbox is also good... but if you have a home network just be VERY careful what you drop into Dropbox, because it auto-syncs with all the allowed devices on the network, and that could be a bad thing.

 

 

 

 

 

[dervish]

Dunno if it counts but Chromecast is awesome for £30. Wee thing you put in your tv (hdmi port) then can cast stuff onto it from your android tablet/phone... or also any tab in a chrome browser (it's not keen on silverlight though). Very easy to use and more and more apps are allowing you to cast direct.

 

Another one is Plex. Basically all your movies on your pc can be streamed to other "things" that have Plex on em. Linked with above can sit on your sofa look through all your movies on your desktop and cast them on the tv. No pishy remote controls just the usual swish of using a tablet.

 

Openoffice, clone of MS Office (but the earlier non-spaz versions) which is better in a lot of ways and free. Also can make pdfs from it directly.

 

Gimp, free clone of Photoshop. Bit more involved but can do loads for free.

[NorthernLights24]

http://ninite.com/ - You select a bunch of software and this website creates an installer that will download and install all the selected software for you. You can then reuse the installer to keep everything up to date.

[a don in oz]

Dunno if it counts but Chromecast is awesome for £30. Wee thing you put in your tv (hdmi port) then can cast stuff onto it from your android tablet/phone... or also any tab in a chrome browser (it's not keen on silverlight though). Very easy to use and more and more apps are allowing you to cast direct.

 

Another one is Plex. Basically all your movies on your pc can be streamed to other "things" that have Plex on em. Linked with above can sit on your sofa look through all your movies on your desktop and cast them on the tv. No pishy remote controls just the usual swish of using a tablet.

 

Openoffice, clone of MS Office (but the earlier non-spaz versions) which is better in a lot of ways and free. Also can make pdfs from it directly.

 

Gimp, free clone of Photoshop. Bit more involved but can do loads for free.

 

 

No no no, you are taking the mick there? Openoffice better in a lot of ways than MS Office?! It's better maybe than Word for Windows for Windows 2 but you're going back to 1991 for that.

 

OpenOffice is dead as a doornail and never got any traction. Back when it started when Sun bought StarOffice and forked to OOo, it had a hope but it never evolved and is still pretty much what it was back in 2000, when even then it didn't compete with the then current version of Office.

 

Buy the Home and Student edition of Office instead of that crap from Amazon for 60 quid.

 

And Gimp is a free image editing tool but no clone of Photoshop. Powerful but a disaster zone of an interface.

 

F/OSS is great at utilities and low level objects but having no fucker with UI/UX expertise working on them really shows when you get up the chain to app level stuff.

[dervish]

Feel a bit weird debating the value of free stuff but on Open Office I prefer to the latest versions of Office (seriously). The new versions have that weird interface which I don't like, plus (compared to the older versions) can put things straight to pdf and the default settings allow you to strip the formatting off cut and pastes easier. The newest versions of office have these things but as I say with the spazzy interface. At work I use MS Office and the latest version chaps my nipples. All I use it home for is minor stuff like CV touch ups etc so dropping £60 on a product I hate doesn't make sense.

 

If you know how to use Gimp (and certain other plug ins) it's a cracking bit of software. Yes the interface isn't amazing no but it's free... I'd never pay for Photoshop it's £200-300? For most people if they can get to grips with Gimp they'd be able to do most of what they need. I pay for Lightroom which is a different thing altogether but is worth every penny.