More Useful Programs
Getting good software to create your website is all well and good, but the programs below help make your coding time a little nicer, by playing your favourite songs, keeping you in touch with 'friends', and more! They're all free too.
This page was last updated on 2012-08-21
GetRight
Before you download anything else, get GetRight. It's a download tool, which constantly looks for the fastest download servers for you, keeps a list of files in progress, and allows you to resume a download if you have to stop during the process; which saves you time and money. It's free, with a few reminders and stuff, but that's fine. It's reliable and stable, and can even accelerate some downloads. Absolutely great.
» www.getright.com
Go!Zilla
Go!Zilla is another download tool that does the same job as GetRight, but has a flashier (and more crash-prone) interface. It's absolutely free, for the shareware version at least, which has a few ads. Downloading is never the same after you've used Go!Zilla. That's a great name, too.
» www.gozilla.com
WinAmp
You know what WinAmp is, right? It's the most comprehensive music player I've ever seen, playing anything from mp3s and midis to MODs and ULTs. You can customise your copy with any of the downloadable skins, or make your own, which is really quite easy. You can group all your songs in playlists, fiddle with the graphic equaliser, and get a load of great special effects to play in time with your newest mp3 file. Brilliant, in every way.
» www.winamp.com
WinZip
If you download a lot, you'll undoubtedly have come across zipped archives of files. Great for downloading groups of midi files, and the files get compressed too. You're going to need a program that can unzip and install these files, and WinZip is the master.
» www.winzip.com
Napster
The Napster situation is still a bit of a mess, and the software's usefulness is dropping all the time as the company gears towards a pay-per-download model. Most mainstream artists are almost impossible to download, and the barriers they've put in the way of any of these songs are often getting in the way of you downloading legitimately free songs, which is annoying. When you get lucky, it's still as simple to use as it was in its heyday, but things are looking pretty grim for our good friend Napster.
» www.napster.com
mIRC
This client allows you to connect to hundreds of IRC (Internet relay chat) servers around the net and talk to people, much like a chat room but without the web interface. New friendships can be forged, apparently. I think it relies on how nice of a person you are, or something. Anyway, if you do find an active room with good people this can become quite addictive stuff.
www.mirc.com
ICQ
The original instant messenger, this allows you to send IMs and chat with your friends all over the world. You can even drag poor people you've never met into your conversations, and test their endurance with your inane comments. There's a load of extra features included in ICQ that no one ever uses, but for basic messages, it's good. Colourful site too.
www.icq.com
