This year is about to end and so I've decided to list the freeware
applications that have been most useful to me in 2013. Some of them have
a Pro version, too, such as Evernote or Dropbox, but the free one was
enough for my purposes.
Evernote: It's
an extremely useful tool to take quick notes and write down ideas.
Evernote allows you to insert snaphots from your webcam, audio
registrations and media from your computer. By signing up and creating an
account on Evernote, you can synchronize your notes, making them
available on any device anywhere you want. It can read Microsoft Office
One Note files with certain limitations (free users can't open up files
bigger than 25 MB, while for premium users the max size is 100 MB).
Evernote received several updates; one of the most interesting is the
capability to copy the internal link for a
note and paste it into another note.
Google Music Manager:
It's a very interesting cloud solution for your music, making it
available from anywhere. I saved thousands of iTunes tracks there and
now I'm no longer worried about losing my music should I have to reformat my PC.
By default, Music Manager is set up to synchronize your music every time a
new tune is added to your iTunes library. You can add custom folders, too,
but my suggestion is stick with the defaults.To use Music Manager you
must sign up and create an account on Google Music. Once you install the
program, you'll need to sign in using your credentials to start
uploading your music. Google Music Manager allows you to upload as many as 20,000 tracks; now the user can include both music purschased from
Google Store/Apple Store and the music library present on its own computer.
VLC Media Player: A universal media player for Mac, Windows and Linux. It supports most video and audio formats
(MOV, AVI, MPEG, ASF,MP4,
MKV, OGG, FLAC, WMV, WMA, WAV, etc.). and comes in very handy with
MacOsX Mavericks because QuickTime Player no longer supports AVI files. VLC is much more than a video player, though; it has several
very good audio and video editing features (such as closed caption
synchronization),
a graphic equalizer with
many presets, a customizable dynamic range compression, an audio
spatializer tool, AtmoLight video effects, interactive zoom and even special effects like blur, wave, water, and mirror.
Dropbox:
This is a widely used cloud storage
service. The free version comes with 2 GB of available space (expandible
up to 16 GB with referrals). Dropbox is extremely helpful as a disaster
recovery tool, and makes your data available from any device. Its
online file manager is very easy to use; you can connect and sync all
your devices. This way, if you were working on a document on your laptop
and you saved it in Dropbox, you can continue working on it from home accessing
it from your personal computer. Using the public folder, users can share
files with friends and coworkers through a web link. The free version
keeps old versions of the stored files for 30 days and allows you to
recover a deleted file in case you change your mind later. The paid
version has unlimited storage functionalities and you can also recover
files older than 30 days.
Google Drive:
Another cloud storage tool. Users can store up to 15 GB of
files, that can be kept private or shared. It's a great tool for work
collaboration and file sharing. The
latest updates have made it yet easier to share files. Now, once a user
receives a web link to the file, he can view it without having to sign
up for a Google account. A Google account is still necessary, though,
for document collaboration, because all users need to login to add
comments or edit the file.
Onyx: A great maintenance and cleaning tool for Mac. Onyx has advanced cleaning options and allows user to schedule automatic maintenance script. It allows you to solve problems and bugs that occasionally occur by fixing disk permissions. Even though it's freeware, it's a very advanced tool, it should be used by more experienced users.
What are your favorite freeware applications for Mac? I'm curious to see your list.
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