In 1959, the almighty Barrett Strong attempted to disprove the theory that the best things in life are free. Money can only get you what you really need, according to the great man.
However, there’s a great deal of free stuff out there that I couldn’t do without – but actually, I should be paying for.
It’s eating me up inside…
Like many folks who live on the Web, I use tons of free stuff – open-source, freeware or ‘free account’ applications and services that I simply cannot do without.
Now, if somebody’s taken time to produce something that I find useful, no matter if it has a price tag of zero, I should donate something towards it. It’s the decent thing to do, regardless of whether it’s requested by the developer or not.
And yet there’s a whole heap of stuff that I use, on an almost daily basis, that I hold my hand up high and admit:
I haven’t paid a single thing.
So with great shame, and solid resolve to put my hand in my wallet from now on, here’s a list of some of that great free stuff that I really should pay for:
Tux Paint
Our kids love Tux Paint, an open-source drawing package (we have the Mac version). Dead simple to use, lovely sound effects, a cheeky interface and a fun all-round feel. It’s developed by a team of volunteers world-wide and distributed under a GNU licence, and has given us hours and hours of fun.
Have I paid for it? No. Will I be doing? Yes!
iStat Nano
iStat Nano is a wonderful little system-monitoring Dashboard widget for the Mac. Knowing what’s going on under the hood is but an F12 click away. A very clever interface keeps the widget down to a minimum of space, yet with easy access to all the stats.
I will be donating for this, yes…
Firebug
Never a day goes by these days without me thinking at least once, “How on earth did I get by before Firebug?”
It’s a good question: Firebug, an awesome web development extension for Firefox, has seen an end to the days of battling with CSS specificity woes, fighting with descendant selectors, or simply bashing my head against the desk shouting, “Why won’t you just add the damn padding to that list item!???!!!”
Crack open Firebug -> inspect element -> job done.
And with a veritable host of other equally useful features, Firebug is well, well, well worth a sizeable donation, if not just for the hours it’s saved me.
Yes, yes, I know…
Snipshot
Snipshot is a tasty online image editor. Hundreds of them around nowadays, I know, but I come back to Snipshot everytime. I don’t really use it myself, but recommend it to all my non-tech clients (of which there are soooooo many…) who appreciate its ridiculous ease of use.
It seems these guys are funded by yCombinator which might go some way to explaining why there is no mention of pricing on the Snipshot at all. It seems it’s just free! Yipeeee!!
Backpack
Until recently, Backpack was a very cool open-ended, web-based personal organiser from the guys at 37 Signals. With some recent enhancements, it’s become simply incredible.
What’s more, until recently, I was using Backpack for free too – the free account allows you to get plenty done without ever having to stump up to the next level. I’d say with the new features it’s even easier to maintain the free account level, although with a basic account only costing $5/month anyway you may as well splash out!
So that’s one less thing to feel guilty about…
Highrise
Highrise is a new online CRM offering, again from 37 Signals. It’s very quickly become absolutely indispensable to me.
You can open a completely free account which I’ve found, for me, is perfect. I’m actually not trying to penny-pinch, it’s just that even the most basic paid-for account would be overkill. I get only 2 users, and a limit of 250 contacts, and for me, that’s fine.
Mail ActOn
Mail ActOn is an amazing add-on for Apple Mail from Indev. Used in conjunction with MailTags from the same company, it’s a winning combination that I simply wouldn’t be able to do without now.
Basically, Mail ActOn allows you to set sophisticated mail management rules that you can then attach to a keystroke. Hit the main Mail ActOn shortcut keystroke; hit the desired mail rule shortcut; get back to work. Simple.
Ah, I notice the ‘donate’ link at the foot of the Mail ActOn page…
http://www.indev.ca/MailActOn.html
Web Development Toolbar
Chris Pederick’s Web Development Toolbar extension for Firefox is utterly indispensable, a work of genius, and obviously the product of a lot of hard work. It’s saved me hours of time and effort.
Have I paid anything at all towards it, ever? Erm, no. Will I? Yes.
Handbrake
Handbrake is an “open-source, GPL-licensed, multiplatform, multithreaded DVD to MPEG-4 converter, available for MacOS X, Linux and Windows” which does exactly what it says on the tin.
I’m often given DVD material to prepare for the web and Handbrake makes it a doddle, every time. I can’t believe it’s free, to be honest!
Whack the output into the amazing Visual Hub (which admittedly isn’t free, but is well worth every cent of its $23.32 price tag) and you’re in multi-format video conversion heaven.
Quicksilver
Quicksilver, according to the website, is “a unified, extensible interface for working with applications, contacts, music, and other data” for Mac OS X. Now, that’s exactly what Quicksilver is, and yet it barely scratches the surface of what it actually does in practice.
And once you start using it, you’ll wonder how you ever got by without it. I hate being on another Mac without Quicksilver installed, it’s like having a limb removed.
Oh, and it’s totally free.
Get a handle on what Quicksilver does with this video tutorial here, or this excellent Quicksilver round-up on 43 Folders.
http://quicksilver.blacktree.com
Slayer Office Color Palette Creator
Since reading Andy Clarke’s article in early 2004 I’ve been visiting Steve’s online javascript Color Palette Creator to create nice colour schemes.
I’ve also not been paying for it either. I assuage my guilt by clicking on every single one of Steve’s Google Ads so I feel better about it!
http://slayeroffice.com/tools/color_palette
Miro Video Player
Based on the principles of open, free media, the open-source Miro video player is hands-down the best video player/organiser on the Mac. Until recently known as Democracy player (with a beautiful re-brand courtesy of Jon Hicks) Miro handles the watching, downloading and organisation of video content effortlessly – far better than the ‘tacked-on’ video functionality of iTunes. It even looks after your video RSS feeds too.
Linotype FontExplorer X
Linotype FontExplorer X is a fantastic font manager for Mac OS X – an iTunes for fonts if you like. Works beautifully, heads and shoulders above OS X’s default Font Book app.
What’s more, it’s totally free! I suppose the offset for the zero price tag is that Linotype have embedded access to their online store directly into the app itself. However, it’s a completely seamless integration and, for me, only adds to the value of the package.
http://www.linotype.com/fontexplorerX
What free stuff do you love? Let me know in the comments.
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