1 year ago
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My favorite desktop and mobile software and tools

Note the platforms in the bracket for each software are only the platforms I use the software, not all platforms that the software supports.

Development tools

Microsoft Visual Studio Code (Windows, Linux)

The most powerful code editor that works very well on both Windows and Linux.

Far File Manager (Windows)

https://www.farmanager.com/

I've been using Far File Manager for about 20 years and I will continue using it. It's a little out of date nowadays but it's still a very good file manager.

Microsoft Visual Studio 2019 community version (Windows)

I use VS to develop cross platform projects.

Qt and Qt creator (Windows, Linux)

I don't use Qt that often nowadays, but Qt is still one my favorite framework and Qt creator is a pretty good C++ IDE.

Oracle VirtualBox (Windows)

I only use Windows as the host OS. When I need to run Linux, I run it in VirtualBox.

Laragon (Windows)

https://laragon.org/

Great PHP and web server for local development.

Sourcetree git GUI (Windows)

I always believe GUI for version control system is more productive than command line.

HeidiSQL (Windows)

https://www.heidisql.com/

My favorite SQL servers viewer and management tool. I wish it would not crash that a lot...

XShell free for home/school version (Windows)

https://www.netsarang.com/en/xshell/

It's enough for me to manage my personal servers.

Multimedia, audio, video

Audacity (Windows)

https://www.audacityteam.org/

Free yet powerful audio process and recording software. I created a free tool to automate Audacity recording

GIMP (Windows, Linux)

I use GIMP to do some simple image manipulation. I mostly use it to process music scores.

Greenshot (Windows)

https://getgreenshot.org/

An awesome free screenshot capture software.

PotPlayer (Windows)

https://potplayer.daum.net/

My favorite video player. I used it to play audio, but seems it amplifies the volume and background noise significantly.

Foobar2000 (Win10 app)

I use it to play audio. Its auto playlist function is great to monitor sound changes.

Faststone Image Viewer (Windows)

https://www.faststone.org/

My favorite image viewer.

ffmpeg (Windows)

I write little script to call ffmpeg to split videos.

Inkscape (Windows)

I use Inkscape to edit SVG images.

VLC media player (Android)

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.videolan.vlc

My favorite video player on mobile phone.

AZ Screen Recorder (Android)

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.hecorat.screenrecorder.free

Android screen capture.

VSDC (Windows)

http://www.videosoftdev.com/

Free video software.

Music and instrument learning

MuseScore

https://musescore.org/en

Free music composition and notation software. I use it to make Ukulele scores.

Soundcorset tuner and metronome (Android)

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.soundcorset.client.android

Very powerful tuner and metronome. I usually tune my instrument using this mobile app.

modTuner (Win10 app)

Music instrument tuner for Win10. Rarely I tune using this Win10 app.

Asparion Metronome+ (Win10 app)

Free and easy to use metronome.

Stage Metronome (Android)

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=app.pg.stagemetronome

Free and easy to use metronome.

The Metronome by Soundbrenner (Android)

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.soundbrenner.pulse

Powerful and free metronome.

Spectroid (Android)

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.intoorbit.spectrum

Audio spectrum analyzer.

Smart Chords (Android)

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.smartchord.droid

App for learning chords for Ukulele and Guitar. It has much more features.

Hydrogen Drum Machine (Windows)

http://hydrogen-music.org/

Free drum machine emulator. It's fun to add some drums to my instrument performance.

Others

ReadEra (Android)

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.readera

My favorite PDF and Epub reader on mobile phone.

PDFCreator (Windows)

https://www.pdfforge.org/pdfcreator

I use PDFCreator to convert PDF to images.

Bing dictionary (Win10 app)

I'm not a native English speaker, so I need a good dictionary.

Download Them All

https://www.downthemall.org/

Add-on for browsers (Firefox, Chrome, etc). Download documents on a web page easily.

Free Download Manager

https://www.freedownloadmanager.org/

Free, slim, no advertises, no spyware, no crappy ware, no information stealer, no extra crappy programs. If you used some popular downloaders made by Chinese companies, you understand what I mean :-)

Duo mobile (Android)

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.duosecurity.duomobile

Two-factor authentication.

Core Temp (Windows)

https://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/

I use Core Temp to monitor computer processor temperature.

Zapya Kuaiya (Android and Windows)

https://www.izapya.com/

I use it to transfer files between my PC and my phone. I don't need a cable anymore!

Free Countdown Timer (Windows)

https://free-countdown.com/

I use it to set timer for my instrument practice session. The features I like: 1, it can add many timers. 2, it can set the sound notification volumn. 3, it can order the timers.

The software I would AVOID

The list is from my own subjective opinion. It maybe not correct or suit for you.

Notepad++ (Windows)

I move it from "favorite" to "avoid". Its developer continuously associates extreme political remarks with this software. That makes me not able to trust it. How about one day the developer goes crazy and puts virus in it?

KMPlayer

It's very buggy (for example, it often "stay on top" while I don't allow it to do that). And after I uninstall it, it leaves crappy information in Windows registry which still associate all media types with it. Deleting its garbage wasted me pretty much time. I'm usually not unhappy with crappy software, but this one is too crappy and I wish I never heard it.