App 12: Audacity

I have a love for multi-platform applications here at AppADD. I've got another great application which is available over many operating system, and has not sacrificed quality to meet the demands of being an application for Windows, Mac or Linux.

Audacity is a free audio editor and recorder. One of the great features of it, is it's compatibility with tons and TONS of file formats. .WAV .MP3 .Ogg, all of these have such devoted following, and audacity supports all of them.

In terms of audio editing, I use it for cutting and modifying audio for a radio station. When working in that context quality is very important. When working on my audio in GarageBand, in the lab, I end up with compressed formats, and consequently bad quality audio.

However when I use audacity, I consistently get good audio samples, and they sound great on radio.

Audacity also has plenty of great effects to help create good sounding audio everytime.

Lastly it has lots of exporting tools, to allow your audio to be converted into a wider range of file formats.

I recommend Audacity to anyone who needs to make quick edits of their audio, and to give it a shot.

Besides, it won the Best Project for Multimedia award at sourceforge.net, and the developer has been employed at Google! (Good for him!)

Lastly remember, it's available for Windows, Mac and Linux!

App 11: Microsoft Security Essentials

Ever since computers have started using the internet, we have been worried about malware and viruses. It's always recommended to keep your computer protected with some sort of anti-virus program. However, with so much involved with virus-scanning (like real-time protection, attachment scanning, updates and registry scanning) some programs can end up slowing down your computer considerably.

Thats why I recommend Microsoft Security Essentials, when it comes to protecting your computer.
No I haven't bumped my head, Microsoft made a great, free program here.
Not only is it great and free, its un-obtrusive, and uses considerably less resources than other free (or even paid) anti-virus programs.

MSE is also updated daily, and offers a wide range of scanning options.
If you don't have much time, you can use the quick-scan to weed out the obvious issues. This tends to take about 10-20 minutes.
For a more thorough scan you can use the full scan option.
Additionally, when paired with Windows Defender in Windows 7, I've yet to run into any problems with my computer.

App 10: Launchy

When using Ubuntu, I'm often asked "What's that?" when using certain applications. The one I'm asked most often about is Gnome-Do. I've talked about Gnome-Do and it's awesomeness in Linux. Now its time to talk about it's Windows alternative; Launchy. While the two applications aren't based off each other, you will notice many similarities between them.

Just like Gnome-Do, Launchy is "designed to help you forget about your start menu, the icons on your desktop, and even your file manager.
How? 
Just by pressing the designated hotkey (alt+spacebar) you get a dialog box to type in whatever you need. Need to launch an application? Just start typing! Launchy will even auto-complete, or suggest what it thinks your typing to make things easier.

Additionally, Launchy is very customizable, allowing not only to change the location of where it shows up, or it's hotkeys, but with plugins, and multiple skins. Plugins will allow you to launch a specific website just by typing in it's URL in Launchy, or even search Google without opening up your web-browser first.


Launchy, in the end, aims to make life more intuitive for the user, with less mouse-movements and clicking. Additionally, because it's an open source application, anyone can develop for it, making their own plugins or skins! 

App 9: Pidgin

Chatting online lately has become a bit of a chore.
While the majority of my contacts are on MSN, I also have contacts in Google Chat, Facebook and AOL Instant Messenger.
Having all my contacts in different protocols means that I have to use MSN Live, for MSN contacts, Use a Browser window for Facebook and Google Chat, and AIM for AOL Contacts.

Well to make things easier, I've started using Pidgin.
Older Ubuntu users are probably already familiar with Pidgin, as it used to be the default messaging application. However, its also available for Windows and Mac OS X, making it an ideal application for many people.

Upon finishing installation of Pidgin, you just use your sign-in names for each network or account you use and voila, all done!

Also, instead of having a lot of windows open for each conversation you have, Pidgin has a tabbed interface for your conversations, making it easier to find who you're talking to.

Furthermore, there are several plugins available to enhance the usability of Pidgin! 

It's great to have all your stuff in one place, and makes things much more organized, Pidgin is a great application to keep your friends close!

Pidgin is available for Windows, Mac OS X, Ubuntu, CentOS and Fedora Core.

App 8: Paint.Net

I have to apologize for the lack of updates. I was busy with some school-related activities in the past month.

But I do have a new App!
Many people know that Adobe's Photoshop is the most popular application to edit and manipulate images. However, getting it is a bit tough, with the basic Photoshop Elements costing about $80 and the full Photoshop CS4 costing from $200 for an upgrade to $700 for the full thing.

What I have here is a free alternative to Photoshop.

Paint.Net offers many of the features that Photoshop has but I've noticed a few things that make it truly competitive with Photoshop.

As with many of my other applications I've posted, Paint.Net is fast to load, and uses up less resources. In a comparison of the two, I've noticed that Photoshop is using about 50% more RAM than Paint.Net when working with the same file using the same tools and applying the same effects.

Additionally Paint.Net has a huge community to create plug-ins for features that are not included with the application.

It has a clean interface, and has compatibility with Windows 7 Jump-Lists!
I recommend it, and it's a quick 5Mb download from http://getpaint.net 

Mobile Apps!

The first Mobile Apps to come to AppADD!
First off the Google Mobile App for your phone.
The Google Mobile app is useful for anyone who uses any Google service.
What impressed me the most was the Voice search feature. What this does is allow you to search Google without having to use any text input. Just say your search term and it'll go search for it! Even more impressive is how it recognizes non dictionary terms!
The Google Mobile App works on many phones, go to http://m.google.com

App 7: Dropbox

Nowadays I move between several computers. From Home to School, I use computers all day.

I'm also way too lazy to keep all my files on a usb stick. The best option for me is to store in the cloud.

Dropbox is the best way to do that. It works on all platforms as well as on iPhone.

After installing Dropbox you will be able to drag and drop files into a folder, that saves itself on the Dropbox site. you can then access that info on any computer that has access to the internet just by visiting the Dropbox website.

I'll post about some other cool things you can do with Dropbox, like remote access to Torrents.