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 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 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.

App 3: HandBrake

In order to watch videos on your iPod or other multimedia devices, you have to jump through many hoops and hurdles. There are so many shoddy transcoders for iPods that all want your money, or come with spyware.
But I bring salvation AADD sufferers, and its called HandBrake.

HandBrake allows you to convert movie files, and DVDs to another format, so you can watch it on another device.

It can output as .mkv or .mp4 video formats, which are supported by many devices including iPods, PS3s PSPs and Xbox 360's.
It also supports multi-threading for quick conversions of files.
One of the best features of HandBrake is its ability to rip a DVD video to whatever format you need. This is much quicker than using one application to rip the DVD, then another to transcode it.

Have a lot of files to transcode? HandBrake allows you to queue them up, so you can just click and go.
HandBrake is available for Windows, Mac and Linux Operating Systems and comes in GUI (Graphical User Interface, show as above) and CLI (Command Line Interface) versions.

App(s) 2: Gnome-Do and Docky (Linux)

On my laptop, I find having to run though several menus a bit tiring.
However, thanks to Gnome-Do, I don't have to mess around with menus anymore!

Gnome-Do does... everything! It's a launcher for your applications.

All you do is press Super+Space and you'll be presented with the main interface of Gnome-Do.  From there you type something. Gnome-Do will search your computer (thats your installed applications as well as files and folders) for what you are looking for.

For example, you typed the name of an application and press enter, and it will launch that application. However, if it was a file you searched for, you can open that file.

Gnome-Do doesn't end there however. A bunch of plugins allow you to do much more. Wanna search google? With Gnome-Do you can search Google, Youtube, even Torrents without having to open up your browser first.

But wait.
Gnome-Do also includes a dock, called Docky. You can use this by going to Gnome-Do's appearance preferences menu and changing the theme to Docky.

Docky will show your open applications as well as frequently used applications, and pressting the Gnome-Do shortcut will allow you to make searches.

Docky is also available available without Gnome-Do.

Running it without Gnome-Do allows you to have multiple docks (for example, I have one on the bottom of my screen to show running applications, and one on the left of my screen with shortcuts to my folders.)
Docky also has additional plugins that aren't included in Gnome-Do.

You can find Gnome-Do here and the separate Docky application here. Both are ONLY available for Linux.

App 1: Google Chrome

Google Chrome is my current Web browsing application across all computers I own.

Even though there are plenty of great browsers out there for all platforms, I can't help but stick to Chrome.

Developed by Google, this web browser boasts incredible speed, extension, pop-up blocker, bookmark synchronization and a multi-process architecture.

This makes for a thoroughly enjoyable browsing experience.

As you can see in the image above, it's got a simple, minimalistic interface.
I've added a few Extensions such as: AdThwart(For AdBlocking), Gmail Checker and Sender and a Google Reader Checker.

I love the amount of screen estate that is dedicated to the web-page as opposed to multiple toolbars, that is found in Firefox and Internet Explorer.

Chrome is available here for Windows, Linux and Mac (However Extension support is not available for the Mac version yet.)