April 2nd, 2009 I changed some of my “default†software (the applications I install on my vanilla Windows) recently, based on the previous post.
- TextPad out; NotePad++ in. TextPad is proprietary, NotePad++ is freeware (this seems to be a theme), and TextPad doesn’t seem to be updated very frequently
- Paint Shop Pro out; GIMP in. When PSP was owned by JASC, it was fine, but since it was taken over by Corel, it’s gotten very bloatly and slow. It looks like they’re changing it into a photo processing application which looks a lot like Adobe Photoshop, rather than a general image package. Most of the stuff they’d added on, I would never use, and Photohop is far too complex. Look’s like GIMP is the way forward.
- Media Player Classic out; VLC Media Player in. I’m not a fan of the way the popular media players like WinAmp and Windows Media Player have become more about looking after your whole music or video library than playing them, and have become apps with massive screen real estate in the process. There’s no need. I used Media Player Classic wrapped in the Satsuki Decoder Pack. The Pack provides the codecs for any video or audio file possible, but the player itself was stuck on version 6.4.9.0, and had been for as long as I’d been using it. The pack is only being maintained by one person. VLC is everything that Media Player Classic, but is also constantly being updated.
