I think it’s time I schooled a few people on what Open Source Code is. Go to this link here, to find out a bit more. This in direct comparison to proprietary software is software that as the name implies has the code that makes it possible open for anyone to modify and add to. The nice thing about this is the fact that it’s free, but as the website says, it’s freedom as in freedom to do whatever you want. You’re not really confined by what someone else has done and what you’ve paid them to give you.

There are downsides and upsides of such senarios. The thing is I’ve been noticing what I use on a regular basis more and more and a great deal of my software is open source.

1. From the software that runs this site, it’s amazing what’s needed for this little blog to exist. I need php, Mysql and Wordpress, it’s all through Apache all running on Unix type servers. The operating system being used is linux Hmm that’s like 5 seriously hardcore pieces of software that run this site.

2. When I’m building my websites I use XAMMP which basically installs everything I need to make my computer into a local server so that I can do all my testing.

3. In order to get certain files onto the site I use Filezilla, another fantastic ftp client that is very powerful, and yes you guessed it completely open source.

4. I use firefox to view everything in the most powerful/customisable browser around.

5. I use VideoLan for viewing ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING you can possibly imagine. It’s such a brilliantly simple and again customisable media player.

6. And right now I’m learning Blender, which to be honest with you is absolutely amazing. I love everything about this program right now. I’m sure there are loads of limitations, but it’s a 3d modelling program, it’s been written from the ground up and is only 3.4 meg large, that’s the size of an mp3 in case you were wondering, and it’s completely customisable. It’s got loads of features that you wouldn’t believe. Go to the gallery and have a look to see what was created using this program. I’ll be building a lot of Iliosnare using this program in the near future.

And if that’s not enough I use freeware stuff all the time. The absolutely amazing image viewer and small modification xnview. I use the pretty decent picasa from google. For music I use itunes, simply because I generally like the interface. I’ve tried getting into winamp, just really doesn’t do it for me to be honest the fact that I can actually choose the categories in the same way I can with itunes.

I’d be really appreciate it if anyone’s got any really cool software they’ve found on the net that they think should be added to my collection of freeware/open source software.