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Nifty old-school Photoshop plugins (EyeCandy 3) can be had for free from Alien Skin.
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Free professional quality (e.g. "older") versions of 3D editing, video editing, and video effects software can be downloaded from Strata3D.com the company that created the software used to create Myst.
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Nifty free tools for viewing DEM (Digital Elevation Maps) are what I would call MacDEM and MacPOV.
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| | Audio/Sound: Utilities / Compression |
Want to compress your audio/music files for internet delivery but don't like the (poor) quality of MP3s? Try encoding them in Ogg Vorbis format. Ogg Drop 1.0a3 is a freeware utility that will encode AIFF and AIFC (.aif) sound files as well as Audio CD Tracks, uncompressed QuickTime soundtracks, and System Sound files into an Ogg Vorbis (.ogg) stream. Ogg Vorbis's compresison/decompression algorithm(Codec) is a "a fully Open, non-proprietary, patent-and-royalty-free, general-purpose compressed audio format for high quality (44.1-48.0kHz, 16+ bit, polyphonic) audio and music at fixed and variable bitrates from 16 to 128 kbps/channel". More importantly, it claims to have higher quality sound than MP3 files of the same size.
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| | Audio/Sound : Recording: Digital multitrack recording |
Interesting free music software at getoutthere.bt.com
Ever wanted a digital multitrack recorder with support for up to 8 audio tracks, over 20 MIDI tracks, and effects processing but didn't want to spend a lot of money? Then check out ProTools Free by Didgidesign. You need to look for the links and fill out a form before you can download it, but for digital recording workstations this is amazing.
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ToThePoint Software offers several simple but useful programs for free, including Documentor, a freeware utility for creating online, illustrated, styled text documentation for REALbasic shareware applications.
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| | Games/3D : PowerPC w/3D Acceleration |
If you've got a Mac and 3D acceleration and don't mind long downloads for unpopular games, you can download Pangea Software's odd first person shooter game, Weekend Warrior.
Have an older machine and need an outliner or organizer? Try either of these once popular but no longer commercially available outliners. More and Acta.
Want to make sure the web pages you design are viewable by people who have WebTV? Download this free webTV simulator-viewer and see.
Need drawing or photoediting software? Then try Corel Draw8 LE.
I couldn't get the first versions of these programs to work properly on a 75Mhz PowerPC with 32M running OS 8.5, but other configurations might work better (and the software has been updated several times since I tried last). Windows and Mac users alike can use either the free PowerPoint competitor UPresent or the free multimedia cataloging tool UGather.
If you would prefer a "name" brand presentation software package and you have a windows PC, try out Corel Presentations 9.
Looking for a word processor? You have more free options than you might imagine.
If you like your word processors to be lean and mean try either the not-quite-latest-version-but-entirely-free Nisus Writer 4.1.6, or if you don't have a lot of memory on your machine and/or don't like long downloads, you might want to try Nisus Compact which will actually fit on a single floppy disk! (you can download a manual for it here) (They also publish an entertaining product newsletter)
Another option is the no-longer being developed, but fully functional Macintosh word processer FullWrite which is available for free from it's last owner, Akimbo Systems. As mentioned in a MacCentral article, the serial number needed to install this version is FREE-33333-33333.
If you don't mind long downloads then the once all powerful (until MS Office took over the market) WordPerfect might be what you want.
If you are running either Mac OS 8/9 and want to try WordPerfect you probably should also download this updater. Lastly, if you have some old word processing documents in some other format or need to exchange your WP documents with non WP users, check out this free converter.
| | Words/Editing/Utility/Spelling |
Have an application that you wish had a built-in spell checker? Well, wish no more, just download Newer Technology's free SpellToolsPro (click in the downloads section). While you are there, check out their other free utilities.
Looking for free educational games for young kids?
Try KKGames or any of the other games (sorted by age) at www.kidsdomain.com.
For some reviews and recommendations of other educational games there is a nice article on the topic at www.lowendmac.com.
Probably not something the casual user would have need for, but the postscript viewer called GhostScript sounds really neat - it lets you view postscript files before printing them.
Not for the faint of heart, but if you have an older (e.g. pre PowerPC) Macintosh and want to install Unix, Jag's house has a lot of useful info and links to free Mac versions of Unix.
Don't have photoshop but want to try out all those free Photoshop plugins you've compulsively downloaded over the past few years? Try NIH Image a free image processing program that can use Photoshop plugins.
Ever wonder how many files the MacOS actually has open at any given point in time? No? Well, you should - and hte answer might suprise you. You can find out this information and some other arcane system things if you download Alsoft's ListOpenFiles and some of their other utilities.
| | Web Development/HTML editing |
Coding or developing web-sites by hand on a shoestring budget? Check out BBEdit Lite , a very powerful free text editor that has all kinds of neat and powerful features like batch find and replace on all the files in a folder (nice for site-wide modifications).
| | Utility/Vacation Planning |
Planning an upcoming trip? Check out TripCalc and find out how long it will take, how much it will cost, etc.
If you have an older version of PhotoShop (4.0 or older) Extensis has some really nice Photoshop plug-ins available for free. PhotoBevel makes really nice bevelled edges on any image you choose (can you say "Web Buttons"? Sure you can), and PhotoText gives you the kind of precise text manipulation that is one of PhotoShop 5's most desireable features. This link skips the intrusive form you are supposed to fill out before downloading anything, but if you want to fill out the form or the direct link doesn't work then you can go here.
Running your own Mac web-server and wish you had a way to let users search your tab-delimited data files? Try out Tabs on the Web.
Since it's only one of a least two competing "Internet Time" standards it's too soon to tell if this will be useful or just a fad, but if you want to check out "internet time", download Mbeat , the clock that displays Internet time (based on Biel Mean Time) in metric format.
| | Utility/Mac OS/Appearance |
Tired of the same old predictable appearance of your Mac desktop? You might want to check out Appearance Randomizer, an application that does exactly what it sounds like it does. The author also has some other free interesting user interface oriented utilities available as well.
Hard to believe this offer is still good, (but it was as of late 2000) but anyone who clicks on a button acknowledging that they own a valid copy of Quicken can upgrade to the Y2K compliant Quicken Deluxe 98 for the Mac.
Heard all the hoopla about easy to install versions of Linux? You can get a free copy of Corel Linux here . Of course in theory Linux is free everywhere, but Corel attempted to make the install process a little simpler for the less Linux-literate.
| | Utility/Music/ScreenSaver : Mac/Windows/Linux |
Tired of the same old random disconnected screen saver on your computer? Wish the various multimedia elements in your life were more in sync? Try Cthuga, a screen saver that responds to whatever ambient sounds are going on in the room your computer is in. Best of all it runs on Windows, Macs, and Linux machines.
I am no longer the font addict I once was, but Fonthead offers a handful of really nicely designed fonts for free.
| | Images/editing/moving/plugins |
I've never used these, but if you own the Pro version of Quicktime you might find these free filters/transitions from Apple useful.
If you are a little more technically inclined these free
Quicktime tools and utilities(also from Apple) might be your ticket.
| | Music/Editing/MIDI : Pre-PowerPC |
Have a really old Mac and wish you could play or write music in MIDI format? Remember the original MusicWorks program for the original b&w Macs? Well it didn't have MIDI but you can check out an update to the software that was never commercially released it's called MusicWorks MIDI.
| | Images/Creating/Utility/3D |
I have to include this program just because of it's extremely narrow (e.g. obscure) focus. If you have a need to create 3D DXF models of rocks, you probably want to try out MacRock.
| | Mac OS/System/add-ins PowerPC/OS 8 |
If you've got a PowerPC Mac and OS 8 or later and would like a quick and easy way to switch file types and/or creator attributes on the fly, then Web File Types CMM is what you want. It's a control strip plugin. While you are at the site you might want to check out the same author's free
Zap Rez Fork plugin as well.
Want a free one-stop cross-platform file expansion utility that can handle .sit, .zip, .sea, .hqx files? Check out MindVision's MindExpander or Aladdin's Expander.
| | Images/Editing/Resource/3D |
Need free 3D models of buildings for your architectural projects? Check out www.GreatBuildings.com who have a whole selection of free buildings available for download.
If you don't have a 3D CAD program to view your newly downloaded 3D buildings with, you can try Design Workshop Lite, which while it won't let you EDIT really large files, should let you at least look at them.
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Need to know the weather in several cities at once? Or want a quick way to check your Pop3 email account without launching your whole email application? Ever wish you could launch applescripts from an email message? Or would you like automate your web site maintenance by having your mac automatically ftp files that you put in a "hot" folder to your ftp server? If you need to do any of these things, check out www.stimpsoft.com they provide free applications that do all these things and more. [review] [link]
Want to check out the world of digital video but don't have a DV budget? Check out www.icanstream.com where you can download free digital editing software.
EditDV Unplugged with Media Cleaner EZ (Mac)
FreeDV (Windows)
Want to set up a pseudo WebCam on your Mac really cheaply? Check out StripCam a program that periodically takes pictures from an input device and ftps them to your website. The author also has several other useful utilities available for free. [link]
FlamingPear
software has some high quality icons and desktop patterns as well as some single purpose Photoshop filters for free. [link]
You can use your favorite downloaded sound file as an alarm clock if you install MP3 Alarm Clock onto your Mac.
| | Numbers/Mathematic modelling |
Being mathically illiterate I can't even understand what the features of this product are, but if you need to do mathematical modeling for free, check out Regress+.
The download is a whopping 22Megs, but if you want to be able to create the kind of 3D images seen in the original Myst game, you can download Strata3D for free.
| | Images/Editing/3D : Windows Only |
Lite versions of several windows programs that let you draw floorplans, flowcharts, forms and 2D CAD things are available for free at imsisoft.com.
Need an MP3 player for your Mac? Try SoundJam MP Free.
Need a free music notation software program? Unless you are composing long symphonic pieces Igor Engraver
Lite might meet your needs.
Or if that's not your cup of tea, maybe try Finale NotePad.
Need to connect from your home Macintosh to your PC at work, or run an application on another platform? Try VNC (Virtual Network Computer), it's slow as all get out, but it lets you takeover and control another computer regardless of the platform. Slow, but awfully cool. [review]
[link]
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| | Games/Fonts : Classic B&W |
Odd really old-school mostly games and stuff can be found at http://www.igregs.com/downloads/.
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| | Image/Utilities/Mapmaking: PowerPC/64M/OS8/1024x768 |
If you need to map large amounts of biological specimen data then iMap might be just what you are looking for. Actually if you need to do any mapping of data to longitude and latitudinal points this is worth a look.
| | Links / Free Mac Software |
Some other sources for older Mac software can be found at http://lowendmac.net/macinschool/991129.html
http://www.macintouch.com/earlymac2.html
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| | Images/Creating/Movies : PowerPC |
Want to check out the world of digital video but don't have a DV budget? Check out www.icanstream.com where you can download free digital editing software
EditDV Unplugged with Media Cleaner EZ (Mac)
FreeDV (Windows)
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Need to know the weather in several cities at once? No? Well do you need a quick way to check your Pop3 email account without launching your whole email application? Well, would you like to be able to launch applescripts from an email message? Would you like to have your Mac automatically ftp files that you put in a "hot" folder up to an ftp server? If you need to do any of these things, check out www.stimpsoft.com, they provide free applications that do all these things and more. [review] [link].
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Feature Links
3D Graphic/Video editing tools
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