This is a movie made and released for free under the creative commons license.  Made with free software [Blender] by regular (very talented) people.

It's about 60% of the way there in comparison to a Pixar movie.  No words, slightly simplified graphics, slightly amateurish acting.  But I'm splitting hairs, it's great.

Here is the project Blog: http://www.bigbuckbunny.org/

Ties right in with Clay Shirky's Cognitive Surplus speech: [linky]

It's a good list.

But let's take one category for instance.

Publishing:
They list 10 entries ranging from Picassa to WordPress.  The two problems with this list (and the rest of the categories) is that some are there due to size and first mover status (eg. blogger) and some are missing even though they might have superior flexibility and functionality (eg. typepad or blogEngine dotNet).

And with this list of 100, how in the heck is anyone supposed to make a decent evaluation of even one category.  I mean you should spend some decent amount of time fiddling with the app.  Could be hours or it could be days depending on the use.

So you'll end up using the app with a network effect in place or the one that is "coolest" but maybe sub-optimal.

Still...good list.

This is a great little utility that allows you to set up your machine at the click of a button.  Get all your favorite apps downloaded and installed in one fell swoop.

InstallPad

Great for when you are going to be setting up a new machine.  No longer do you have to go out and find each one separately and download them one by one.  Set it up ahead of time place the applist.xml file somewhere that you can get it and voila, you're ready to role.

That would be my start up list of apps.

• WinAmp
• CDex
• Notepad ++
• Windows Live Writer
• Sharpreader
• XP Pro IIS Admin
• VLC
• Audacity
• Super
• iZarc
• Gadwin Printscreen
• Explorer XP

This of course does not include the large applications that require CD's for installation such as: MS Office, MS Visual Studio, Paint Shop Pro, Photo Album etc.

This will also be the way I post techRivet's Free Media Pack 2008.  With an InstallPad applist.xml file and link to InstallPad itself.  Brilliant.

Related link: techRivet's Free Media Pack 2007

So everyone else already has a "Best Free Software" list out there and we here at the grand headquarters of techRivet really can't add much new info. techRivet has a post dedicated to a free media pack: techRivet's Free Media Pack 2007, which is cool but for the full list of all the free stuff out there we'll defer to others who have already done the legwork.

What we CAN provide is a meta-list of those sites for you, our devoted reader, to more easily find what you are looking for.

So without further ado, here is

techRivet's Meta-list of Freeware lists of Freeware Applications!

The 46 Best-ever Freeware Utilities

I might call this the definitive list. But with the way things change?... more sites to choose from the better. He certainly provides the most background information and reviews of the software. It's an even handed take on products.

For example the review of "Best Free Digital Editor" qualifies the recommendation depending on experience of the user. Gimp for experienced users, Paint.Net for inexperienced.

XP Freeware - A Windows XP Freeware Guide

An excellent list covering a wide variety of categorized applications with descriptions and in some cases mini-reviews.

Highlighted find: Celestia - A free space simulation that lets you explore our universe in three dimensions. Unlike most planetarium software, Celestia doesn't confine you to the surface of the Earth. You can travel throughout the solar system, to any of over 100,000 stars, or even beyond the galaxy.

oh and check out the sister site: XP Games

winaddons.com

Great Broad list of categorized applications. Ranging from wallpapers to dev tools to system utilities. Pretty much everything.

Highlighted find: PopTray - email notification app.

Scott Hanselman's 2006 Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List for Windows

Like the title says geared more towards the developer than anything else. An awesome and powerful list. If you are a developer and haven't read this list, get off the schnide boy!

damn, it's a long list.

Chi3 Hacklab

A very comprehensive list that covers multi-OS many many categories. Titles and category only no descriptions.

Martin's list(s) of (free) stuff

A tight list of good apps.

121space list of freeware.

Long list, categorized.

Boring PC mag list...

They do provide a description with the apps for ya.

So I'm not going to put together a big comprehensive list of free software applications available for you, that's been done many times here are some links for that:

• Martin's List of Free Stuff.
• Best Free Utilities
• Scott Hanselman's 2006 Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List for Windows
• PC Mag - The Best Free Software
• 121space - Ultimate list

Update here is a great list of everything.

• Mohawke's Best of the Best Free and Open Source Software Collection

In fact there are too many ones to choose from.  How do you know what to use?  Well I may not know the best (and if you have suggestions please let me know) but I have some that work great for me.

What I am going to put together is a media pack.  A suite of applications, if you will, that satisfy all your media needs.

techRivet's Free Media Pack

1. Audio:
   1. Listening: WinAmp. I've tried a bunch. Windows Media Player, iTunes, Media Monkey, MusicCube, Songbird...etc. And I keep coming back to WinAmp. It simply works. It synchs with my Creative:Zen flawlessly and is easier to use than the software that came with the player. I guess it doesn't have a few of the bells and whistles...but to play music it's king.
   2. Ripping: Free Rip MP3. Fight the power. No MS or Apple empire here man. Just rip at the bitrate you want, where you want it. Easy.
   3. Burning: I actually use a non-free app for this so I am looking for suggestions.  I use Nero because it came with one of the CDR drives I purchased last year. Suggestions Welcome.
   4. Manipulating: Audacity.  You can record anything you want with this.  I record my vinyl records onto my computer.  I have even recorded a song from a DVD onto my comp as an MP3 (a barbie song for my daughter)  I just took the line-out from the dvd player and voila'. Easy.  I am surprised how often I end up using this app.
2. Video
   1. Watching: Use what you want, no big deal in my opinion.  But the best free non-commercial app out there is VideoLan's VLC media player.  This thing plays ANYTHING.  The UI is very 1995 but everything else about it is golden.
   2. Converting: Just found this one and it has been the impetus for this post - Super.  This app will apparently convert anything into anything.  I had been trying to convert this one MP4 file into a DivX file using Dr. DivX but I just couldn't get it to pick up the audio track.  Well I downloaded Super and BANG! done and done.  DivX sa-weet.
   3. Ripping: eh?  Nero again.  Suggestions Welcome.
3. Graphics
   1. Managing: Picasa, duh!
   2. Manipulating: For the quick and dirty use Paint.Net.  If you have some skillz and want to do more use The Gimp.  I actually have a for pay app for this (Paint Shop Pro from Corel).   I'll include both in the pack.
4. 3D
   1. Now I don't have the time to mess with this but I'm just gonna throw it in cause it's so cool. Blender. You wanna make your own 3d movie? Well here you go.

And just so you know how helpful we are here at the Rivet I've gone ahead and put all these files together in one handy ZipFile. 

Here it is: techRivet Media Pack - (75 MB so you may want to get the pieces you want...).  That link appears dead, I will work on a new location today.  Anyone have any suggestions?

This is a living list so any and all advice and comments are welcome.

Update: While in the process of writing this little article I wanted to find a place to put the techRivet Media Pack without impacting my download restrictions at godaddy.com.  I thought it even money that I could find a free place for online storage.  I thought there might be someplace, but no way would it allow for a 75 MB file...Well there is a place: openomy.  It was touch and go as I uploaded, but I tested the download and it looks like it works fine.

Interesting it appears to be backed by Amazon's S3 storage service.

Update: Well openomy appears to not like that file anymore, I will find out what is going on.  Meanwhile I'll look for alternate locations.  Anyone have any great ideas?  Free online file storage and download?

Update: I know the issue now.  You need to sign up with openomy and be signed in and then you can download the entire pack.