• Real Alternative - an alternative to RealPlayer for playing most forms of RealMedia. The advantages include the fact that it doesn't occupy memory until you need it to play something, and that it doesn't harass you constantly with demands that it be updated. There are few things more irritating than a flashing RealMedia icon in the taskbar, something that can only be put to rest with an arduous download. I've tested RealAlt amd it works on Thislife.org, the only site I visit that makes much use of RealMedia.
• Quicktime Alt - similar to RealAlt, but for playing Quicktime files. I haven't tried it out yet, but it's a great idea. No more harassment about the 50 raven-haired virgins who will fuck me if I upgrade to Quicktime Pro!
• Crimson Editor - today I tried four or five freeware and shareware text editors to see which would become my quick and dirty text editor of choice. I chose CrimsonEditor, because it's small, fast, feature-rich, and doesn't crash my computer like UltraEdit. Another thing about it - when you drag and drop an alias on it, it opens the original, not the irrelevant content of the tiny alias file.
• Gnucleus - an open-source Gnutella file sharing client. Up until today I'd been using the spyware-ridden Morpheus (with the spyware eliminated) to access the Gnutella network. Morpheus was unsatisfactory because even without the spyware, it still managed to assail me with the occasional pop-up or Javascript error. Gnucleus has a confusing user interface, with lots of windows and chaotic grouping of functions, but I have confidence it will be improved with subsequent releases.

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