I love the Open Source/Free software movement. It has provided me with some incredibly powerful tools to solve problems, not to mention hours of fun tracking down and playing with this stuff.
The following is a list of some of my favorite open source or free software tools. It’s a mixed bag of things that can help improve productivity, solve PC problems, aid with development or just have fun.
I’m always looking for more so please post your own favorites as comments and, assuming it makes my Geek-o-meter twitch, I will update the list as time goes on.
- XMind – Mind Mapping and Storming
- MindMeister – Online Mind Mapping (multi-edit – great for collaborating)
- GIMP – The GNU Image Manipulation Program
- Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office
- Ubuntu – Linux. There are too many flavors of Linux to list here but Ubuntu is probably the easiest for a Linux newbie.
- Audacity: Free Audio Editor and Recorder
- CamStudio – Free Screen Recording Software
- CCleaner – PC Optimization and Cleaning
- Recuva – Get back those deleted files!
- JDiskReport – Graphical disk space analysis
- LibreOffice – The Free and Open Productivity Suite
- OpenProj | Serena Open Source and Hosted Project Management Software
- PDFCreator – The free PDF Creator and Converter
- Skype – Free audio / video communication
- TOAD (Tool For Application Developers)
- MySQL Database
- Joomla – Open Source CMS System (a great way to create your website)
- VMWare Player – Run multiple Operating Systems on one PC
- Jira – Bug and Task tracking tool. Not free but for $10 it practically is.
- Talend: Open Source ETL and Data Integration Software
- Microsoft Security Essentials and AVG Anti-Virus – Why spend good money on virus protection when you can get it for free!
Houldsworth's Random Ramblings 
Awesome post. Very helpful. Thanks for the info.