Recommended Links

About

This page gives me a place to recommend and praise informative web sites and application/tools. Allmost all of these should be free and mostly open source unless noted otherwise.

Tech

• slashdot.org - Slashdot, user submitted and voted tech news and articles.
• www.digg.com - Digg, user submitted and voted news and articles viewed by category (similar to slash dot).
• www.reddit.com - Reddit, user submitted and voted news and articles viewed by category (Reddit and Digg are similar rivals).
• www.twit.tv - This Week in Tech, a collection of popular tech netcasts.
• www.tweako.com - User submitted and voted Tutorials, how to's, e-books, and more. Categorized, programming, hardware, linux, hacks, etc.
• www.dzone.com - User submitted and voted developer articles.
• www.grc.com/SecurityNow.htm - Security Now, a weekly security pod-cast(net-cast) with Steve Gibson and Leo Laporte.

Security

Security Software/References:

• www.microsoft.com/sysinternals - Formerly www.sysinternals.com, now bought by Microsoft. Many very usefull tools/utilities. MS says no more sysinternals source code, but has continued to refine and expand the collection.
• www.grc.com - Gibson Research Center, security info, tools, and online services.

Root Kits:

• www.resplendence.com/hookanalyzer - Windows hook lister by Resplendence.
• www.microsoft.com/sysinternals... - Root Kit Revealer.

Spyware/Adware/Malware:

• www.safer-networking.org - Spybot Search & Destroy free spyware scanner/blocker with some useful tools.

AntiVirus:

• free.avg.com - AVG Antivirus.
• www.avast.com - Avast! Antivirus (free, requires free registration)
• www.clamav.net for Linux and www.clamwin.com for Windows. ClamAV is an open source antivirus scan engine with great detection. ClamWin also has a handy protable version.

Encrytion:

• www.truecrypt.org - TrueCrypt is heavy duty disk encryption software for most operating systems. Not only can TrueCrypt encrypt entire partitions or USB storage devices, but it can also create a virtual encrypted disk within a file and mount it as a real disk.
• gnupg.org - GNU Privacy Guard (GnuPG) is a replacement for PGP that encrypts and signs your data. GnuPG is a command line application, but has a front end integrated into many GUI applications.

Firebox/Routers:

• www.smoothwall.org - Smoothwall Linux Router/Firewall
• www.ipcop.org - IPCop Linux Router/Firewall
• www.pfsense.com - pfSense Linux Router/Firewall

Anonymous Internet

• www.torproject.org - The Tor anonymity system using Onion Proxies presented to you as a local Socks proxy.
• www.i2p2.de - The I2P, is an anonymizing network using several layers of encryption.

Development

IDE/Compilers:

• qt.nokia.com/products/developer-tools/ - Qt Creator, cross-platform IDE targeted for C++ development with the Qt framework.
• www.microsoft.com/express/Downloads/ - Visual Studio Express edition, free Windows IDE for multiple programming languages and frameworks, most notably .NET development.
• boa-constructor.sourceforge.net - Cross platform RAD IDE for Python and wxPython, a cross-platform GUI framework for python! (This is still a beta project. Now supports Python 2.5.)
• www.bloodshed.net - Bloodeshed Dev-C++, Open source Windows IDE.

Editors:

• notepad-plus-plus.org - Notepad++, multi language source code highlighting text editor (comes with spell checker plugin now).
  
• www.pspad.com - PSPad, multi language source code highlighting text editor, with spell check.
  
• hexplorer.sourceforge.net - Hexplorer, a great hex editor, with snazzy Matrix view. (text too small to see? Change the font. View->Options->Font)
  

Tools:

• git-scm.com - Git, a free and open source, distributed version control system.
• www.prestosoft.com/ps.asp?page=edp_examdiff - ExamDiff, A great free file comparer.
• kdiff3.sourceforge.net - KDiff, a very feature rich file comparer and merger.
• tortoisesvn.net - TortoiseSVN, a Windows explorer integrated Subversion client.
• code.google.com/p/tortoisegit/ - TortoiseGit, a Windows explorer integrated Git client.

Utilities

Virtualization:

• www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/default.aspx - Virtual PC 2007, Free! Adds Vista and 64bit support as well as performance improvements to VPC 2004.
  
• www.virtualbox.org - InnoTek Virtual Box, an open source virtualization solution!
  

Compression:

• upx.sourceforge.net - UPX, the Ultimate Packer for executables, an open source, transparent exe file packer.
  

Other:

• www.md5summer.org - MD5 Summer, a GUI and a command line MD5 checksummer for Windows.
  
• virtuawin.sourceforge.net - VirtuaWin (no L), is a light weight quick and easy virtual desktop manager for Windows.
  
• windowspager.sourceforge.net - WindowsPager, a more refined virtual desktop manager for Windows.
  
• synergy-foss.org - Synergy, is a cross-platform, network based, keyboard and mouse sharing client/server.
  

E-Books

Programming:

• www.computer-books.us - Computer-Books, seems to be all programming language books, categorized by language.
  Has links to sister book sites:
     Linux-Books.us
     Java-Books.us
     Database-Books.us
     CAD-CAM-Books.us
  
• www.advancedlinuxprogramming.com - Single book: Advanced Linux Programming by CodeSourcery LLC.

Tech/Programming:

• www.freetechbooks.com - Free Tech Books, categorized by computer science, programming, operating system books, and more.