Links

Audacity
A Freeware sound editor. I've made a few things with it. Warning: it can be buggy when saving files.

Download Accelerator
A Nagware download utility. It allows file resume and all kinds of fiddly bits like that.

WyrmNet
This is the Freeware Telnet client that I always use.

Tucows
A place to download shareware. Huge site. I suggest that you don't download programs with wild abandon... test them warily at first, one at a time, so that if one clashes with your system, you'll know which one it is.

The Underdogs
Like Tucows, except that these programs are abandonware turned freeware. (Abandonware: a program which has gone "out of print," or in some cases, never got into print in the first place.) If you're feeling wistful about (say) a game you played years ago on a friend's computer, and then tried to buy it but found it wasn't sold anymore, check for it here. Huge site, good chance it's there.

Terragen
A Freeware program that renders beautiful photorealistic 3d landscapes. There's a huge community of people who use it for their artwork, and a great deal of plugins that can turn the program into something even more fantastic than it is on its own. Everybody should go and play with this program at least a bit.

MegaHAL
A conversational AI, which learns from what you say to it. On the whole, its grammar is excellent, but its understanding is nil. Due to its lack of understanding, it can get pretty surreal at times, and might do something such as asking which pea your grandmother is from.

Online Conversion
For converting any unit of measurement to any other unit of measurement.

Picasa 2
A Freeware photo-editing and painting program. Some other freeware art programs include GIMP. The indispensible, absolute best freeware program for saving a JPG file is 'Peg It, which shows you how the image will change according to each decrease or increase in save quality, and what its file size will be. This is even superior to saving a JPG in Photoshop, and I use it all the time.

~ Comics ~ Sequential Art for the Masses Reman Mythology. Science fantasy. A shy, ordinary girl follows a mysterious fellow through a portal to Rema, a world full of magic and danger, where everyone can fly, and the people hold onto strange prejudices. She weighs her options, and settles right in. ;) Absolutely fantastic worldbuilding and artwork. It's delightfully addictive- I insist that you read every last page of it, plus the other portions of Felaxx's site that have backinfo to Rema and related comics. Occasionally spooky but quite worksafe. Freefall Hard science fiction. Meet Sam Starfall, the trickster and pilot in an environment suit. Now meet the angry mob chasing him. The characters in this comic are remarkably well-played individuals, and the worldsetting is lush and believable. This is lighthearted, intelligent entertainment for all; worksafe. Zebra Girl Science fantasy, action. The tale of a good-natured young woman who is accidentally transformed into a striped demon, and resultant adventures. Has some of the best black-and-white artwork I've ever seen in my life. Warnings: some strong language, innuendo, violence, but still worksafe. Slow Wave Readers submit their dreams, and they're made into short comics. Warning: sometimes intensely weird and disturbing, but still worksafe. Tailsteak.tk Tailsteak is a great guy, very original. Here he's got several different webcomics as his indomitable creativity sprawls into a half-dozen different storylines, which are updated by turns. His prior finished comic-projects include One Over Zero. His comics are all characteristically intelligent, introspective, and philosophical, with a knack for exploring wholly new concepts and settings. Most of the comics are social commentaries and/or science fiction. Warning: abundant fundamentalist Christian metaphors may rub some people the wrong way, and some stories are spooky, but it's otherwise very worksafe. Electronic Sheep Comics. Philosophy, social commentary, science fantasy, etc. These comics are unusual in that they take advantage of the formats and restrictions made by the Internet. Warning: some (but not all) of these comics have explicit adult content (sex, drugs, strong language) and are not worksafe; however, they're all clearly marked as such, so you can avoid them if you wish. The Wandering Ones. Action-adventure. In 2066, Native Americans and the Western Alliance defend their territory (which has mostly returned to wilderness) against an evil empire. Great storyline and characters, as well as being educational- you'll learn quite a bit about [animal] tracking and martial arts, reading this. Warning: some strong language and violence, but completely worksafe. Kid Radd. Science fiction, philosophy. This is not your typical pixelated webcomic about video games. It starts out looking like one, and then rapidly develops into a philosophical adventure where the characters (all of whom are original, not fanart) exploit glitches in their programming and contemplate their purposes. Riveting. Partially animated. It has an ending, so it reads more like a novel. Warnings: some innuendo in dialogue and spookiness in story, but worksafe. Dominic Deegan: Oracle for Hire. Fantasy, horror, philosophy. The storyline starts out like a typical gag-per-day newspaper comic, but from the beginning it's developed into an epic plot about the philosophical balance/battle between chaos and order. Warnings: adult content (strong language, sexual innuendo, implied nudity, exceedingly gory violence) and spookiness, but mostly worksafe. Absurd Notions It's about some perfectly ordinary realistic people. Sometimes they play RPGs, in which they are not ordinary. (That's the fantasy bit.) Or maybe between games, they're not so ordinary after all... one of them has been writing his own OS, another has painted Op Art all over his bedroom ceiling, etcetera. This is accompanied by a journal-comic called "Why the Long Face" about the more surreal moments in the author's days. Lighthearted, intelligent entertainment. Worksafe.

~ Interactive Entertainment ~ the digital carnivals. Neopets The main thing in the game is to take care of a virtual pet, but it's more involved than Pokemon or Tamagotchi or any I can think of. It has lots of minigames, many of which are takeoffs on familiar arcade games and such. (Asteroids, Tetris, Solitaire, for example.) The whole thing is just huge. Intended for younger people, but entertaining for all; worksafe. Extensive help and hints website. Warehouse 23 Virtually wander the basement of fictional Warehouse 23, opening crates, finding strange things confiscated by the government. This game was originally developed as an add-on to a role-playing game. Sometimes it's spooky, sometimes it's comical, sometimes an odd combination of both. Worksafe. Runescape A free online multiplayer fantasy role-playing game... and it's not textbased. It's called Runescape because to cast spells to zap things, you need runestones. Animated violence, swearwords are censored out. Homestar Runner It's a Macromedia Flash cartoon series, starring Homestar, our hero with a speech impediment, and Strong Bad, our villainous midget in a wrestling mask. In this section rather than the comic section, because there's a lot of interactive games, too. Mild swearing. Facade Has astrology, numerology, tarot, and runes. Use it as many times as you like- unlike tarot.com, you don't need to sign up or shell out money or points or anything. I don't believe in this divination stuff too seriously, but it's fun to play with anyhow. OverClocked Remix Free-to-download remixed video game music, many of which are (say) orchestral or techno, and are all very good quality. This is most of the music I listen to. I, Rearrangement Servant The anagram machine. Type something in, and it'll come up with all possible letter/word combinations. The Hero Machine Make a picture of someone, specifically a superhero... any superhero you can dream up. (Or supervillain.) It's basically a Flash-based set of paper dolls, but there's a truly astounding amount of variety; the most variety I've seen in a program like this. The only limitation seems to be that your character has to be humanoid. It's ideal if you're going to commission a picture from someone, and you'd like a visual aid to get the idea across for the finished version. You can always hand-embellish on the end result of the Hero Machine to get it closer to what you have in mind. Morphases Like the Hero Machine, except just human faces... but what realistic faces! It's like a photographic Potato Head. Not only can you mix and match the facial features, but you can warp their size and shift their position around. More features are constantly being added. Addventures This is old! It's like a cross between a Choose Your Own Adventure book and a Wiki.

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