Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Examples of reliable software you enjoy using

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

321–330 of 666 posts

Re: Ask HN: Examples of reliable software you enjoy using

#321

Post by loco5niner »

blakeyrat wrote: post #309
lucb1e wrote: post #242

Windows: "Everything" (that's the name). A lightweight, fast and advanced (if you want it) file search engine. Linux: Most tools of course, as they are made with the Unix philosophy, but these days I'm most surprised by print drivers for Linux. Where in Windows the printer is always magically offline or slow, from Linux I can print and scan very reliably. Vim is also worth learning, it makes editing much more... rela…

I don't enjoy using software that's difficult to learn or use, which most of your examples seem to be. (I haven't used "Everything", so I might be wrong about that one.) Notepad++ used to cheese me off in a previous job where I was basically forced to use it because it couldn't even draw drop-down menus correctly. Ugh. Terrible UI.

"Everything" really is that simple. Point it at some folders and go.

Re: Ask HN: Examples of reliable software you enjoy using

#322

Post by aerovistae »

VLC. There have been so many times I thought "man it would be great if there were this crazy hypothetical feature in my media player" only to find out it's like a stable long-established feature that's a keypress away from activation after a quick google search or glance at a dropdown menu.

Re: Ask HN: Examples of reliable software you enjoy using

#326

Post by mangeletti »

tdy721 wrote: post #313
mangeletti wrote: post #160

Alfred ( https://www.alfredapp.com ) Alfred is absolutely the most game-changing app I've ever been introduced to. I only use it for finding files, searching, opening a page by direct URL, defining words, calculator, translation (via Google), launching apps, and quickly jumping to apps that are already open. It's probably saved me hundreds of hours in clicking around, etc. I've never purchased the paid version (been…

I activate Alfred with my caps-lock key. That way spotlight is still in the usual place. It take a key-mapping app called Seil to make it work, but it's really great. Sometimes I think Chromebooks stole my idea. :p

+1

I use CTRL CTRL, and I have my command and control keys switched, so it's really CMD CMD on the left corner of my keyboard, which is very convenient, but caps lock is a great idea also.

Re: Ask HN: Examples of reliable software you enjoy using

#327

Post by audleman »

aerovistae wrote: post #322

VLC. There have been so many times I thought "man it would be great if there were this crazy hypothetical feature in my media player" only to find out it's like a stable long-established feature that's a keypress away from activation after a quick google search or glance at a dropdown menu.

Or for folks like me: I just want to play my video files no fuss, no muss. Something other major media players seem to have more trouble with than they should. But not VLC! 100% of the time it works every time!

Re: Ask HN: Examples of reliable software you enjoy using

#328

Post by aerovistae »

audleman wrote: post #327
aerovistae wrote: post #322

VLC. There have been so many times I thought "man it would be great if there were this crazy hypothetical feature in my media player" only to find out it's like a stable long-established feature that's a keypress away from activation after a quick google search or glance at a dropdown menu.

Or for folks like me: I just want to play my video files no fuss, no muss. Something other major media players seem to have more trouble with than they should. But not VLC! 100% of the time it works every time!

Doesn't matter what filetype it is...it just runs them all, instantly, like magic. I have never missed Windows Media Player for even a moment.
Post reply on HN