THE USEFUL, FUN AND INTERESTING PROGRAM DATABASE
There are a lot of useful, cool or otherwise interesting programs out there, so many that it becomes hard to keep tabs on them all. So rather then spending hours sifting through the Internet and various software sights looking for the few gold nuggets I propose that we keep a list of everything we've found in our individual journey's through cyberspace. If you wish to contribute simply tell us about a program you know and include a link to where we can get our hands on it. You can include examples like screenshots or video as well if you like. So, without further ado lets get started. I'll post a few of my favorites just to get things running.
The work of N FyreVarious neat little programs such as a "Cult symbol generator" and a "popup maker" as well as prank programs to cause all sorts of annoying effects to your friends.
http://www.nfyre.com/programs.htmlElectric sheepProbably the best screen saver ever, electric sheep uses a fractal animation combined with "breeding" to create some truly beautiful works of mathematic art.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1e7lPYTIaRQhttp://community.electricsheep.org/RPG City Map GeneratorA neat little program that allows you to randomly generate city maps of wildly varying size and complexity, everything from tiny hamlets to entire modern cities. Quite easy to use as well.
http://www.stargazersworld.com/2009/02/27/roleplaying-city-map-generator/The works of DonJonLiterally dozens of extremely useful tools for the DM or fantasy lover. Includes dungeon,weather, name, item and world generators with many different variables each.
http://donjon.bin.sh/ Audio surfSort of like a combination of f-zero and guitar hero and Rez in which the music you choose determines the layout of the track you're on. THE COLORS MAN,THE COLORS
http://www.audio-surf.com/RainmeterA neat little application that allows you to run thousands of applications on your desktop to do things like track core temp of the pc, network traffic, battery life, cpu usage and even keep up on the news. I use it myself and it's pretty nice.
http://rainmeter.net/RainCMS/Algodoo and Phun2 programs that are basically the same thing, but Algodoo is more in-depth and cost roughly 50 bucks while phun is slightly less advanced and is free. They're physics simulators that allow the manipulation of several different effects like springs, gears, liquids and solids.Strong user base of people who can do shit x1000 times better then you.
BEST UNDERSTOOD WHEN SEEN IN MOTIONhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-Aplr8nijM&feature=fvstwww.algodoo.com/ and
www.phunland.com/AlgomusicA program that takes user input, specifically a word or phrase, and makes music out of it. Some of the music is actually quite good for being random.
http://www.wikihost.org/w/doodleblog/dunc_s_algomusicInteractive toysLittle apps that are fun but generally have no real use outside of entertainment value. The possible exception is that Of Neave's "Flash earth" which allows for simultaneous viewing of several different map systems such as nasa world maps and google earth.
http://mrdoob.com/http://www.zefrank.comhttp://www.neave.com/Dust and Powder gamesGames which use the interaction of different particles as their main method of gameplay. The ones I recommend are Burning sand 2 and Danball's Dust.
http://dan-ball.jp/en/javagame/dust/http://siebn.de/burningsand/bs2Make sure to check out these awesome mods for Burning sand 2 (I actually wrote the planet descriptions in the preflash Omni.)
http://fallingsandgame.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=7137http://fallingsandgame.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=8096http://powder.unaligned.org/Universe SandboxBasically a universe gravity simulator more then a true sand box, but still pretty fun. Can simulate some pretty complex systems as well as just looking pretty.
http://universesandbox.com/Notepad++Its note pad with a bunch of other useful features, mainly geared toward programing and the like
http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/site.htmRainyMoodWebsite for when you want to listen to the rain. 30 minute rain sound loop.
RainyMood.com
BumptopA program that allows your desktop to act more like the top of your desk, eg be very very messy. Basically makes your desktop into a physics simulator and your icons into "paper" for you to fling about. The official site went down a while ago but Aklyon has been nice enough to reup the free version of the program.
http://www.mediafire.com/?dljmjumdw3u