Blender is an advanced 3D graphics modeling program capable of producing high quality animations, performing rendering, post-production, interactive creation and playback. It is the only 3D creation suite which allows the artist to model, texture, animate, render, and export the finished product in a package less than 10 MB.The active development community is steadily adding new features and extensions such as the superb Yafray rendering engine for generating photo-realistic effects. Blender natively exports to a multitude of 3D formats such as VRML, Cal3d, AC3D. With the powerful and easily extensible Python plugin support, you can write your own extensions or choose from a range of existing plug-ins.3D modeling remains a complex computing task, with the result that Blender is an extensive application with a steep learning curve.

Dia can be used to draw a variety of diagrams to suit your needs, such as entity-relationship models, UML diagrams, flowcharts, network diagrams, and simple circuits.

It can load and save diagrams to a custom XML format, and export diagrams to a number of formats including EPS, SVG, XFIG, WMF and PNG. You can also print diagrams, including those that span multiple pages.

The GIMP (or GNU Image Manipulation Program) is suitable for those wanting to manipulate digital photographs, design and export graphics for the web, convert images from one file format to another, or even produce complex high-resolution compositions for print. The GIMP features a number of paint tools with sub-pixel sampling for high quality anti-aliased brush strokes, a powerful gradient editor and blend tool, layers and layer masks with over 20 blending modes, support for importing and exporting in a myriad of image formats, unsharp mask, levels and curves tools for enhancement of digital photos and much more!

The GIMP is a feature-packed program which may seem overwhelming at first. We suggest referring to the manual and tutorials available from the Gimp web site.

The GIMP uses the GTK+ library which is also available on OpenDisc. It won’t work without it, so ensure to install GTK+ first.

Inkscape is an easy to use vector graphics editor that uses the Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format. Supported SVG features include shapes, paths, text, markers, clones, alpha blending, transforms, gradients, patterns, and grouping. Inkscape also supports Creative Commons meta-data, node editing, layers, complex path operations, bitmap tracing, text-on-path, flowed text, direct XML editing, and more. It imports formats such as JPEG, PNG, TIFF, and others and exports PNG as well as multiple vector-based formats.

You can use Inkscape to create diagrams for reports and projects. Because Inkscape uses “vector” rather than “raster” graphics editing (which is mostly used by the GIMP), you can always go back later to reposition items and change font sizes. More importantly you won’t end up with blocky graphics because with vector graphics you can enlarge the images to any size without losing quality.

Nvu is a fully featured What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get (WYSIWYG) web page editor, enabling you to create compelling web pages without having to devote months to learning HTML. Nvu includes an integrated FTP site manager, a style sheet editor, tabbed workspaces, and all the features you’ve come to expect from a fully-featured web page editor. It also features integrated support for HTML code validation, to help you make your HTML as clean and light-weight as possible.

Scribus is a professional desktop publishing application, with a combination of “press-ready” output and new approaches to page layout. With it you can create just about anything you can imagine, from brochures, magazines, bulletins, and even books!

Underneath the modern and user friendly interface, Scribus contains professional publishing features, such as CMYK color, separations and ICC color management. It also supports OpenType Fonts and Unicode text including right to left scripts such as Arabic and Hebrew.

Tux Paint is a free drawing program designed for young children (aged three and up). It has a simple, easy-to-use interface, fun sound effects, and an encouraging cartoon mascot who helps guide children as they use the program. It provides a blank canvas and a variety of drawing tools to help your child be creative.

The Battle for Wesnoth is a turn-based strategy game with a fantasy theme. It offers several extensive campaigns, and you can play as Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Orcs or Undead.

The characters you can recruit have a range of traits, offering various strategic strengths and weaknesses on different terrains and against different opponents. You can even join friends in online campaigns. The Wesnoth project also regularly organises online tournaments where the best campaigners can measure their skill.

Enigma is a puzzle game inspired by Oxyd on the Atari ST and Rock’n'Roll on the Amiga. The object of the game is to find uncover pairs of identically colored Oxyd stones. Simple? Yes. Easy? Certainly not! Hidden traps, vast mazes, laser beams, and, most of all, countless hairy puzzles usually block your direct way to the Oxyd stones.

Neverball is a maddeningly fun game where you tilt the floor to roll a ball through an obstacle course before time runs out. It’s part puzzle game, part action game, and entirely a test of skill.

Neverputt is a hot-seat multiplayer miniature golf game using the physics and graphics of Neverball. With teleporters, sliding ramps and multi-story holes, this is unlike any miniature golf you’ve ever played!

A highly accurate physics modeling engine powers both of these games.

Sokoban YASC (Yet Another Sokoban Clone) is a maddeningly simple game first conceived by Hiroyuki Imabayashi, a Japanese programmer. The word Sokoban means “warehouse keeper.” The object of the game is to put all of the crates in your “warehouse” into the designated storage areas. Sounds easy, right? Well, there are a few restrictions. You are not allowed to pull crates, only push; you cannot push more than one box at a time; you cannot pass through a box or wall.

These restrictions turn a seemingly simple task into a delightfully difficult challenge.

Azureus is a powerful BitTorrent protocol client. It comes bundled with many invaluable features for both beginners and advanced users, such as multiple torrent support, speed limiting, fast resuming and more.

The BitTorrent protocol is a “peer-to-peer” way to distribute files on the internet. It was designed to move large amounts of data to many users without the costly server space and bandwidth that a distributor would usually have to pay for. Users who download a file then become a new source for transmitting that data. You can read more about BitTorrent at Wikipedia.

In order for this software to work you must have the proprietary Java environment installed on your computer. If you do not have Java on your computer already, the Azureus installation will not be able to complete. You can download Java free of charge from here.

FileZilla is a fast and reliable FTP client and server with lots of useful features and an intuitive interface. Features include upload/download resume, site manager, keep-alive system, SSL and SFTP support, and a flexible file queuing system.

The Firefox web browser empowers you to browse web pages faster, more safely, and more efficiently. Key features include pop-up blocking to stop those annoying ads, tabbed browsing to let you view multiple web pages in a single window, and opening links in the background so that they’re ready for viewing when you’re ready to read them. The toolbars are fully customizable. Don’t like the default order of the buttons? Right click, select “customize” and drag that button where you want it.

You can expand Firefox’s functionality using a wide variety of extensions. These offer you the ability to customize your web experience through automatic form completion, flash blocking, in-browser games, or development tools to help you study how web pages are made. There is also a range of themes available to let you alter the look of the browser. The easy transition system imports all of your settings, including favourites, passwords and other data from Internet Explorer and other browsers, so you can start surfing right away.

Possibly the best reason to start using Firefox is its enhanced security. Built with your security in mind from the start, Firefox keeps your computer safe from malicious spyware by preventing harmful ActiveX controls, and offers a comprehensive set of privacy tools keep your online activity private. In this age of rampant virus, trojan and phishing attacks, Firefox provides a secure alternative.

HTTrack is an easy-to-use offline web browser utility. It allows you to download a web site from the Internet to a local directory on your computer, building a perfect mirror for your personal use. Simply open a page of the website in your browser, and you can browse the site from link to link, as if you were viewing it online. HTTrack can also update an existing mirrored site, and resume interrupted downloads.

Pigdin is an Internet Messenging (chat) client that enables you to chat with others in real time using any supported network, including AOL Instant Messenger, MSN Messenger, Yahoo!, IRC and Jabber. Pigdin can be simultaneously connected to several networks, so if you have contacts on different networks you can talk to them all at the same time, from one easy to use program.

Pidgin uses the GTK+ library which is also available on OpenDisc. Because It won’t work without it, ensure you install GTK+ first.

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) gives users the power to collect and organize Web-based news and information in a very efficient way. RSSOwl lets you gather, organize, update, and store information from any website that has an “RSS feed” in a simple, easy to use interface.

Once you’ve added all your favourite blogs and news websites, you’ll have a one-stop program to keep you up to date with every site you normally visit, and all at a glance.

SeaMonkey is an all-in-one internet suite which uses the same engine as Firefox and Thunderbird, and also includes a newsgroup client, an internet relay chat (or IRC) client, and a flexible HTML editor.

Like Firefox, the best reason to start using SeaMonkey is its enhanced security. Built with your security in mind from the start, SeaMonkey keeps your computer safe from malicious spyware by not loading harmful ActiveX controls, and a comprehensive set of privacy tools to keep your online activity private and your computer safe.

Thunderbird is a modern email client with features such as intelligent spam filters, a built-in spell checker, a range of themes and customisable layout. Thunderbird provides IMAP/POP support, HTML e-mail composing, quick search, address book, advanced message filtering, address completion, import tools, and the ability to manage multiple e-mail and newsgroup accounts. You can add a wide variety of extensions to Thunderbird to add additional features or tweak its behavior to suit your own preferences.

As with Mozilla Firefox, security is a central theme. Thunderbird provides enterprise and government grade security features such as S/MIME, digital signing, message encryption, support for certificates and security devices. The intelligent Thunderbird spam filter analyzes your e-mails to identify those that are most likely to be junk. These can be automatically deleted or diverted to a separate folder. The spam filter is adaptive and also learns from your address book and usage to improve its accuracy.

TightVNC is a remote control software that lets you see the desktop of a remote machine and control it with your local mouse and keyboard, just like you would do it sitting in the front of that computer. Ideal for remote administration, remote customer support, education, and for many other purposes, and because it works across different operating systems you can use almost any computer, from any computer.

The TightVNC package includes a server (which allows users on other computers connect to yours) and a client (for you to log in to others’ computers).

WinSCP is a fully featured SFTP (Secure File Transfer Protocol) client.

Its main function is the secure file transfer between a local and a remote computer. It fully supports Secure Shell (SSH) and in addition to SFTP, the legacy SCP protocol.

Audacity is a sound editing program which can record, playback, and mix sounds or apply effects using a variety of filters.

Audacity lets you edit your sounds using Cut, Copy and Paste (with unlimited Undo) and mix multiple tracks together. Save your files in a number of formats, including WAV, Ogg Vorbis and AIFF, or use Audacity’s native project format for high performance editing. It also has a built-in amplitude envelope editor, a customisable spectrogram mode and a frequency analysis window for audio analysis applications. Built-in effects include Bass Boost, Wahwah, and Noise Removal.

Use Audacity to record your own podcasts, mix music, or just be creative!

Celestia is a simulation of the entire universe, based on currently known astronomical information. It includes beautifully rendered planets, moons, and some smaller orbital bodies such as Mir and the International Space Station. Celestia is not limited to our solar system; you can visit other stars, or even travel outside the galaxy. You will find models of extra-solar planets in orbit around those stars for which we have evidence of planetary bodies. You have complete control over time and space, so you can view the stars from your chosen location and epoch. In addition, it is possible to create scripted presentations for complex demonstrations.

To get a good idea of Celestia’s full capabilities, start the program and press D for Demo.

The Really Slick Screensavers are a collection of impressive savers to prevent permanent monitor burn-in on your computer screen. Each saver is highly customisable to cater not only for personal taste but also to make the most of your particular computer.

Stellarium is a planetarium for your computer. It shows a realistic sky in 3D, just like what you see with the naked eye, binoculars or a telescope. Just set your local co-ordinates (or choose to look at the sky from any other place or time on Earth!) and you’re treated to a natural and accurate view of the night’s sky.

Sumatra PDF is a flexible and lightweight PDF reader, with a minimalistic design that allows fast browsing and even faster loading times. It also remembers the last page of every PDF you read, so you can resume reading at any time in the future.

The VLC media player supports numerous audio and video file-types out of the box, so you don’t have to download individual software to play most media files. You can also encode media to a variety of formats, and streaming support for audio and video over the internet/networks is also available.

GnuCash is personal and small-business financial-accounting software, which allows you to track bank accounts, stocks, income and expenses.

Features include double-entry accounting; stock/bond/mutual fund accounts; customers, vendors, jobs, invoices, A/P, A/R; QIF/OFX/HBCI import; transaction matching; reports and graphs; scheduled and financial calculations.

A wiki is a tool that allows many users to collaborate on generating and organising content. A wiki is usually hosted on the web so that different people can connect through their web browsers to collaborate. However you can also use a wiki locally on your own computer to help you stay organised, structuring your information with categories, sub-pages and hyper-links, just like on the web. You can even create attachments to your pages, like pictures or word processing documents you are working on for a specific project.

A powerful feature of wikis is page versioning, which lets you store each page in multiple successive versions and track the changes between them. This is of course especially useful when multiple people are editing the same page. The Desktop Edition provided here has been especially provided for desktop use - all your edits are saved onto your hard drive.

Notepad2 is intended to be a replacement for the Notepad program that is included as part of Windows. Like Notepad, Notepad2 is small, fast, and has few frills. It does, however, add some functionality such as colour syntax highlighting that many people will find useful, especially those that have to edit the odd HTML page or script. You can select the level of zoom and select the editing font. Notepad2 supports Unicode, UTF-8, Unix and Mac text files.

OpenOffice.org is a full-featured productivity suite including a word processor, spreadsheet, web page editor and presentation program. Documents are stored in a compressed, open-standard XML format to ensure future availability of your data and to reduce file sizes. You can read and write documents in a wide range of formats including Microsoft Office.

The word processor component, Writer, is suitable for the production of professional documents, reports, newsletters, and brochures. A powerful spreadsheet module called Calc contains sophisticated tools for calculation, data analysis and visualisation, its built-in charting tools are able to generate customisable 2D and 3D charts. The presentation utility, Impress, uses effects, animation and drawing tools to help you create effective multimedia slide shows to present your the way you want to. Use the Draw component to produce either simple diagrams or complex 3D illustrations and special effects for use in documents and presentations. The database tool, Base, give you all the tools you need for day to day database work in a simple spreadsheet-like form.

Due to the high cost of commercial office suites, deciding to use OpenOffice.org will typically represent the single largest source of savings on software for organisations or individuals. OpenOffice.org is increasingly becoming an office suite of choice in education, government, and business. The OpenOffice.org website contains tutorials, manuals and many other tools to help you create professional documents.

Use PDFCreator to generate PDF documents directly from any Windows program. PDF (Portable Document Format) files are the de-facto standard in electronic publishing, because the author can be sure that the document will look as intended on all platforms, regardless of local fonts or lack thereof.

Once installed, simply select ‘Print’ from the File menu of any program that you can print from, and select ‘PDFCreator Printer’ from the list of printers. Print, and enter a name for your PDF output file. That’s it!

Optionally you may also enter information to identify the document, such as Title, Creation Date and Author. You can set the resolution and compression levels for the various file types, control how fonts are included, and protect your document with a password.

7-Zip is a program for creating or unpacking archived and compressed files in an enormous variety of formats.

7-Zip can both create or unpack the following formats: 7zip, ZIP, CAB, RAR, ARJ, GZIP, BZIP2, TAR, CPIO, RPM and DEB files. For the standard ZIP and GZIP formats, 7-Zip provides a compression ratio that is 2 - 10 % better than that provided by PKZip or WinZip, and the native 7zip format can provide a 45% reduction in file size from the common zip format. The program is highly configurable, allowing the user to balance the level of compression and speed. The interface is designed to mimic the standard Windows shell, Explorer, and is localized to 40 languages.

Abakt is a flexible backup tool for Windows that protects your valuable data. Using a combination of advanced filters you can select files, directories or whole drives to compress, copy or move. You can even automate the process for future backups.

Clamwin is a powerful anti-virus program with features high detection rates for viruses and spyware, a scanning scheduler, and automatic downloads of the regularly updated virus database.

Note: ClamWin does not include an on-access real-time scanner. You need to manually scan a file in order to detect a virus or spyware. This means that it will not protect you from, for example, viruses you receive in compressed folders unless you make sure to scan the files inside before opening them. For the best security, you need to keep informed and be wary of installing programs from unknown sources, or use a Linux-based operating system which has a superior security record.

Clamwin is still an excellent way to keep your computer safe or disinfect your computer, and new features are being added to the software all the time.

GTK+ is a multi-platform toolkit for creating graphical user interfaces. Offering a complete set of widgets, GTK+ is suitable for projects ranging from small one-off projects to complete application suites.

The GTK+ library is responsible for drawing the windows, dialogue boxes and buttons in the GIMP, Pidgin and hundreds of other programs.

HealthMonitor is a powerful and feature filled monitoring tool. It works in the background as a Windows Service, monitoring system performance (CPU load average, free memory, disk space, etc). It can log results into a database or send a notification by e-mail, sms, or a popup notification. HealthMonitor keeps a close eye on the functioning of your Windows computer, and reports to you if anything goes wrong.

TrueCrypt is powerful encryption software for your personal data. It works by creating creating a virtual hard drive within a file and mounts it, so your computer treats it as a real hard drive. You can choose to encrypt an entire hard drive, certain folders, or removable media such as a USB flash drive.

Encryption is automatic, real-time and transparent, so all the hard work is handled for you. It also provides two levels of plausible deniability, and supports various encryption algorithms depending on your needs, including AES-256, Serpent, and Twofish.

Workrave is a program that assists in the recovery and prevention of Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI). The program frequently alerts you to take micro-pauses, rest breaks and restricts the total time you work to a daily limit, and is fully customisable to each user’s need. When it’s time for a break, Workrave presents animations of the kind of exercises that will keep you limber and healthy. It will help you work more effectively and improve your general level of comfort while working.

Workrave is a must if you spend most of your day in front of the computer.