PeaZip - A good tool for taking backups.

I was in search of a good tool for daily archiving my files which could

1. Compress and archive in .7z format
2. Add datestamp
3. Do these tasks daily .

Initially,I tried Areca-backup .It is good but currently it doesn't support archiving & compressing in LZMA (7z) format.
Now I am using PeaZip to Compress my files in .7z and add timestamp. The best part is we can save a job's definition and import it whenever we need to do archiving.
Here is Peazip's short introduction:
The program features an archive browser interface with search and history features for intuitive navigation in archive's content, and allows to apply fine-grained multiple exclusion and inclusion filter rules to the archive; a flat browsing mode is possible as alternative archive browsing method.

PeaZip allows users to run extracting and archiving operations automatically using command-line generated exporting the job defined in the GUI front-end. It can also create, edit and restore an archive's layout for speeding up archiving or backup operation's definition (this is what I am using).

Dia - A diagram creation program

Dia is a GTK+ based diagram creation program for GNU/Linux, Unix and Windows released under the GPL license.

Dia is roughly inspired by the commercial Windows program 'Visio', though more geared towards informal diagrams for casual use. It can be used to draw many different kinds of diagrams. It currently has special objects to help draw entity relationship diagrams, UML diagrams, flowcharts, network diagrams, and many other diagrams. It is also possible to add support for new shapes by writing simple XML files, using a subset of SVG to draw the shape.

It can load and save diagrams to a custom XML format (gzipped by default, to save space), can export diagrams to a number of formats, including EPS, SVG, XFIG, WMF, VDX (Visio XML Format) and PNG, and can print diagrams (including ones that span multiple pages).

Dia contains a plug-in that allows scripting in Python.

I am happily using Dia for designing software at work and at home.

You can get Dia from http://live.gnome.org/Dia/Download

Flock web browser

Flock is a web browser built on Mozilla’s Firefox codebase that specializes in providing social networking and Web 2.0 facilities built into its user interface.

Flock 2.5 integrates social networking and media services including MySpace,Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Flickr, Blogger, Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, etc.Notably, when logging into any of the supported social services, Flock can track updates from friends: profiles, uploaded photos, and more. Flock's latest 2.5 version added Twitter Search functionality, multi-casting of status updates to multiple services, and the introduction of instant messaging via Facebook Chat in the browser.

Flock is specially very useful for blogging. (Even this post is made via Flock's blogging feature.)

Other features include:

• native sharing of text, links, photos and videos;
• a "Media Bar" showing preview of online videos and photos as well as subscription to photo and video feeds;
• a feed reader supporting Atom, RSS and Media RSS feeds;
• a blog editor and reader, allowing direct posting into any designated blog;
• a Webkit-mail component allowing users to check supported web-based email off site, compose new messages, and drag-and-drop pictures and videos from the "Media Bar" or webclipboard into a new email message;
• support for third-party add-ons, including a number of Firefox extensions;
• Web Clipboard (Must see).
  

The Bottomline : Try using it . You won't regret.

The Flock browser is available as a free download from , and supports Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux platforms.

wxPython

If you are new to wxPython, you must take a look at these facts.

wxPython may be better than Java but these are some drawbacks which I came across:

1. Format of date in DatePicker control (dd-m-yyyy , etc.) cannot be changed. It takes the system default format.The best solution I discovered is ... change the system date format! [Windows XP -control panel > Regional and language settings]

2.wxGlade is probably the best GUI designer for wxPython [Python Card is also worth considering]

Finally, wxPython is on of the best toolkit for python

OpenOfice.org

OpenOffice.org (OO.o or OOo) is a free cross-platform office application suite available for a number of different computer operating systems. It supports the ISO standard OpenDocument Format (ODF) for data interchange as its default file format, as well as Microsoft Office 97-2003 formats, Microsoft Office 2007 format (ability to "open" documents in version 3), among others.

OpenOffice.org was originally derived from StarOffice, an office suite developed by StarDivision and acquired by Sun Microsystems in August 1999. The source code of the suite was released in July 2000 with the aim of reducing the dominant market share of Microsoft Office by providing a free, open and high-quality alternative; later versions of StarOffice are based upon OpenOffice.org with additional proprietary components.

The project and software are informally referred to as OpenOffice, but this term is a trademark held by another party, requiring the project to adopt OpenOffice.org as its formal name.

You can get more info from OpenOffice.org

UNetbootin - Universal Netboot Installer

UNetbootin allows for the installation of various Linux/BSD distributions to a partition or USB drive, so it's no different from a standard install, only it doesn't need a CD. It can create a dual-boot install, or replace the existing OS entirely.

Requirements

• Microsoft Windows 2000/XP/Vista, or Linux, or a USB Drive. If you are having trouble with the Linux version, try the Windows version, it usually works better.
• A broadband internet connection to download the distribution packages (unless installing from pre-downloaded media, see below)
• Spare hard drive space to install the OS in (varies depending on distribution)

You can get more info from their official website http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/

Openofice.org

OpenOffice.org 2 is the leading open-source office software suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and more. It is available in many languages and works on all common computers. It stores all your data in an international open standard format and can also read and write files from other common office software packages. It can be downloaded and used completely free of charge for any purpose.