Software Solutions
The following is a list of my favorite software that I've come to rely on over the years. Many are open-source solutions that are light on the pocket book, but tend to have more of a learning curve.
Audio
Audacity - "The Free Cross-Platform Sound Editor. Audacity® is free, open source software for recording and editing sounds."
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
Cloud Computing
Google Docs - Google Docs are a useful tool for collaboration
between multiple authors. Google Docs supports multiple
document types and is free to use.
http://www.google.com/google-d-s/documents/
Image Editing
IrfanView - A simple
image editor that is most useful for quickly cropping, resizing,
and converting from one file type to another, batch file
conversions, and more. - IrfanView is Freeware
http://www.irfanview.com/
GIMP - GNU Image Manipulation
Program. GIMP is the open-source Photoshop or
Fireworks--alternative. GIMP allows for layer image editing
http://www.gimp.org/
Video
VLC Media Player - "VLC is a free and open source cross-platform multimedia player and framework that plays most multimedia files as well as DVD, Audio CD, VCD, and various streaming protocols."
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/
Web Development
Seamonkey - according to the Seamonkey website, seamonkey is: "Web-browser, advanced e-mail, newsgroup and feed client, IRC chat, and HTML editing made simple—all your Internet needs in one application." My experience with Seamonkey has been mainly with the 'Composer' which is a Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) editor that picked up where Netscape Composer left off.http://www.seamonkey-project.org/
FTP Commander - FTP Commander is a freeware File Transfer Protocol (FTP) program that allows you to transfer your web pages from your local computer to your server. A small download with a lot of usefulness.
http://www.internet-soft.com/ftpcomm.htm
or download at CNET
http://download.cnet.com/FTP-Commander/3000-2160_4-10025993.html