Freebie Ten

Ten Things You Can Have for Free

Freeware caution: always scan free downloads of anything for bugs and other threats before dumping the programs into your hard drive.

Softology's Anagram Generator "creates anagrams and lexigrams; generates reverse dictionaries; word search function allows wildcard search on dictionary; allows you to see if your phone number spells anything interesting; searches for palindromes; search for words that rhyme with other words. Ideal for song writers, musicians and poets. Includes English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Dutch and Spanish dictionaries; solves Jumble puzzles. Saves all results as txt files for future viewing/editing/printing. Non-encrypted dictionaries allow full customisation of words if required. Manually edited English dictionary trimmed to generate interesting anagrams at a much faster speed" (OS: Windows XP/Vista/7)

Clipboard Master is a "handy utility designed to keep all previous texts, pictures and files copied to the clipboard in a list, for later use. Organize your text modules and snippets and paste them in any Windows program whenever you like" (OS: Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista/2008/7 [32-Bit/64-Bit])

Chronories is a Mac freeware that sounds as if it writes for you:  "Note down today's most precious information - or let your Mac do the tedious labour for you. Entering your mood, where you've been and what you did is just a click away. Thanks to Chronories, you will never forget writing your diary again. And if you don't have anything to say? Well, Chronories will gather its fraction of the information anyways and fill in that information for you."  [PBW also notes:  I'm not sure what to call it (an auto-journaling program?) but if this is something you'd find useful, do check it out.] (OS:  Designer notes on web site:  "Chronories requires a Mac running Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, Mac OS X 10.7 Lion or Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion.")

Compositions is a "a minimalist text editor which allows you to focus on the content. It features a clean white background, and a full screen mode that gets rid of almost all of the interface chrome, leaving just the text on the screen.  Using Snapshots, you can take a snapshot of your document at any time, which is saved with the file and available from any device running Compositions. So if you are planning on making large changes to a document, you can snapshot it before hand, and then if you decide to go back, simply restore to the earlier version.  Using Dropbox, your documents are kept in sync across all your devices. Any time you are finished with edits, or if you want the latest downloaded to your device, you simply tap the sync button and it will do all the work. If any conflicts arise, it will ask you to resolve them, or you can set it to always auto-resolve. And since the app uses Dropbox, you can always visit Dropbox.com in a browser to restore a deleted file, or go to an earlier version if needed" (OS:  Mac OS X)

Elefant Software has an entire page of freeware programs here designed specifically for disabled users; includes several mouse-replacement programs like SteadyMouse for users with hand tremors.

Ian Pegler's FreeFilmSoftware.co.uk web site offers some free screenwriting, story boarding and story writing programs (OS: Windows)

Img Transformer is a "free image resizer, converter and image editing application that can work directly from Windows Explorer.  It can open over 30 different image formats.  It also works as a normal Windows application, where the user can select the images to convert from a file browser or via drag and drop.  Easily change the original image size, format, color depth and resolution and apply adjustments such as brightness,contrast,gamma and individually adjust RGB values.  Rotate, flip and resize images in batch mode with a simple right mouse button click - 18 different file output formats are supported including export to PDF.  Images can be sharpened or blurred, watermarked, overlaid with text and converted to grayscale, sepia or negative.  Crop or change the canvas size and the resolution of images.  Settings can be saved as a pre-sets and reapplied to subsequent image transformations.  Before applying changes it is possible to view a preview of the result.  Custom frames can also be added to images in batch mode" (OS:  Windows)

My Daily Digital Journal is a "secure personal journal for everyday inspirational living.  Write your daily thoughts, opinions, and life views in your own journal. It also includes a password login dialog box for keeping prying eyes out of your personal business.  Insert special characters, emotional icons, pictures, and images into your writing for a more colourful display of your thoughts and ideas. The journal also incorporates an auto save feature for your convenience. There is no need to save your work, it is all done automatically. When you run the application for the first time, simply press enter when the Login window is displayed. You may choose your own password in the settings dialog. Just don't forget your password" (OS:  Windows)

Storybook is "a free Open Source novel-writing software for creative writers, novelists and authors. Starting with the plot to the finished book — with Storybook you'll never lose the overview. Storybook helps you to keep an overview of multiple plot-lines while writing books, novels or other written works" (OS: Windows 7/Vista,/XP, Linux)

Writers D'Lite has "just enough functionality to start you on writing that important novel, short-story or article, without any bells and whistles to distract you. Get writing from the first moment you start the application. It has all the important functions and text formatting needed to get you busy. It also has custom page settings for easier viewing of your document. Keep the cursor at eye level for best focus and writing. Full statistics are visible on the status bar, keeping you abreast of your text document as you type. There is also no java or .Net required to run this application, keeping it very small and portable and very useful. It has all the necessary editing short-cut keys for power users. See the blue question mark for more info{F1-key}" (Windows, designer also notes available in a portable version.)