PureBasic Forums - English

DeanH wrote: Mon Jul 21, 2025 12:20 am Regardless of what Microsoft wants, my employer now only provides laptops to programmers and applications support people (like myself) that have a single 256Gb SSD. No desktops allowed. (They do allow docs.) Special application is needed for anything else, and from personal experience, they often reject it. No good blaming them, they're the bosses.

Yeah, I've seen that too. I'm not into IT (hell no) but I've seen many companies handing out HP ProBooks with just 8 GB and a 512 GB SSD. It's amazing what a memory hog Excel can be with a couple of large spreadsheets, add a browser with a few windows, Outlook, Teams, and watch that virtual memory swap in and out...

But... OOTC, paid software I enjoy:

Xara - graphics / DTP / web building stuff, I like it but it's a very personal thing, and it's too expensive
Argus Monitor - nice little fan controller software if your MB BIOS doesn't cooperate or you want to combine GPU / CPU temps to drive fans
Excel - it's M$, but there's nothing better for spreadsheets
HD Sentinel Pro - runs in the background on my server, so I know how well my harddrives do (and they've lasted me quite some time!)
Total Commander - best file manager evah
PDF Xchange viewer - a PDF editor
TouchPortal - it's not adultware
Total Recorder - for those cases where nothing captures audio
MRA routeplanner - best GPX route planner I've found
Atticus - create ebooks
PureBasic - duh!
dBPowerAmp CD ripper - helped me to recover some older CDs, and rip my CDs to the server

I was a fan of Hitfilm Express and Acronis TrueImage, until they went into triple-the-price-subscription-mode. Xara is now doing the same so I stayed on an older version.

blueznl wrote: Mon Sep 29, 2025 12:41 pmPureBasic - duh!

Please don't say good things about PB; Fred will get disincentivized!

For Mac (expensive):
https://www.devontechnologies.com/apps/devonthink

blueznl wrote: Mon Sep 29, 2025 12:41 pm But... OOTC, paid software I enjoy:

Excel - it's M$, but there's nothing better for spreadsheets

LibreOffice Is not payware but their spreadsheet app called Calc is far as I know fully compatible and just as capable as excel, which makes excel way over priced. And it's cross platform.

Randy Walker wrote: Tue Sep 30, 2025 1:28 amLibreOffice Is not payware but their spreadsheet app called Calc is far as I know fully compatible and just as capable as excel, which makes excel way over priced. And it's cross platform.

How I wish you were totally right…
Not long ago, I helped with """importing lots of XML files""" (fiscal receipts here in Italy…) and quickly get "elaborate" reports… it was possible ONLY with excel windows (not Mac!)

Hope freeware will catch up soon…

Piero wrote: Wed Oct 01, 2025 1:00 pm [quickly get "elaborate" reports… it was possible ONLY with excel windows (not Mac!)

Sorry to hear that. I never tried creating reports in either app. The most I ever did in either one was create SUM cells for various columns. And never had any issue opening csv, xls or xlsx files.

Randy Walker wrote: Wed Oct 01, 2025 5:53 pmSorry to hear that. I never tried creating reports in either app. The most I ever did in either one was create SUM cells for various columns. And never had any issue opening csv, xls or xlsx files.

You have no idea… the most was importing XML files… some could be crypted (digitally signed) but that was a secondary problem… it seemed pure MAFIA (you MUST use excel windows)……………………