Mindjet MindManager

Price: approx. €356

http://www.mindjet.com

iMindMap

Price: approx. €125 (Pro) and €189 (Ultimate)

http://www.imindmap.com

Visual Mind

Price: approx. $109 (Basic Edition) and $249 (Business Edition)

http://www.visual-mind.com

MindGenius Business

Price: approx. €169

http://www.mindgenius.com

ConceptDraw MINDMAP

Price: approx. €169

http://www.conceptdraw.com

Freemind

Popular mind mapping tool.

Price: free (Open Source)

http://freemind.sourceforge.net

vym - View Your Mind

Alternative mind mapping tool.

Price: free (Open Source)

http://sourceforge.net/projects/vym/

TaskArchitect

Price: approx. €285 (Standard) and €892 (Pro)

http://www.taskarchitect.com

AXON Idea Processor

Suite of diverse creativity tools.

Price: approx. $135; also free version with limited features available

http://web.singnet.com.sg/~axon2000/index.htm

lexiCan

Price: approx. €40

http://www.lexican.net

Wysigot (Freeware, Windows)

Downloads and archives individual web pages. Monitors individual web pages for changes and highlights new sections on a page.

http://www.wysigot.com

HTTrack (Open Source, Windows, Linux, Mac)

Allows you to download a complete website for off-line browsing or archiving purposes. Rearranges the original site's relative link-structure so that all links within the downloaded site work locally.

http://www.httrack.com

Linkman Pro

Extremely powerful browser-independent bookmark manager.

Price: approx. €20; free lite version available for non-commercial use

http://www.outertech.com

Web Forum Reader

Offline desktop web forum reader.

Price: approx. $30

http://www.chemtable.com/WebForumReader.htm

Timesheets Express (Freeware, Windows)

Flexible time tracking software.

Price: approx. €98; free version for individual users available

http://www.timesheetxpress.com

A Note

Creates sticky notes on the Windows desktop. Also allows you to configure alarms and to sync notes via a server.

Price: free (Open Source)

http://a-note.sourceforge.net/

Mozilla Sunbird

Cross-platform calendar application.

Price: free (Open Source)

www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/

project-open

Web-based ERP / project management software for organizations with 2-200 users. Integrates CRM, sales, project planning, project tracking, collaboration, timesheets, invoicing and payments.

Price: free (Open Source)

www.project-open.org

OpenProj

Project management software very similar to MS Project. OpenProj has equivalent functionality, a similar user interface and can open existing MS Project files.

Price: free (Open Source)

http://openproj.org/openproj/

Open Workbench

Powerful desktop application for project scheduling and management.

Price: free (Open Source)

www.openworkbench.org

Ganttproject

Project management for smaller projects run by only one or a few persons.

Price: free (Open Source)

http://ganttproject.sourceforge.net

KPlato

Project management application of the K Desktop Environment.

Price: free (Open Source)

http://www.koffice.org

7Zip (Open Source, Windows)

Excellent file compression and archiving tool.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/sevenzip/

Cobian Backup (Freeware, Windows)

Flexible, automatable file backup utility (uses ZIP format).

http://www.educ.umu.se/~cobian/cobianbackup.htm

FileZilla (Open Source, Windows, Linux, Mac)

Powerful FTP and SFTP client and server.

http://filezilla-project.org

WinDirStat (Open Source, Windows)

Superb disk usage statistics viewer and basic cleanup tool. Based on the Linux program KDirStat.

http://windirstat.sourceforge.net

KDiff3 (Open Source, Windows, Linux, Mac)

Compares or merges two or three text files or directories.

http://kdiff3.sourceforge.net

WinMerge (Open Source, Windows)

Visual text file comparison and merging tool.

http://winmerge.org

True Crypt (Open Source, Windows, Linux, Mac)

On-the-fly disk encryption software. Creates a virtual encrypted disk.

http://www.truecrypt.org

ZoomIt

Basic screen zoom and annotation tool for presentations.

Price: free

http://www.sysinternals.com

Ditto

Extension to the standard windows clipboard. Lets you use several clipboards on your system at a time.

Price: free (Open Source)

http://ditto-cp.sourceforge.net

DM2

Provides a number of Windows enhancements such as making it possible to let a window stay on top of all applications, and providing an extra button in all default Windows Open/Save dialogs. When clicked, this button shows a pop up menu with user-defined favorite folders and files.

Price: free (Open Source)

http://sourceforge.net/projects/dm2/

Add-In-World

Lots of add ons for Microsoft Office, many of them for free; (web site in German only).

http://www.add-in-world.com

AutoHotkey (Open Source, Windows)

Lets you automate almost every task such as opening files, entering and formatting text, auto replacing text, creating macros and much more. Certainly one of the most valuable tools for a technical writer.

www.autohotkey.com

The following scripts are all based on AutoHotkey:

Autotext

Lets you enter a list of abbreviations that will be replaced by longer text blocks when typing. For example, you could define "adr" to be replaced by your personal address, including name, street, city, and so on.

http://www.autohotkey.com/forum/topic17165.html

German Umlauts

Lets you enter German Umlauts on an English keyboard.

http://www.autohotkey.com/forum/topic540.html

Accents

Helps you to enter letters with accents on any keyboard.

http://www.autohotkey.com/forum/topic570.html
http://www.donationcoder.com/skrommel/ (look for "Accents")

Dictionary Search

Some examples of how to use AutoHotkey to look up selected words in an online dictionary or encyclopedia.

http://www.autohotkey.com/forum/topic630.html
http://www.autohotkey.com/forum/topic44.html
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autohotkey

File Opening

Lets you set favorites for File Open dialogs.

http://www.autohotkey.com/forum/topic619.html
http://www.autohotkey.com/forum/topic1553.html

Clipboard

Enables you to use up to 10 clipboards at the same time.

http://www.autohotkey.com/forum/topic4514.html

Used Fonts

Shows all fonts used by a Microsoft Word document.

http://www.donationcoder.com/skrommel/ (look for "UsedFonts")

Paste as Text

Lets you paste the clipboard in two modes: Press Ctrl-V once to paste regularly, or press Ctrl-V twice to paste as text.

http://www.donationcoder.com/skrommel/ (look for "PlainPaste")

Time Logging

Logs the time spent on different tasks.

http://www.donationcoder.com/skrommel/ (look for "TaskLog")

Repeat an Action

Records and plays back keyboard and mouse actions.

http://www.donationcoder.com/skrommel/ (look for "DoOver")

Window Control

Lets you control how a particular window is displayed. For example, you can set any application to stay on top.

http://www.donationcoder.com/skrommel/ (look for "WinWarden")

CapsLock

Two scripts to avoid unintended activation of the CapsLock key:
"ShiftOff" turns off CapsLock when Shift is pressed together with A-Z or other user defined keys.
"CAPshift" slows down the activation of the key and displays a menu where you can change the selected text to lowercase, UPPERCASE, TitleCase, iNVERTEDcASE, RaNDoMCaSE or replace user defined characters.

http://www.donationcoder.com/skrommel/ (look for "ShiftOff" and "CAPshift")

Touchpad

Prevents stray clicks on the touchpad when editing documents. Especially helpful for notebook users.

http://www.donationcoder.com/skrommel/ (look for "NoStrayClicks")

Utility Collection

Comprehensive utility collection, published by one of the leading German computer magazines. More than 50 scripts are included.

http://www.heise.de/software/download/special/activaid_forte/10_1/

Mouse Emulation

Emulates the mouse with the numerical keys on the keyboard. One application of this could be to control online-help on systems where there is no mouse, like on windows-based control panels of a machine, for example.

http://www.autohotkey.com/docs/scripts/NumpadMouse.htm

The following scripts were originally designed to display help texts when editing AutoHotkey scripts, but you can modify them to display help for other applications, too.

Context Sensitive Help

Shows the help file page for the selected command or keyword. If nothing is selected, the command name will be extracted from the beginning of the current line.

http://www.autohotkey.com/docs/scripts/ContextSensitiveHelp.htm

Automatic Help

Watches while you edit code or text. When it sees you typing a command followed by a comma or space, it displays that command's parameter list. In addition, you can press a hotkey to display the corresponding page of a help file.

http://www.autohotkey.com/docs/scripts/IntelliSense.htm

Tooltips

Lets you add tooltips to the GUI of any application.

http://www.autohotkey.com/forum/topic22421.html

Toolbar

Adds a toolbar to any program. The buttons on this toolbar can then open different help files, for example. You could use this, for example, to add help or special functions to third-party software.

http://www.donationcoder.com/skrommel/ (look for "Barnacle")