One program that I like is WavePad Sound Editor.
http://www.nch.com.au/wavepad/index.html
I used it to make a 10 hour mp3!
Ok, here's why. On my last trip to Long Beach I used my digital camera to record the surf a few times. I wanted to capture the sound and bring it home. When I got home I picked the recording that I liked best and ripped the sound from the .avi video. I was left with a small .wav file. Wavepad let me convert the .wav file to .mp3 and let me copy and paste that .mp3 file until it was a 10 hour .mp3 which I put on a USB flash drive. I can play it on a mini surround sound system whenever I want or need a pleasant background noise. I can use the recording as a "sleep machine" because it is long enough to run all night.
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Another program I like is FastStone Image Viewer.
http://www.faststone.org/
Occasionally I need to convert a .jpg or .png to .gif. Most basic programs ruin the quality of the image when converting to .gif. FastStone Image Viewer converts it perfectly.
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Yet another program I like is Crimson Editor.
http://www.crimsoneditor.com/
It's like notepad on steroids! It has been a tremendous help to me maintaining this forum. You can edit .txt, .htm, .php etc. I had to find and remove some code in 60 .html pages this morning. I used the "Find in Files" feature and Crimson Editor searched and found the code in 60 files in 10 folders. Editing the files was very easy.