I like Publicons for a way to quickly show what you like. Hence I'm going to use their service now to show you my preferences and comment about each a little.

 

Things I like and supportFirst of all, I want to list everything that I like and support a lot.

7zip - this archiving program is awesome because it's opensource and it has compression rate a whole lot better than either ZIP or RAR. Plus it can open a whole lot of other archives and it's very similar to WinRAR, just free and open! It's too good to miss!

Amarok - the music player of KDE. I like it a lot (once I set up the audio correctly, Linux audio is quite a mess right now). For one, it shows a nice overlay of what it is playing every time it changes the song, and the overlay is also translucent so it doesn't really bother you, just keeps you informed. It can play a whole lot of music formats plus has plugin support.

Blender - the killer of 3DS Max and the lone soldier in a field. I have to admit that I just *hate* monopoles, and the Autodesk monopoly is one of those that I like the least. Autodesk has bought basically every commercial modelling software there is - 3DS Max, Maya, even XSI. And they charge astronomical amounts of money for it. However, Blender is free and open source, and does just as well as the others.

Invision Power Board - one of the few commercial things that I really like. IPB, or IP.Board (how they renamed not very long ago), is a marvellous piece of software that gives the owner control of basically every aspect of the board. Not only that, but you can install addons to it very easily, it has a great style, the forum navigation and the BBCode editor of it is very nice. I have no idea why anyone would favour vB over it at any given time.

KDE - I like it a lot more than Gnome or XFCE (which is my brother's favourite) because it's stylish, it's easy to adjust when coming from a Windows environment (Gnome is for Mac users), it has plenty of features, it's easy to control, it's well supported and maintained. Actually, there is KDE for Windows, too! I'll have to try it out one day. The PDF reader there is just priceless.

OpenOffice.org - Much like blender, it's a Microsoft Office killer. Why pay astronomical amounts of money for MS Office if you can get OpenOffice for free, and have even better compatibility and more freedom than with MS's software?

Google - Talking only about the search engine here. Honestly, who doesn't like Google search?

GMail - it's a mail program killer. You get nearly infinite space, you don't need to worry about installing and configuring mail programs, you can access your mail from any computer and reread any mail you have ever got, and you can even customise the appearance. What else could you possibly need?

Publicons - Click a few buttons and you can show everyone what you like.

Wikipedia - The whole Wikimedia is awesome. Anyone can participate, and the knowledge just keeps adding up. Later on this could turn into something like a knowledge database that you could access from anywhere. Although I don't like some things like the Unreal incident. Oh, and Wikia is awesome, too. I also participate in a few Wikis, most notably the Liandri Archives and Might and Magic wiki.

Imageshack - free image hosting service, what else would you want? Although it's slightly irritating that you need to rewrite the BBCode of theirs so it wouldn't contain all those stupid ads and such. But otherwise it's good.

UT2004 - The first Unreal series game I've ever played, and arguably my favourite. Until recently it was undisputedly my favourite, but it now shares the place with UT3 due to the Blossom mutator.

Heroes of Might and Magic III - The first game from the Might and Magic franchise I have ever played. And a very good one. I still play it these days, and often times with my brother on hotseat. Very entertaining, has great visual style and a brilliant story. It (and HoMM4) made me interested in Might and Magic as a whole, and Might and Magic VII is my favourite from the main RPG games - and it takes place on the same continent as HoMM3!

Harry Potter - I like the Fantasy genre, and HP is a good series of books, very easy to read and very exciting, especially since I'm at school as well - I find a lot of similarities.

Ravenclaw (not in the list due to the German publicons being down at the moment) - it's where I'd fit the best. I like order and knowledge.

Pizza - as long as it doesn't have any unwanted components, it's very tasty!

Europe (funny how in Lithuanian it's also Europa) - that's where I live, and I like both the continent and the Union. It's peaceful here, and it gives us the chance to prosper. Another war would be devastating at best.

No Patents - really, who thought software patents were a good idea? Patents were never created with that in mind! Besides, with the patent system where you can claim a patent for a thing like a wheel, it's just ridiculous.

Science fiction - I already mentioned that I like fantasy - well, I like sci-fi as well. And most of all I like science fantasy - a blend of both! It's a world where magic does exist, but you can explain it with science terms. The classic science fantasy series would be Might and Magic, although some players of the Heroes branch don't acknowledge that and are helplessly far from the roots of the series. And don't even get me started with MMH5 (Might and Magic: Heroes 5, because I refuse to put it in line with the other good Heroes of Might and Magic games). Another great example of science fantasy would be Mass Effect - Biotics is magic, but it's plausible.

OpenSUSE - my favourite Linux distribution. It has an eye-pleasing green theme, it has the great YaST tool, it has great community support. And it's not biased towards either of the graphical shells, unlike things like Ubuntu that focus on Gnome and give KDE only as a secondary shell.

Linux - I like the whole concept. It's an opensource operating system which anyone can develop! It is in many, many ways superior to Windows - program management, longevity, reboot necessity, freedom, cost, reliability - it's all there! The only part where Linux is not as good as Windows is program support, but with Wine it's getting there. After the XInput 2 patch is implemented to it, I might attempt to switch to it once more. The only other issue there is the hardware support - my X-Fi sound card barely has any...

XHTML - I know the language very well (hence why I have the Lost Websites project). I'm not so familiar with HTML, though, and it's uppercase tags are overall silly looking.

UnrealScript (not in the graphical list) - Another language that I'm advanced in. I still don't know how to use certain things, but I sure know how to get around in it.

Pidgin IM - a great thing as well. It combines a whole lot of different IM programs to a single one. I can use MSN, Google Talk, Skype, IRC etc. all at the same time, saving a whole bunch of memory! And best of all, it's cross-platform, so it works on both Windows and Linux!

OpenID (not in the graphical list) - it's like your passport. If everyone used their API, you would never need to register anywhere again! In fact, even Joomla supports it, but I didn't activate it on this website since it's only experimental and could pose a security threat. It does need to be improved slightly (IMO it needs a master server for storing all your OpenIDs so if you lost one - for example, if the provider of it was to go down - you could switch to an alternative one), but otherwise it's an awesome concept. In fact, even Impulse::Reactor is going to use OpenID at some point, bringing it to the gaming industry! No more registering to play games!


 

Now things I use, but not necessary agree with their ways or like them. It's a long list, but there are less comments about each.

AMD - it's my processor, Phenom II X4.

ATI - Well, AMD actually, ATI doesn't really exist as a standalone corporation. But I have ATI/AMD's graphics card, Radeon HD4890.

Gigabyte - it's my motherboard.

LG - it's my TV.

Logitech - it's my headset.

D-Link - it's my (forced) router.

Toshiba - it's my laptop.

USB - seriously, who doesn't use it?

Nokia - it's my phone.

Canon - it's my printer.

Adobe - I use it's Photoshop.

Windows Media Player - I use it for music.

DivX and XviD - I occasionally use them for screen captures.

Firefox - it's my browser.

Photoshop - I use it by Adobe. (Wait, I think I was already over this, hmm...)

Notepad - Who doesn't use this, too?

Nero - I sometimes use it, although I prefer CDBurnerXP, a free alternative.

Quicktime - needed for playing back Quicktime movies, obviously.

VLC - a good program that can play pretty much anything.

YouTube - It's not at all the best, but there are many people there. Well, it doesn't restrict me too much (unlike Steam), so I use it.

FanFinction.net - I upload my fan fiction there.

Age of Empires II - I've played it. Villagers that can rebuild the whole town are extremely annoying!

EA Games - although I don't like their style, but they published Mass Effect. And EA was created by the same person who created 3DO.

Unreal Tournament - A good game, but doesn't match UT2004 or UT3.

Worms - I like Worms Armageddon.

Discovery and Animal Planet - This, plus Viasat History and National Geographic are the only channels worth watching. (Oh, and whatever shows Star Trek.)

Star Wars - I've seen one episode of it, but wasn't very amused. I'll probably watch others sometime, I've heard they are better. But it's still just a fairy tale, nothing compared to Star Trek.

Pirates of the Caribbean - Watched it, was pretty nice.

Simpsons - Funny.

Binary - Sometimes I like to check hex codes, although I don't really know much about it.

Windows - Until Wine gets better, I'm stuck with it.

Ubuntu - used it before, wasn't very amused.

C++ - Or rather C. I code it a little.

Google Talk - OK way to tak to those who have GMail.

IRC - a good concept.

MSN - A lot of global users.

Skype - A lot of local users.

A hate list is in the works...



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