Here are a few free things that I like or use:
Previously linked but linked again because I think it might become a scarcity, Harvey Danger’s latest (and last!) album, Little By Little. On May 28, they posted on their site that they are calling it quits after 15 years. I don’t know what this will mean long-term for the hosted music so you should grab it as soon as possible just in case.
Launchy is a really handy program launcher for Windows. I use it instead of hunting through my entire start menu when I want to start a program. It also has several useful plug-ins including Google searches, a calculator and there are a bunch more available at the plug-ins site. Similar to Launchy but rather more powerful is GNOME Do. It is available for several Unix-based operating systems. I haven’t done a whole lot with it being primarily a Windows user but my imaginary friend Dan swears by it. Check out his site if you’re considering purchasing a netbook. His latest blog post runs down a pretty straightforward description of what they’re all about.
I have a whole whack of free fonts sites bookmarked in Google bookmarks right now. I will dispense with passing all of them along and just link a couple of fonts that I have found useful. Odaballoon was what I used for the text in yesterday’s doodle and I used it in my recent Penny Arcade forum battle long-form comic strip (I lost the battle, by the way). I used Badaboom BB for sound effects such as:
For the rest of the battle you can check out this Flickr set but I’m nearly certain it won’t make any sense to you in any way. Flickr is also a pretty neat, free image hosting service that I recommend highly. The forum battle was created using the GIMP, a free image manipulation program. It is effectively Photoshop for people unwilling to shell out the $700 (or more!). I use it for nearly all the non-paper doodles that I post here.