.: Links.

These are some of my favourites links, listed by categories. All the programs listed are free (freeware or GPL).

.: 3D Design.

.: Programs.

Povray :: it's a rendering engine that I've been using for more than 10 years. It can be used as a 3D program but you'll have to know the pov scripting language to make whole scenes. I began with Moray as modeller and is what I recommend you if you prefer a graphical environment.
Windows, Mac & Linux versions.

Megapov :: Unofficial version of Povray with more funcionalities than this one. You'll need to have Povray installed to make Megapov work.
Windows, Mac & Linux versions.

Blender :: A wonderful 3D program that covers all the aspects (modelling, texturing, lightning, animation...). A little bit complex to get the interface but not too hard anyway. It can export to pov using a plugin.
Windows, Mac, Linux, Solaris, FreeBSD & Irix versions.

Hamapatch :: One of my favourite modellers (using bezier curves), though its development stopped on 2004.
Windows version.

Wings3D :: Another modeller, a mesh modeller. Easy to use, flexible amd powerful. It can export to povray using plugins.
Windows, Mac & Linux versions.

Anim8or :: Another mesh modeller, capable to make animations.
Windows versions.

Moray :: The best interface for Povray in my opinion. It was a shareware program in the past and now is a freeware program.
Only Windows version, by the moment....

Poseray :: is an utility to convert 3D model meshes into POV-Ray scenes and Moray UDO files. PoseRay can also edit the materials and act as a simple transformation tool for the geometry. PoseRay can also export the modified model to wavefront (OBJ) format for use in other 3D programs.
Windows version only, but it works on Linux using WIne.

.: Artists.

Jaime Vivés Piqueres :: Jaime is one of the best Povers I know. He is a true artist and controls Povray as only a few do. He enjoys photorealism and lighting.
He has been the coordinator of the spanish section in the povray newsgroups and also worked as coordinator and translator on the Povray's Manual translation into Spanish Project (I worked on it as translator too).
Take a look at his website and surely you'll add him to your favourites list.

Gilles Tran :: One of the best Povers in history. He creates amazing images and it's a must visit site if you are interested in 3D and Povray.

Andrea y Friedrich Lohmueller :: Very good galleries and full of images.

Tim Nikias :: Another artist using Povray. Some galleries (images, animations and photographs). He also offers a good set of macros.

Christoph Hormann :: A landscape artist working with Povray. His section views of the earth is a must visit.

Rune Johansen :: Rune has a website with information, images, animations, games and utilities (macros and include files) for Povray.

Steven Stahlberg :: A great artist, he uses Maya to do his 3D works.

Will Kramer :: A great artist that uses Poser and Photoshop.

.: Tutorials

Friedrich Lohmueller :: The best Povray tutorials.

Alexv :: Good tutorials about Povray and Blender and a nice gallery (Spahish and English).

Manuel Mata :: He has a good Hamapatch tutorial.

Rodolfo Nothstein :: A good aproximation to Povray and related programs. A good site.

.: Competitions

I.R.T.C :: An international contest opened to all kind of software (if it's 3D) and any level of skill, with a lot of subminissions form Povray users. It's rebirthing after a long time on hiatus (maybe this summer, maybe this autum).

CGSphere :: An international contest with an original idea. To make an image with one sphere. Anyway, it's better to take a look.

.: Bitmap Design and Fractal.

Irfan View :: A must have program. It's the best graphic viewer for Windows. Converts image formats, plays audio and video, set up gallleries for web pages,...
Windows only, but it works on Linux running Wine.

The Gimp :: Photo retouching program similar to Photoshop, massively used on Linux. Manages layers, filters and so on.
Windows, Mac and Linux versions.

Fractal Explorer :: Fractal generator, a good program to begin with fractals.
Windows only.

Apophysis :: Other fractal generator, but it uses flame fractals. it makes beautiful images.
Windows only.

.: Vectorial Design and Fonts.

Inkscape :: A great vectorial design program and easy to use. It has layers, filters, everything. It's the one I use when I have to do anything using vectorial design (and it also exports to Povray).
Windows, Mac and Linux versions.

The Dingbat pages :: dingbats website; very useful for 2D design.

FontFreak :: A lost of fonts. Most of all are links to nearly all the fonts on internet.

AEnigma Fonts :: Very particular and futuristic fonts.

Emerald City Fontworkers :: Old style fonts and a beautiful dingbat collection.

1001 Fonts :: More fonts.

Clip-Art :: A lot of cliparts free to use.

.: Internet.

Firefox :: What can I say about the Firefox browser. It's the one I always use, much better than Microsoft IE in my opinion.
Windows, Mac and Linux versions.

.: Firefox extensions.

.. Forecastfox :: Get international weather forecasts from AccuWeather.com, and display it in any toolbar or statusbar.

.. Tab Mix Plus :: Tab Mix Plus enhances Firefox's tab browsing capabilities. It includes such features as duplicating tabs, controlling tab focus, tab clicking options, undo closed tabs and windows, plus much more.

.. FireFTP :: FireFTP is a free, secure, cross-platform FTP client for Mozilla Firefox which provides easy and intuitive access to FTP servers.

.. Web Developer :: The Web Developer extension adds a menu and a toolbar to the browser with various web developer tools.

.. Translator :: Translator is web translation extension that allows you to translate any web page into nearly any language at the click of a button.

.. VideoDownloader :: Download videos from Youtube, Google, Metacafe, iFilm, Dailymotion... and other 60+ video sites ! And all embedded objects on a webpage (movies, mp3s, flash, quicktime, etc) ! Directly.

.. View Source Chart :: Draws A Color-Coded Chart of a Web Page's Source Code.

.. Download Statusbar :: View and manage downloads from a tidy statusbar - without the download window getting in the way of your web browsing.

.. DownThemAll! :: Lets you download all the links or images contained in a webpage and much more: you can refine your downloads by fully customizable criteria to get only what you really want.

Avira :: Freeware Antivirus. I've been using it for more than 6 years, and I still haven't had a problem. It's the one I recommend.

TinyUrl :: It's webpage that offers an interesting service. If you have a long internet direction it gets converted in a short link that can be emailed to others without the risk of breaking. Very useful for emails, newsgroups, chats, etc.

.: Linux.

PCLinuxOS :: It's the distro I use right now. Based on Mandriva and very easy to use.

Sabayon Linux :: A good distro that includes almost everything. It's based on Gentoo.

Slax :: Slax is a modern, portable, small and fast Linux operating system with a modular approach and outstanding design. Despite its small size, Slax provides a wide collection of pre-installed software for daily use, including a well organized graphical user interface and useful recovery tools for system administrators.

Damn Small Linux :: DSL was originally developed as an experiment to see how many usable desktop applications can fit inside a 50MB live CD. It was at first just a personal tool/toy. But over time Damn Small Linux grew into a community project with hundreds of development hours put into refinements including a fully automated remote and local application installation system and a very versatile backup and restore system which may be used with any writable media including a hard drive, a floppy drive, or a USB device.

Ubuntu :: Ubuntu is a community developed, Linux-based operating system that is perfect for laptops, desktops and servers. It contains all the applications you need - a web browser, presentation, document and spreadsheet software, instant messaging and much more. Based on Debian it's the Linux distro with more users.

Musix Linux :: It's a 100% free multimedia operating system intended for music production, graphic design, audio and video edition, and all kind of tasks. It contains an enormous collection of free (as in freedom) programs that can replace Windows.

64Studio :: This will install Debian with X.org, the Gnome desktop, Linux kernel 2.6.21 with realtime preemption patches (including a realtime SMP kernel for AMD64 and Intel 64 dual core and multi-processor machines) and a selection of creative applications. These applications cover audio and music, video, 2D and 3D graphics, publishing for the web or print, and the internet and office tools a creative user is likely to need for their daily work.

Grafpup ::  Grafpup strives to provide a complete workflow for the digital artist, from beginning to end. As such along with the major graphics applications like Gimp and Inkscape you will also find a variety of support programs and extra features. Color management is enabled for all applications that support it, and there is a basic selection of color profiles included in the standard install. For those doing photographic work there is almost complete support for raw image formats via both dcraw and the ufraw plugin (both Gimp and Cinepaint), as well as the gtkam utility for directly connecting a wide variety of cameras. Scribus and Abiword take care of publishing needs, and Gutenprint provides a wide range of printer drivers. It's based on Puppy .

Distrowatch :: An internet portal with information about the new releases of Linux distros. The best to be up to date.

.: Other programs.

Abiword :: Word processor like Word, but free. It's the one I use mainly.
Windows, Mac and Linux versions.

EditPadLite :: I use it as the substitute for the Notepad that come with Windows, because it has more features.
Windows and Linux versions.

WinAmp :: Audio and video player. ¿Who needs Windows Media?.
Windows only.

Audacity :: Multitrack audio recorder. Simple and good.
Windows, Mac and Linux versions.

OpenOffice :: Office Suite that includes everything (from wordprocessor to stylesheet and database) and has nothing to envy to Bill Gates' Office.
Windows, Mac and Linux versions.