10 great free desktop productivity tools that aren't OpenOffice.org

Desktop productivity tool No. 8: FreeMind

At first glance it's tempting to lump FreeMind in the same category as Dia, but it's been designed from the inside out to satisfy a separate need. It's a drawing tool specifically for creating "mind maps," or diagrams that illustrate conceptual frameworks. The command keys and default behaviors are well chosen, so it's not hard for someone to dive in and quickly start brainstorming. The resulting map can be exported as graphics or a data tree (such as an XHTML document), or even as a Web page that replicates the layout of the original mind map.