There are a million pages you should go and look at, but here is the bare minimum to make a start from:

www.sidefx.com ...writers of Houdini, possibly the best 3d package. Also Houdini Apprentice is fully-functional version of it's commercial parent, but free.

I've found in the course of building virtuallydone and working on various projects from my
home that I've needed to translate, rename and make files into movies, these addresses
will provide you with translators and anti-spy and -virus protection free:

http://www.mozilla.com/ Before you do anything on the internet get firefox and thunderbird from mozilla - my friends were quite surprised when I told them I don't use anti-virus and that I've had no problems (other than self-inflicted) since using firefox, i've since installed Grisoft(free) see below,, but I wonder if I need it! I also recommend the NoScript plug-in from the same place. These may take a little getting used to but they are both INVALUABLE.

http://www.winpatrol.com/plus.html Winpatrol keeps an eye on the processes running on your computer and notifies you of unexpected changes that you might want to prevent. It also allows you to stop processes in your Windows Start-up file that take up cpu time so you can disable them until needed, I've currently got about twelve startup processes that don't actually help in anyway but slow things down, so they are disabled until I want to use them, gone but not forgotten.

http://www.lavasoft.de/default.shtml.en is free (to home users) anti-spyware, which prevents you from even visiting spy sites.

http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/ holds a list of un-wanted spyware and prevents it from appearing on your computer.

http://free.grisoft.com/doc/1 I'm not sure of its value, because it can interrupt you playing on-line games, but its free, so I've got it - and it stops Windows firewall from reminding me to get anti-virus software, so it's there if you want it.

http://www.wiagra.net .....you can make movies from a series of image files, and convert between many formats.

http://www.dvdidle.com/ free DVD decrypter, download DVDs including films to your hard drive for editing and copying.

http://home.europa.com/~keithr/crossroads/ ....converts geometry, 3ds, alias, dxf, etc. etc. (this link is broken,
but as this is such a useful program I can supply the original .exe file if you want to contact me).

http://www.hyperionics.com/index.asp Very useful for taking screenshots with various photo-shop-like tools, free with watermark, which
is conveniently posotioned for removal.

http://www.bartleby.com/107/ Grays anatomy on-line, for the hypochondriacs out there.

http://www.accustudio.com/ A terrific resource, especially for textures and environments.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/space/solarsystem/3d_tour.shtml Here's a nice one for the kiddies, it
requires shockwave, takes a little while (56k modem) to download, but nice.

http://www.williamsteig.com/index2.htm The home of the original Shrek.

http://www.studioaka.co.uk/ I hope to do some work for these people - lovely site worth waiting
if you've only 56k! Especially the 'who we are' section.

http://www.youtube.com/ Has a brilliant collection of pop-videos from all eras, and other stuff.