The following is software in which I have no interest, apart from being a happy user.
It is available.....
FREE! COSTS NOTHING! GRATIS!!
But! Be careful. Not all, "free" software is a good thing. Be sure you learn a bit about spyware before you get too adventurous with trying things from the internet. (Elsewhere, I've put together a little introduction to spyware avoidance for you.)
N.B.: The search engine just looks through the web site for the words you enter. It cannot answer "Which program is fastest?"
Office suite- OpenOffice: Pride of place must go to the WONDERFUL Open Office. Before you think this is just a bit of geek-itis, note that the state of Massachusetts, for example, is dumping Microsoft Office and going over to OpenOffice. They are not the only "major league" players to have taken that decision.
OpenOffice gives you an excellent....
wordprocessor
spreadsheet
presentation package
drawing package
database (see below).
If you work with people using Microsoft's products, you can import and export from/ to Word, Excel, etc files. (Surprise, surprise: the goal posts keep moving... some esoteric documents may not work fully, but I've encountered few obstacles to inter-working.).
Open Office has, built into it, what you need to save things in PDF, for Adobe's Acrobat Reader.
(If you want more pdf generating features that come with Open Office, or if you're not using OO, consider PDF Creator. It installs as a Windows "printer", so anything you can print to you can create PDFs with. It can export to other formats, too: png, jpeg, bmp, tiff, ps (Postscript), eps.
Open Office version 2 includes a fine relational database. I'm playing with it on a Win98SE system with a "mere" Pentium II. It seems to be the long needed alternative to Access. You can talk to it in SQL (but you don't have to). Etc, etc. Officially, it is called (somewhat unhelpfully?) "Base". It is often referred to as ooBase. I have started a collection of webpages designed to help people use the OO database. It is a full relational database manager.
If for some reason you don't want to use "Base", consider the also-free MySQL. (MySQL website) (I used it a bit, was happy as far as I went, but I know it too superficially to be able to "recommend" it.... and now my energies will go into ooBase, as I like that.) I certainly WOULD NOT buy the old Star Office, which gave you Open Office plus Adabas, which I found very unsatisfactory. And note I said "buy". Open Office is wonderful, free, includes all the good bits of Star Office.
Open Office website (Not a small download, of course, but I did say I'd try to flag large downloads. It is frequently on magazine cover discs. It can be downloaded or customized for use with languages other than American.)
Other free software....
Many of the following are programs I "know and love", having used for many years. Some are merely recommendations passed on from sources I have found to be reliable. (Not least the UK magazines Computer Shopper and PCW.) Most of those are identified as such. All links have been checked.
This page has grown over the years. While I won't list something here without having a reason, I fear that the programs I find particularly worthwhile may have become buried in the heap of good stuff. So here's a list of the especially good programs that I use frequently.
Anti-spyware software: Protecting yourself against viruses is relatively straightforward. Anti-spyware protection is an extra "joy" we could all do without, but you need to consider it. Lavasoft and Search and Destroy are two good programs, which are also free. There's more at my spyware education page. (See also: the item on firewalls, below.)
Anti-rootkit software: A new and tedious threat. Not for novices or the faint-hearted, but if you're brave/ desperate, you may want Rootkit Revealer from Sysinternals (taken over by Microsoft in July 2006). I haven't tried this myself, but saw it in a good magazine, before the MS takeover. Sysinternals offer many useful looking tools. There's nothing wrong with Revealer (afaik), but the warning arises because the whole issue is complex. Symantec have been accused of using rootkit techniques in their system security programs, for instance. (See also: the item on firewalls, below.)
Anti-virus software: I tend to use commercial anti-virus products on my own systems, but AVG, from Grisoft have given away an anti-virus package for years, and it gets good reviews. Do not fail to have anti-virus protection on your machine, and be sure you really understand the issues of updating it (as distinct from the Windows update service) and of post-update full system scans. (See also: the item on firewalls, below.)
Also, if you need anti-virus software, even for a Windows 95 or 98 home computer, and you do no business or work from that home computer, Avast has a free anti-virus package for you. (Current 12/08).
Audio tools:Audacity- Open source software for recording and editing sounds. Seems to be the one that is bearing up well under the test of time. And it has been ported to Linux and the Mac, so a big community supports it. (Frequently recommended in responsible places. I've used it to clean up transfers from vinyl.) Can also capture audio via soundcard's line-in. To save mp3, add Lame DLL encoder.
HQSoftproc Resampling- Reprocesses sound files. (Recommended to me, not tried by me.)
Out Lame- Winamp output plug-in to create MP3 files directly from Winamp. (Recommended to me, not tried by me.)
Stream Ripper-Lets you record streaming mp3 to your hard drive. (Recommended to me, not tried by me.)
(See also MP3 ripper, below)
Auto-run programs monitor for XP: Ever have a machine running things you didn't want to run? They are not always started by a nice simple entry in the Startup folder, as you probably know. Sysinternals (taken over by Microsoft in July 2006) offer a free tool to work on such things. I haven't tested it myself... but was going to before Microsoft took over Sysinternals. (See also: the items on anti spyware and anti-rootkit, above, and firewalls, below.)
Browser- Opera: The web browser I preferred to use for many years. I now tend to use Mozilla's Firefox. A large download. Often available on magazine cover discs. Opera has a nice "zoom" feature that Firefox lacks.
If you use something other than Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE), be advised that once in a long while you will encounter a site that only works with IE... but then again, also be advised that the security loopholes that allow some viruses to "work" only with IE, too. Using Firefox or Opera is in itself a step towards greater security.
Opera now works like most freeware- it just works, no strings. It was, once upon a time, available in several varieties. The old free one, which I used for years without regret, periodically visited a website and picked up some ads which appeared in a modest box in the toolbar. (This is called "adware" The email client Eudora used an adware version even after Opera had gone fully free.) Not a problem, as far as I'm concerned. This behavior will be questioned by some anti-spyware software. Good anti-spyware software will allow you to permit Eudora (and others) to do benign things. Lavasoft's will, for one.
DTP: Since at least 2004, Serif has been making available free old... but far from incapable... versions of their PagePlus desktop publishing suite. (Or you might find it on a magazine cover disk.) (See Serif entry under "photographic tools", too.) Click here to download free stuff from Serif. (That site is sometimes overloaded and unresponsive. Just try again later if you have problems.) (The downloads are large.) (Serif also offer free tools for web publishing, drawing, and 3D design.)
Cure Cancer: You can help cancer research by letting a program run in the background on your computer. I have it running as I type this, and cannot tell without looking at my system tray. You do have to download new work units from time to time, and that takes a little while with a modest dial up connection.... but when you think of the potential benefit to us all, it is a small price to pay.
An early well known use of this sort of distributed processing was the SETI project. The technology is powerful and valid.... and I'm pleased to see it being used for something I think is a little more worthwhile. SETI is an "okay" pursuit. Looking for cancer cures seems more valuable.
Start with the simple UD Agent. If you are use a dial up connection, you may want to add the UD Monitor which allows you to download multiple work units in one online session. Don't play with the Monitor until you are happy with the Agent. Click here to learn more.
Email client- Pegasus: A mail client. POP3. I especially like being able to preview the subject and sender of messages before downloading (or deleting) them, and I like the tools available for managing messages. And I like the degree to which you can access the data files from outside Pegasus. You can send encrypted messages to other people, even people not using Pegasus. (You tell them, by another channel, what the key is to read the message.) I've used Pegasus for all of my email since about early 2004. It is, perhaps, a little less "idiot proof" than Outlook Express... but a lot less frustrating, too, if you don't mind being a little technical at times. Yahoo doesn't admit to supporting it, but my Yahoo accounts play nicely with Pegasus.
Pegasus
Email client (second one)- Eudora: Another mail client. POP3. This is available in several varieties. The "free" one, which I used for years without regret, periodically visits a website and picks up some ads which appear in a modest box in the toolbar. Not a problem, as far as I'm concerned. This behavior may be questioned by some anti-spyware software. Good anti-spyware software will allow you to permit Eudora (and others) to do benign things. Eudora was the client I used for my email needs for several years. (c.2002-04)
Eudora, from Qualcomm
Speaking of mail: Though it isn't "software", let me take a moment to recommend that you open one of Yahoo's email accounts. Once, and in some regions still, perhaps, free, you can access via POP3, using Outlook Express (if you must... I dislike it), or Pegasus, or Eudora. However, you can ALSO access your mail via a web page. Marvelous when you are away from home. As long as you can get to an internet-connected machine, you can check your mail. (Do change your password once you are back on your home machine, though, if you used a "public" computer. From the time you use that "public" computer until you change the password on a non-public machine, there is a chance that someone may have learned your password. If you are going to be travelling, it is probably worth setting up an account that will only be used for non-critical email.) Another reason to use Yahoo's mail (or similar) is that if you change ISP, you won't have to change eddress. One reason not to use Yahoo is that they presume to tack Yahoo ads onto the foot of your emails. You may also want to consider an account with Google... but remember that they scan your emails, and if your write to your friend about, say, Barcelona, you may find ads for holiday packages to Barcelona being presented. A big deal? Probably not. But you should know what is happening, so you can decide if you care. How do you know the others don't read your mail? At least Google admits to it. Email isn't very secure, anyway.
Encryption: If you take sensitive documents away from secure locations, or if you want to secure documents on a computer to which others may have access, there are many options. Before you get too enthusiastic, remember that encrypting something is fine... as long as everything works. It also introduces an extra thing to go wrong which could lock you out of the files, in addition to locking out the Bad Guys. Sigh.
Open Office (and most other serious office applications) will allow you to save things in an encrypted form.
The Pegasus mail client will allow you to send encrypted emails. Your recipient doesn't need to be using Pegasus.
I've played a little with Cryptainer, from Cypherix, and found it did what I wanted, without worrying overheads. It will work on your hard drive, or on memory sticks, aka thumb drives. And has it occurred to you that you can use flash memory cards as if they were thumb-drives as long as the machines you want to access them on have suitable card reader/ writers? There are also rather nice mice with built in card reader/ writers... the best of both worlds?
You don't have to dedicate a given backing store device to Cryptainer. To standard file browsers, the secured data just looks like another file. If you have the password for that file, it will open for you, after which you have an extra "drive" on your computer until you close it down.
Don't be confused by the reference to "Cryptainer Mobile" at Cypherix's website... it is needed for putting encrypted material on thumb drives, but it IS included in the free, LE edition.... but it won't work on a Windows 98 machine. (Cryptainer works, but you need to install the software on each machine which will want to access the protected files. With an XP machine, and Cryptainer Mobile, once you have it set up, the thumb-drive can be taken to any XP machine, and you can use it, without installing things on the PC.)
Cryptainer also allows you to send encrypted email files. The recipient will not need to have a copy of Cryptainer LE installed to decrypt the files. (Pegasus has a similar feature built in.) You can create self extracting encrypted files with WinZip, too, of course. Or, at least with Open Office, simply use your wordprocessor's "password protect file" option.
Firewall- Outpost: A free firewall from Agnitum. I've used it for a while, and like the user experience much more than I like using Norton or McAfee's retail products. I'm afraid I cannot authoritatively judge the security of any of them. I like the fact that I can easily see and adjust what Outpost is doing. I could not find mention in the Norton User Guide of how to access it's rules. You can get to them... but I haven't found an easy way. The computer magazines have extolled ZoneAlarm for many years... but at least at one point, the free version did not fully uninstall, which I resent. By the way: By all means run a hardware firewall and a software firewall. Do not, however, run more than one anti-virus program. Opinion seems to be divided on whether it is wise to run two software firewalls... to me, it seems like a bad idea.
If you install Outpost, be careful that you don't misunderstand prompts you may see and accidentally upgrade to the "pro" (must be paid for) version sometime when you are merely trying to update your free version. I did that on one coputer, and could find no obvious or simple way to go back to using the free version.
Agnitum's Outpost
Image Display: In haste: This paragraph is a temporary citation of two new (10/07) enthusiasms... one of them isn't even free! The enthusiasms are: Picture Go, which IS free, and Able Photo Slideshow, which is shareware. 30 day trial/ $20 to register. I was looking for a way to use an old laptop as a "Photo Frame". I'm working on a comparative review. In the meantime, I can commend the two mentioned above as worthy of your consideration.
Image managers- Irfan Viewer and Picasa: Irfan lets you manage, view and manipulate graphics files. Resize. Adjust. Print contact sheets. Create slideshows. Be sure to read the help files... interesting!
There's also Picasa, from the nice people at Google. (I've helped a client who uses it; it seems good.) It does many of the things Irfan does. It also allows you to assemble photo albums. If you start using Picasa, be sure you master the difference between what it calls "albums" and what it calls "folders". Picasa will run on Linux machines, as well as Windows.
Think of these programs as ways to look at what files you have on your disc, i.e. as enhancements of Windows (not Internet) Explorer. While they do have some features for changing the images, you are advised to obtain and master a separate tool for that advanced work. Suggestions appear in the Photo Tools section farther down the page.
Both programs (and Exifier, down in the Photo Tools section) have tools for renaming batches of files. If you delve into them, you can accomplish remarkable things. For example, how about using the date the photo was taken, as stored within the photo by many cameras ("Exif data"), to assemble a name for the photo? If you use, say, 2006-12-25-13-01 for a photo taken just after 1pm on Christmas, i.e. year first, hour in 24, minutes last, then your photos will sort themselves logically even when sorted by name, won't they? Alternatively, I am a great fan of using the number originally assigned by the camera (after ensuring that it doesn't start again at "IMG_001" repeatedly), and maintaining separately a cross reference that tells me, say, that photo 6012 was taken on 23 April 07. The more concise reference number is easier to use, and can be incorporated easily in subsequent names for derivatives from my prime copy of the image. Less obscure names tend to get out of control. Call the photo of you pet "Fluffy-In-Garden" if you will... but what do you call the next photo of Fluffy in the garden? The numbers may be obscure, but at least they are manageable. If photos 6012, 6087 and 6251 are of Fluffy in the Garden, you can have "FluffyInTheGarden6012", "FluffyInTheGarden6087" and "FluffyInTheGarden6251". Best of both worlds. Remember the need to back up your hard disc. It will fail one day, and if you don't have a second copy of your photos somewhere else, they will be lost. (Yes, I know I said that again below. Have you backed up your photos? You can do it "tomorrow"... if your disc doesn't fail today.)
P.S.: I wanted to turn an old laptop into a "Digital Photo Frame". I searched through many image managers, slideshow and screensaver creators, and some HTML and Flash and DVD photo show / gallery creators. My comparative review may be of interest, if you want an in depth look at a number of options, some free, some shareware.
Instant Messaging: If you use more than one IM service, you may be tired of having multiple IM client software packages to contend with. Pidgin tries to save you this by letting you access most popular IM sites with just one "universal" IM client.
MP3 ripper: Software for ripping (i.e. copying) audio CDs to MP3s for players. It does the job well, with minimal other "stuff". It was a SourceForge project. The "Cdex" (Not "CD Ripper") I used and liked, may be the one available at CdexOS.net, or you may have to use Google to find a copy. (See also "audio tools", above.)
Photographic tools: In a moment, I will talk about some "stars" in the Photographic Tools category, but before I do...
I wanted to turn an old laptop into a "Digital Photo Frame". I searched through many image managers, slideshow and screensaver creators, and some HTML and Flash and DVD photo show / gallery creators. My comparative review may be of interest, if you want an in depth look at a number of options, some free, some shareware.
Serif offers an "old" (3 years? Ish.)... but far from incapable... version of their excellent PhotoPlus. You have to register with them, but I've been registered for years, with no regrets. Click here to download free stuff from Serif. (That site is sometimes overloaded and unresponsive. Just try again later if you have problems.) (The downloads are large.) (PhotoPlus- sometimes a more advanced version that the free stuff site is hosting- is also available from time to time on magazine cover disks)
This isn't the place for an essay on how you store your digital photos, but before I introduce some other excellent tools, I will digress to say three things briefly:
1) Have a plan, a system... and stick to it!
2) Consider very carefully including in that system a way to keep "negative", i.e. copies of your pictures in their original state, as they came out of the camera. For cropping, fixing red eye, etc: Work with copies of the negatives. Often when you work with an image, you lose things. As your skills increase, if you haven't thrown away the negatives, you'll find that you can do more with a photo that you didn't get as much from on your first attempt.
3) Remember the need to back up your hard disc. It will fail one day, and if you don't have a second copy of your photos somewhere else, they will be lost. (Yes, I know I said that above. Have you backed up your photos? You can do it "tomorrow"... if your disc doesn't fail today.)
One of the things you may inadvertently throw away is your ExIF data. If you aren't losing that, (or perhaps especially if you have lost it!) you may find that you like the free ExIFier program.
ExIFier gives you access to an amazing wealth of information stored within JPEGs by many digital cameras. Not only can you see when the photo was taken (date and time.. to the second), but also a lot about the camera's settings.... shutter speed, etc. And it is not just settings. If you manage an archive of photos from more than one source, the camera owner's name may help you.
You can browse the information, edit it, export it, etc, etc. (When I said "edit it", I meant you can change or add to the information stored in the jpeg. This can be done photo- by- photo, or, say to change the photographer's name, an edit can be applied to a whole batch of photos.)
You can use ExIFier as your file management program, if for some reason you don't like the alternatives.
Although I haven't tried it, another program to manipulate digital photos I would try if I wasn't already a happy user of the "pro" version of PhotoPlus, is called "GIMP" (GNU Image Manipulation Program).
Another free tool I haven't (yet!) tried, but which I suspect is excellent is JAlbum. You'll need to have a Java "engine" installed on your machine... but you're going to need it for something else before long, anyway, if you haven't got one already. JAlbum is for organizing presentations of images.... photo albums, in other words. (See also "Irfan" and "Picasa" above, under Image Managers.)
====
Other Photographic Tools....
Although I haven't tested them, a magazine I trust recommended the following sites for effects plug-ins. Some are stand-alone programs, others are plug-ins. Some of those will only work with specific graphics packages, but the portability issues are tending to diminish. Be sure to obtain the Windows or Mac version, as appropriate for you. One of the following said that Irfan (see Image management, above) can accept Photoshop compatible plug-ins.
Places to try: Amphisoft, or The Plug-in Site (many, many links... with some editorial commentary. Harry's Filters were commended in another magazine I read.), or Flaming Pear (there are quite a few non-plug-in, standalone image tweaking tools here), or Ulead's site (which may require... yuck... Mr. Gate's Internet Explorer.), or Virtual Photographer (magazine explicitly says this works with many photo programs, including PhotoPlus... though maybe not with the VERSION of PhotoPlus that is free? Let me know what you discover?)
If it all becomes a bit much, you might want to investigate Plug In Commander!
Still in the "recommended by trusted magazine" vein: Animake creates self-running animated GIFs. (I think Photo-Plus offers this, too. I like PhotoPlus... enough to pay for the "latest, greatest" version, so I don't spend much time with the alternatives.)
And finally: just a few names. You may find these filters at The Plug-in Site or elsewhere: Alf's filters, Dreamy Photo, Mura's Seamless Filters, Neology Filters, PT LEns (removes distortion due to wide angle lens), Xero Filterset.
Star / planet gazing: Ever seen something in the night sky, and wondered "What's that?"? You might like to try Starry Night. I was lucky enough to have a copy arrive on a magazine cover disk. You can see amazing things in the motion of the planets if you set Starry Night on "fast forward" and watch one part of the sky at the same time each night for a few weeks.
Space Flight: Perhaps this is the place to mention the quite fantastic Orbiter Space Flight Simulator. The only thing it is not is a good zap! zap! arcade game. Even if you're not into games, give the site a quick visit. The project started as an accurate simulator of orbits. Then it just sort of grew. It doesn't need a monster machine, but if yours is c. year 2000, then just turn off lots of the graphics features. Besides flying around planets, you can also fly a "spaceplane" around Cape Canaveral (Kennedy) as if the plane were a Cessna with VTOL. The scenery is so realistic that it brought back memories of a visit I made to the real Canaveral. I went to see a shuttle launch. That is a trip well worth making. Not even the Imax film really conveys what it is like. There are some good museums in the area to visit, too, while you're there.
Three-D CAD : I don't know a lot about 3-D CAD... it is a "project too far" that I look forward to doing more with... one day. On the "waiting for editorial attention" page which "feeds" this page there are quite a few 3D CAD products are discussed.
More free software....
I have done another page about free, or shareware, software for you. It covers products that I have either not had time to evaluate sufficiently, or simply haven't had time to write up properly for you. It is my "waiting for editorial attention" page for freeware, shareware.
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Be careful. Not all, "free" software is a good thing. Be sure you learn a bit about spyware before you get too adventurous with trying things from the internet. I've put together a little introduction for you.
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