Computers

From time to time people ask my advice on what software they should put on their computers. Some ask me if there are any good freeware programs out there that they could use so that they would be able to save money. Fortunately I have found a lot of good freeware software and use much of it myself. I do not use all freeware and have some expensive commercial software too, but I would like to take you all through some very nice free software that is good enough to equip any computer. It seems to me that there are certain groups of programs that are either needed on a computer or pleasant to have, so I have broken down the list to several groups.

Google supplies a great free batch of software called Google Pack. Included in it are Spyware Doctor, one of the very best anti-spyware programs. I recommend choosing this program, but not the Norton Security Scan. Instead download AVG Anti-Virus free. Between these two programs you should be protected as well as can be expected from viruses and *Trojans. If you want the fastest browser you can also download Chrome at the same time. For now, the only other program I would download from Google is the Google Toolbar for you browser.

Open Office

Personal Office:

One of the greatest free software packages on the planet is Open Office by Sun Microsystems. It contains a word processor that is almost 100 percent compatible with Microsoft Word, a database, a presentation program, a spread sheet and a drawing program. A package like this would cost you hundreds of dollars and maybe not be as good, I use it myself. There are plenty of address book programs and organizers out there that are free. I use a very simple address book called, The Address Book, Version 3.2, it lists all the names on the right and you just click on one to get the pertinent information. I was using a free checking program to keep track of checks written and bills paid, but it screwed up and caused me a lot of trouble. The same thing happened to me with Money by Microsoft, which I paid for and that had been the original reason I switched. Somehow it saved an old file and wiped out the new one. I now use a ledger for my checks, it seems safer to me.

Wordweb

**PDF files can be read by the free version of Adobe Reader. I prefer the free program PDF-Viewer which seems to be more comprehensive. A good dictionary is always handy and WordWeb is not only a great one, it is also supplies Synonyms and tons of other information for every word. It also allows you to connect to sites such as Wikipedia and Wiktionary, if you are online or have an online connection that is on. A good directory program is always handy and Xplorer2 Lite fills that bill by allowing you to do almost anything to a directory through this program. I like having different window panes open at the same time for different directories so I can see what I am doing.

Audacity

Multimedia:

Everybody loves photos and one of the greatest free photo manipulation programs is InfanView. It has been around for years and I use it a lot to prepare the photos that I put up with my articles. It is a lot simpler to use than Photoshop for just average adjustments. There is a whole package of add ons you can get when you download it and the best part is that it allows you to load all the filters from Photoshop into it. Everyone should have a painting program. While it is no Photoshop, Paint.Net is a very nice free painting program. It has the usual tools on the left that can be moved around, a nice color selection interface that can also be moved and enough menus to allow you to do most tasks. Would you like to animate some of your ***Gif pictures. UnFREEz.2.1 is a nice free program that allows you to drop pictures into a box which become frames in you animation.

InfanView

One of the really great Audio programs happens to be free, it is Audacity. You can use it to cut and paste sections of audio, record audio and much more. Along with that a freeware program called MediaJoin is very handy for splicing audio files together.

There are certain movie players that are needed and others that are handy to have. Windows Media player comes with windows, but Quicktime by Apple should be on everyone's computer. A good ****Flash movie player is always nice to have and I use Moyea FLV Player.

Tools:

Different system tools are always good to have and one of the very best free ones is DriveImageXML a backup program. It is not only a backup program, but one of the very best because it allows you to create a disk that contains the program and the essentials of Windows so you can work off the disk in an emergency to get things going again. Of course you need to own an original Windows disk. I don't really know, but I have read that Microsoft says this is illegal even though you bought the Windows disk in the first place, go figure. Anyway it is a great program. If you like the color of something on a website or photo and want to use that color in one of your creations, Color Cop will get the exact color for you, so you can copy it with an art program. Sometimes you need information about you computer and the free program Everest Home Edition fits the bill. It tells you just about everything about your setup. I have used it several time to find things out. Another handy program is Gadwin PrintScreen and it also is free. If you want to copy the screen that is on your computer monitor and save it or print it, this is the program for you.

Sometimes the uninstaller that comes with Windows just doesn't do a good enough job of uninstalling everything. You can solve this problem with a free program called Revo Uninstaller, which is much more efficient. Core FTP light is a great *****FTP program that allows you to upload or download files to the Internet, I use it to post my web pages. There are many more free tools out there, but these are the essentials.

Games:

I am not going to list freeware games, because I am not qualified since I don't play them, but there are tons of them out there on the Internet. Just be careful when downloading software from places that you know nothing about. A virus or spybot could be lurking in the software, or come down the pike with the game.

Remember that if you do not update your Windows on your computer along with the anti-virus programs and anti-spyware programs, they will become useless.

Recap:

Recapping the downloads that I have suggested, here they are in a list:

From Google Pack – Spyware Doctor
From Google – Chrome Browser
From Google – Google Search Bar for you browser
AVG anti-virus
Open Office Bundle
The Address Book
PDF-Viewer
WordWeb
Xplorer2 Lite
InfaView
Paint.Net
UnFREEz
Audacity
MediaJoin
Apple Quicktime
Moyea FLV Player
DriveImageXML
Color Cop
Everest Home Edition
Gadwin PrintScreen
Revo Uninstaller
Core FTP light

If the above software is installed on a computer, it will make a great start and truthfully a person could easily get along with just these programs. Even the computer's operating system can be run on freeware, but I have assumed that most people are running Windows XP for this exercise, since numbers show that more Windows XP computers are out there than Vista, but some of the above software also comes as Vista ready.

Just one more thing, any of the software I have listed can become commercial at any time, so if you find that a couple of these programs are now charging, that is the reason. Happy computing.

*Trojan - short for Trojan Horse. In computing this is a piece of malware that appears to be a useful piece of software while it allows access to your computer by others.
** PDF Files - PDF stands for Portable Document Format and these files can be run independent of the application software, hardware and operating system.
***Gif Picture - Gif is a picture format type.
****Flash Movie or Flash Animation - It is a movie created with Adobe Flash animation software and requires a Flash Viewer to view it
*****FTP - This stands for File Transfer Protocol and programs using it transfer and manipulate files over the Internet.