"Best of Free Software"

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Mon, 06 Apr 2009 20:12:18 GMT

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Malwarebytes Anti Malware

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 20:11:42 GMT

Review Date: Continuous First Listed: Mar-2009 License: Corporate crippleware

I was introduced to MalwareBytes Anti-Malware when several computers at work were exposed to the Vundo virus. Several sites offered solutions to this annoying little bug. Only MalwareBytes actually worked and it's free.

Pluses - The program is very easy to install and use. Just download it and install it. It updates itself. Press the "Scan" button and let it go. It'll scan very file on your drive for spyware, adware and anythng esle sucking up computer cycles and internet bandwidth. Let it finish (it usually takes about an hour) and it'll offer to clean up your computer for you. what's not to like?

Minuses - The free version doesn't scan continuously, nor can you schedule scans. You have to manually launch, update and scan. The version that does this automatically will set you back some money. Still, this is a hell of a product for the price.

Website

Download

EverNote

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 20:04:12 GMT

Review Date: Continuous First Listed: Jan-2008 License: Corporate Freeware Greenware

You are exposed to more written information in the Sunday morning newspaper than William Shakepeare was exposed to in his entire lifetime. Yes, you read that right.

How do you keep track of all the necessary information you encounter during the course of your day and keep it all straight? Isn't there a way to use a computer to help with this?

The answer is "Yes".

Pluses - The Cadillac of notes programs, and it's free.
Data collection is easy. very little retyping. If you use the "capture" widget there is none at all.
The notes can be searched, you can save searches, you can access your notes online, you can put the program on a thumb drive to make it portable.

Minuses - It has lots of advanced features, which may be a drawback for someone looking for something quick and easy (Try TreePadLite instead) Also , version 3 is in Beta test, which means some of the features may not work.

Website

! Make New Tiddler

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 20:02:03 GMT

Champion!
Pluses -
Minuses -
Website

Desktop

Table Header
Left Table Cell
Center Table Cell
Right Table Cell

Spysweeper Anti Spyware

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 20:00:35 GMT

Warning! This is NOT FREE!

It's $40.

It's listed here because most of the free anti spyware removers are not good enough, and Spysweeper's license is very generous.

Website

The one exception is MalwareBytes Anti-Malware. The only problem is that the free version does not do resident scanning. you have to scan manually.

The Guide

Wed, 28 Jan 2009 22:30:00 GMT

A free form notes organizer. Very Nice.

If I needed one, I'd use it.

Website

Google Gmail

Wed, 28 Jan 2009 22:28:00 GMT

Review Date: Continuous - License: Registerware
Average Rating = 10 (Of The 6 Programs I Reviewed)

Pluses - - A serious contender for dethroning Microsoft, Google web services are providing so much totally cool free stuff, it's hard not to like. Calendar is sharable, email uses a tagging system instead of folders which make email a lot easier to find. Email is sorted by conversation. Contacts are updated automatically as you receive email.
Google widgets allow you to plug Google content into any web page. The calendar makes appointments for you from plain text input, for example

"Lunch with Margie tomorrow aft at 2" comes out as
"Lunch with Margie"
Date and time: {the next day} 2:00pm

Google mobile is an outstanding way to create and view appointments from your cell phone.

Minuses - I've had problems getting Gmail to recognize a date in an email, which it is supposed to do. A friend of mine is less than impressed with the fact that you can not filter contacts in the contacts list. Google also just added Tasks, and they are not integrated into Gmail at all.

Conclusion - not fancy, but it sure works.

Gmail Mail

Google Docs and Spreadsheets

Wed, 28 Jan 2009 22:23:00 GMT

Replacement for Word, Excel, PowerPoint,

Review Date: Continuous License: FOSS
Average Rating = 7.0

From Google.com, the people who gave you more tools online than you know what to do with, bring you Google Docs and Spreadsheets.

Pluses - - Free for the sign-up and very quick, Google Docs supports both OpenOffice and Microsoft file types. You can share and collaborate with other users on the web, and they don't even need to be signed up with Google. The spreadsheet option allows you to publish a spreadsheet as a form, that people can fill out and thus, populate the spreadsheet for you.

Minuses - Advanced tools and options aren't really available here. No mail merge in Docs, no advanced scenarios in Spreadsheet. The Spreadsheet options are pretty clunky to get to as well.

Conclusion - worth signing up for in case you need it.

Google Docs Home

OpenOffice.Org and variants

Wed, 28 Jan 2009 22:13:00 GMT

Champion! Replacement for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Publisher, Access

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Review Date: Continuous First Listed: Nov-2003 License: FOSS
Average Rating = 10.0! (Of The 4 Programs I Reviewed)

Now in version 3.0 - OpenOffice.org contains a word-processor, spreadsheet, presentation maker publisher and database maker. OpenOffice comes with the features you would expect in a high-end office suite: create and apply styles on the fly, automatic word correction, mail merge, bullets and numbering, graphic support, macro record, full read and write of Microsoft formatted documents. OpenOffice happily coexists with MS Office on the same computer. Install it on every computer, and then install Microsoft Office only where MS Office functions are absolutely needed.

Pluses - - The menus are practically clones of MS products, yet it beats Microsoft in several ways - OpenOffice has a "create PDF" option, better data source support including a pre-built bibliography database for students, better template and master document support than MS Office, auto-complete to save repetitive typing. The PowerPoint clone will publish a presentation in Micromedia Flash. Paid support is available, or join thousands of OpenOffice enthusiasts in the "forums."

Minuses - It can be slow to launch. Google search for "Speed-up OpenOffice" for the fix. There is no groupware, calendar and organizer equivalent like Outlook (see the Outlook page for options here).

While it does a good job with regular Microsoft products, it can't handle password protected documents. It also can't handle documents with comments (it doesn't see them).

Links to OpenOffice Branches

The Basic OpenOffice Website

The Professional OxygenOffce Pro Has all the nice graphics and add-ins, but it can take for-bloomin'-ever to download and unpack, even on a fast connection.

The Simplified Lotus Symphony with boodles of templates , but no database maker.

The Best Go-OO Nice presentation and some of the basic bugs to OpenOffice are fixed.

Getting Help

John Haller's No-Install Version

See also: The Recipe - OpenOffice Speed and Compatibility Tweaks on the Recipes page.

Sidekick 98

Wed, 28 Jan 2009 22:12:00 GMT

Review Date: Dec-2003 - License: Abandoned Commercial Software (Abandonware)
Average Rating = 6.0 (Of The 9 Programs I Reviewed)

Sidekick-98 was abandoned almost four years ago, and it still has a loyal following today.

Pluses - - It imports and exports Microsoft Office files pretty easily, and the Wizard is great. It also has the ability to generate HTML pages of contacts and appointments for upload or sharing, which is terrific.

Minuses - Like the title says "98" it's abandoned. Star Fish Software is out of business. There are no more updates available, and no company support. It also needs to be Y2K patched before using. The patch and update instructions are at the site below (see sub pages for more options).

Visit Website

Thinkfree Office On-line

Wed, 28 Jan 2009 22:10:00 GMT

First Reviewed: Oct 2006 - License: Liteware, Registerware, Webware
Average Rating = 7 (Of The 4 Programs I Reviewed)

You have a Word processor. ~`Excel-ish spreadsheet, and PowerPoint-ish presenter. Think of it as Microsoft Office "Lite" if it actually had a light version.

Pluses - - All the most essential features are there and exactly where you remember them to be. An added feature is the ability to share documents direct from the website - a poor person's SharePoint.

Minuses - Drawbacks include glacial page load times, and some of the spiffier MS Office tools are missing. Sharing is only available with other Thinkfree users.

You can purchase a locally launched version, which includes all three apps, for $50. This is a serious possibility for people who MUST have compatibility with Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint , but don't want to make the inve$tment in Micro$oft $software licen$ing.

Website

TreeDBnotes

Fri, 12 Sep 2008 02:12:00 GMT

Free form notes organizer.

Website

Total Text Container

Fri, 12 Sep 2008 02:06:00 GMT

Nice Notes program, portable. Has specialized notes for Calendar, contact and to do.

Not recommended because it occasionally crashes. Confusing set of features

Website: here

Foxmail

Fri, 12 Sep 2008 02:02:00 GMT

Pluses - - Foxmail totally spoils you rotten; easy to use interface. remote mail preview so you can see your mail before downloading it. It imports and exports most email types. The address book can be synchronized, and supports LDAP. It's also got powerful spam filtering.

Minuses - It only supports POP3 and and a Hotmail proxy. There are no add-ons. It's basic email - done very well, granted, but still basic email.

Download

Welcome

Fri, 12 Sep 2008 00:56:00 GMT

Welcome to the best of business and productivity free software, and the documents to help you use them.

New! Sign up for the newsletter. I talk about free and open software, "green tech" and bridging the information gap (with some interest in cool geek toys too).

"Digg This page

Subscribe to RSS

Site Navigation - a very short guide on how to use this site's features.

Other Pages of Note - background info I didn't know anywhere else to put.

The Rating System

ZohoCreator

Fri, 12 Sep 2008 00:55:00 GMT

It's a database rapid developer - online -

No longer free

Pluses - - Microsoft Access no more, Filemaker Pro for free. Copy one of the pre-done templates, make some changes, share it, and off you go: an on-line database that you built that is customized to your needs.

Minuses - It's still in beta, which means it crashes occasionally; again, very slow page load times; and a limited number of design options.

Website

Xobni Inbox for Outlook

Wed, 07 May 2008 15:42:00 GMT

Xobni Inbox for Outlook - Review
By: Paul O'Mara
4/7/2008

(Ed. note: "Xobni" is "Inbox" spelled backward)

Xobni is, per its website', “the Outlook plug-in that helps you organize your flooded inbox.” It’s basically what Outlook should be. It appears as a sidebar next to Outlook and shows past conversations and attachments, also automatically pulling contact information from signatures. For whatever message you have selected in your Inbox, in the sidebar will appear that person/organization’s contact info, when throughout the day they’ve email you (shown graphically), how many messages you’ve sent them and they’ve sent you, who else they’re connected to among people who email you (it’s kind of a social network in this way), a list of your recent conversations, and a list of all the files you’ve exchanged with them. The last three things are in scroll-downs, which is how Xobni’s able to cram all this information into its sidebar. All these things listed are clickable, of course: clicking on a conversation listed makes that conversation appear in the sidebar, clicking on any file listed opens up that file, and so on.

Obviously, those obsessive about their email usage (volume, patterns, etc.) will be able to go nuts with Xobni. It also adds a Xobni menu on your Outlook top-menu between Actions and Help. From here you can tweak its settings and also run Xobni Analytics, which gives even more stats about your email usage: today’s summary, mail traffic, response times, unique contacts, and so on. Almost everything is available in graphical format by day, week, month, year, hourly average, daily average, and monthly average. You can even graph specific date ranges, or limit to just incoming or outgoing messages. Whatever you wanna know about your Outlook usage, it can tell you.

By far the best feature of Xobni, though, is that it also indexes all your messages to give quick search results when you need to find something in your email. Like the search boxes in Mac OS X and Windows Vista (among other things), results start showing up as you type in the box. This alone makes it worth it, since searching in Outlook is normally really slow and difficult to do across many different archives. Similar to how the web-based email programs have become, searching is so fast and accurate that it makes the practice of filing in folders kind of unnecessary. Instead of knowing where a message is via the use of folders, you know you can always just find it via search.

Even though it’s in beta, everything in Xobni has always worked. The only negative I’ve encountered so far is it makes startup of Outlook a little slow. But once it’s launched it’s quick as can be, so it’s only a minor annoyance.

24th Entry building a new computer

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 16:47:00 GMT

I just built a new computer out of parts from TigerDirect

The good news: it was cheap. The bad news: the motherboard didn't come with any of the drivers and I spent about three hours figuring out what hardware I actually had.

Couple of tools that I stumbled on were quite helpful in my quest:

The first was PC-wizard
PC-wizard http://pc-wizard-2008.en.softonic.com/
It basically tells you everything you need to know about your computer and the devices installed or attached to it, including brand name and model.

From here, I found out that the Ethernet card was an Intel, and I had the model number. I used that to get the network card drivers, and, hey presto! I was on the internet.

PC-wizard also told me that the Motherboard was HP - this lead me to HP's site. Under the Support" link I could use the "Detect My hardware" and got the motherboard, and all drivers for the chips on it. Most major manufacturers have this function on their site.

Installed all of them. I then went to Control Panel, System, and went into Hardware manager and "Uninstalled" anything with a yellow "!" Reboot the computer, and it all installed,

Except for the sound card. HP only had Vista drivers and they didn't work on XP.

Rats!

OK - quick search on http://groups.google.com.
I put in the name of the computer that my Motherboard came from, and entered "Windows XP" and "sound card drivers". Sure enough, a bunch of people had this problem and posted a website I could go to for the drivers I needed.

Bingo! had the chip drivers, and the sound card worked.

Lessons learned: 1: When you buy electronics from a discount shop, read the fine print and assume the "worst case" about what comes with it. I'd have paid extra for the drivers disk.

2: Setup requires a little detective work and a lot of patience. It's a fair bet that someone had the same problem that you're having, and searching on Google to research an answer is usually worth the time it takes.

EasyCapture Screen Capture

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 15:58:00 GMT

Reviewed: Oct 2007
Overall Rating: 9

Quote from the website:
'EasyCapture is a powerful, flexible and easy-to-use free screen capture software. It allows you to capture anything on the screen including windows, objects, full screen, rectangle-selected regions, fix size regions, and scrolling windows/web pages. It also allow you to edit captured image and add annotate.

Pluses - Nice interface. Anyone who has worked with any type of picture editor is going to be at home here. Add pointers, callouts and text boxes.

Minuses - Couldn't find any. No portable version like Gadwin.

Website: http://www.xydownload.com/easycapture/

PDF Reader: Fox-It PDF Reader

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 15:58:00 GMT

Champion! Review Date: Jul-2005

Average Rating = 3.0 (Of The 3 Programs Reviewed)

Minuses - Only available as a 60 day trial.

Visit Website