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Software tips and advice |
| Date: |
07/08/01 (551 review reads) |
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Advantages: Free..., ...well, mostly
Disadvantages: May not have all the bells...
So you've bought your computer and it has all the basic essentials right?
Wrong.
Yes, it has an operating system, probably some version of Windows or other.
OK, it has probably come with some basic software, usually Microsoft again, something like Microsoft Works. You may even be lucky and have Microsoft Office. So you've got a word processor, a spreadsheet, a database and maybe some presentation software.
Of course, if you don't have any of these then there is a free suite available courtesy of Sun. Called Star Office I know that there are a number of commercial organisations that have dropped Microsoft Office and converted to Star Office. I can't give any recommendations as I don't use it myself but if you want to try it for yourself you can download it from http://www.sun.com/software/star/staroffice/5.2/ge t/get.html
What more could you need? Well, you need those extra utilities that make life just that little bit easier.
First thing I do is get hold of the latest versions of my favourite gizmos. And best of all they're all free, really!
Jzip
~~~~
Everyone has heard of Winzip. It's that essential bit of software that software developers use to package their software. It compresses all of the components into a single file so that it takes up far less room and so makes it easy and quick to transmit across the Internet.
Only trouble is, Winzip isn't actually free. Yes, I know, everyone runs it but no one registers it. They just put up with the nags. But really that's software piracy.
Jzip is every bit as good and what's more it is genuinely free. It is the product of an open source development project. If you want to keep your conscience clear then this is the one for you.
Find it at http://sourceforge.net/projects/jzip/
Real Player
~~~~~~~~~~~
Yes, I know, Windows comes with Media Player. Ok, i
t's not bad. But there is a war going on between RealNetworks and Microsoft over proprietary formats and neither will licence their own formats for the other to use.
So, if you get an audio or video file in Real format, you need the Real Player. Fortunately the basic player (and that really is all you need), is free. Real Player Plus is the one that costs but you really don't need it believe me.
You can find it at http://www.real.com/player/index.html?src=010709re alhome_1
CD'n'Go
~~~~~~~
Talking of media formats, isn't it incredible how the CD format has taken over the World? For something that emerged as the record format of the future in the mid-80s, CDs are now everywhere and used for more than just music.
But the CD audio media format does take up a lot of room. Try storing a few CDs in their normal format on your PC and you soon won't have any room for anything else.
Enter MP3. Convert your CDs from their natural format (CDA) to MP3 and you'll get ten times as many in the same space. The mathematics of the algorithms they use is beyond me. I just know that it works.
First you need a piece of software to extract the music from the CD. You may want to do the whole CD or just individual tracks. The choice is yours.
CD'n'Go does just this and gives you MP3 converted copies. It comes with Gogo as the CD to MP3 conversion software.
Find it at http://www.cdngo.com/2/news/news.html
LAME and RazorLame
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
However, I prefer LAME (Lame Ain't an MP3 Encoder - oh yes it is) to Gogo. It's not as fast as Xing, which is blisteringly fast but Xing has been gobbled up by Real and it isn't free any more. What's more they seem to be doing their best to sideline it in favour of their own format.
LAME does all the things you need. It has different standards of quality, supports variable bit rate
recordings and enables you to add ID Tags.
LAME is just the encoder. RazorLame is a GUI front end for it so that if you just want to make an MP3 from a standard audio WAV file rather than from a CD, you can.
LAME is also open source just like Jzip and you find it at the same site at http://sourceforge.net/projects/lame
You can find the RazorLame GUI at http://www.dors.de/razorlame/
Cool Edit 96
~~~~~~~~~~~~
If you do want to make your own recordings then it helps to have some software to make it easier to do. Windows comes with the infamous Sound Recorder. This is a very limited piece of software and is suitable only for recording short sound-bytes. But if you want to record longer pieces of music such as copies of tracks from old vinyl (remember them - big, black and groovy) you need something better.
Cool Edit 96 come from a software company called Syntrillium. They have a number of products in their portfolio but these are not free. There is a more up-to-date version of Cool Edit as well.
Cool Edit 96 has no size restriction on the resulting WAV file generated and enables you to apply certain effects. The free version only allows you to use two of the effects at a time but I have never found a need for more. If you do, you can always save the file, restart Cool Edit, choose a different set of effects and continue the edit.
You can truncate the sound sample, chop it up into tracks and so on.
I have a collection of around 300 LPs and I am gradually transferring many to CD and MP3. Cool Edit is de facto for this job. You can no longer download this from the Syntrillium website (http://www.syntrillium.com. They now only provide Cool Edit Pro and Cool Edit 2000, which are not free. However, you can still get it at http://download.cnet.com.
IrfanView
~~~~~~~~~
Microsoft used to include image-processing software with Windows. There used to be a utility called P
hoto Editor. It wasn't really very good. However, it is no more since Windows Me. All that is now included is Wang's Imaging, mostly used for viewing electronic faxes but of very little use for anything else. You can't even use it to convert images to Jpeg format.
I'm sure everyone has heard of Paint Shop Pro. It is the de facto standard for image processing, although by no means the only offering on the market. However it and all of its competitors carry a hefty price tag. Except IrfanView. IrfanView is free.
OK, it probably doesn't have all the bells and whistles of the commercial offerings but it sure has everything I need. Mostly I use it to resize and crop pictures and to convert them from one format to another, usually bitmap (BMP) to Jpeg (JPG). You can, however, also apply several effects such as Blur, Oil Paint, Edge Detection and so on.
You can find it at http://www.irfanview.com/
Acrobat Reader
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Despite Microsoft Word being the all-pervading standard for word processors and hence for document formats, it really doesn't offer a lot by way of features and ease-of-use if you want to be a bit more adventurous. There is also the problem of inter-operability.
Rich Text Format (RTF) has become a bit of a solution to inter-operability but its use is not widespread.
Adobe has its own proprietary format - Portable Document Format (PDF) that does address all of these issues. However, at this time it is mostly commercial organisations that are producing their documents to this standard. That is certainly true in my own company.
There is no free software to create these documents but for most people you only need to read them. For this, Adobe Acrobat Reader is available and it is free. You can get it at http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep.htm l
Screen Saver Control
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Nowadays screen savers have move
d a long way from their original purpose. Long ago monitor screens were very susceptible to burn-in where the same data appeared in exactly the same position on the screen for days or weeks at a time, so leaving a ghostly image on the screen, even after it had been switched off. This was especially true when people ran MSDOS.
Since the introduction of graphical operating systems like Windows, where information typically does not appear in the same place every time, the need has disappeared.
But we still use them! What's yours? A parade of Page Three lovelies? Photos of your kids at play? Mine is the United Devices' "Search for a Cure for Cancer". It runs in the background and pops up as the screen saver after the specified time.
But there are times when it simply inconvenient for this to happen. In my case it is usually when I am doing a Powerpoint presentation to customers. How to switch it off quickly and easily? With Screen Saver Control.
It sits in the System Tray in the bottom right-hand corner of your screen. One click switches the screen saver function off; double-click launches the screen saver immediately.
I use the screen saver as a security feature, to prevent my machine being used whilst I am away from it but having left it switched on.
You can get Screen Saver Control at http://www.interserver.com.ar/host/icardoth
Wprinter Lite
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If, like me, you have a large number of printers that you can use, you need to be able to easily specify the preferred printer for applications whenever it changes, such as when you are working at a different location.
Wprinter Lite sits in the System Tray and with a simple right-click on the icon, lists all of your defined printers. A click on any one in the list makes it instantly the preferred printer.
You can also access the printer settings for the current printer.
As with many s
oftware utilities, there is also a "Pro" version, for which there is a charge. However, I have never needed anything more than the Lite version offers. You can download it from http://www.mindspring.com/~smish/
NetSwitcher
~~~~~~~~~~~
If you use multiple networks, as I do, the worst problem is the reconfiguration of network parameters that you need to do each time you connect. For instance, at work I log on to a WindowsNT Domain server to validate my Userid and Password. At home, on our home network, I simply need a workgroup definition.
Making sure that you can get back to any configuration easily and quickly can be a nightmare. But not with netSwitcher. Netswitcher enables you to build network profiles and to simply activate them. You may not even need to reboot your machine.
NetSwitcher is a life-saver. I wouldn't be without it. Actually, I'm cheating a bit here. You should in fact register NetSwitcher. I did. It only cost $9, a bargain at any price.
You can get it at http://www.netswitcher.com/
Laplink FTP
~~~~~~~~~~~
I have a WebPage. It isn't very good. My photo sits there. That's really why I set it up. It does list a few of my favourite sites. On of these days I will put some more work into it.
I created my WebPages with MS FrontPage. The new 2000 version is vastly better than previous. It comes as a part of Microsoft Office 2000.
Once you have created your masterpiece, how do you upload it to your website? I have tried a few File Transfer programs but Laplink FTP is the best I have tried and it's free. It comes from Travelling Software, the people who publish the Laplink Remote Working Package.
I simply don't need all the facilities that Laplink provides but, as a subset, Laplink FTP is spot on. They keep it free by enabling ads to appear on the toolbar, which is OK by me.
Visit http://www.laplinkftp.com/
Alive
~~~~~
Does your ISP drop your connection if you don't touch the keyboard for a while? Isn't that REALLY annoying? I could be in the middle of a big download/upload and bang, it's gone.
Alive fools your ISP into thinking your still there typing away. It sends regular Pings to a number of sites. This looks like activity on your machine and the connection stays up. Very simple, very effective.
Alive is at http://zesoft.com/alive/
Capture
~~~~~~~
Have you ever come across something on a WebPage that took your fancy? Have you said, I'd like a copy of that. Maybe it's a picture, maybe it's a logo.
In my case I often want copies of whole screens or a specific window but more often it's just a bit of the screen. OK, you can do it with the Print Screen key, which dumps the whole screen to the clipboard but that's usually much more than I want.
Capture gives you the ability to capture the whole screen, a single window or everything within a dragged focus rectangle. The resultant image is captured as a bitmap.
Capture was last available at http://www.nestsoft.com. However, that site seems to have disappeared. I have not been able to find somewhere else to download it but if anyone wants a copy I still have it. I will email it to you.
TweakAll
~~~~~~~~
Windows has a lot of parameters. The trouble is that they are stored all over the place. As an example, take the programs that automatically get fired off when you boot up. Often they will be installed as part of a new package. Maybe you don't really want them, but how to delete them without deleting the whole program?
I recently reinstalled LaplinkFTP. It was a new, improved version but one improvement got up my nose. It installs a Scheduler so that you can automate file transfers from your machine even when you aren't there (it has to be switched on of course!
).
Could I find where it was specified. In the end I concluded that it was in the Registry. Now, the Registry is something you don't want to muck about with unless you know what you are doing.
This is one of the facilities that TweakAll provides. RunPrograms lists ALL these programs, wherever they are defined and allows you to remove them safely.
TweakAll is located at http://www.abtons-shed.com
Other Utilities I haven't covered
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
What have I missed? Well, most obvious would be security - anti-virus software and personal firewalls.
Anti-virus software comes right at the top of my list. You didn't see it there? Ah, well, that's because I am in a difficult position to recommend a free anti-virus tool. You see, I would have recommended Computer Associate's InoculateIT Personal Edition (IPE). Problem is, it is no longer possible to get it and the replacement - eTrust EZ Armor - isn't free.
If you downloaded IPE before it was "withdrawn" then CA have said that you may continue to use it and that they will continue to provide regular virus signature updates. They are offering a special deal to upgrade to eTrust but if you want to install it from new then you have to pay. You can decide for yourself at http://www2.my-etrust.com/products/info/Armor/1
I already use InoculateIT and so will continue to do so.
As for a firewall, I don't currently use one. I suppose I should and if I was using a cable modem rather than dialling up of a normal phone line I suspect I would. I have heard glowing references for Zone Alarm. If you feel you need this sort of utility then you can investigate further at http://www.zonealarm.com/
You should also back up your machine regularly. I have lost count of the number of times I have thanked God for having taken a backup before my machine crashed, and I'm an atheist! Unfor
tunately I have been unable to find any free software to do the job. You can find plenty of free software to back up to CD but I have far to much data for that. I back up to tape and I had to buy software to enable me to use it after I migrated from Windows95 to Windows Me. Previously the tape drive came with software for the job.
So...
~~~~
I'm sure you have your favourite utilities as well. There are any number of areas I haven't touched on, simply because I don't have a need. IRQ software, Offline email programs, alternative Internet Browsers... If you feel that those that I have listed would be of use to you then be my guest. I have used them all for a long time and I can recommend them.
Good Luck.
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