"The computer is a moron." - Peter Drucker (Software tips and advice)

Member Name: ILoveJackDaniels

Product:	Software tips and advice
Date:	04/11/02 (714 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Better use of your computer, Better security

Disadvantages: Hopefully, none

Ahhh, technophobia. It's a wonderful thing, really. It makes my life much easier than it could be. You see, I'm a web designer. Now, while that might sound like a job that entails little technical support, for many of my clients I am the only person they know who knows their way around a PC. So if they go deleting their registry, who is their first phone call to? Yours truly, of course. It's amazing listening to so many competent, intelligent people who have been taken to the brink of insanity by a little box that sits by their desk that they use every day.

Computers are great. It's surprisingly difficult designing websites without them, and you only need to spend a little time using them to see just how useful they can be. Sadly though, most people fail to make use of the infernal grey box, afraid it will not take kindly to their inexpert probings and will react badly, erasing that book you've been working on and emailing the contents of your porn directory to your new boss.

This fear is not without basis - computers are complicated machines, and there are many things you should not mess with unless you know what you are doing. Many is the time I've had to deal with a client who had in their defense only something like this to say: "But I wanted to tidy up my hard disk, and I only deleted the windows directory - what can that do?".

Now that I've scared you into a quivering heap, let's move on. Just because computers are complicated, doesn't mean you shouldn't do *anything* to them - it just means that you should not play with parts of it you don't understand. Don't fiddle with system files, and you'll be just peachy. There's plenty you can do, though, without needing to go playing with parts you hav no business playing with, and that's what this (hideously long) guide is for. It is a collection of pieces of software that you can use, most of which are
very cheap or free, to make your computing experience a better one.

There is a great deal of bias against Microsoft here, but I don't want to start on the reasons behind it. There is a rather good article at http://www.euronet.nl/users/frankvw/IhateMS.html which gives a fairly good account of just how bad they are for computing in general, and when you have a spare few hours, I suggest you read it. There are, however, a good number of alternatives to Microsoft software below.

The software below is also divided into two sections. The first is general software that everyone should have, and the second is more specific to web designers, amateur or professional. Finally, all of this software is software that I use regularly, on a reasonably fast machine (1Ghz), with a reasonable amount of RAM (256Mb) and Windows 2000 Professional. Just so you know - most of these programs also have minimum specifications on their websites too, so you can check whether your PC can handle them.



General Software


+++ Windows

Windows is the bane of computing. Now, don't get me wrong - it's the program that made computers accessible to the average person, but any program that crashes so often that people start to think it's normal for a computer to crash can't be a good thing. Still, it is improving slowly. If you are brave enough, I suggest you try Linux as an alternative to Windows, but if not, I suggest you use Windows 2000. It is the most stable and secure version of Windows yet.

For those people using more advanced versions of Windows, there are basic steps you should take to ensure security - make you you change the default administrator password in Windows 2000, for example, or anybody can access your computer, whether or not you have a firewall.

It is important to keep Windows up to date as well. Service Packs and Critical Updates are extremely important, as they will en
sure that your PC stays secure, above all. http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/ is the official Microsoft Windows update site, and will determine automatically if you are up to date with your version of Windows. Of course, it only works with Internet Explorer, because if you use Opera or Navigator, Microsoft hates you.


+++ ZoneAlarm - www.zonelabs.com/

ZoneAlarm is extremely important. You must have a firewall installed on your PC, especially if you have a broadband connection. A firewall is a program (or sometimes a piece of hardware) that stops unwanted people or programs accessing your computer remotely. ZoneAlarm just sits in your system tray and handles this for you - no bother. You can run it for free or cough up $50 for the pro version, which includes support. Personally, I stick with the free version, which does all I need it to.


+++ Ad-Aware - www.lavasoft.de/

If you haven't heard of spyware, you must have been hiding under a virtual rock, because it is the hot topic of this year so far. Spyware is software that sits on your pc and watches what you do. Some is bad, some isn't, but whichever way you look at it, you can live without it. Ad-Aware is a free program that you should run around once a month to clear out any little bugs you may have picked up while surfing that month.


+++ Norton - www.symantec.com/nav/nav_9xnt/

Norton is an anti-virus program. Everyone has their favourite, and everyone swears by a different program. I will say this - there are a very limited number of *good* virus protection programs. Check reviews of a virus protector before you buy it, and make sure it has real time scanning, and email scanning. If it doesn't have these, forget it. I would heartily recommend Norton, McAfee or Pc-cillin. A great online scanner can be found at http://housecall.trendmicro.com/housecall/start_co rp.asp - which is free as well. Always a bonus.


>+++ Trillian - www.trillian.cc/

Most people these days use an instant messaging program like MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, ICQ, AIM or IRC. Most people use 2 or 3 of these, and have all of these programs running at once, all the time. Trillian allows you to use all five networks in one program, as though they were all the same program. And will not slow down your PC nearly as much as having 2 or 3 seperate programs at once. It is also skinnable, meaning you can download a little file that makes trillian look much cooler than the default, and could even match your shoes.


+++ Winamp - www.winamp.com/

Winamp is skinnable as well (see above), and plays your music files for you, be they MP3s or a CD. It's the most popular MP3 player on the planet, and for good reason - it rocks. Nuff said.


+++ 602Pro PC Suite - www.software602.com/ or OpenOffice.org - www.openoffice.org/

Ahhh, Microsoft Office. Pure evil. Seriously. Do you know why you need to keep updating Microsoft Office? Microsoft keep changing the file formats to force you to, so they get more money. It's that simple. It's a bloated, slow, rubbish Office suite. Fortunately there are alternatives!

Both of these programs contain all the basics of an office package - word processing, databases and more. Neither have an annoying paperclip. Both are also free. Yup, free. They can read Microsoft file formats as wel, so any documents you already have in Word can be transferred over easily. I prefer 602Pro to OpenOffice.org, personally, as I find it faster, with the emphasis on functionality rather than loads of options. Both are very capable programs though, and well worth exploring further.


+++ Munite - www.munite.com/

Everyone knows Outlook Express, and that's one of two major problems with the program. Virus writers know just how many people use OE, and OE is so full of security holes that it is easy
for people to write viruses to infiltrate machines, knowing that the sheer volume of OE users will perpetuate the spread of viruses around the world. You may not be aware that (theoretically, though nobody has written a virus to take advantage of this yet) you don't even have to read a message in Outlook Express to get a virus - downloading it from a server is enough.

The other, less major, problem is that Microsoft do not want you to change from their software. They want you to upgrade to Outlook as soon as possible, so they get more money. Which means that they make it as difficult as possible to change to another email client.

Munite, though, is a serious breath of fresh air. It is very cheap ($30), and as so few people use it, and it is so secure, it is virtually immune to viruses. It will allow you to import all of your messages from Outlook Express (or Eudora, PocoMail - whatever you are currently using), so is nice and easy to set up. It is a little customisable too, allowing you to change a few colours.

Its best feature, though, by a very very long way, is the ability to have message threaded. That means that when an email arrives, it goes in your inbox (or whatever folder you choose). When you reply, your reply goes just under the original message. When that person replies to your reply, their message goes under your reply - so you can literally just browse email conversations! It is a truly innovative feature, and worth the $30 alone, let alone the security benfits. The search feature rocks too, by the way :)


+++ Opera - www.opera.com/

Internet Explorer ... what fun. I really could go on and on about IE, and the good and bad it has done the internet. It is a slow program though, and insecure, and that alone is reason anough to seek an alternative. Opera rocks - it is extremely fast, can be used free (or you can pay a small fee to have an ad removed), and extremely capable. It also block
s popups by default, and is skinnable. Keep a copy of IE on your machine though - some sites (most notably Microsoft run ones) do not work well with Opera, and occasionally you will need to bring the behemoth out of retirement. For day to day surfing though, it makes a world of difference, and the speed at which it runs cannot be described - you just have to try it.


+++ Right Start Menu - www.backtec.com/free.htm

I use a whole load of programs all the time, and access various hard drives on my PC and my network, as well as many folders very regularly. I like to keep things organised, and Right Start Menu is a smal freeware program that places a little icon in my system tray. When I click the icon, a list I have created of my most frequently used programs, drives and folders comes up. It is a great little utility, and saves me hunting through my start menu or hard drives every time I need to find something. You can change the icon it uses, too, which is good, because the default one is rubbish.


+++ Cookiewall and Pow! - www.analogx.com

AnalogX software is essential if you want to continue to run Internet Explorer. Both of these programs are freeware too. Cookiewall, well, allows you to choose whether or not you want to accept a cookie. And Pow! is a popup-killer - IE is hell to use without it. Both sit in the system tray and run without clogging up your computer. Both are also very easy to use, literrally being just point and click pieces of software with very little to learn.


+++ Webtime - www.gregorybraun.com/

Lastly for this section is webtime - a tiny tiny application that will check your PC clock has the right time whenever you ask it to. Simple, really, and a very cool little gadget.



Web Design Software


+++ EditPlus2 - www.editplus.com/

EditPlus2 is essential for any web designers who use languages like PHP. It features automatic code h
ighlighting, making it much easier to read and write web applications. It's very cheap too, which is a definite advantage!


+++ 1st Page - www.evrsoft.com/

Essentially, 1st Page is the same as EditPlus2, only much better code highlighting for HTML. I use both this and EditPlus2 for different tasks, and find both help my eyes to survive a day - gone are the says of squinting at 2000 lines of black and white code in Notepad. 1st Page is freeware.


+++ XaraX - www.xara.com/

It's amazing just how many people honestly believe that Photoshop is the only piece of software a web designer could use for graphics. What rubbish, there's always a choice. Xara started out as a Corel product, and is now seperate from them. It is a vector graphics program that interfaces with things like Flash and Dreamweaver, making web graphics a piece of cake to create in seconds, and then manipulate in Flash, if you want. All rounf, you wil find it very hard to find a better graphics program than this, though it is not all tht cheap. $149 will get you a brand spanking new copy of this program - and it is well worth it.


+++ Capture - www.analogx.com/

Another AnalogX program, Capture sits in your system tray and takes snapshots of the screen whenever you hit a shortcut button that you assign it. It is a useful little program to have, in case you should ever need to take screenshots. Free, of course, as well.


+++ SmartFTP - www.smartftp.com/

SmartFTP is the best FTP client available on the web today, and is another piece of freeware. It is an invaluable, reliable program that puts other FTP clients to shame. If you spend all day transferring files to and from the web, you will find this program makes the whole process very very easy. It has a nice, intuitive interface, and plenty of customisable options, as well as the ability to bookmark ftp sites for future use.



>I hope these programs prove useful to you. As I said at the very start, I use them all, all the time, and would not be without them. With any luck, I have inspired you to do a little more with your grey box than just sit on the Microsoft bandwagon. If you try and of these programs, please do let me know how it goes!

Finally, good luck!

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