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tech: Favourite Freebies
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Subject: Favourite Freebies From: nutty Date: 25 Jun 04 - 02:43 AM There are some great free programs on the internet at present that it seems a shame that we don't have a thread that includes the best of the bunch. These are my favourites .......... Zone Alarm (firewall) some people have problems with this programme but I have always found it very efficient. http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/catalog/products/sku_list_za.jsp AVG Anti-Virus System http://www.grisoft.com/us/us_updt7.php Mailwasher .... deals with spam e-mails before they are downloaded onto your computer. http://www.mailwasher.net/ Isobuster .... helps you to access data fron CD'S and DVD'S that would otherwise be lost. It recovered precious files for me from a corrupt back-up CD. http://www.smart-projects.net/isobuster/ Have you a favourite that you would like to add to the list ? |
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Subject: RE: tech: Favourite Freebies From: Mr Red Date: 25 Jun 04 - 04:21 PM Fileview & API Guide - well you did say techie |
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Subject: RE: tech: Favourite Freebies From: Clinton Hammond Date: 25 Jun 04 - 04:25 PM Most software is available free on the internet if you know where and how to find it... |
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Subject: RE: tech: Favourite Freebies From: nutty Date: 25 Jun 04 - 05:34 PM I know that, Clinton ..... I'm asking if you have a favourite that you use which could be useful to others. I could also have listed ........ Ad aware Spybot Noteworthy Composer ...... all free programs which I use but I hoped that others (like yourself) might make this into a really useful thread |
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Subject: RE: tech: Favourite Freebies From: Richard Bridge Date: 26 Jun 04 - 02:46 AM I hate Zonealarm - bloatware that really slows your computer down - try Agnitum Outpost Personal Edition (the free one, not the paid for one) or Tiny Personal firewall (again the free one not the paid for one). I also hate AVG and AntiVir - the detection rates are low and the update procedures inconvenient. Try Avast, which runs like a rabbit, seems to "heal" where others will not, and autoupdates while you are on the net. Not that I'm a real expert, just still on a learning curve. |
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Subject: RE: tech: Favourite Freebies From: GUEST,Sorch Date: 26 Jun 04 - 10:43 AM Try Avast! (free). Seems to work better than Norton or McAfee for me. |
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Subject: RE: tech: Favourite Freebies From: John MacKenzie Date: 26 Jun 04 - 11:46 AM I just got rid of a speed up your downloads programme,[Can't remember the name] as it started sending pop ups on log in, and I don't like a programme that you give permission to access the web for one reason, using that permission to send you something you don't want. So they're yesterdays news. Giok |
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Subject: RE: tech: Favourite Freebies From: Richard Bridge Date: 26 Jun 04 - 12:21 PM That would probably have been GoZilla. The issue may be that apart from the adware and spyware reported to be in it (I have no adverse experience of it) it seems to work better (ie give shorter download times) than the others I have tried, namely GetRight, Donwload Accelerator, and Download Express. |
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Subject: RE: tech: Favourite Freebies From: Bill D Date: 26 Jun 04 - 12:30 PM oh, my...I have dozens of worthwhile freeware programs, some of which I have posted at various times. I will try to think about which ones would be of most use in this 'general' thread. I DO use AVG anti-virus and have for several years..it also auto-updates if you set it to do so....Avast may be fine, I just have seen no need to change. Giok mentioned download programs (or a way to speed them up) There are 3 programs I trust for downloading ..(files, images MP3s...whatever) StarDownloader, DLExpert, and Net Transport .I moved between Star (which has a paid mode, but still makes the free version available) and DLE for awhile, finally mostly settling on DLE...but then Net Transport came along, and I think I may be hooked. If you USE a download manager, or might...try them all...it just might be you like the 'feel' of one over another. ---------------------------------------------------------------- for image viewing and 'moderate' editing, there are MANY choices, but the two that get the highest marks are Irfanview and XNview. Both do a fine job of displaying almost any type of image you can possibly imagine, and converting between many of them...run slideshows, edit for color & contrast...etc... ok...I'll do more later.. |
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Subject: RE: tech: Favourite Freebies From: Bill D Date: 26 Jun 04 - 12:35 PM Go!Zilla, I 'believe' had a paid mode with no ads or spyware, but unless you are VERY picky, the others mentioned will do just as well for most things |
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Subject: RE: tech: Favourite Freebies From: Bill D Date: 26 Jun 04 - 12:45 PM one more while I'm at it... here is a spelling checker that will monitor your typing as you type and signal you if it sees a problem. You can add words and spellings it doesn't know..(Mudcat is 'approved' by me, so I get no warning ding)...you can have it suggest alternates, insert them...or turn if off altogether for some operations. It just works.... |
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Subject: RE: tech: Favourite Freebies From: mack/misophist Date: 26 Jun 04 - 04:09 PM If you switch to linux, there are dozens of free programs available. And anti-virus of spy-ware removers are un-necessary, so you can't even buy them. |
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Subject: RE: tech: Favourite Freebies From: Bill D Date: 26 Jun 04 - 04:52 PM agreed, mack...if I get rich, I will have a partitioned HD with Linux installed for 'most' operations...right now there are toys that I love that are written for Windoze only, so I won't give up totally. Besides..if everyone switched to Mac or Linux, you KNOW that many of the EVIL ONES would start learning to write mal-ware for those systems(mostly worms, not viruses)...they are not immune, there are just largely ignored. Still, it would be 'better' |
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Subject: RE: tech: Favourite Freebies From: Mark Clark Date: 26 Jun 04 - 05:17 PM For the computer savy, it's hard to beat SourceForge as software resource. There are thousands of projects all catagorized and searchable without any malware, spyware or adware. The software listed is some of the best quality you'll find anywhere. Perhaps the very best image manipulation program available anywhere is called The GIMP for GNU Image Manipulation Program. If you're a Web developer, you really need to check out HTML-Kit. It's a great Web development environemt with full editing, preview and verification. It will automatically ftp to your hosting environment and let you easily manage projects. Together with The GIMP, it's really about the only tool a Web developer needs. I use a lot of open-source solutions but I do donate to the effort if I find the solution useful and I don't use warez or otherwise cheat developers out of their legitimate fees. I'll look around a see if any of the other tools I use might interest folks here. - Mark |
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Subject: RE: tech: Favourite Freebies From: Mark Clark Date: 26 Jun 04 - 06:55 PM Before you partition your hard disk and install Linux, you should really try Cygwin. If you aren't building your own network, Cygwin will give the desktop user everything normally found in GNU/Linux and there is no need to reboot.
Here are some others people might like.
- Mark
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Subject: RE: tech: Favourite Freebies From: Mark Clark Date: 26 Jun 04 - 10:27 PM I checked up on the Avast antivirus program and found some bad news. Clean Computing has downgraded their rating for Avast based on it failing tests under Windows XP. The tests were performed by Virus Bulletin. I'm sure the developers will get the problems fixed but until it's been retested, I'd avoid Avast if you use Windows XP. - Mark |
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Subject: RE: tech: Favourite Freebies From: John in Brisbane Date: 27 Jun 04 - 01:06 AM My first port of call for non-music software is always http://www.freebyte.com/ Click Here It has good links to hundreds of programs and utilities, nicely classified into Anti virus, Office Suites, Free Operating Systems etc, and with enough descriptive detail to help you discriminate between choices. Where shareware is listed it is clearly labelled. For music programs I increasingly use ABC Notation. There's a great search engine at http://www.musicaviva.com/abc/abcapp/index.tpl Click Here. You may also note that the ABC Homepage has moved here. Regards, John |
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Subject: RE: tech: Favourite Freebies From: GUEST,.gargoyle Date: 27 Jun 04 - 01:12 AM KazaaLite - If you don't find Access2000 or Buryl Ives or "Dangerous Dan McGrew".....keep trying it will probably be there tomorrow.
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Subject: RE: tech: Favourite Freebies From: Richard Bridge Date: 27 Jun 04 - 03:22 AM I thought I read that Kazaa had done something to their full spyware version that meant that KazaaLite users were blocked from accessing files maintained by full Kazaa users, no? |
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Subject: RE: tech: Favourite Freebies From: treewind Date: 27 Jun 04 - 10:18 AM Everything on my computer is free (legally) but if you insist on proprietary operating systems there are some good free apps from the open source world that also run on Windows - my favorites are Audacity sound editor Open Office complete office suite The GIMPGNU Image manipulation program - a great graphics editor Anahata |
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Subject: RE: tech: Favourite Freebies From: nutty Date: 27 Jun 04 - 10:56 AM Thanks ....that's what I wanted ... I should also have mentioned MWSnap3 which is invaluble when putting together the booklets for the workshops I run. The program allows you to grab bits of the screen including dropdown menus. MWSnap3 |
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Subject: RE: tech: Favourite Freebies From: Bill D Date: 27 Jun 04 - 11:07 AM if you really want to "browse" thru freeware, try Son of Spy. He has had his site up for years, and posts regularly in the alt.comp.freeware newsgroup. He also notes programs which used to be ok, but have been shown to contain spyware. if you REALLY, REALLY, REALLY want to explore every possible source, and you read fast and have broadband and time on your hands..*grin* go to Henk de Jong's site and follow links. He has, far & away, the most sources, and rates the sites for usefullness... have fun! |
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Subject: RE: tech: Favourite Freebies From: Bill D Date: 27 Jun 04 - 11:18 AM here is one I have set to run all the time (loads at startup) AllChars "AllChars provides a quick, easy-to-remember way of creating accents like é Ü ç î æ and special characters like ƒ ² ‰ © £ ± ß ° 1/2 ¿ « » ™ „ in most Windows programs." when I want to type ½, all I do is hit the 'ctrl' key, then 1,2 and presto! If you use it regularly, you soon remember the key combos that work, but it is 'almost' intuitive for many of them...like ctrl-e-" for ë.... |
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Subject: RE: tech: Favourite Freebies From: Mr Red Date: 27 Jun 04 - 11:20 AM Firefox browser - has multiple pains/tabs so I can have MC and MC on at the same time - it makes sense if you are waiting for the pages to complete - it is easier and faster than multiple IE's. It also is effectively Netscape |
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Subject: RE: tech: Favourite Freebies From: Bill D Date: 27 Jun 04 - 12:29 PM "...has multiple pains"...that, too.... (It really IS nice, despite having 'multiple pains', like not being a final version yet, and having its add-on extensions revised for each new iteration) |
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Subject: RE: tech: Favourite Freebies From: Bill D Date: 28 Jun 04 - 10:22 AM refresh for those who never look in here on weekends |
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Subject: RE: tech: Favourite Freebies From: GUEST,Ellenpoly Date: 01 Jul 04 - 07:02 AM Refresh!!!! Thanks for all the good tips! |
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Subject: RE: tech: Favourite Freebies From: Bill D Date: 01 Jul 04 - 04:25 PM since this is refreshed, let me add a suggestion for those who want a good word processor (that does MANY tricks), but are intimidated by the size, complexity or 'attitude' of MS Word...here is the home page of Atlantis Nova , a 'lite' version, but amazing version of Atlantis Ocean Mind. here is a shortcut to the comparison page and a link to the direct download page |
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Subject: RE: tech: Favourite Freebies From: John in Brisbane Date: 02 Jul 04 - 12:43 AM As some may know I have been providing PC's for refugees in detention centres in Australia. I typically buy PII's and the odd PIII if the price is right - each PC will have a floppy and CD Rom. The auction PC's are always stripped of all OS and software before sale and often it's a challenge to restore them to their former glory. Where possible I buy PC's that have a Win 98 licence, and equip them with: - An office suite, Word Processor, Spreadsheet and Presentation Package - A graphics viewer, I use IrfanView - Acrobat Reader - WinZip Foreign detainees are not allowed access to the Web, hence I am not concerned about firewalls etc. Their main use is educational and to date there has been no requirement for networking. Typically the support staff at detention centres don't have advanced PC skills and hence Linux is not an option - I don't think. The question is - is there other freeware available which might be of assistance for (1) educational use, or even (2) leisure use by refugees. Their nations of origin vary but are dominated by Afghanistan, Iran, Sudan and Sri Lanka. Fr'instance I recently came across a downloadable Farsi (Iranian dialect) dictionary. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. Regards, John PS I should point out that it's beyond my current means to equip them with printers,CD-R or DVD, but I will provide the odd scanner. HDD's should be 2 - 4 Gb, so software size is typically not an issue. |
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Subject: RE: tech: Favourite Freebies From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 02 Jul 04 - 01:28 AM Tweakdun allows you to tweak the net connections settings - take care you don't break things! You can also set up the IP numbers of your frequent websites in your hosts file - it also allows you to check & update them if they change. I have mentioned 'HijackThis!' in other threads. |
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Subject: RE: tech: Favourite Freebies From: Gurney Date: 02 Jul 04 - 02:09 AM There are some useful tuners free on the web, that a search will find. My favourite is no longer free, but the guitar version is, at AP (Applied Phonics). |
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Subject: RE: tech: Favourite Freebies From: Stilly River Sage Date: 09 Jul 04 - 05:12 PM Rather than start a new thread, I'll post this here for now. The Mudcat search feature isn't working this afternoon, so I'll search on Mozilla later and repost it: Mozilla browser said to have hacker risk London, England, Jul. 9 (UPI) -- A popular browser for Windows is subject to a security hole for hackers, British researchers say, but this time it's not Internet Explorer. The vulnerability involves Mozilla and Firefox browsers in this case, the Register reported Friday. The flaw is said to affect Mozilla and Firefox on Windows XP or Windows 2000 only. Security firm Secunia rates the problem as "moderately critical." Security researchers discovered users could be attacked by hackers using a bug in how Mozilla and Firefox handle the "shell:" function in Windows. The function enables Web sites to invoke various programs associated with specific extensions. The Mozilla Foundation issued a patch Thursday that resolves the flaw by disabling the use of the shell: external protocol handler. |
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Subject: RE: tech: Favourite Freebies From: Nick Date: 09 Jul 04 - 08:18 PM Snadboy's Revelation is a clever one if you ever need to reveal some of the forgotten passwords on your machine - Snadboy |
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Subject: RE: tech: Favourite Freebies From: Bill D Date: 09 Jul 04 - 11:07 PM about tuners...here is a very nice free tuner has these features: Chromatic and Guitar mode tuning Automatic string selection Expandable tuning library Variable "A" frequencies (438Hz..445Hz) Tuning gauge Custom Windows Mixer settings (loaded upon program start and original restored when exiting) Sample Rate Calibration (Automatic or using external source) |
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Subject: RE: tech: Favourite Freebies From: GUEST,Jon Date: 10 Jul 04 - 07:52 AM Well my last download was djgpp. I had it once before but it must have been on my hard disk that blew. I don't know why but I had more joy with this than my Borland product last time I wanted to do something with either abcm2ps or abc2midi (great freebies themselves). I go along with those who like the GIMP although I only have a Linux version. There's Ghostscript of course. I use the sygate firewall which is free and prefer to Zone Alarm (I did have problems in the past with ZA interfering with Paltalk). I find myself using FTP Surfer (a free ftp client) a lot. I have had occasion to use VNC - the one I used was the other one - realvnc - it did what I wanted, to operate a Linux box with no monitor attached from a WinPC. There is probably loads more that I use on Windows and that is without considering programs like Noteworthy which is officially shareware not freeware. |
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Subject: RE: tech: Favourite Freebies From: Mark Clark Date: 10 Jul 04 - 02:25 PM Jon, Search isn't working so I can't find the reference but didn't you say you had installed Cygwin and were starting to play around with it? If you do have Cygwin then you already have the complete gcc suite of compilers including MinGW support. That means you can write or modify nearly any program you wish and create stand-alone binaries including full GUI programs that can be compiled for Windows, KDE, Gnome or any UNIX-like OS and GUI you have libraries for.The advantage of using GCC from Cygwin is that everything is always standard and up to date and you get the benefit of a large number of developers worldwide working to make it better. With Cygwin and GCC you not only get a complete GNU/Linux development environment, you can also use Dev-C++, a full-featured Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for the C/C++ programming language. It uses Mingw port of GCC (GNU Compiler Collection) as it's compiler. It can creates native Win32 executables, either console or GUI, as well as DLLs and static libraries. Dev-C++ can also be used in combination with Cygwin or any other GCC based compiler. Just trying to make your life easier. <g> - Mark |
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Subject: RE: tech: Favourite Freebies From: GUEST,Jon Date: 10 Jul 04 - 05:25 PM Thanks for the info Mark, I hadn't realised you could make a Windows binary that way. You are right that I did download Cygwin but I have yet to play with it - there have been a succession of problems here, including me not being able to sit at a PC (my back) and not being able to get online via my normal route (phone messed up). Hopefully things are settling down and we should even have ADSL broadband come 14th Jul so soon I'll start catching up on things I want to play with... and I have some folkinfo fixes/improvements to do... Also, in the middle of this, with luck my new 5 string bass will come - really looking forward to that - never owned a bass before but on the odd dabble have found I get started quite easily. |
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Subject: RE: tech: Favourite Freebies From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 10 Jul 04 - 08:48 PM I have a friend who is looking to play MIDI and other music files on Linux - he is using Fedora. Any suggestions for free players, with sites where they may be found? Thanks. |
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Subject: RE: tech: Favourite Freebies From: GUEST Date: 10 Jul 04 - 09:48 PM I don't know about Linux and MIDI specifically and have never used any sequencing software like Cakewalk or Cubase under Linux.- all I used was whatever default player Mandrake came with - I think the one I used was a KDE one. If notation software such as abc is on the list of interests, some of the software I mentioned above could prove useful - it's open source C stuff so even if a suitable binary could not be found, compiling with gcc is an option. You could also run skink, a java abc program. The simplest pointer for that area would be the abc home page where a lot of software choices are given. Other musical areas that may be of interest to your friend could include Lilypond and musicxml. |
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Subject: RE: tech: Favourite Freebies From: Mark Clark Date: 11 Jul 04 - 01:59 AM The best place to look for anything in the open-source category is probably SourceForge.net. Start with the Software Map button at the top of the page then select Multimedia then Sound/Audio then MIDI. Finally, where it says Search within current and filtered Trove categories:, enter “Linux” and there will be a list of related software with links to the home pages. - Mark |
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