Freeware Update

Spring 2008

In the beginning there was Freeware. Geeks would sit at their computers and construct batch programs that automated repetitive tasks, little programs that provided limited but useful functionality, as well as frivolous pursuits like games. Bragging rights on a bulletin board was their goal, though the university crowd naturally wanted to enhance their credentials. Then came "professional software" hammered out by the corporate types with big bucks for those could swing the hammer, and some of the more enterprising started a movement called shareware. The True Geeks were appalled. Still they trudged on, adapted, and even excelled. But most importantly their spirit remains, and the Freeware on this page is a testament to it.

Security

Grisoft offers AVG anti-virus for home users at no cost with daily updates, and version 8 has some interesting features. Rather than waiting for you to visit a website and download a virus Grisoft now scans websites and provides an indicator whenever you do a search on Google, Yahoo, or MSN. Websites that are safe to visit receive the green icon at the start of this paragraph beside their listings. What a great idea!

Version 8 also includes an integrated Anti-Spyware program, Resident Shield which prevents the opening of infected files, and naturally an Email Scanner as well. All in all it is the most complete security suite that money can not buy. Of course they do offer a more complete package for those who are willing to spend a few bucks, but you can get the free version at C/Net.

Spam

All my spam goes to Yahoo! so I don't have a great need to filter the email that arrives in my Inbox (hint, hint). However if your direct email has been compromised there are solutions. The problem with spam filters is that any program that stands between your Inbox and the mail server at your ISP will slow things down.

Spamihilator installs a small proxy server that filters your email, and offers a few basic plug-ins which include Blacklist, and other functions. You also have the option during installation to use DCC (Distributed Checksum Clearinghouse) files to block bulk mail spammers. This will also slow things down unless you have a broadband connection, and you'll have to configure your firewall if you have one running, but usually this only requires a simple click and you're done.

Office

If you're doing a lot of cut and paste, or just want to save the information that you copy to the clipboard then you'll love Yankee Clipper III. Capable of storing 200 text items, 200 web site URLs, 20 bitmaps and 20 metafiles in its standard History Mode, YCIII also offers users the option of permanently storing all formats in Boilerplate Mode. Just right click and save to boilerplate and your clip is saved permanently.

The most common use of any office suite is the word processor, and if you don't want to add to the Gates Fortune, you should consider AbiWord. "Abby" Word originated in the Unix world but it runs great on Windows (and naturally Linux). It's attributes are a small footprint, a fairly robust feature set, and an intuitive interface. Though its toolbars will be familiar to MS Word users, the icons are larger, and just might be the thing for older adults. It readily imports and saves in the ubiquitous DOC format, as well as HTML and text formats, but it doesn't like ODT files from Open Office. But then if you have Open Office you don't need Abby.

7-Zip not provides better compression of files in it's native format than other utilities, but it also offers AES-256 encryption for ZIP archives. Just for fun I decided to crunch an 18 MB TIFF file, a format that most photographers use to preserve and print photos, and the result was a 9.85 MB file that maintained it's quality without artifacts. I'm impressed. You will be too, especially if you've been plunking down cold hard cash for WinZip.

Open Office is a complete office suite that should appeal to individual business people, students and users who don't care to spend several hundred dollars on Microsoft Office. Writer is a word processor that resembles Word Perfect in the GUI, but also offers features like the ability to save to multiple formats. In my experience the results vary, but you can always save to the doc format for Word.

The drawing program allows you to create slides which can then be used in the presentation program, and the database offers both business and personal formats. The suite also comes with a spreadsheet and a module titled Math that seems fairly intuitive. A bargain at twice the price, Open Office version 2.4 is reasonably stable and well-featured suite that deserves a serious look, even if your interest is only word processing.

Photo and Image

If you're looking for clip art to spice up a web page or a presentation, you'll find over 21,000 images to choose from at WP Clip Art. You can even download the entire image (a hefty 623 MB) database which self installs into a folder arrangement with its own viewer. But you can also browse the database online and choose what you need. Since the images are in a png format (portable network graphics), you can significantly enlarge the image without degradation.

Picasa is Google's entry for organizing photos and image files, and also offers web space to display and share your photos or artistic creations. Once installed it will catalog every image on your hard drive, and provide an Explorer type interface to view them. For casual users it provides some basic tools for editing images, and the cool thing is that any action can be reversed even after the changes have been saved. What's new is that it offers the ability to upload photos up to 20 MB.

Irfanview is a first rate image viewer and batch conversion tool that allows you to save in all standard formats and rename by your own convention. You can resize images quickly, and there's some basic editing tools as well. IV also plays movies, audio files, and makes a multi-media slideshow easy to assemble. A standard among serious photographers for several years.

Photomatix Basic 1.2 is the freeware version of the most popular High Dynamic Range (HDR) tool available. Most photographers know that even the best cameras have difficulty capturing the full range of visible light, especially in high contrast settings, and Photomatrix overcomes that problem by merging two or more photos taken at different exposures, and then tone maps the merged result. While the Pro version ($99) offers more controls the freeware version does a good job for the casual user.

JAlbum is a feature rich program for developing contact sheets, slideshows, and photo albums that can be displayed with a web browser. Place your prize photos in a folder and run JAlbum. The interface is fairly intuitive, and you can redo your project if you don't like the result. Here's a sample I put together.

JAlbum will make thumbnails of your images and display on a web page inside your new folder. You have several options, or skins, for the web pages, and since the code is written in Cascading Styles you also modify a skin to your satisfaction. You can also upload the page and files to a server on the web, or burn a CD/DVD and send it to your friends or family. You may need to update your Java Virtual Machine, but that's also for free, from Sun Microsystems.

Utilities

Have you ever deleted a file and wish you hadn't? Recuva resurrects any file that has not been overwritten. The caveat here is that Windows scatters data all over your hard drive, and there's a chance that simply firing up your browser will corrupt the file. But it never hurts to try.

When you really want to delete all those temp files, browser history, cookies, auto-complete data, and other accumulated junk, there's CCleaner. You'll know when it's finished because it has a audio file of a toilet flushing. You might want to turn down your volume, or UP depending...

Eraser is a standard for wiping a disk of deleted files that can be resurrected that you would rather never see the light of the monitor again. Download the 32 bit version for XP and the 64 bit version for XP 64 and Vista. Another highly recommended program is Active@KillDisk which sounds a lot scarier, but both programs allow you to wipe clean the free space on your hard drive, or you can create a bootable floppy and add the program to the disk and wipe the whole disk clean. Just be sure that you really want to do that.

Finally

Some of these programs are Open Source and they are programmed by volunteers. If you really like a program and use it, you might give some thought to DONATING $5 or $10 to help out their budget, and encourage the movement that Microsoft and others have tried so hard to squelch. Ed.