Useful & Cool Links!

Mike Cooke here,I use computers for work and play. At home I use OSX on a Mac, at work I use brand new PCs running WINXP and Windows Vista respectively. This web site is hosted on a Linux Server. The point of this article isn't to be an operating system evangelist, all operating systems at this point are adequate for both work and play.

What this article IS about, is the free software I feel is ideal for using on a computer. The open source software movement especially has some gems everyone should know about.

General notes relating to operating systems:

Windows: comes with utilitarian software for the most part. The OEM may bundle a new computer with additional software, some of which is good, some of which may be poor. I will mention only Norton Anti-virus/Norton Utilities - do not use, do not install if you can help it. In my experience Norton software practically IS a virus itself, causing computer problems and it can be very hard to uninstall completely. McCaffee offers a comparable commercial utility and anti virus that is better. My recommendation will follow.

Macintosh: OSX is bundled with very good and useful software. OSX is built upon BSD Unix, Apache server is gratis and almost all open source software can be run using x-windows. The new Macs will run Windows too.

LINUX: is directly plugged into the free software movement, many distributions are bundled with almost too much software, but it's fun to explore. The best software will usually be presented most prominently.

MUSIC Software:

ITUNES: This is available for both Mac and Windows. It is an excellent fully featured music player. The software may be bloated, it also plays videos and features an interface to the Itunes store. The Itunes store sells music at around $1/track, you get an MP4 file (slightly better sounding than mp3, smaller file size too) and Quicktime video format (possible the best format for online compressed video) for any movies or videos you download. The catch is these files play externally only in an Ipod or a piece of hardware trying to be an ipod (a work around is presented in the following paragraph). Itunes store has recently established 'itunes university' , distributing open educational materials from American universities - a cool thing.

If you do not use an ipod or do not wish to use the itunes music store, other good audio software is available. You can also change the preference in Itunes to rips cds as MP3 files rather than the ipod exclusive MP4. If you use the itunes music store and want to play your purchased files in an mp3 player, you may have to burn a music cd of the bought music - this you can rip as universal mp3s using itunes (it's also a work around for the digital rights management of the downloaded files). You can load itunes library mp3 files to any mp3 player, the itunes library is just like any other file folder.

WinAMP: This is what I used for music back when I used PCs personally. It's an excellent player and ripper of mp3s, free.

Office Software

Open Office: Your computer may be running Microsoft Office, or may have been bundled with a trial of Microsoft office. But there is an alternative, and its free. SUN Microsystems for many years developed a competitor to Microsoft Office called Star Office, it could open any Microsoft Office document and save as Microsoft Office format. That was then. Now Sun microsystems has released their Star Office code to the open source (meaning they relinquish ownership of the code so any computer programmer can improve it at will, and any user can use it at will for free). It's been many years, and Open Office is now ready for prime time. No need to pay Microsoft royally for a premium Office suite.

Neo Office: This is a port of Open Office compiled for OSX on the Mac, the alternative is to use Open Office with X-11 which lacks the comforts of the OSX windowing system and may have problems relating to presentation and printing.

Security Software

OSX, I've used OSX for over 4 years straight, doing 'bad things' like downloading suspicious files and opening dubious email files - and never had a security issue. No virus, no unwanted startup program. The security model of open source (the OSX kernel is open source), where a theoretical vulnerability is routinely patched before it becomes exploited (possible because the kernel source is public domain) seems to be very effective.

A Windows PC (with closed 'secret' source code) requires serious security software - period.

AVG free - This antivirus is free to use, meaning you'll never want for an update because you failed to pay for it. It is also a better anti-virus, regularly updated and it works in the background with minimum interference to the work you're trying to get done. They also offer other free tools, but their antivirus I know well and recommend with confidence.

Ad-Aware : This is the premiere spyware search and destroy program. Spyware isn't a virus, but it is on your computer invading your privacy or pushing unwanted advertising, often slowing down your computer in the process.

Zone Alarm Free (firewall) It's important to run a software firewall if you're not protected by a router. This one is free. Vista has a decent firewall built in.

WEB Browsing and Email

Mozilla is the open source project that began as Netscape source code. Currently Firefox is considered one of the very best browsers you can use. Thunderbird is a full featured email client, better and more secure than the Microsoft Product -UNLESS you run Vista. Vista users may have problems with multiple email accounts, until Thunderbird is overhauled for Vista you may want to stick with Windows Mail, it's not all that bad (don't know yet how well it filters spam) and will work with all accounts in the meantime.

Camino is the Mozilla browser compiled specifically for OSX, Safari doesn't preview some sites well. I personally use Firefox on OSX, it has a plug in allowing me to control itunes and previews almost all sites well. Macintosh Mail is as good or better than Thunderbird, so stick with it.

Gmail I consider Gmail the premium web based email service. They offer 2 gigs of server space with every account, the service can handle large email attachments your ISP may balk at, it's free, the pop service (so you can use it with Thunderbird or another email client) is free - and all other webmail services seem to be playing catch up with Google. The beauty of web based email of course is that you can access it from any online computer and it's an email account that you can keep indefinitely as you personally move from web services and upgrade to better internet connection options.

Why you may NOT want to use Internet Explorer on a PC regularly or at all:

1. Internet Explorer is also the windowing manager for the entire Windows operating system. This means if your browser is compromised/hacked, the entire operating system could be damaged, not just one program file for web browsing.

2. Internet Explorer features unique scripting capabilities, unfortunately this translates into ways to compromise/hack Internet Explorer that wouldn't work with any other web browser.

3. Internet Explorer can be user-hostile, attempts to make IE more secure despite it's home in the kernel and powerful scripting liabilities often results in IE not previewing websites properly by automatically turning off standard open web technologies (like javascript) and other invasive 'security' measures. Other browsers with fewer liabilities allow for a browsing experience more in line with the intent of the web designer.