Free Software article discussion

cport80

For Windows:

Flashpeak Slimbrowser: The best browser out there in my oppinion. Has the usual tabbed browser windows and options to turn off scripts, active-x, java and filter out ads & pop-ups. Toolbars are easy to customise and once you've got it looking the way you want, you can lock them. Also has plug-ins for form-filling etc.

ConTEXT: Great alternative to notepad/wordpad especially good for programmers. Has a great selection of highlighters (colour schemes for different languages which highlight key words).

1stPage 2000: Also a good editor geared towards HTML and has a built-in HTML reference. There is an updated version but the original looks better imho. Neat features include a code library so you can quickly store snippets of code for quick inclusion in other files. Also the ability to set up templates can speed things up if you're creating a lot of similar pages and without using dynamic content.

Drive Sentry: An anti-virus which works by watching write operations to the hard-drive. Currently trying this out on my home machine.

XVideoServiceThief: Downloads video files from youtube, googlevideo etc.

DVD-Flick: Converts video files to DVD format and then optionally writes the disc.

Anim8or: A great 3D modelling program. Quite complex but very powerful once you get into it. Allows you to create 3D objects, give them joints then add them to scenes and render animations. If I had more time I would be using this program a lot more.

I'm sure there are others but these are the ones which I use regularly.

As for Linux, give me Puppy over Ubuntu anyday. It's got a more solid feel to it imho and is user-friendly enough for most windows users to be comfortable using it.

nqsenile

MS Office link
You suggest that to get MS Office for free you need just an academic email address. However the "it's a steal" site terms state that in addition you need to be student for 15 hours or a teacher for 8 hours per week.
:-(

superscaper

nqsenile wrote: »

MS Office link
You suggest that to get MS Office for free you need just an academic email address. However the "it's a steal" site terms state that in addition you need to be student for 15 hours or a teacher for 8 hours per week.
:-(

Umm it isn't free even if you're eligible. It's a reduced rate. I don't think anyone suggested it was free. And the majority of people with an academic address fulfill those conditions.

Bob63

verloren wrote: »

And while NeoOffice is fine, the latest OpenOffice beta is mac compatible and a lot more up to date.

Agreed. I dumped NeoOffice about a month ago for StarOffice 9 beta. However, beta software is not production quality and there have been a couple of bugs so it is vitally important to keep up on the interim releases before the final release (due in the next few weeks for both StarOffice and OpenOffice)

Marty_J

What are you people doing with all this office software?

I'm always mildly curious as I had it all installed on my Mac, and then realised about a year later that I had never even used it once, and so I got rid of it all. TextEdit does me just fine for typing letters.

This is a sincere question: do you have it because it's all free, or is there something I'm missing out on here?

ETA: Not wishing to take this OT, I've started a separate thread about this here.

[Deleted User]

If it wasn't for working from home, I daresay I'd never really need any office package to go about my daily business, free or otherwise.

Gorsefox

I have found a good "free" open source project management package. It seems to be able to exchange information with MS Project, Gnome etc, but runs on a variety of platforms.

It certainly seems to support most of the satanic arts involved in project planning. See http://openproj.org/home

GF

Normal_Bob

For 3D modelling try Blender. It is very good, and there are some good tutorials, as well as a book, on how to use it. Check out the examples in the Art Gallary page on their website http://www.blender.org/

Bob63

Normal_Bob wrote: »

For 3D modelling try Blender. It is very good, and there are some good tutorials, as well as a book, on how to use it.

Big Buck Bunny is an excellent free computer animated movie that was produced using Blender. It is available to download for free in different resolutions from YouTube size right up to 1080p

aliEnRIK

Cool, I love stuff like that