– No gimmicks –
This article contains a list of free software that I love, along with a link to more.
If you love using your computer but don’t love buying software, this is the place for you. In the computer software category you will find links to sites that can provide you with hundreds of applications for your PC / MAC / Linux computer.
First on the list – If you haven’t been using OpenOffice on your computer, then you either can’t open a word document on your computer, or you have paid Microsoft (in most cases hundreds of dollars) for their office product. OpenOffice gives you all the user-friendly capabilities of Microsoft Office, for free, and it can even open and save documents in the Microsoft formats (word documents, excel spread sheets, power point presentation, etc). No gimmicks! I have been using OpenOffice exclusively in my business for about 8 years. I have never had an issue saving a file and opening it on a machine with Microsoft’s Office products. Check it out!
Firefox & Thunderbird come next. You are probably familiar with the Firefox web browser. Firefox is still being used by the majority of the internet population according to w3schools. Mozilla, the same people who brought you Firefox also have a great email client. An email client sits on your computer and collects your email for you, so you don’t need to log into a webmail server. It’s like having a robot that runs out to the mailbox every few minutes to see if you have any new mail. It saves you the headache of going on-line and logging in to check your mail. Your emails are downloaded, stored, and managed on your computer.
One of the neat things about Thunderbird is that you can install “add-ons”. These are applications that add enhanced features to the Thunderbird program, such as a built-in calendar, printing tools, mail merge capabilities, etc. Thunderbird also has a complete built-in contact manager database, to keep track of all your friends or customers. The flexibility of Thunderbird is astounding.
I was searching for years to find something that would allow me to see what files and folders on my computer were taking up the most space. Windows explorer only shows you individual files, but when it comes down to figuring out what is happening on your entire computer’s hard drive, there was nothing. Finally I found this application called WinDirStat. It’s a free application, and it is the most useful tool! It gives you a picture of your drive, including what files, folders, and sub-folders are taking up all your space. It helps me keep track of what is happening on my hard drive. Don’t think you need this? What about those files that you backed up from one computer to another and then forgot about??? If your hard drive is running low on space, it is almost guaranteed that this application can help you find some stuff that shouldn’t still be taking up residence.
PC Mag comes out with a “Best free software” article every year. In 2011 they listed over 200 applications, along with ratings, in lots of different categories. I have tried out a lot of it, and their reviews are fairly decent. Check them out at: PCMag
