Fun with Free stuff

I'm kind of a computer geek. Not in a big way, but enough to make a living at it. And I like playing around with stuff and finding new things... new web sites, content, software tools, etc.... And contrary to what some software vendors might like you to think, there is a ton of quality software available for free. So I thought I'd share a few of my favorites. A good place to start might be Google Pack. It includes some programs you might already know, like Google Earth, Adobe Reader, and Picasa, some anti-virus and anti-spyware tools (Norton and Spyware Doctor), IM and voice chat tools (Google talk and Skype), plus a complete office suite (StarOffice). Another source is File Hippo which has a variety of programs in 20 or so categories. Download.com and tucows.com have a wider variety which seems to include more demos, free trials of commercial software, and shareware. Snapfiles.com has separate areas for freeware and shareware. Most of the sites have some kind of rating system as well, so you don't have to waste time sifting through poor quality junk to find the good stuff.

Those, and many other sites, are nice but have a major bias towards the Windows operating systems. If you really want to get geeky-- or have just had enough BSODs (blue screen of death) -- there is a whole range of options, the most popular of which are varieties of Linux. As I said, you can go really geeky -- to the point of compiling the operating system programs yourself -- or you can keep it very simple with a polished, easy to use version. The leader in this category is Ubuntu Linux (http://www.ubuntu.com/). You can download a CD image, or even request to have a CD mailed to you (at no charge). Better still, it is a live (bootable) CD, so you don't have to install the operating system to try it out. Once you get into it, you'll find that there are programs to do virtually everything you can do in Windows.

My next geek project is probably going to be building a linux based media center PC from one of the older computers I have lying around, most likely with MythTV or Freevo . I will have to get a decent TV tuner card for the PC (preferrably with remote), but that should be the only expense... unless and until I decide to upgrade the harddrive. But that should not be necessary unless it works well enough that I decide to use it to replace my cable box DVR. We will see.