Top 15 Free Downloads

I love free software. Whether it's software that runs on the desktop itself or in "the cloud", if it's free, I'm there. I've got several computers at my house, and I do everything I can to look for free alternatives prior to shelling out my hard-earned cash for some overpowered software bundle that I only need once every 2 or 3 months. I'll limit this list to downloaded software, and perhaps will address internet services in a later post.

If you're already into free software, this probably isn't the post for you. There are no huge surprises in this list. However, if you're the type that runs to a big-box store every time you need a new application, read on. There may be something in this list that will save you the trip!

#15 - Blackbox Password Manager -
This is probably not a unique idea or application, but it works well for what I need. You know all of those username/password combinations you've got to remember for various systems and websites? Enter them into blackbox and never click on the "forgot my password" link again. Blackbox stores your passwords in an encrypted file only accessible by entering a master password (you've got to remember that one). Once you're in, just find the website name or URL from the list and copy over your username and password. Blackbox will give you feedback on the strength of your chosen password, or will generate and store a random strong password for you. Very easy to use. Windows Only.

#14 - Emerge Desktop/Circledock
These are actually two separate apps, but I use them together so I'm going to cheat a little bit and call them both #14. Emerge Desktop is a replacement desktop shell for Windows XP or Vista. Essentially, what that means is that it makes your desktop look and operate differently. Windows Explorer (the Windows shell you're used to) tends to leave shortcuts all over the desktop and the taskbar can be slightly annoying at times. Emerge removes all of the clutter and makes the desktop/start menu accessible by right-clicking anywhere on the desktop. It takes a little getting used to, but I've come to like it a lot. Circledock is what I use instead of desktop shortcuts. It's exactly what it sounds like - an icon dock in a circular shape. It's very customizable, too, as you can see by my screenshot. I've chosen the "Eye of Sauroun" for the center of mine. My wife rolled her eyes when she saw that one....

#13 - Freecommander
Freecommander is a very handy file manager. I've heard it described as "what windows explorer should have been". While I'm not that harsh, I do think a lot of the features included in Freecommander would have made sense in a default in windows file manager. For example, when moving or copying files around on a windows machine, dragging the icon to the correct spot can get a little tricky. Sure, you can drag the icon up, down and around while folders expand if you hover long enough, etc...but wouldn't it just be easier to be able to split the screen to view both the "copy from" and the "copy to" sections? How many times have we accidentally dropped that bugger in an unintended folder only to realize that we have no idea where it went? Freecommander makes dragging and copying of files easier by splitting the screen so that we can view both the "copy from" and "copy to" locations simultaneously. It's highly customizable; I've stacked my screens horizontally in this shot. There is a lot of search filtering capability and even an icon that accesses the Windows control panel features.

#12 - UltraVNC
VNC is a remote desktop protocol that allows you to control a computer from a different computer. Confused? Well, say you've got two computers in your house, one downstairs and one upstairs. If you're trying to configure or troubleshoot both of them at the same time (setting up a folder to be shared between them, for example), you could keep running from one to the other, trying this and that, until your knees give out and you lay in a heap on the steps wondering when your wife will be home from her jog and trying to keep the cat from licking your face...or you could install VNC. UltraVNC is a windows-only version that allows you to control your "downstairs computer" by clicking on an icon on the "upstairs computer", thus saving your time and your knees. Other versions of VNC will work on Windows, Linux or Mac.

** note: I actually prefer Windows Remote Desktop for remote connections. Unfortunately, Microsoft has unjustly decided that Remote Desktop will only be available on certain versions of Windows, and is typically not included in builds targeted at the home user. So, if you don't have XP pro, Vista Business or Vista Ultimate, you'll have to find an alternative. UltraVNC fills that void nicely.

#11 - iTunes/Firefly Client
iTunes is not a surprise winner in the media player category. Apple has long been on top of the multimedia trends, and iTunes is no exception. With iTunes, you not only play media, but you can also browse and buy music, movies, and TV, create playslists, burn CDs, subscribe to podcasts, or get suggestions based on your library contents. In contrast, Firefly Client (pictured, right) is a very lightweight Java-based music player that allows you to stream music from a central location. It's interface is very iTunes-like and intuitive. I like to use Firefly Client on my netbook and iTunes on my desktop machines, which have faster hardware and more memory. iTunes is available for Windows and Mac, and Firefly Client will run on any machine that runs Java.

#10 Paint.net
Want something more than Microsoft paint but not as heavy as Photoshop? Paint.net is a nice compromise for the right price. Crop, cut, remove backgrounds, re-color, or apply filters to your heart's content. I'm not exactly a graphic artist so I'm sure there's many, many more features that I've not even discovered. Paint.net allows you to work with layers just like the big boys.

#9 AVG Free Anti-Virus
Make sure you choose the free version of this software, AVG is notoriously tricky trying to get you to click on the pay version. Once you've got the free version installed, it works like a dream: Lightweight, unobtrusive, and easy to configure. AVG will run scheduled scans, scan your incoming and outgoing e-mail for viruses, scan web links and automatically update it's signatures at a scheduled time of your choosing.

#8 Pidgin
Pidgin is a universal messaging client that runs on Windows or Linux. With Pidgin, it is possible to combine multiple IM services (AIM, Yahoo! Messenger, Google Talk) into a single client. Since Pidgin is open source, there are several great addons available if you're heavy into customization. My favorite is the Facebook addon, which allows you to interact with Facebook IM as well as the services listed above. The most difficult part of configuring Pidgin is knowing the correct server settings for your different IM services. I found all of the information I was looking for with a few quick Google searches.

#7 Thunderbird
Mozilla's e-mail client is free of charge, highly functional and highly customizable. Thunderbird is also open source and is as simple or as complex of an application as you want it to be. At it's simplest, Thunderbird can be set up to send SMTP and receive POP3 e-mail for a single e-mail account. I would not suggest stopping there, however. With addons, you can also snap in a calendar, new skins, "send later" features, IMAP, and my favorite, Google Calendar integration. I use IMAP and the Google Calendar extension to help with my movement between multiple PC's, to keep my e-mail and appointments synched. With the flexibility of addons, Thunderbird is the most adjustable, powerful free e-mail tool on the 'net. A word of caution, though. Since Mozilla spun Thunderbird off to Mozilla Messaging, it has been plagued by sliding dates and unsureity. The future of Thunderbird seems cloudy, which is a shame because it truly is a great product.

#6, 5, 4 and 3: Google Pack: Google Earth, Picasa, Skype, Spyware Doctor
These plus a few other apps can be downloaded via the Google pack software package. Google Earth is difficult to describe if you've never seen it. Essentially, starting with a moons-eye view of the Earth, you can zoom in anywhere to see satelite quality images. It's worth trying, just to experience it.

Picasa is my favorite photo-organization tool. Zip quickly through the hundreds of photos on your PC, and upload them to Picasa's online counterpart for easy sharing. Picasa also comes with simple photo editing such as cropping, resizing, and redeye removal, plus some more advanced features I haven't tried.

Video calls have never been easier than with Skype. If you've got a webcam and a friend on the other side of the world or the other side of town, there's no better way to communicate than with this simple tool.

PC Tools Spyware Doctor is a great little spyware scanner with an intuitive interface and scheduled scans. In addition to malware scans, Spyware Doctor also runs quietly in the background to detect against real-time threats from the browser, or against your file folders or network settings.

#2 OpenOffice.org
OpenOffice is an open source office productivity suite that includes word processing, spreadsheet and presentation software that is compatible with Microsoft Office 2003 and earlier file formats. I've had mixed reactions from people who have tried OpenOffice. Typically, if you are not a Microsoft Office power user, the transition to OpenOffice is relatively painless. Where you'll see a difference is when trying to open Microsoft files with heavy formatting, or, in the case of powerpoint, specialized transitions. If you have MS Office files with only moderate formatting, or are starting from scratch without the need to re-use old MS files, then OpenOffice is the suite for you. The only caveat about OpenOffice is that it does not support the newest MS Office XML file formats (.docx, .xlsx, etc.), and it's unclear if/when it will. Microsoft and the open source community had a knock-down, drag-out over which format would be "the" standard open source version of choice, and although both were accepted as standards, there may still be hard feelings. Despite that, MS Office does support ODF so there does appear to be at least some continued interoperability on the horizon.

#1 Mozilla Firefox Browser
Ironically, it was Microsoft's move to IE7 that prompted me to try out some other browsers. Since I've got to switch anyway (thought I), I might as well switch to the one I like the most! I first tried Safari, which had recently been opened up to Windows users. It was ok, but not enough to make me switch. I reluctantly downloaded Firefox 2 thinking that it could not possibly live up to the hype I was hearing about it from the tech community. After all, how much different can a web browser be? Once I discovered the customization and the options the open-source developers were dreaming up I was hooked. Now, it's going to take several major developments on the browser front to get me to switch again. Just like Thunderbird, this browser can be as dead simple or as full-featured as your combination of addons dictates. In other words, you are in full control over what your browser does, so it can be tuned to your browsing habits. Installing and removing addons could not be easier, as long as you can click a button, and new ones are being developed every day. A few of my favorite addons include all-in-one statusbar, which groups your history, bookmarks plugins and more into a side-pane that can be auto-hid, Fireshot, which takes "snapshots" of web pages and either saves the picture to a file or to the clipboard, and noscript, which prevents any javascript from running on a page unless you specifically allow it. These three are a very small sample of the addons I have tried, and I'm sure there's more that I haven't discovered yet.

I hope you've found something new and useful in this list. Like I said, there's nothing extremely bleeding edge here, but these are some solid, proven tools that may fill a gap in your workflow, or at the very least keep a gap from appearing in your wallet!


Got an idea for a topic? E-mail me at toptoad@techonadime.net.

Wake up and Hibernate: Tips for Windows, Ubuntu and Windows Home Server

It seems that you can't pick up an IT trade mag anymore without reading something about "Green IT". Green is not only "in" because of it's friendliness to the environment, it's also an excellent cost-savings measure. While fortune 100 companies are looking for ways to better optimize their data centers, you can also reduce your energy bill by making your home IT more efficient.

Hibernating is when your computers write all information about the current user sessions and processes to hard disk and shut off. The result is that your computer components will not be consuming energy while not in use, which saves you money and has the side benefit of eliminating annoying fan noise (noise pollution reduction? Al Gore, if you could see me now!) Also, when you do want to use your computer again, it is not necessary to go through the entire bootup/login process again, as all of that information is recalled directly from the saved session. Hibernation in Windows XP is different than standby/sleep, as explained here. Further confusing matters is the newest powersave mode in Windows Vista called "Hybrid sleep". If you're interested, details about that mode can be found here.

I have experimented with hibernation on several different platforms with mixed results. Below I've documented my experiences.

Windows XP
In XP, you can set your computer to hibernate after a period of inactivity. In my experience, this does not work very well. When I first set it up the computer hibernates as expected after about an hour. After a period of time, however, the computer stopped hibernating on it's own and stays on all of the time. I usually end up forcing it to hibernate manually before I head off to bed at night.


Before hibernating either automatically or manually, though, you need to enable hibernation globally. To do this, go to start->control panel, click on "performance and maintenance", then click on "power options". Under the hibernate tab, click the "enable hibernation" checkbox and click ok.

To enable hibernate after a period of inactivity, go to start->control panel. Click on "performance and maintenance", then click on "power options". In the drop-down box, select the amount of time to wait prior to hibernation, and then click "ok".

To force a manual hibernation, you'll need to click start->turn off (just as if you were going to shut down) and then press and hold the shift key. When you do this, the standby icon should change to "hibernate". While still holding the shift key, click on hibernate. If you're feeling extra lucky, you can also edit the registry to show both the hibernate and standby buttons on the shutdown menu. I have tried this method with Windows XP SP3 and it worked well for me. However, as this is a registry hack please proceed with caution.

** Edit - I've seen a lot of searches hit my page looking for how to wake Windows XP from hibernation. I think it depends on your motherboard, but I've always had to hit the power button to bring my XP machine out of hibernation, and have never had a problem doing so. If you want to wake your XP machine automatically, follow the steps listed here.

I have had problems waking XP from sleep mode, to the point of having to hard boot it for revival. That's another reason I prefer hibernation to sleep.

My Vista machine wakes from hibernation with a mouse click.

Windows Vista
After doing some research on the 'net, it seems that many people have had problems with hibernation being disabled globally in Vista and have been unable to turn it back on. Evidently, this needs to be done via command prompt as described here. It's a single command, very simple to execute.

Once hibernation is enabled (or re-enabled, depending on your situation), hibernation settings can be adjusted from the windows GUI. Click on the button formerly known as start (the orb), and in the search bar type "power". The search results should return "power options" under programs. Click on it. The power options window should show your power plans. Choose the power plan of your liking and click on "change plan settings" directly beneath it. In the edit plan settings window, click on "change advanced power settings". In the advanced settings window (as seen on the right) Expand "sleep", then expand "allow hybrid sleep" and click on the drop down to select "yes". Now, expand "hibernate after" and select the drop down to select the amount of inactive time the computer will wait before hibernating. Click OK.

I've had very good luck with hibernation in Windows Vista. In fact, my Vista machine hibernates most of the time which is good because it is the largest machine in the house (500watt power supply), and therefore consumes the most power of any computer I own.

Ubuntu Linux
I'm least experienced with Ubuntu, but I have played with it a little bit. When I have used Ubuntu, I have been able to manually place it into hibernation via the shutdown menu (I think it's called "suspend"), similarly to what I do in Windows XP. It resumes just fine, with the exception of some extra rainbow-colors on my top and bottom taskbars. That may be due to my archaic AGP graphics card, though. After hitting several Google links pertaining to Ubuntu and automatic hibernation, I'm convinced that there are more issues than the casual user is willing to deal with. If anyone has more information on whether hibernation due to inactivity is working in Ubuntu, please leave a comment at the bottom of the page.

Windows Home Server
What? Hibernation on a server? Yeah, it's really cool. For those of you with a Windows Home Server I would highly recommend a free addon called "lightsout". The installation is not as straightforward as enabling hibernation in Windows Vista or XP, but it's not terrible. Basically, you install the addon as you would any other (Place in the software/addins folder and install via the home server console), and then apply a few tweaks to your network cards to make sure the server can automatically wake them from hibernation for scheduled tasks like daily backups. You can schedule specific days and times for the server to hibernate and wake itself back up. There is a great step-by-step explanation at We Got Served that I will not attempt to duplicate here.

Of course, when hibernating a server you need to plan carefully. The idea of having a server is to enable you to access your files whenever you need to, and from wherever you happen to be. So, hibernating during the day is not an option for me. I schedule my home server to hibernate from 12:00am to 6:00am every day. It only hibernates when I do! As you can see from the graphic, most days during the timeframe of 12am to 6 am, there are no computers powered on at my house.

This is a huge improvement from the days when I had 2-3 desktop PC's and a server powered on all the time. The energy savings are well worth the extra couple of seconds I have to wait for the computer to wake from hibernation. Al Gore would be so proud!

Got an idea for a topic? E-mail me at toptoad@techonadime.net.

Honey, I Shrunk the Laptop...

Okay, not a particularly clever title, but you've got to admit, the hottest trend in personal computing, the netbook (from "internet notebook") looks as though it was hit by the incredible shrinking ray gun. I started looking into netbooks about 6 months ago when it became readily apparent that they were the only machines I would be able to save up for in any reasonable amount of time. At the time a few success stories were starting to emerge, the ASUS EePC and the Acer Aspire One. Also jumping into the frey were the HP Mini 1000 and the Dell Inspiron Mini 9. I settled on the Aspire One, being the least expensive of any with similar or identical hardware specifications. Two versions of the Aspire One were available, one with an 8GB SSD (Solid State Drive - essentially flash memory) running Linux or a 120GB hard disk drive running Windows XP.

I was enticed a bit by the model running Linux, but couldn't resist the 120GB hard drive and Windows XP option for $30 more. I love the idea of a quieter, more energy efficient solid state drive, but I wanted more than 8GB. SSD's are the future, but for me they are not the present. Also, now that I've played around with some desktop Linux distributions I'm fairly certain that I'm not quite ready to give up the simplicity of Windows networking, either. Besides the stats already mentioned, my Aspire One came with a 8.9in screen, 1GB RAM, 3 USB ports, a 10/100 Ethernet port, an 802.11g WLAN card, a webcam, a headphone/microphone jack, built-in speakers and a VGA-out port. I paid $350, but the prices keep dropping and some of the Linux versions have been spotted for as low as $200 on rare occasions. The standard 1.6Ghz Intel Atom is more than sufficient for Windows XP, though it would be nice if the boot time was a little quicker.

After using my netbook for about 6 months, I can honestly say that I get more bang for the buck out of this machine than any other I've purchased. I use it nearly every day, and the portability is incredible. I liked it so much that I bought one for my wife for Christmas so she'd leave mine alone! The only two gripes that I have: I bought a wireless laser mouse because I couldn't stand the touchpad. That's more due to the fact that I don't like touchpads in general, though. Also, the battery life left much to be desired. The standard 3 cell that came with the box was supposed to get 3 hours of life, but I think 2:10 was probably more accurate. I did find a nice 9 cell aftermarket battery on ebay for $66 that stretched my time between charges to about 6-8 hours. I don't know exactly because I almost never push it to that point. The only downside is that the new battery is quite a bit larger and adds to the weight of the computer. If portability is what's important to you, you might want to stick with the stock battery. Some users will balk at the absence of an optical drive, but I've found that I've never had a need for one once I get network connected.

Because of the screen size, the best application for netbooks are for things like reading e-mail, social networking, and browsing. Light word processing is also feasible. I would not give up my primary workhorse PC for a netbook, however. I still need a beefy desktop for video editing & burning, 3D gaming, photo editing, virtual desktops, streaming video, and productivity applications that benefit from a larger monitor. I use mine for the exact purpose that many others do, as a portable supplemental machine to compliment an existing home network.

Ultimately, like any PC purchase, your needs will determine your purchase. The prices of traditional laptops should continue to decrease due to pressure from the netbook's successes and technical advances like the Intel Atom. If you've been thinking about buying a notebook for the purpose of portability, you'd be wise to give these mini-competitors a glance.


Got an idea for a topic? E-mail me at toptoad@techonadime.net.

Introducing: Me!

Once again, welcome to my new blog! I suppose introductions are in order. I'll start.

I am a married father of four and have been involved in technology in one form or another from a very young age. I am currently involved in telecommunications architecture and data center strategy, but also have a background in project analysis (with a networking focus) and network engineering/design. I also head up the computing/technology team at our church, using my interest and aptitude for technology to help support the needs of the staff, members and prospective visitors. Continuing on the nonprofit theme, I am the board representative on the technology committee for a small private school, which was my first experience with a network built completely out of donated materials.

While I've had exposure to both ends of the spectrum ($0 budget for the school versus comparatively limitless resources in my "normal" job), I have a passion for finding creative technical solutions in order to both meet requirements and save money. I've noticed that it's very difficult to have a technology habit while on a budget. The two don't go together very well, and with four kids and one income, we are most definitely on a budget! Luckily, my experiences along these lines has translated well to my volunteer endeavors, and also continues to allow me to quench my "hands-on" thirst while pushing me to continue learning along the way.

My goal for this blog is to share my experiences, thoughts on emerging trends, solutions and frustrations. I hope something I post here will spur some thoughts or opinions that can be shared. I will not pretend to be an expert. I'm just Joe-techie trying to figure things out, same as the next guy.

If you've wandered over here for whatever unfathomable reason, go ahead and drop me a line using the comments box! Let's take this puppy for a spin!

Got an idea for a topic? E-mail me at toptoad@techonadime.net.