Tips & Recommended Software

 Recommended Software

NOTE: THIS PAGE IS BEING UPDATED. SOME OR ALL OF THE LINKS BELOW MAY NO LONGER WORK. SOME OF THE SOFTWARE LISTED BELOW IS STILL ACTIVE/BEING UPDATED AND IS SOMETHING I WOULD RECOMMEND - SEE MY FACEBOOK PAGE FOR THE MOST UP TO DATE TIPS AND ADVICE.

Security

Firewall

Anti-Virus and Anti-Spyware – AVG Free Edition

One of the best anti-virus programs out there, and it's free! Fairly simple to use, yet powerful. And they have updates almost every day. It takes up very little in the way of system resources as it runs in the background. The occasional pop ups to install other software or upgrade to the pro version can be declined. And, although they are annoying, the pop ups for AVG Free are less annoying than the pop-ups and reminders for the other good free anti-virus programs.

Anti-Spyware

Malwarebytes

An excellent anti-spyware program for doing regular manual scans. The definitions are updated frequently, and this will catch a lot more junk on your computer than some of the commercial programs. This is the best current scanner for ad-ware and spyware. For most people, the free version works fine. To install the free version, download the free version from the link above, and when installing, un-check the option to eneble the free trial.

Anti-Spam - Mailwasher Free

If you get a lot of spam all the time, this is the program for you. With it you can bounce the spam back at them and never see emails from the same spammer twice.

Internet

Browser

Mozilla Firefox

This is the browser I recommend (over all the other Mozilla/Netscape browsers, Opera, and over MS Internet Explorer). The core of it is small, but it is powerful, especially with the ever-growing amount of available extensions. And it is more secure than Internet Explorer. It is also very customizable, so it can be tuned to your liking.

Email

Mozilla Thunderbird

This is the companion to Firefox. More customizable and user friendly than Outlook (and less bloated).

Productivity

Libre Office – Office Suite

Libre Office is an off-shoot of Open Office from when the Open Office project stopped for a while. This is an all-around better version and it is updated and improved frequently. This is a free open source office suite that is comparable to and is sometimes better than Microsoft Office. It is also able to open MS Office files, and you can save to MS Office file formats too (if you need to). There are still some minor things in the file conversion processes that fall through the cracks, but improvements are continually being made in this and in other areas of the suite. Included are the following programs:

Writer (word processor)

Base (database)

Calc (spreadsheet)

Draw (drawing)

Impress (presentation)

Math (equation editor)

Note: you can export to PDF format from all of these programs.

GIMP – Image Manipulation Program

http://www.gimp.org/

A small but powerful image manipulation program – an alternative to Adobe Photoshop.

Google SketchUp – 3D Design

http://www.sketchup.com/

A simple yet powerful 3D design program.

Media – Video, Music and Image Programs

VLC Media Player

Picasa - photo viewer, editor, slideshow

Utilities & Miscellaneous

Cobain Reflector (back-up program)