Useful Software
-Don’t buy Microsoft Office again unless your work absolutely requires it. www.openoffice.org offers an entire office suite with programs that provides all the common functionality of Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and other such programs.
-Antivirus. If you want the absolute best protection (mainly for businesses), then I recommend buying Norton Antivirus, but if you are just an average home user, which the majority of Antivirus program buyers are, save your money for something else and get eitherAVG Free Edition Antivirus or Avast! Home Edition. Both work superbly and are absolutely free. [If the link does not work, just go to www.downloads.com and do a search for either “AVG free edition” or “avast home edition” and then download the latest free version–and beware the ‘sponsored’ links–if anything is asking you to pay, you are installing the wrong program!]
-Spyware Protection. Two programs that I know of will scan your computer and kill any spyware programs absolutely free. Spybot: Search and Destroy and Ad-Aware.
-Critical Data backup. Mozy is a truly must-have free service that backs up the folders you select (go to configure–and double check that it backs up exactly what you want) whenever your internet connection is idle. It provides me with almost daily backups of 2GB of my most important data, giving me a lot of peace of mind (click on “MozyHome Free” at the bottom of the webpage).
-Photo editing, uploading, and organization. There is nothing better for the price (free) than Picasa.
-Another excellent program is Evernote. Whether you are on your computer, on a mobile device, or just have access to the internet, you can log in to evernote and have access to any information you choose to give it!
–http://www.pdftoword.com/ is an amazingly simple service that allows you to convert pdf files to perfectly editable word documents!
-Free audio editing with Audacity. A great app that I use for a plethora of things: editing out certain words, merging files, recording, some computers even support with this app the ability to record anything the computer itself plays . . .
–www.Download.com has just about everything under the sun available for free download (almost all of the above apps links to that site to download them). Just be sure to check the user and editor ratings before downloading anything. Their host site, cnet.com, ran this great article about a lot of other FREE programs that replace expensive programs.
—Here–is a video that contains a good selection of free software, deemed “essential” for any new PC (here is a list that is continually updated)
-Antivirus. If you want the absolute best protection (mainly for businesses), then I recommend buying Norton Antivirus, but if you are just an average home user, which the majority of Antivirus program buyers are, save your money for something else and get eitherAVG Free Edition Antivirus or Avast! Home Edition. Both work superbly and are absolutely free. [If the link does not work, just go to www.downloads.com and do a search for either “AVG free edition” or “avast home edition” and then download the latest free version–and beware the ‘sponsored’ links–if anything is asking you to pay, you are installing the wrong program!]
-Spyware Protection. Two programs that I know of will scan your computer and kill any spyware programs absolutely free. Spybot: Search and Destroy and Ad-Aware.
-Critical Data backup. Mozy is a truly must-have free service that backs up the folders you select (go to configure–and double check that it backs up exactly what you want) whenever your internet connection is idle. It provides me with almost daily backups of 2GB of my most important data, giving me a lot of peace of mind (click on “MozyHome Free” at the bottom of the webpage).
-Photo editing, uploading, and organization. There is nothing better for the price (free) than Picasa.
-Another excellent program is Evernote. Whether you are on your computer, on a mobile device, or just have access to the internet, you can log in to evernote and have access to any information you choose to give it!
–http://www.pdftoword.com/ is an amazingly simple service that allows you to convert pdf files to perfectly editable word documents!
-Free audio editing with Audacity. A great app that I use for a plethora of things: editing out certain words, merging files, recording, some computers even support with this app the ability to record anything the computer itself plays . . .
–www.Download.com has just about everything under the sun available for free download (almost all of the above apps links to that site to download them). Just be sure to check the user and editor ratings before downloading anything. Their host site, cnet.com, ran this great article about a lot of other FREE programs that replace expensive programs.
—Here–is a video that contains a good selection of free software, deemed “essential” for any new PC (here is a list that is continually updated)
Misc Useful Tips
–Need to send large files over the internet and your email service won’t let you? No problem! Use sendspace.com for free file sending of files up to 300MB with no registration required. Have a really large file? transferbigfiles.com lets you send files as big as 1GB!