Top Ten free bits of software.
I repair computers and laptops in in your city. Due to this fact I deal with a lot of people, who like a good price. In fact they almost want my services for free. Well that’s not going to happen but here is a list of freebies to keep Computer users in in your city happy over Christmas. No need to spend money….
10. VLC Media Player
Have you ever tried playing a DVD on your computer? Well VLC works wonders. It is a free DVD playback software for your computer. Best of all it play lots of other video types as well and is remarkably small in size. It’s been out for a good few years and has lots of different options like accessing video files on another computer and playing over a network.
9. CDBurnerXP
If your still using Microsoft Windows XP then this is the best free CD burning software. Windows does have its own inbuilt CD burning software however this does not always work depending on the types of files you’re burning. You can burn data discs very easily so backing up pictures/files to CD is a breeze.
8. Winamp
Tired of iTunes? Well I did use iTunes for all of about two minutes until I relised how much it slowed down my computer. Winamp is an Internet oldie that has been out a while. It was snapped up by AOL a few years ago however it still has all the original features and is excellent for ripping/ipoding and the like. It also has a great output visualisation tools which is far superior to Windows Media Player.
7. Openoffice
Fancy paying Microsoft another £200 so you can get word/excel on your computer? No, I did not think so. Instead of going down the Microsoft Office route, consider Open Office if your on a budget. Open Office has all the major features of Microsoft office and works with Microsoft Office files however it’s free!
6. Foxit PDF
Uninstall Adobe Acrobat Reader now, it’s bloatware and takes anything up to 30 seconds to open a PDF file so you can view. Foxit PDF is a much smaller light weight program that is much quicker, smaller and free.
5. Ultradefrag
As you may or may not know over time your computer hard disc drive will become fragmented. Basically what happens is that Windows saves files all over the place on your hard disc drive inside your computer. Over time it becomes noticeable as your computer will get slower because the disc is fragmented. Windows does have inbuilt defragment software which takes the files and clumps them all back up in one place for faster access. However Ultradefrag is much quicker and better at this job. Download and run now 
Another Windows XP only application. Have you every tired to send pictures from your digital camera via email or upload them to bebo/facebook. Does it always take ages? That becuase you’ve probably got a digital camera that has a lot of megapixels. The picture your trying to send is about 5 times as large as it needs to be. Powertoys resize integrates itseld into windows. Next time you right click on a photo there will be an option to resize the picture to a more web friendly file size. What makes it so great is that you don’t need to open up the program to use, it’s done on the fly so makes life that little bit easier. Of course Vista does not have this option yet!
3. Ultra VNC
VNC is a program that lets you control and view another computer as if you were on it. Best of all it’s free. It can be a little complicated to set up however once it’s working you can for instance set it up so you can access your home computer whilst at work. Or if you have a family/friend that is always having difficulty with IT problems, set it up on their machine. Next time they phone you with a question you can go onto VNC and show them how to do the task.
You might know this already but I recommend Kaspersky Anti-Virus however for 90 days you can get Avast Anti-Virus for free. If you do not plan to spend some money protection your computer/internet/bank details and personal data then this is the next best thing. I used to recommend AVG however it has become a bit of a CPU hog and bloats up your system. If you can’t afford Kaspersky (I sell it at £25 for a 3 computer license) then Avast is the next best thing. Please note that you only get 90 days worth of protection.
1. Google
Well this is not really software but a website. Google is a great tool. I’ve leave you with this excellent quote.
“If I can operate Google, I can find anything… Google, combined with Wi-Fi, is a little bit like God. God is wireless, God is everywhere and God sees and knows everything. Throughout history, people connected to God without wires. Now, for many questions in the world, you ask Google, and increasingly, you can do it without wires, too.”