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You can spend hours working out the good from the bad. You can find the software in different locations. Some of the software not in the official locations may even be infected. We've done the work so you don't have to. Over the years we have reviewed many free or low cost software packages. On this page we share the software which we have found to be of high quality, and suitable for private or business use. The software has saved our clients well in excess of $100,000. With the exception of Microsoft Access runtime, all software is free, or included with Windows. (Microsoft Access runtime needs to be distributed as part of an application.) We regularly use most of the software on the list ourselves, even when we also own similar commercial software (such as Microsoft Office) because it offers additional features that are very useful. GIMP (A powerful image editing program for handling photos and images.) Gimp is a bitmap graphics editing package. We use Gimp to produce the graphics for JustLocal and in fact we use Gimp for almost all our graphics requirements. Gimp takes time to learn, but once learnt, it is a very flexible package. OpenOffice.org (An integrated suite consisting of word processing, spreadsheet, drawing, maths, presentation, html editor and basic data base features.) OpenOffice.org is a free competitor to the Microsoft Office suite of products. We use both OpenOffice.org and Microsoft Office. We use OpenOffice.org Writer to produce our written material such as our MiniBook range. We also use OpenOffice.org Draw to produce business cards. We use OpenOffice.org Html Editor to produce the Online Connections website (www.OnlineConnections.com.au). The Html Editor is no longer promoted as a main module and thus we would suggest the SeaMonkey Composer module instead. However if you want to produce a basic web page and you want to have the spelling checked as you would for a normal word processing document this is one of the better approaches. Australian English Dictionary files (The dictionary files we created and now used with many leading open source and commercial programs.) If you are using OpenOffice.org, Firefox 2 or Thunderbird 2, then you are using dictionary files we produced. We produced the original Australian English dictionary files for use with OpenOffice.org approximately four years ago and donated the work to the project. We now produce a number of Australian English dictionary files for a range of open source and commercial programs. All files are free to use. In particular we produce a second version known as the "Kelvin" version which is the first Australian English prescriptive spell check dictionary. The Kelvin version is proving to be very popular. It aids by simplifying the Australian English language and results in far more consistent spelling in documents. In the "Kelvin" version our aim is to remove the thousands of dual spellings such as "organise/organize" and standardise on a single spelling. Our aim is to make it easier for future generations of Australian writers. The "Kelvin" version is our preferred spell check dictionary. If it is not your preference then use the full version. Files available for the following projects/software:
In addition we provide:
http://www.justlocal.com.au/clients/oooau/ Microsoft Word Exclude file (This file contains over 1,800 words and enables us to remove what some people consider to be the American spelling of words.) In Australia we have two ways of spelling over 1,800 words. If would be easy to classify the second spelling as the American spelling because it is the way the Americans spell the word. However the dual spelling of many words appears to be a result of the evolution of the Australian English language. For those who wish to only spell using what appears to be the modern spelling of words and not to spell using the so called American spellings, the Exclude file we produce can be used. For example if you prefer to use "organise" and not "organize" with the "ize", then this file is for you. This file is available at no cost. http://www.justlocal.com.au/clients/oooau/ OpenOffice.org Writer/Web Writer/Web is a module of the OpenOffice.org package. The following two sites were created using this software. http://www.onlineconnections.com.au/ http://www.open-bookmanagement.com/ This program is a little quirky to use, but with a bit of imagination it can provide quite acceptable web pages. This is not a product for those wishing to use a HTML Editor. It is for people who want to create a web page like they use a word processor to create a document. SeaMonkey Composer Composer is a module of SeaMonkey. SeaMonkey and thus Composer is based an evolution of Netscape. The Composer module is for those who wish to have a little more control over the code if they want to. It can be used by end users to create web pages similar to using a word processor to create a document. The following page was created using SeaMonkey Composer. http://www.justlocal.com.au/lcg/3106lcg.html Once again the creation of the web page is largely up to using your imagination and a few layout tricks. VCL media player (A very powerful program to place the many different sound and video files downloaded from the Internet. Plays many files other programs will not play.) The VideoLAN project produces a very good video player. Many videos available on the Internet are in formats which cannot be read using Windows Media Player. We have found if we right click on a video file and select VCL to play the file, it generally plays. Linux (Fedora) (We use this in many of our clients offices as a file server.) We use Linux and in particular the Fedora distribution of Linux to set up low cost file servers. We have documented how to set up a file server with older hardware which ends up costing nothing for hardware and software. The only time is the consultants time. We have Linux successfully running across most of our clients. Our testing shows the file sharing performance even on quite old machines is better than a new machine running commercial server software. Audacity (Play, edit audio files. Create mp3 or convert mp3 to wav files.) Audacity is a sound editing program. We have used this to edit sound files and create mp3 files. http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ Internet Browsing Software (Internet browsing software.) Internet Explorer Available to over 90% of users and possibly to 98% of users that use JustLocal. This program comes as part of the Windows operating system. Now also available as a download Internet Explorer 7.0 Firefox 2 Now used by 15-20% of Internet users world wide. One very real advantage of using Firefox 2 is when completing online forms. Download and install our Australian English dictionary files and you can spell check in Australian English. Opera We have recently started to use the Opera browser and have found it to be very good The following are the benefits we have found: Opera is much faster at displaying the JustLocal pages. Much faster than we would have expected. Using the files we produce Opera provides free spell checking using Australian English. We now have a browser with an Australian English User Interface again using a language file we have produced. Depending on your requirement each of the browser has advantages and disadvantages. Opera is a useful addition where browsing speed is important. Outlook Express 6 An email client which is used by many of our users. Many users move on to Outlook once they find Outlook Express cannot reliably handle a large volume or quantities of emails. This program comes as part of the Windows operating system. If you do not use other programs such as MS Word, MS Office, MS Works etc and your spell checking is disabled, then use the Outlook Express spell checking programs we provide. Now you can spell check using Australian English. Thunderbird 2 A capable free email client. The advantage of using Thunderbird is you now have access to our Australian English dictionary spell check files. Now you can use the same Australian English dictionary files which are used and available for a large range of leading open source and free programs. We still use Microsoft Outlook mostly, but we also us Thunderbird for certain email accounts. NOTE: We have found one issue often comes up. People convert to Thunderbird and then decide to move back to Outlook. Whilst you can migrate your messages to Thunderbird, there is no direct path to migrate back if you want to. Freshtel's firefly (Use you computer to make voice calls to other computers users or even normal telephones.) A soft phone which we use to make calls to other firefly users and to normal telephone users anywhere in Australia (an account is required to call normal telephones and a charge applies). This product and service continues to save us considerable money on telephone calls. It is available via the JustLocal website. Whilst firefly is a good program for making calls to normal telephones, many people are now using Skype as well for computer to computer calls. We have also noticed some telephone equipment with Skype built into the handset. We have found Freshtel's service for calls to the normal telephone network to be very good. We don't use Skype to call the normal telephone network due to their timed calls and the quality for us was not acceptable when we tested it. PDF Creator (Create PDF files from almost any program that can print.) PDF Creator When we need to create a PDF file generally we create the file in OpenOffice.org. However if we are using other software, PDF creator allows us to produce a PDF file from any application we have tried. If you can print a document, then you can use PDF Creator to create a PDF file instead of printing to the printer. Our clients find this very handy for producing documents such as orders, quotes, invoices etc, from the MS Access systems. http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/ For creating PDF's you should also remember that OpenOffice.org has the ability to produce PDF's as well. In fact OpenOffice.org is better in some respects as it enables you to have hyperlinks in your PDF documents. OpenOffice.org however
can't let you print PDF files from others applications. NOTE: At this stage we would suggest not installing this program under Vista. We found the version available as at 25 October 2007 too tricky to install and could not easily get it to work. For Vista try using PDF995. The nag screens are really annoying, but it worked without too much effort. PDF995 should be okay for light use even with the nag screens. Primo PDF Since PDF Creator currently does not work with Windows Vista we are reviewing Primo PDF as an alternative to PDF Creator. So far our tests have shown Primo PDF to be good at producing PDF files from applications. Primo PDF is set up as a
printer. To produce a PDF using Primo PDF instead of printing to your
printer, you select PrimoPDF as the printer. The file created is a PDF. You can find Primo PDF at http://www.primopdf.com/. Microsoft Access runtime (Run Microsoft Access programs without owning Microsoft Access.) Microsoft Access runtime allows us to build an application in Microsoft Access and to install the application on any users machine without having to purchase Microsoft Office or Microsoft Access. This is a very cost effective way to provide users with applications and to keep the cost of software down. This software is available as part of the Microsoft Office developer kit. UPDATE: The Microsoft Access runtime 2007 will shortly be released and will be free. We think this is one of the biggest opportunities for computer developers and users that Microsoft has created in years. Antivirus (include anti-virus and anti-spyware from one of the leading commercial anti-virus companies.) We have found for home users two options which have proven useful for some people. Microsoft's Defender which is a free download for Windows XP users. Defender however only looks for adware and spyware and that means you also need an anti-virus solution. A reasonable and free anti-virus solution is AVG's product. This software is only free for non-commercial use. The latest version combines anti-virus and adware/spyware protection. You can download AVG from the Internet. Some users have found downloading the program to be very difficult so patience may be required. It should also be noted with AVG the default update of 24 hours in the program is an exposure and we have found with other products 24 hours is too long and has led to infections. 7-Zip (Very useful for handling compressed files not handled by Windows XP.) Generally we use the built in compressed file function of Windows XP for unzipping and zipping files. However there is one situation where the Windows XP facility does not work. Our websites are hosted on Linux servers. The logs are kept compressed in a format not recognised by Windows XP. We use 7-Zip to extract the contents of the logs so that we can view and use the logs. The logs provide us with invaluable information on how our web sites are being used. Acrobat Reader 7 (PDF reader program from Adobe.) Many computers now come with older versions of Acrobat Reader. This can cause problems when viewing newer PDF files. We generally uninstall the old version of Acrobat Reader and install a more recent version of Acrobat Reader. http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html Helix Media Player for Nokia N-Gage QD (Play mp3 files on a mobile phone.) We use the Helix Media Player on our Nokia N-Gage QD to play mp3 files. This aging phone has proven invaluable to us and listening to audio material whilst travelling has allowed us to learn many new things during periods where our time would otherwise be wasted. We feel this player which is designed for Series 60 operating system, should be able to be installed on other Nokia mobile phones, but we have not tested this. The N-Gage QD was purchased as at the time it enabled us to use a 256MB memory card with the mobile phone for data and files. This was quite a large capacity at the time with memory MP3 players have 128MB of memory. https://player.helixcommunity.org/2005/downloads/ µTorrent client (Our preferred client for file sharing.) The µTorrent program is a BitTorrent client which is used for file sharing applications. We use µTorrent for example to download OpenOffice.org and Fedora Linux. There is a wealth of free material on the Internet available for download. We have found this client to be very good. It is better than other clients we have used. Disclaimer The above list of software is software which we use and some of our clients use as a result of our recommendation. You should perform your own review of the software to see if it meets your requirements. ADVERTISING The following are some companies which may be able to provide services. We are not associated with the companies and we have not used their services, or had feedback as to whether they are good or otherwise unless stated. Please treat each service as a convenient link and nothing more. Should you purchase using the following links we will receive a small commission. As we gather feedback from others we will add a feedback indicator. If there is a high level of negative feedback the link will be removed. LawCentral This link has been included
as LawCentral have a software licence agreement and other agreements
software and web developers may wish to review.
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