tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-77665484805565079022017-02-01T21:39:46.802-08:00Free software reviews,tips,trickswrgbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04577956406379537117noreply@blogger.comBlogger411100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7766548480556507902.post-32654415063266546062010-06-01T05:56:00.000-07:002010-06-01T05:59:33.623-07:00

Help a ministry student out - visit Free Bible Study Lessons and make a donation -- Free Bible Study Lessons

wrgbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04577956406379537117noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7766548480556507902.post-59840961190868680882009-10-02T06:03:00.000-07:002009-10-02T06:10:47.262-07:00

We have a new site for Ubuntu beginners. It's called 1-800-UBUNTU. If you're new to Ubuntu, or thinking about trying it, then click on the link below and have a look.1-800-UBUNTU

wrgbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04577956406379537117noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7766548480556507902.post-32261271137023560172008-05-24T10:00:00.000-07:002008-12-09T21:47:36.070-08:00

Updated 5/24/08 The default Ubuntu login screen leaves something to be desired in the way of aesthetics (just my personal opinion, you may love it). But thankfully, like almost everything else in Ubuntu, it can be changed (welcome to the wonderful world of Linux). Here's how:1. Click on System>Administration>Login Window2. Enter your administrative password (your login password)3. Click on

wrgbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04577956406379537117noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7766548480556507902.post-20496338499780802332008-05-22T14:26:00.000-07:002008-12-09T21:47:36.388-08:00

Several months ago, I started using the Thunderbird email/newsreader client from Mozilla on my Windows XP machine. You can see the full review in this post. Since Thunderbird still has one of the best spam filters on the planet, it was one of the first apps I installed in Ubuntu 8.04 when I made the switch. I'm not a big fan of Evolution - I'm not sure why, it just kind of "feels boxy". If

wrgbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04577956406379537117noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7766548480556507902.post-9816858906991809772008-05-22T07:24:00.000-07:002008-12-09T21:47:37.290-08:00

Well, it's been 30 days since I entered "Windows rehab", trying to go cold-turkey by taking large doses of Ubuntu 8.04 "Hardy Heron". And for the most part, I've been successful. Other than booting XP a few times to get personal info and to run one program that does not have a Linux replacement, I've done everything I used to do in Windows with Ubuntu for 30 days. As they say in my neck of the

wrgbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04577956406379537117noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7766548480556507902.post-20418976962481450232008-05-21T16:24:00.000-07:002008-12-09T21:47:37.378-08:00

You may have enabled the auto-hide feature in your Gnome panel(s), probably at least the bottom one if you are used to Windows. I did, but it takes too long to hide. Fortunately, like almost everything else in the Linux world, the auto hide and unhide delay can be adjusted. See my last post on the Gnome Configuration Editor for instructions.What next?If you have a problem or question, leave a

wrgbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04577956406379537117noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7766548480556507902.post-19289417490063586932008-05-21T11:25:00.000-07:002008-12-09T21:47:37.749-08:00

I posted recently about the fact that some of Ubuntu's installed applications are not available in the menus after a default install. One such useful application is the Gnome Configuration Editor. This utility allows you to change many of the settings that affect the various applications that come with Ubuntu. Here's how to enable it :1. Click on System>Administration>Preferences>Main Menu2.

wrgbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04577956406379537117noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7766548480556507902.post-50780498599456642532008-05-07T09:13:00.000-07:002008-12-09T21:47:38.987-08:00

The Tracker Desktop Search Tool includes support for Thunderbird emails, as evidenced by a setting in its Preferences on the Email tab to Enable Thunderbird email indexing. This setting is greyed out - meaning you can't select it (a bug in the current Ubuntu version of Tracker) - but thankfully it is already selected.I mentioned in yesterday's post that I had been using Thunderbird, but that

wrgbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04577956406379537117noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7766548480556507902.post-18183182430393786472008-05-06T09:12:00.000-07:002008-12-09T21:47:39.245-08:00

Ubuntu comes with a built-in desktop search tool (similar to Google desktop search), but you may not know it's there (Applications >Accessories>Tracker Search Tool. But before it can find anything, you need to set it up to index the files on your hard disk. Here's how: From the main menu, choose System>Preferences>Search and Indexing. This brings up the settings for the Tracker search

wrgbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04577956406379537117noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7766548480556507902.post-18101195632361088132008-04-28T12:17:00.000-07:002008-12-09T21:47:40.251-08:00

If you've installed the latest release of Ubuntu, version 8.04 - codenamed "Hardy Heron", you've probably discovered by now that the Firefox browser does not include the Flash plugin from Adobe. You may have been prompted to download the plugin, but left wondering how to install it. The easiest way to install Flash Player 9 is to use Ubuntu's built-in Synaptic Package Manager. Just follow

wrgbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04577956406379537117noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7766548480556507902.post-80082017528321482602008-04-24T11:44:00.000-07:002008-12-09T21:47:40.851-08:00

Read Part 1 of this review Read Part 2 of this reviewI'm feeling much better about Ubuntu today. As a matter of fact, I think I'm ready to jump the Windows XP ship for Ubuntu. Everything I need to work is working. And when I consider all the hours I have spent in the past installing software and configuring Windows XP, the amount of time I've spent on Ubuntu

wrgbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04577956406379537117noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7766548480556507902.post-53250972254155350902008-04-23T10:56:00.000-07:002008-12-09T21:47:41.727-08:00

Ubuntu 8.04 Control CenterRead Part 1 of this reviewPrinter problem (sort of) solved, viewing DVDs (or not) and burning CDsAfter investigating the reason why my Lexmark Z730 printer wasn't working, I found that Ubuntu had not installed a driver for it after all. It had merely recognized it by name over the USB port, but there is not a driver (that I have been able to find) available for it. I

wrgbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04577956406379537117noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7766548480556507902.post-38097642663336693062008-04-21T13:21:00.000-07:002008-12-09T21:47:42.263-08:00

Has the time finally arrived when I can trade Windows for a free operating system and use only free applications? Well, it may have. And that operating system is Linux, in the form of Ubuntu. I couldn't wait for the official release of Ubuntu 8.04, codenamed "Hardy Heron", so I downloaded the almost finished beta version a few days ago. This review details my experience with it so

wrgbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04577956406379537117noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7766548480556507902.post-16349755078356279832008-04-17T10:16:00.000-07:002008-12-09T21:47:42.555-08:00

Download FeedDemon 2.6When I started this blog, I soon realized I needed a better way to keep abreast of the latest free software news. I had tried RSS feeds before, using Opera's built-in feed reader, but it just didn't "feel" right. Opera wasn't designed primarily as a RSS reader, and it showed. So I started a search for a dedicated RSS reader that I could live with. The result of my search

wrgbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04577956406379537117noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7766548480556507902.post-5430498789880249082008-04-15T08:01:00.000-07:002008-12-09T21:47:42.720-08:00

I've noticed several people arriving here from a Google search on how to stop Spybot Search and Destroy from running at startup. When you install Spybot, by default it installs the resident protection to run at startup. Since this resident protection consumes quite a bit of resources, it can slow down older PCs quite a bit.To turn off resident protection in Spybot S&D, you have to enable

wrgbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04577956406379537117noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7766548480556507902.post-50234187988954972092008-04-14T08:46:00.001-07:002008-12-09T21:47:43.229-08:00

                      Download Deepburner free CD burning softwareQuickReviewFree CD burning software that's just as good as Nero, but without the $80 price tag. Deepburner has all the features that most people need for burning CDs, plus the added capability of burning data DVDs. And it's easy to use - all operations are performed thru a simple wizard interface. You can burn or

wrgbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04577956406379537117noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7766548480556507902.post-88484064235332480082008-04-12T06:22:00.000-07:002008-12-09T21:47:43.786-08:00

I recently reviewed Startup Monitor 1.02, a program that allows you to stop programs from registering themselves to run at system startup. I've since had several questions concerning what to do about programs that have already installed themselves to run at system startup. So this review is about how to use several commonly available free software programs to control which programs run at

wrgbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04577956406379537117noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7766548480556507902.post-681809909468529232008-04-08T14:59:00.000-07:002008-12-09T21:47:43.930-08:00

Firefox 3 Beta 5 downloadWell, I resisted the urge to download the Firefox 3 Beta 5 release as long as I could. I downloaded it a few days ago, and have been using it since. Before you jump over to the download link to get it, read the rest of this review - a few things are missing and, despite the fact that the release notes stated that it would not overwrite my existing Firefox 2, it did -

wrgbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04577956406379537117noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7766548480556507902.post-80979526054527843242008-04-07T12:50:00.000-07:002008-12-09T21:47:44.131-08:00

ClipDiary 1.4 DownloadWhat with maintaining two sites, both in blog format, I do a LOT of copying and pasting. I've used several clipboard utilities over the years, but recently started a search for one that meets my current needs. The best one I've found to this point is ClipDiary (Clipboard Diary).This handy little utility sits quietly in your system tray, keeping track of everything that you

wrgbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04577956406379537117noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7766548480556507902.post-50743407736511055362008-04-03T11:24:00.000-07:002008-12-09T21:47:44.845-08:00

Here are a few more free blogging tools and resources that I've come across since starting my blog. Enjoy :)Free Blogging ToolsWhat the heck is a Blidget, anyhow?Well, it's a Blog in a Widget. Ok.... Why would I want one? So your friends can put YOUR blog on THEIR blog in a widget. And vice-versa. And if you have more than one blog, you could put the Blidget for blog #1 on blog #2, and vice

wrgbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04577956406379537117noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7766548480556507902.post-42010675464081918722008-04-01T12:13:00.001-07:002008-12-09T21:47:44.991-08:00

This review is about one of those handy little utilities that you just can't resist installing. I have been consistently bothered by a couple of programs lately, Yahoo Messenger in particular, that set themselves to run at startup whether I want them to or not. Yahoo Messenger has a setting for this - but it ignores the setting! Every time I run it, it sets itself to run at startup again.

wrgbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04577956406379537117noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7766548480556507902.post-37484060350023504872008-03-31T14:06:00.000-07:002008-12-09T21:47:45.165-08:00

Shortly after I started this blog, I realized I needed something better than Notepad to manage my list of things to do with it. So I started searching for an application that would allow me to do just one thing - manage a simple list of to-do items. All I wanted to do was to be able to prioritize the to-do items and check them off when they were completed, and possibly set a due-date for each

wrgbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04577956406379537117noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7766548480556507902.post-3875411499342204742008-03-29T10:06:00.000-07:002008-12-09T21:47:45.484-08:00

I like to check the weather often, but sites like Weather.com bother me because they have more advertisements than weather information. You can get a free desktop utility from some of these weather sites, but guess what, you get ads with these, too. So I went off to find a good, free desktop weather app with no ads. The best one I found is Weather Watcher.This handy little utility allows you

wrgbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04577956406379537117noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7766548480556507902.post-37402766139028477892008-03-27T11:13:00.000-07:002008-12-09T21:47:45.809-08:00

Frustrated waiting for the Windows search utility to find that document that you wrote last year? You know it's there, but can't remember where you saved it.  Well, there is a solution. Locate32 can find any file on your hard drive (or network drive for that matter) almost instantaneously.  It does this by scanning your drive(s) and indexing all of your files into a database.  When you search for

wrgbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04577956406379537117noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7766548480556507902.post-26749040959142304822008-03-26T12:45:00.000-07:002008-12-09T21:47:45.981-08:00

Frustrated trying to find a free DVD player that works without searching for, dowloading and installing extra codecs?  I was, until I found the AVS DVD player from AVS Media.  This full-featured DVD player played every DVD I threw at it, straight out of the box - no additional codec(s) required.  The program installtion was straightforward, and operation was intuitive, with several different "

wrgbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04577956406379537117noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7766548480556507902.post-22453117989986183542008-03-23T21:07:00.000-07:002008-12-09T21:47:46.259-08:00

Since starting this blog, I've come across quite a few good free blogging tools and resources.  I've benefited a lot from other's sharing these, so I decided to write a post every now and then including a few of these with a short desription.Free Blogging ToolsApollofind Website CounterThis little counter widget is from Apollofind.com .  You can register for a free account there, and pick up the

wrgbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04577956406379537117noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7766548480556507902.post-1366557441826040422008-03-21T17:01:00.000-07:002008-12-09T21:47:46.439-08:00

I've been experimenting with adding video software reviews to this website, and in the process have tried several utilities for recording screen output to common video formats. The best free tool I've come across to this point is CamStudio. This handy little program allows you to quickly and easily record screen activity to either AVI or SWF format.AVI format can be played in most any video

wrgbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04577956406379537117noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7766548480556507902.post-42681190127307442202008-03-20T09:36:00.000-07:002008-12-09T21:47:46.592-08:00

If you have a website, and you've ever tried changing the color of the background, text, etc., then you know about those cryptic HTML color codes. They look like this : #80FFFF . That's Light Blue in HTML-speak. Now how are you going to remember that? Chances are you are not.Enter HTML Colors. This handy little utility allows you to pick a color from the windows palette, copy its HTML color

wrgbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04577956406379537117noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7766548480556507902.post-33002415322307837962008-03-19T10:39:00.001-07:002008-12-09T21:47:47.189-08:00

Do you miss one (or some) of your old DOS games? Wish you could play them on your XP or Vista (or even Linux) system and have everything, including sound, work? Well, you can if you use DOSBox, an Open Source DOS emulator. And if you need a copy of your old DOS game, chances are you will find it at Home of the Underdogs or Liberated Games.  Even though this application is still in beta form, I

wrgbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04577956406379537117noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7766548480556507902.post-12440467680779719992008-03-17T11:40:00.000-07:002008-12-09T21:47:47.347-08:00

This program is consistently at or near the top of the list of downloads at CNET downloads. I believe one of the reasons for this is that it combines several PC maintenance utilities into one program. On launching the program, you are presented with a list of seven operations that the program can perform, and you can check or un-check each operation.The seven operations are: Spyware Removal,

wrgbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04577956406379537117noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7766548480556507902.post-912048026810408062008-03-01T13:49:00.000-08:002008-12-09T21:47:47.501-08:00

Time to upgrade your Microsoft Office and the price has you reeling? Or maybe you've considered Open Office, but have a dial-up connection and can't tie up the phone line for the 2 days it would take to download? Well, there is a serious alternative out there, and it's called AbiWord. And you won't have to leave the rest of the world behind - AbiWord reads and writes the Microsoft doc format,

wrgbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04577956406379537117noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7766548480556507902.post-65214129401225029572008-02-27T13:23:00.000-08:002008-12-09T21:47:47.783-08:00

I have always wondered why the PDF format became a web and desktop standard for publishing documents. I wondered because the only application available for reading them was Adobe Reader, which has always been slow to launch and slow to respond while viewing a document. And matters have just gotten worse over time, as Adobe Reader has become more and more bloated. Thankfully, things have been

wrgbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04577956406379537117noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7766548480556507902.post-13713237314068893102008-02-25T13:11:00.000-08:002008-03-20T08:32:24.689-07:00

My next post is part of a new series called First Looks. In this series, I will be reviewing promising programs that are currently still in beta. Most of these will be Open Source type programs, simply because Open Source betas are usually widely available. One of the things that makes Open Source possible is users who are willing to try a promising new software still in beta, and report any

wrgbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04577956406379537117noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7766548480556507902.post-67421990317256567062008-02-20T13:07:00.001-08:002008-12-09T21:47:48.090-08:00

Over the years, I have searched for and downloaded a lot of free software. Usually this involved Googling “free word processor” or whatever I might be looking for – and a lot of trial and error downloading, installing and trying different packages. The search results don't provide much feedback about the quality of a program, except in the form of advertisements. Over time though, there was

wrgbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04577956406379537117noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7766548480556507902.post-22865088178719826672008-02-19T10:37:00.001-08:002008-12-09T21:47:48.581-08:00

Over the past few years, I've come to the conclusion that no one anti-spyware program can catch everything, so I use two of them on a regular basis – Spybot Search & Destroy and Ad-Aware from Lavasoft. I'll be reviewing Ad-Aware in the near future.I have been using Spybot S&D for several years now, and have followed it through several upgrades to the current version, which is 1.5.2. Spybot S&D

wrgbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04577956406379537117noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7766548480556507902.post-24963779290217355252008-02-16T15:26:00.000-08:002008-12-09T21:47:48.739-08:00

When I started this blog, I made the decision to always include a screenshot of the programs that I review. It quickly became apparent that I needed to update my screen capture utility to meet certain criteria. My criteria included the following:Small, lightweight, easy-to-useThe ability to capture just the active window, without the mouse cursorThe ability to preview the image and save it with

wrgbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04577956406379537117noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7766548480556507902.post-63918586847515679392008-02-14T17:47:00.000-08:002008-12-09T21:47:48.886-08:00

Up until a few weeks ago, I was using the web-mail provided by my isp for reading and sending all of my email. Even though the web-mail app had a spam filter, my inbox was out of control – I was still getting about 75% spam. So I started searching for a good, free alternative. I soon came across references to Mozilla Thunderbird, developed by the same organization that gave us the Firefox web

wrgbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04577956406379537117noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7766548480556507902.post-10961536577388010952008-02-12T16:58:00.001-08:002008-12-09T21:47:49.062-08:00

Ccleaner (originally stood for “crap” cleaner – no kidding!) is an excellent PC cleanup utility for daily or weekly use. As I mentioned in my review of Disk Cleaner yesterday, I use Ccleaner weekly to help catch the things that Disk Cleaner missed during the week – as an added bonus Ccleaner also contains a registry cleaner.I have used Ccleaner for about 2 years now, and just recently upgraded

wrgbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04577956406379537117noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7766548480556507902.post-39278501978295591692008-02-11T16:49:00.000-08:002008-12-09T21:47:49.199-08:00

Even the name is simple – just plain Disk Cleaner. Runs in only a few seconds, and cleans over 120 types of temporary files that are left on your hard disk. This includes Windows, Internet Explorer, Firefox and Opera temp files, as well as a host of other types created by common applications.I've been using Disk Cleaner on my Windows XP SP2 machine for over a year now – I run it once or twice a

wrgbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04577956406379537117noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7766548480556507902.post-70114592730024198822008-02-11T09:48:00.000-08:002008-03-01T14:39:13.894-08:00

Welcome to the No Cost Software blog. This blog will be devoted to what I believe are some of the best No Cost Software programs on the net. Look for reviews, tips on how to use and questions and answers for No Cost Software programs in a variety of categories. These categories will be developed over the next several months, as reviews in each category are completed.A few words about the name

wrgbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04577956406379537117noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7766548480556507902.post-39979319955066821092008-02-10T17:45:00.000-08:002008-12-09T21:47:49.484-08:00

Getting Started with Ubuntu seriesChanging the backgroundChanging the desktop themeThe Gnome Panel systemUbuntu's Hidden ApplicationsUbuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron reviewPart IPart IIPart IIIUbuntu SoftwareInternetAdding Adobe Flash Player to FirefoxReview - Thunderbird email client (Windows version, operation is identical in Ubuntu)Ubuntu UtilitiesTracker desktop search toolInstalling Thunderbird email

wrgbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04577956406379537117noreply@blogger.com0