A Pinoy Blog About Nothing

When we got rid of the old desktop and after hopefully some thorough cleaning of the hard-drive, we decided to try some free open-source software on the laptop. Because it works as well as the branded stuff. And because I’m cheap. I’m not claiming to be an expert. There are just some stuff I’ve tried on my own and worked to my satisfaction. I’ve tried these on Windows XP, btw.

* Open Office
Works as well as MS Office. Opens up your Word, Excel, Powerpoint files. Haven’t tried its Access/ database component yet but it’s looking good. Faster and doesn’t take that much space.

* PDF 995
Create your own PDF file without having to buy the Adobe software. Easy enough to use and works well in tandem with Open Office.

* Picasa
Got the first version and I haven’t really given the second one a thorough spin. All the features you need to fix your digital images - from cropping, red eye, balance, contrast - are readily accessible. Photoshop is still good but a bit of an overkill if it’s just sitting in your system just to crop your blog pics. Picasa is from Google and of course has a nice interface with Blogger.

* Avast
With all the new malware, trojans, virus and spyware being released in the Net everyday, you’d better replace that expired Norton or McAfee anti-virus on your computer. If you can spare some change, it’s a good idea to subscribe to these anti-virus software. If you can’t, well Avast is pretty good. I’ve had it for some time and it catches *most* of the prevalent baddie code out there. Add to the mix the must-have Ad-Aware, Spybot Search & Destroy, and Spyware Blaster and I’d say you’ll have a decent protection for your computer. The free version of AVG also gets good reviews as an AV software although I haven’t personally tried it.

* Startup Inspector for Windows
Before leaving Florida, I helped a couple of friends fix their computer. Just a couple of uninstalls, virus scans, and the all important Windows Update. All of them haven’t updated their Windows OS since buying the computers from the store.
It’s also a good idea to check what programs boot up in your computer when you press the power on button to make sure there aren’t any hidden stuff booting up or at the very least, software you don’t need. Startup Inspector makes it easier for you to see which are programs have loaded when you booted up.

* Eraser
To put things simply: when you put a file in your recycle bin and delete it, it doesn’t necessarily disappear from your computer as you’d like to believe. Experts like Peter Gutmann and various US Defense agencies recommend overwriting several times with random patterns to discourage people from being able to easily recover data from your hard drive.

* Firefox and Thunderbird
Last but not least of course, get Firefox for your browser and Thunderbird for your email client. What else can I say but it works well.