Freebies from the Web Hank Maier The Things Bill Gates Never Told Me or

Overview ● The Open Source – “non-profit corporation dedicated to managing and promoting the Open Source Definition for the good of the community, specifically through the OSI Certified Open Source Software certification mark and program..” – The basic idea behind open source is very simple: When programmers can read, redistribute, and modify the source code for a piece of software, the software evolves. People improve it, people adapt it, people fix bugs. And this can happen at a speed that, if one is used to the slow pace of conventional software development, seems astonishing. ● Read more at

OVERVIEW ● Free Software Foundation – Welcome to the GNU Project web server, The GNU project was launched in 1984 to develop a complete Unix-like operating system which is free software: the GNU system. (GNU is a recursive acronym for "GNU's Not Unix"; it is pronounced "guh-NEW".) – Free software is a matter of freedom: people should be free to use software in all the ways that are socially useful. Software differs from material objects--such as chairs, sandwiches, and gasoline--in that it can be copied and changed much more easily. These possibilities make software as useful as it is; we believe software users should be able to make use of them. ● Read more at

Some Terms ● Freeware - Free ● Shareware – Free to download and try, Volunteer payment expected if you keep it and use it. May have expiration algorithm ● “Nagware”- Every so often program “nags” user to buy it. ● “Adware” – displays ads in banner. May be configurable for your interest, IMO don’t do it or you may attract SPAM ● Demo Packages -

Some Packages ● Open Office (Comparable to MS Office, Can interchange documents with MS Office, Commercial version Star Office from Sun) ● TextPad (superior replacement for NotePad) ● AVG (Antivirus software comparable to Norton or Macfee) ● AdAware (Eliminates spyware – if you don’t have it – get it!)

Some Packages II ● IRFANView (Free image processing software) ● Utilities: – SamSpade (Evaluates to identify source of Spam, useful to IP addresses) – Link Sluth – Find broken links and other stuff about your web site – Check Ports (Usefull to watch for unauthorized / unexpected WEB activity on your PC. – Desktop Restore – Fixed your scrambled ICONs when Windows forget where you put them.

Some Packages III ● LINUX – A very nice UNIX alternate to Windows ● Apache Web Server ● PHP – “Easy to use” Web scripting language ● MySQL – Full relational DB system comparable to Oracle or MS SQL Server, – Low cost hosting services tend touse MySQL

Cost Savings ● MS Office -$150 - $500 ● Notron Antivirus$20 - $40 ● Image viewer and editor$20 - $40 ● Spywear eliminator$20 - $40 ● Totals$210 - $620

Pluses & Minuses – Good Stuff ● High quality software ● Very affordable software (Free or Mostly free) ● Generally compatable - built to standards ● Being a “little to a lot” GEEKY helps – “No geeky” needed --> TextPad, IRFANView, AVG, ADAware – “Little geeky” --> Open office – A Lot geeky --> Free LINUX (a “little geeky” buy a distribution of Linux

Pluses & Minuses - Buyer Beware ● Pick a reliable vendor ● Research title first ● Could be poorly written code resulting in danger to your PC ● Could be a Trojan Horse / Virus – not likely if you do the above two steps.

Where do I get FREEBIES ● ● ● (AVG) (AVG) ● ● OR the source of all knowledge – – – Other search engines

Demonstrations ● OpenOffice ● IRFANview ● SamSpade ● AVG ● AdAware

Conclusion ● High quality software is available for Free or at least very cheep ● Requires the user to look for it ● Being a little geeky helps ● I use the packages I discussed today

Questions & Answers Q. How was this presentation developed? A. This presentation was prepared using Open Office !!! ): !!! Saved in Powerpoint Format Shown in IE Your Questions?