Fantastic Forum the Original Art Bell's Midnight in the Desert and Coast to Coast AM Forum

tell me your best freE downloadS for PC. Make sure you lets us know which computer it would be for and why you think its a great download for someone to try out.


Like

Ispell for spelling ( which reminds me I need to download it again)
avg virus protection for all computers

so for and so on.....

no 30 day trial's these must be a free down load all the way.......

can be fun stuff, work stuff, interesting stuff...you name it.

i have two need to go find them.....lol

Try to post them as links so we can just click too, like this:

SpywareBlaster
Spybot Search & Destroy
AdAware SE Personal

Spyware Blaster has caused a lot of problems on some computers including mine, had a hard time getting rid of once installed, infact had to do a restore.

I run Spyware Blaster with no problems at all. I don't really think it does anything on your system but change a few settings, mostly for IE, then it's gone. But since I use IE on occasion I ran it. It's basically a run once program that changes security settings and your HOSTS file, etc so IE won't kill your system, heh.

I'm sorry you had problems Shirley, but your complaint is the first I've heard - though I've not been looking. I mostly have heard recommendations and praise for its simplicity. Now, Spybot S&D has been pretty ineffective for me. I never catch anything in SB scans anymore - which is a good thing, I guess. MS Anti-spyware is my main line of Internet security. I attribute Firefox to my spyware free system tho.

I never buy software for my PC. All my system is mostly open source freeware with a very few exceptions - Yargh! (if you know what I mean ). So I can recommend a few, many of which have been posted on here by me and others before. Google would be your best source for this stuff. That's the first place I go to look for a particular software solution not already in my repertoire and 99% of the time I find just what I need - for free. But here's a few of my favorites that I use and enjoy all the time:

AVG Antivirus - Excellent freeware AV.

Google Earth - Which, BTW, just had a version upgrade. Still in beta but very slick if you have the hardware and BW.

Celestia - free space simulation that lets you explore our universe in three dimensions. Celestia runs on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X.

Audacity - Open source audio editor.

Konfabulator - A fun desktop enhancement program that lets you install from a huge selection of free desktop 'Widgets'. Much like Apple's Dashboard. Theres Widgets that watch the web, your system, weather, you name it. Some that just wander around your desktop looking cute. And hundreds more.

Firefox - I couldn't leave out arguably the best browser on the 'net...ever.

Opera - My number two browser choice

Picasa - photo organizer and editor that finds all the pix on your puter and organizes them in easy to find virtual folders. It also had a very nice editing/tweaking feature and makes it easy to print and share your pix online. Perfect for a newbie or anyone.

Google Talk - Google's fine, free entry in the IM market.

Gmail - not a program, per say, but the premier free web mail service today. MSN, Yahoo and the others try to compete but haven't come close yet. Yahoo has a beta that looks promising. We'll see.

VLC media player - I haven't found a valid media file it won't play and no worry about codecs - it needs none. It'll stream over your network too.

WinAmp - Great full function mp3 player I've been using for years. Stay away form the very latest version. I wouldn't use anything after ver. 5.08. Some say nothing after 2.95. Avoid AOL versions.

Skype - free Voip internet calls to anyone anywhere in the world that has Skype.

This is just the shiniest tip of the ice berg. There are many, many more..

..like Trillian, Metapad, Grabclipsave, Tor, Thunderbird, Fontpage, Netmeter, Gunz, Blendr, MS Powertools, Gallery Remote, Nero, SlimBrowser, ipodder, Ethereal . . .

Absolute Shield File Shredder:

http://www.download.com/AbsoluteShield- ... ag=lst-0-1

now you will see complaints that you can only shred one file at a time, but if you make a folder and put all the files you want to shred into the folder, you can then sellect shred folder.......

Also, you can select one pass or seven passes max, I have mine set to 7 passes, and it is quick, and does what it says.

If you are just starting to learn, here is a free microsoft gif animator:

http://www.mrfreefree.com/free_software ... ools.html#


The best place I have found to store your avatars......unlimited storage and bandwidth for small files free:

http://www.avataravenue.com/login.php


Trouts Free GIF Optimizer
http://chemware.co.nz/tgo.htm

an optimizer is a tool that makes the file size of your avatar as small as possible, so that it takes up less bandwidth, and will fit in more message boards etc.....


Batch Image Resizer:

http://somethingelse.forumsplace.com/ur ... 48013.html

Thank you sayntbrigid, some really cool programs.

Hi Shirley

Your welcome, I will remember this thread is here as more or better come my way

i've been using pc's since 1983 and always used them for my communications programs, wordprocessing and a few games, basically stuck in my same old ways but with these new programs this will probably break me out of my old ways and venture forth into this brave new world.

my main problem as i suppose with many others too is the amount of time that you have available to implement new programs into your basic programs that you use everyday.

andy

these are all great. now someone tell me how to show the link so someone can click on it. checking out all of dales....

AVG- Excellent freeware AV.
like it

Google Earth - Which, BTW, just had a version upgrade. Still in beta but very slick if you have the hardware and BW.

can't down load

Celestia - free space simulation that lets you explore our universe in three dimensions. Celestia runs on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X.

This was great

Audacity - Open source audio editor....

HMMMM

Konfabulator - A fun desktop enhancement program that lets you install from a huge selection of free desktop 'Widgets'. Much like Apple's Dashboard. Theres Widgets that watch the web, your system, weather, you name it. Some that just wander around your desktop looking cute. And hundreds more.

Could get to work got to many ad's

Firefox - I couldn't leave out arguably the best browser on the 'net...ever.

messed up my puter to much

Opera - My number two browser choice

looking at it now

turtle~ when you want to make text clickable do this:

Click on the Reply to get into where you normally type your reply to a thread and click the [url]http://[/url] button. The first screen that comes up is where you type the text that you want visible and the second box that comes up is where you type the URL. That's all there is to it. By the way, the [url]http://[/url] button is right above where you type your reply along with a bunch of formatting buttons and drop-downs.

Hope that helps.

Kplaylist is a PHP designed system for streaming your audio files as mp3, wma,
ogg and others directly from web. The system supports LAME. Great for storing your Coast to Coast shows and listening to them at other locations off a browser.

And my favorite .... Asterisk, open source phone system.

Asterisk is an open source PBX software which can run on a Linux machine, using either IP telephone hardware, or a Digium card to convert a plain old telephone line to IP, such as a Wildcard TE210P or a TE411P. The user can use a service such as Vontage or Packet8 as their carrier. (Packet 8 is $22.95 p/mo free LD to N.A.)

Once you have the phone calls into the box, you can use your network with IP phones around the house. Some can be seen at VoIP Supply. I use the Budgetone 102 while my wife has the Grandstream GXP-2000

A quick note about VoIP phones. Some have a "loop through" CAT-5 port on the phone, so you run a cable from your router to the phone, and then to your computer. I also put all my phone stuff in the 10.0.1.150 - 10.0.1.190 region, and my computers in the < 10.0.1.100 range.

If you're really geeky, you can use Free World Dialup to get a SIP number, then link it to IP Kall to get a phone number without a POTS circuit (POTS = plain old telephone service). The down side of it is that you're area code will be 360, Mt Ranier WA.

The Asterisk system is easily programmed, and you can make it as simple or complicated as you wish. On my system I have it so phones ring during the day, and between 8P-8A it goes direct to voice mail prompts with choices to call a certain person, ("press 2 for Fred"), in which case it rings just the phone in my home office. After 4 rings it goes to voice mail. Voice mail can be e-mailed to you as a 8khz, 8 bit, mono wav file, or held for you to call in and get. The system can also have "on hold" music, or in my case some select Coast shows.

A DELL Optiplex will do just fine. See Ebay auction #8711343836 for a typical Dell system which will work well.

If you need to interface to POTS or hook up your old phones, you'll need a Digium card or an IP/Analog interface. If you can do it all IP, then all you have in your phone system are the IP phones and computer.

With something like a Pentium III, you can duplicate a large frame telephone system such as an Intertel 24x72 tepehone system, complete with conferencing, call forwarding, paging, etc!

EVERYTHINGS FREE ( if you know where to look) muahahahaha
:p
But seriously, spybot S&D , Zone alarm free, and AVG anti-virus free.
http://free.grisoft.com/freeweb.php/doc/1
http://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/index.html
http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/c ... opnav_zass

(full links as some take a few clicks to get to, but if against forum rules, moderator can delete and just search for them.)

i go to snapfiles dot com whenever i need a program. can't remember but i do think i got this from ff which i get most of my links from.

andy