One of the more frequently asked computer questions around The Westerman Way is what software applications we recommend. Here is a list of our favorites along with direct links to the sites where you can download what you need.
AOL Instant Messenger / MSN Messenger – www.aim.com / messenger.msn.com – The two contenders in the Internet chat realm. AOL’s flavor is just about everywhere, but MSN’s offering is a bit more feature-rich. Purists will tell you that nothing beats the granddaddy, Internet Relay Chat (IRC), but for most of us, one of the above will serve your needs. Freeware
Skype – www.skype.com – The most popular of the free voip Internet phone services. If you have a microphone (and most laptops have one built in), you can load it up, log in and have a high quality voice conversation with other Skype users anywhere in the world, free. Throw some change on the talbe and you can buy a Skype-in phone number so folks with ordinary land lines can call you. And for 2 cents a minute you can Skype-out the public switched telephone network.
Freeware / Commercialware
Automachron - www.oneguycoding.com – Computer clocks seem to be inaccurate by nature. Automachron is a great little app that synchronizes your clock with one of the many time servers on the Internet. If you’re running XP or have a Mac or Linux box you won’t need this one. Time synchronization comes standard with thos operating systemsFreeware
Audacity – audacity.sourceforge.net – If you want to record, edit, or save audio files, but don’t want to cough up for Adobe Audition, try Audacity. This free recorder/editor allows you to manipulate audio files in a variety of formats. Saving to MP3 requires you to go off site to get the free Lame encoder.Freeware
Shareware
E-Clean – www.mindvision.com – Don’t you hate it when somebody forwards you a great e-mail that’s polluted with a bunch of ">" symbols? E-Clean takes text copy and re-formats it properly so you can send it to others without the garbage. Shareware
Kool Moves – www.koolmoves.com – Macromedia’s Shockwave and Flash have become the standard for animation on the Internet. If you want to add some flash to your web pages, Kool Moves is a lot easier to learn and costs a lot less.
Shareware
Nortron Anti-Virus –
www.symantec.com – Everyone needs to protect their computer from virus attacks. We’ve tried all of the scanners around and nothing beats Norton. It protects your email, periodically scans your hard drive, kills the bad stuff, and automatically updates it’s virus information database on a regular basis. $29.95 Commercialware
Paint Shop Pro – www.jasc.com – The pros may argue that Adobe Photo Shop is more feature-rich, but it’s hard to beat Paint Shop Pro’s price/value relationship. It lists at $99.00 and can create, animate and manipulate just about any graphic file format. Commercialware
VNC – www.uk.research.att.com/vnc/ – If you have ever run a remote computer via PC Anywhere, you’ll love Virtual Network Computing. Once you’ve connected to the remote machine, via dial-up or TCP/IP connections, fire up this tight little app and you have full control. VNC was developed by AT&T and the University of Cambridge, and unlike PC Anywhere, it’s Freeware
WeatherTap – www.weathertap.com - Weather for the serious meteorology aficionado. For $5.95 a month you get access to a dedicated server, filled with a variety of weather products, without the delay, ads and static found on weather.com and Intellicast. The radar products are particularly robust, including Nexrad Doppler and a variety of static and animated images, updated every five minutes. The aviation weather functionality alone is worth the subscription price. Includes a desktop app that grabs the stuff of the web for display. Commercialware
Winamp – www.winamp.com – The hands-down best audio file player on the web. It plays most audio file types and supports playlists so you can program your own listening. There are a bunch of great plug-ins to do everything from cross-fading to web streaming along with a library of "skins" to let you customize the program’s look and feel. Best of all, it’s Freeware.
WinGuide Tweak Manager – www.winguide.com/tweak – For advanced users, this handy app lets you customize windows quickly and easily. But be careful. It’s a powerful program that messes with your Windows registry, which can cause problems if you are not sure what you are doing. $29.95 Shareware
Zone Alarm Pro – www.zonelabs.com
- The best of the personal firewalls, Zone Alarm makes it hard for hackers to penetrate your computer. There is a basic free version that will suit most users, but the "pro" app is $49.95 well spent if you surf via a LAN. Commercialware
Where to find software on the web There is often no need to go to the computer store to find the applications you seek. Browse these sources for web downloads.
Tucows – www.tucows.com – One of the best of the software distribution sites. You can search for applications based on key words, or browse by category. Tucows has software for a variety of operating systems, including Windows, Mac, Linux, CE and Palm.
ZDNET – www.zdnet.com – Ziff Davis publishes some of the best of the computer magazines and their website has a vast repository of software.
Amazon.com / Buy.com / CNet – www.amazon.com / www.buy.com / www.cnet.com – Robust sites with a vast selection of software. CNet is a great place to comparison shop for computer hardware, too.