Some topics lend themselves to videos as opposed to written posts. We think that this applies to our Irfanview tutorials. There are two new ones up on Youtube, one is about batch renaming photos while the other deals with batch resizing. The first will help you organize your photos into manageable groups by name, the second will help you when you’re sending photos in an email or uploading them to a website. Here they are:
As always, comments, questions and suggestions are welcomed. Fill in the form below or, better yet, ‘Like’ us on Facebook. Here is the link:Computers Made Simple on Facebook. Thanks for reading!
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Here’s a new video that describes making a PDF (Portable Document Format) with Irfanview. Have we ever mentioned that we love Irfanview? Well, we do. It’s free and does a million things with no muss, fuss or flashy ads. Here’s the video:
Thanks for reading and watching! Comments, questions and suggestions are welcomed. Fill in the form below or, better yet, ‘Like’ us on Facebook. Here is the link:Computers Made Simple on Facebook.
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Here’s a link that might help us if you are interested in hosting your own blog with Fatcow Hosting. We’ve signed up to become an affiliate and we make a bit of money if you sign up for hosting via this link: FatCow Hosting Thanks!
Short and sweet today. We just set up a new computer and realized that we haven’t done a ’10 Best’ free software post in a while. If you’re a regular reader, you’ll know that we love free! There’s no need to pay for any software these days, believe it or not, other than a basic version of Windows or iOS. Heck, you can even get a free OS by downloading Ubuntu. If you go that route, Linux has hundreds of very cool, very free apps but that’s another story. Today, let’s move on to free software for Windows.
1. Irfanview
Irfanview
We’ve written many posts about Irfanview. Here’s one, complete with links: Post on Irfanview . We use Irfanview EVERY day for viewing pics, doing screen caps as well as bulk renaming and resizing PLUS making PDFS. You’ll wonder what you ever did without it. Make sure you get the main program as well as the plugins. Install Irfanview first, then the plugins.
2. VLC Media Player
VLC Media Player
VLC will play any video file there is, hands down. Again, we use it every day. VLC will do more than play videos but the other things it does can get quite complicated. We prefer to use it as a player as opposed to a video tool. Here’s the link to the homepage: VLC Media Player
3. Windows Movie Maker
When we’re going to upload a video to Youtube, WMM is what we use to create it. Forget about using the Youtube tools, they’re not worth trying. Download WMM, get to know the easy interface, then create your masterpieces with it. It’s free but it’s powerful too. If you’re not into video, use WMM to create slideshows from your holiday pics. Here’s the link: Windows Movie Maker (If you have downloaded the old MSN Live Essentials, you should have WMM already. If not use the link.)
4. The GIMP
The Gnu Image Manipulation Program is just as powerful as Adobe Photoshop but it’s free. This powerful tool will take your plain pics and turn them into works of art, all the adjustments are at your fingertips. Here’s the link: GIMP
5. Burnaware
Archiving data to DVDs is simple and fast with Burnaware. The GUI is very intuitive, point and click and you’re soon creating DVDs (both normal and BluRay) in minutes. Get it here: Burnaware
6. Dropbox
Dropbox…you need it.
This should be number one on your list. We use Dropbox on every computer we own, and we have lots, keeping all of our current projects synced from on each one. Here is a link to one of our many posts on Dropbox:
Although not completely compatible with Microsoft Office, LibreOffice is extremely robust…and free. With six components (Writer, Calc, Impress, Draw, Math and Base), LibreOffice has all of your office suite bases covered. Here’s where you can get it: LibreOffice
8. Recuva
If you’ve accidentally deleted data from a flash drive or an external hard drive, download Recuva and get it back. Read the instructions, they’re simple, and copy the deleted files to another drive. You’ll be breathing easier in no time. Get it and learn to use it now so you’ll be an expert when you need to be. Recuva
9. 7-Zip
Windows has its own zip utility which is pretty good and only a right click away but, and this is a big but, it doesn’t have a password locking feature, at least not an easy one. If you have a file(s) that you need to keep private, 7-Zip is quick, free and easy to use. 7-Zip site
10. Calibre
Calibre – Ebook management.
If you are into Ebooks, you need Calibre to manage them. This software catalogues all the ebooks on your computer, no matter which folder they’re in, then changes everything into a format that your reader can use when the time comes to upload them to your device. You can also use Calibre as an ereader, too. iTunes works fine as far as getting books to your Apple device, but you still need Calibra to get those books into the format that your reader can handle. It’s a big download but it’s worth it. Calibre – Ebook Managment
That’s our ten. What do you use that is indispensable? Let us know in a comment or on our Facebook page: Computers Made Simple on Facebook
If there is one piece of software that we use everyday, it would have to be Irfanview. We’ve written about this amazing program many times. If you don’t have it on your computer yet, get it. You will never regret it.
Here’s the link to the site. You need two downloads to get the most out of the program. Download the software itself then download the plugins. Install the program first, then the plugins.
The Irfanview Website. Read about it on the main page then click the download button. Make sure you download Irfanview from the Tucows site, NOT any of the other sites? Why? Some of the others make you download some other software, helpers that don’t help you at all. Stick with Tucows, you can’t go wrong. Here is the link to Tucows: Tucows Irfanview download site
By the way, when you see something like this, don’t click on it. Many sites have these ‘helpful’ links, even Tucows, but don’t download any of this software.
The two links on the bottom are safe, the one at the top isn’t.
What can Irfanview do? Here’s a list:
1. Once you’ve installed it, Irfanview becomes your default photo viewer. Run through a folder of photos simply by double-clicking one photo then pressing the spacebar to show the next. Hit the backspace key to go backwards. Hit the Enter key to show the photos full-screen.
2. Screen captures. We use Irfanview for most of the screen caps that you see on our site. Here’s how you do it: Multiple Screen Captures
3. If you want to use Irfanview to play videos or music, it will do both. We use VLC for videos and iTunes or Windows Media Center for music but Irfanview works just fine for these.
4. Crop, adjust size, create negative images, rotate, resize….Irfanview does all of these and more. For basic image editing, this is all you need. For more complicated work, download and install GIMP. GIMP is equally as powerful as Photoshop, in our opinion. We’ve written many posts about GIMP (Gnu Image Manipulation Program) so search for it in the search box on any page on Computers Made Simple.
5. Create PDFs from photos and documents. There is no need for any professional software for this. Irfanview can save any photo or document as a PDF plus it can create multi-page pdfs quickly and easily.
6. Batch conversion. If you have a whole folder of photos that need to be cropped, resized, renamed, converted to negative, rotated, etc., Irfanview can do it.
7. Adding text to a photo. GIMP does a better job but for simple text, as in the photo above, Irfanview works well.
8. Highlighting parts of a photo or drawing a shape to emphasize something in a photo. Again, GIMP will do a smoother job but Irfanview is quick and easy, plus it loads much fast then GIMP, just because it’s a more basic program.
There are many more things that Irfanview can do but you’ve got the general idea by now. Together with our how-to guides, you’ll be using Irfanview every day, just as we do. If you have questions about it, use the comment space below. We’ll get back to you very quickly.
Once you’ve got an email account set up and your anti-virus software working, it’s time to start setting up Windows. You did some of that the first time you turned it on but now it’s time to take a look at Windows Update.
As you probably know all too well, Windows needs to update itself almost daily. Millions of hackers around the world are trying to find ways to get into your computer and Microsoft spends time and money trying to keep you safe. Windows Update is a part of Windows that automatically sends you the latest changes. Here are the settings available to you:
We’ve chosen to take a look at the updates first, then choose which ones to download and install.
We would suggest the second choice (third from the top) if you are new to computing. That way, you can choose the time to install the updates as opposed to Windows doing it for you. Why? Because Windows doesn’t care if you are in the middle of something when it is updating your computer. If you let it, Windows will restart your computer when it needs to as opposed to you choosing to do it when you want to. We know what we’re doing, most of the time anyway, so we like to see what Windows is installing before it is installed. We don’t expect you to do that. For the most part, you’re safe using the ‘Download updates but let me choose whether to install them.”
TIP: Don’t forget to check for updates at least once a month, every two weeks is better. There will be a little icon on the lower right of your taskbar that will indicate an update is available:
Windows Update Icon
Next comes the fun part, at least for us. Every computer we set up has a set of standard software that we download and install after we’ve got the security features enabled. NOTE: All of the following programs are completely free. Yes, FREE!
Here’s the list:
1. Although Microsoft pretends that Internet Explorer is totally safe and vital to the future of the free world, we immediately download and install Google Chrome. Then we stop using Internet Explorer completely. No matter what Microsoft says, Internet Explorer is NOT safe. It’s also molasses slow. Don’t use it. Use Chrome.
2. Once Chrome is installed, we feel safe and start to download the other software that we need. First up is the Video Lan Player. Windows 8 doesn’t come with a DVD player, believe it or not. No matter, VLC will play any video file or DVD that you throw at it. Download it, install it and relax.
The VLC icon. You’ll get used to this one, we think.
3. Next up is Irfanview. We’ve written about this superb free program before, many times. You can view all of your photos with Irfanview plus it has a few tools to help you work with your digital pictures. Download it and install it and make sure you download the plugins too. The plugins will open up virtually any type of RAW file there is. No need to use the software that came with your digital camera unless you really want to. Irfanview does it all. Check out our past posts on this brilliant program (go to the main page and search for irfanview). It’s simply the best there is.
4. Burnaware , the free version, is necessary to backup your data (photos, videos, documents) to CDs or DVDs. Use blank DVD -R, they’re cheaper than CDS and have a much greater capacity. Once Burnaware is installed, all you have to do it pop in a blank DVD, choose your burn options, drag and drop files into the window and that’s it. Click the burn button and you’re done.
5. Most of us use Skype to communicate with friends and relatives. Microsoft has purchased Skype so now you can sign in with your hotmail or live account. You can chat with video, video and mic or just by typing in the chat window. Skype to Skype calls are always free and while you could investigate making telephone calls using it, we think there are better alternatives. There are many ways to make free phone calls, depending on where you live. If you’re in North America, free telephony is as easy as opening a Gmail account. We use WeChat and Yahoo Messenger as well as QQ for our international video conferencing but we do use Skype with relatives in our own country.
These are the programs that we can’t live without when we get a new computer. There are others, of course, that we like to add. Tomorrow, we’ll outline some of them. Remember that every piece of hardware that you add to your computer, things such as printers, scanners, webcams, external hard drives, etc, will want to add their own programs. Some of these programs do double-duty, too. This means that they work with the hardware that they came with but they also do other things. It’s worthwhile to check what else some of these bits of software will do that might be helpful.
We’ll run through some optional programs in our next post. These would be programs that we find useful but, depending on your computer use, might not interest you. Stay tuned for that.
Thanks for reading!
a little bit of hi-tech, a little bit of common sense and a lot of fun
