Sneak peek at OpenOffice.org 3.0

OpenOffice.org 2.4 may be just around the corner. But if you laugh at stable releases and always want to have your hands on the latest beta software, you can download an early beta version of OpenOffice.org 3.0 today

OpenOffice 3.0 Promises to Bash Office

Microsoft's Office suite could have plausible challenger on the desktop for the first time since Lotus gave up trying to take on Redmond a decade ago.

With developers struggling to get OpenOffice 2.4 out the door, details are emerging of the features users have to look forward to in the upcoming bullet point release, version 3.0.

LD: OpenOffice v2.3 is already on my list of puppy approved software!

File Dropper - The Simplest File Hosting Website Ever.

This free service allows you to easily share files up to 5GB in size.

Zamar: Free Online File Conversion

As the expression goes, "the wonderful thing about standards is that there is so many of them." But when you need to convert from one to another to support your machine, you can be in a real pickle. Zamara converts documents, images, music, video and compressed files to more standards than I certainly need!

BitTorrents

With BitTorrents all the rage I took my time trying out a few BitTorrent Clients. For the longest while I used BT++ but I've recently switched. My main computer has µTorrent installed. Wow, is it small and efficient... 220KB?! Why can't all code be this nice!

For other computers where my torrent use is not as frequent, BitLet makes the cryptic BitTorrent process appear like a normal file download. P2P doesn't get any easier! Great at work for getting around firewalls too.

Windows Virtual PC 2007

"Use Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 to run multiple operating systems at the same time on the same physical computer. Switch between virtual machines with the click of a button. Use virtual machines to run legacy applications, provide support, train users, and enhance quality assurance." I love how virtual machines allow me to try software to see if I like it before allowing it into my physical machine. Well suited for Windows OSs and it is free.

scanR

A trend I've noticed is from programs installed on my computer making way to utility's run over the internet. Like software utilities there are duds and gems. Here's a huge gem... scanR turns your underpowered grainy cell phone camera (or any camera for that matter) into a portable photocopier. You can snap pictures of documents, white boards or business cards and they will enhance, straighten and clean up the document and deliver it to you as a PDF file or a vCard for business cards.

James Bonds spy camera never worked as well!

Firefox Browser

Mozilla's Firefox is my internet browser of choice. It has some wonderful extensions that add the functionality that you want. And its stable and can access 99.9% of the sites I visit. Growls to Citibank for only supporting Microsoft's Internet Explorer for their online account access.

Mozilla makes a wide range of products including the email client Thunderbird which I also recommend quite highly. However, it is no longer my email client. It's definitely an excellent program though.

Some honourable mentions from Mozilla: Songbird and Sunbird. Songbird is a desktop multimedia player and manager, not unlike iTunes, but its open source. Like Thunderbird it is an excellent program. Sunbird is the calendar program in Mozilla's line up. It has great promise. I keep wanting more for from the program though. So while I can't make a full hearted recommendation for Sunbird, it is something to keep our eye on.

Version three of Firefox and Thunderbird should be available soon!

Text Editors

Scintila Text Editor is a powerful text editor that I especially love for creating HTML files by hand. However, its great for any kind of source code editing or plain text file creating. A new text editor thats growing on me fast is Notepad++. Despite its name I couldn't even begin to compare this to Microsoft's Windows notepad; both programs are far superior to the notepad you know.

Foobar 2000

Foobar2000 is a simple fast unobtrusive audio player. It handles just about anything. Its controls are standard and can be controlled by multimedia keyboards and mice easily. Its not graphical, but it seems to have low memory overhead and remains fast and responsive. Perhaps because it is not as graphical. I use it for listening to MP3s, voice mail from Vonage, dictation files from work.

IrfanView

For picture files, my viewer of choice is IrfanView. It handles ANYTHING I've thrown at it, even proprietary x-ray image files and Nikon RAW image files. I was amazed. Again fast, simple, relatively powerful, and of course, free.

Star Alliance Screensaver

View scheduled Star Alliance member airline flights in real time or accelerated mode to view movements over a 24 hour period. It defaults to accelerated for the impatient viewer, but I find the real time more fascinating.

Global map projection can be either Cylindrical or Mercator. Installing the Star Alliance Screensaver will also install the Star Alliance FlightLookup Auto Update Conduit. This can (and in my opinion should) be deselected on installation. The screensaver works fine without it installed.

Flight over Sea Screensaver

My screen saver is a nice relaxing diversion called Flight over Sea. It's simple, but almost photorealistic and certainly nice for me to watch since I love flying. In addition blue is my favorite colour; that helps too. This screen saver is a teaser for their other commercial products that look nicer, but this one is free and contains no advertising asides from their company name in one corner periodically, also in blue.

Volumouse

Volumouse makes use of the mouse wheel to control volume of any (or all) channels and window opacity. This free program is more useful than it sounds and is very intuitive.

PrintKey 2000

Have a PrintKey button on the keyboard that's woefully underused? Solve that problem with PrintKey 2000. A resource friendly program that activates when you hit PrtSc. You can save the screen, a window, or any area you select with a mouse. Print and save files that web designers make it hard to save for instance. I cannot locate a web page for the program, but it can be downloaded here.

WinPatrol

WinPatrol is one of the few programs in this list that isn't free. However, it is inexpensive and provides lifetime registration. There is a trial version that is free, but it doesn't really show the strengths of this program in my humble opinion. It monitors for things that add themselves to your start up programs, IE toolbars, start pages, and other hijacking techniques. In addition it lets you see every application and process that's running (even hidden ones) and will tell you more about it, if you need it, and how to disable it if you want. It lets the system speed up nicely with some tweaking. And when it finds something it barks at you... how much better can it get?!

Atomic Clock Synchronization

I have two free atomic clock programs that I like. Neither need installation and are small and simple. I can't really recommend one over the other. I can't believe people PAY for software to do this. First one is called Neuton and the second TimeRC.

Calendars

Two programs that I love for marking printed calendars are One Page Calendar, which can be downloaded here and YACUP, which can be downloaded here. Both print out calendars in various forms and styles. Holidays can be customized. Great for jotting down notes upon or working out holiday schedules and managing life in general. These programs are of course free and their strengths are their printouts.

For the best online calendar program visit Yahoo! for yet another job well done. (Google Calendar why can't you do 15 minute appointments?! Growls) Finally if you want to have a nice on screen calendar (and want to pay for this shareware program) Screen Calendar is a very very professional program. It is complex in places, but when its working it turn your screen into one very cool calendar and can read and write your Outlook files!

TClockEX

One more software program for those that like tweaking with their machine in an attempt to make it cease functioning altogether: TClockEX replaces the clock on in the task bar of Windows machines. Its adds functionality like full date, time and faster access to a better calendar for looking up dates. A freeware gem in my opinion. TClockEX can be downloaded here. Don't be put off my the ugly screen shot, the default colours match the classic windows task bar seamlessly.

PowerMenu

PowerMenu lets you add some options to the title bar and task bar when you right click. Including always on top, minimize to tray, priority, and transparency. Efficient, non-obtrusive, and highly useful when you want it.