Free software
This article explains what free software I use and recommend - naturally I am talking about legally free software, this is not a how-to-steal guide.
First things first - Firefox is my preferred way to browse the internet - it’s faster, safer and easier to use than Internet Explorer - I particularly like tabs (now availabile in IE7) and the huge array of add-ons (my favourites are Download Statusbar, IE Tab, deskCut, Super DragAndGo, and Forecast Fox) - you can find them all here.
Office - I use both OpenOffice and Google Docs instead of Word and Excel - OpenOffice is a pretty good copy of MS Office and most stuff works pretty much the same and you can open and save documents in .DOC and .XLS formats. For simpler stuff I use Google - it’s pretty basic but equally good enough for 75% of what I do - the big benefit of Google is that you store your documents online so you don’t need to worry about losing your stuff.
Anti-virus - I use AVG (as do many others) - just install it and it will automatically keep itself updated. Infinitely less invasive and chatty than Norton or McAfee. And free.
PDFs - it’s quite useful to be able to produce PDF’s - for capturing web pages (eg. order confirmations), or for sending a Word doc that you don’t want the recipient to alter (eg. contract). My free PDF producer is CutePDF - after installation you have a new printer option which outputs a PDF file - simple.
Backup - I use SyncBank - it’s simple, has a built in scheduler and plenty of options to play with.
Screen grab - sometimes it’s useful to capture a bit of the screen to share with someone else - I use FastStone Capture - you can choose a window, or a freehand rectangle - it’s super easy to use, output to file, clipboard, printer.
Photo management - Google Picasa is great for organising, viewing and sharing photos with the world on the web. It also has some basic tools to improve your photos - adjust colour, cropping, remove red eye, etc. It’s one click to upload your photos to the web and share them with the world. You can also upload direct to an online photo printer with just one click. If you want to export them to look at on your phone etc, select the photos you want and click on ‘Export’ - you can resize them on the fly (to fit the screen).
Instant Messenger - if you have friends on AOL, MSN, Yahoo, Google there’s a free IM client which works with multiple protocols and is less invasive than the proprietary tools from the vendors, it’s called Pidgin.
Talk for free - I use Skype for calling people around the world for free, if they’re on their computer, or pennies to anywhere in the world.