Syllabub.net

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.

Several people have asked so I thought I would do a bit more than a few lines on an email.

If you already have Sky and you are in their area then I would go with them - customer service isn’t great, but it’s really cheap.

Check to see if you’re in a Sky Broadband area - http://check.skybroadband.com/

Sky provides 3 options for the 3 broad types of user (light/occasional, normal, addict)

• Base - 2Mbs download speed, 2Gb limit per month (good for occasional use)
• Mid - 8Mbs download speed, 40Gb limit - plenty for anyone
• Max - 16Mbs download speed, no limit - only if you are downloading movies regularly

Pricing / Comparison sites

You can compare Sky prices against the other main providers here

• http://broadbandcomparison.sky.com (Sky’s own, only shows a few packages for the big 4 providers)
• http://www.confused.com (provides first year costs and is very simple to use)
• http://www.broadbandchoices.co.uk (uses same comparison engine as confused, lots of useful consumer advice)

Many of the providers will also give you a better deal on your home telephone, so if you still use your landline it would make sense to switch this at the same time. Likewise Orange also provide broadband so if you use Orange for your mobile I would start there.

Customer Service 

I think you’re going to struggle with this regardless of who you choose - my experience of call centres is almost uniformly bad. 

• BT - the broadband service is fine, but pricing seems to be deliberately confusing (you genuinely need a spreadsheet to figure out how much it costs) and you get really bad customer service (they’re idiots), so if you can get away without having to contact them then all is fine, otherwise it’s pretty painful.
• TalkTalk - has the worst reputation of all for Broadband (avoid)
• Virgin - their service should improve but it’s still NTL under the covers, proceed with caution

A friend of mine’s PC has died and along with it his iTunes library. He still has the music on his iPod and wanted to know if/how he could recover the files. The good news is that you can, although it is a little bit fiddly.

NOTE - you must follow the instructions exactly.

Manual Approach (files only - you would lose playlists, ratings, etc)

• Make sure you have installed the current version of iTunes (7.x)
• Connect your iPod to your PC - when asked if you want to sync select ‘Cancel’ - failure to do this will DELETE all your music

• Under iPod options - select ‘Enable Hard Disk Use’ (ignore the warning)

• Under Preferences (Menu - Edit, Preferences) go to the Advanced tab and select ‘Keep iTunes Music Folder Organised’ and ‘Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to Library’ and hit OK

• Close iTunes - Apply the change

• Open Windows Explorer - go to My Computer - you should see your iPod as a drive letter (eg E: F: G:)

• Hit F3 or the Search button to searchSelect ‘All files and folders’
• File name is ‘*.m??’ - that is all files which are mp3 (standard music files) or m4a (Apple AAC music files)
• Look in ‘My Ipod (E:)’ or whatever your iPod is called
• Click on ‘More Advanced Options’ - select ‘Search hidden files and folders’

• You should see a bunch of files with strange filenames

• Select them all (Ctrl-A or Menu - Edit, Select All)

• Copy them (Ctrl-C or Menu - Edit, Copy)
• Create a new folder on your desktop (Music)
• Paste the files (Ctrl-V or Menu - Edit, Paste)
• Open iTunes and hit ‘Cancel’ when prompted to sync
• Resize the iTunes window so you can see your ‘Music’ folder on the desktop
• Drag the ‘Music’ folder onto iTunes
• You should now see it copying the songs
• If you have bought any music from iTunes you will need to authorise your computer (Menu - Store, Authorise Computer). If you can, you should also de-authorise your old computer (you can authorise up to 5, and can reset this once a year)
• You’re done!

I tried some free software to do this for you, iPodRip for Windows - but it didn’t work… There’s also iPodSoft, which I haven’t tried because it costs $10

I am going to try really hard not to sound patronising… this is meant to be helpful after all and no-one likes being criticised.

Okay, here we go - you have to back up your stuff, regularly. Otherwise one day you will lose it and it may be important, sentimental stuff that you would really rather keep…

There are plenty of options, and most of them are free, or at least very cheap.

Online
There are tons of online services which will help you store your files. If you get a gmail account you can store up to 3GB of stuff within your email account, so you can just zip your files and send them to yourself@gmail.com and you’re done - this works up to 10MB per file so isn’t viable for very large files (eg. audio/video) or for very large amounts of storage. For photos you can use Picasa - simply upload them and you’ve got a permanent copy of all of your photos up to 1GB. If you need more than this you can purchase 7GB for $25/year.