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.

I’ve just got back from Norway, possibly the most beautiful place on the planet, with my friend, Alex. Spent 17 days cycling, camping and travelling across the country from Hammerfest in the north (way up in the Arctic circle) down to Bergen, generally recognised as one of the prettiest cities in the world.

All our photos are on Google - here.

Stuff I learnt

• If you’re taking all your stuff with you on a bike, then you definitely need panniers, otherwise every mile hurts, a lot.
• Alex is unbelievably tolerant of childish and petulant outbursts, and general moaning about how heavy my rucksack was
• You really don’t get bored of looking at fjords

We arrived in Tromso and went to a campsite which on the map looked really, really close - unfortunately we hadn’t prepared terribly much and the first hill nearly killed us, but we persevered over several miles(!) and got there about 10 o’clock at night. I asked the girl on reception when it was going to get dark, and got the brilliant response “it doesn’t get much darker than this” - now it wasn’t bright daylight but you could certainly pitch a tent without lights.

Had a delicious meal of dried pasta though due to a slight bit of clumsiness it was very slightly over-peppered (by several hundred peppercorns) which did little to improve the very little flavour.Got up after a good night’s rest and decided to explore a little - went to Tourist Info, and the very nice man explained our options for exploring the region. We also got a recommendation for a nice little walk - to the top of a nearby 1200m mountain “fairly easy” was the description. Wrong - really, very hard would have been closer to the mark. But it was worth it for a stunning view across the valley.

Sommarøy

The following day we decided to head out to one of the nearby islands and camp in Sommarøy. About 40km. This was a very long, very hard trip - see points above about training and carrying very heavy rucksack. Still, once we got there we did manage to find the best place to camp I have ever seen (think of The Beach) - truly incredible.

I was fairly sure that we had just got very lucky so imagine our surprise when the following campsite was, if anything, more spectacular, by the edge of a lake with mountains in the distance and an extraordinary sunset. It was perfect.

Husøy

Next day we decided to go for a day trip to Husøy, a tiny little town/island on the edge of a slightly bigger island - the ride was pretty easy (we’d left our bags at the campsite) although we did need to get through a couple of tunnels (see below). The only downside was the glorious descent into the town (which meant a stinker of a climb out of it). We stopped and had coffee and a bun and then went for a little explore - and even did a bit of scambling which made it feel a little more like a Famous Five adventure!

Tunnels

Norway has more road tunnels than other any country in the world to save you having to drive around the long, deep fjords - we managed to find a couple without any lighting, which meant cycling in the dark, and I mean pitch black for about 10 minutes. Exciting, scary and probably quite stupid - it’s weird trying to stop yourself expecting to hit a wall in front of you every step or time you pedal.

Playing Cards

Unfortunately our luck ran out slightly, and it decided to rain, and rain, and rain.. there was nothing for it but to sit tight and hope that it would be better the next day, which it wasn’t, nor the next, nor the next. Luckily Alex had brought a couple of packs of playing cards and rules for a dozen new games which haven’t been popular for about a 100 years (something to do with the arrival of other forms of entertainment like the radio, and the introduction of nursing homes for the criminally annoying). And we passed the time, and popped down to the local shop (5 miles) and bought very large packets of crisps and lots of chocolate, and then didn’t eat any of the proper food we had bought because after 1500 calories of crisps you really are quite full indeed.

Plan B

We now had to make a choice, tough it out, and risk spending the majority of your holiday in a small wooden shack playing Canasta or try something else.. we went for the latter and found an internet cafe which showed that this part of Norway had had its sunshine for the year… So we decided to rent a car for a couple of days, scoot up to Hammerfest (so Alex could join the Royal and Ancient Polar Bear Society) and also check out the ancient carvings at Alta. There was a plan at the outset of the trip to go to Nordkap, the most northerly town in Norway (and Europe?) but the Lonely Planet suggested it was merely “the most northerly rip-off in Norway” so we gave it a miss.

Alta

Not a pretty town (destroyed in the war) but our first taste of staying in a hotel was delicious after a week on super lightweight Thermarests. Its one attraction is the ancient carvings (European Museum of the Year 2005) - and they were briliant - you got to walk around a very well maintained site and look at little stick drawings of reindeer, elk and boats - all really, really cool - if you’re ever in the area it’s well worth an hour of your time!

and then onto Hammerfest… there’s no reason to go there unless you’re a qualified welder and then there are about 2,000 reasons a week to spend your time on the edge of the world - though it did happen to have the best bar we had been to and we had a great evening talking to said welders who couldn’t get enough of telling us how much money they were making… and in the morning we woke up to reindeer in our campsite which was truly brilliant!

If you want to listen to music on the go - it’s easy, go get an iPod, but what if you prefer TV or movies - what are your options?

Portable DVD players

In the same way you used to listen to CDs by using a portable CD player, you can use either your laptop or a portable DVD player to watch movies on the go.

• Pros - free (laptop), cheap for portable dvd players (from £60 at Amazon)
• Cons - you have to carry multiple DVDs with you, risk of loss/damage, battery life for laptops is poor - I would advise you to buy an extra long use battery (typically £50 on eBay)

Portable video players

Archos were the first to market with a specialist video player and still head the field - however there is now a staggering choice of options for players which can provide video on the move - from iPods, to Creative Zen, and many others (see Stuff for a good list) . However, there is a big problem - how do you get your TV programs, or DVD movies onto them? The first part is relatively easy if you have an Archos player, such as their latest model the 605 (full description here) which can connect to an optional base station and take tv recordings directly from your Sky box, or other video equipment. I have a friend who sets this each night on his Sky box and can then pick it up in the morning to watch TV on his long daily commute.

Copying DVDs - here’s the problem - all commercial DVDs are copy protected, and it is illegal to remove this protection or to copy them for your own purposes, such as watching them on a portable player. It is possible to get around this but it’s not entirely straightforward, and requires about 4 separate programs on your PC. The best utility I am aware of is RipIt4Me which makes the process of making a copy of a DVD pretty straightforward and is quick (15 mins for a standard DVD). This will output to a DVD, so if you want to watch this on a portable player you would need to take the output of this and convert it to mp4 - Nero is the best product for this.

If you have an iPod then the best software to convert video files to iPod format is Jodix.

• Pros - all your movies and tv shows in one place
• Cons - bit fiddly and time consuming to copy DVDs (however once you have done this much easier to use).

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.