Free Software You Shouldn't Live Without!

I have an obsession with usb flash drives, as well as an obsession with free software. These two things go well together and every geek should have a thumb drive on their keyring with their favorite software on it. This is as important to us geeks as coffee. This list covers a variety of different categories and I will list them as I have them arranged on my thumb drive.

If you have a ton of software on your thumb drive you need to have it arranged in a way that will allow you to find what you need quickly with out having to search for several minutes to find what you are looking for.

I have my software arranged like this.

















Great Free Software

1. Burning Software

-InfraRecorder - Great burning tool, can be ran off your thumb drive. (no installation needed)

-CD Burner XP Pro - Works like Nero, very easy to use

-Img Burn - Great for burning ISOs and anything else you might need

2. Developer Tools

-DevCPP - C++ IDE (if you don't program you don't need this) Easy to use, better than some of the non-free IDEs I've tried.

-Notepad++ - A wonderful notepad replacement. Has the ablity to markup a varity of languages such as php, java, html, c, etc. Not a complier.


3. Hardware Testing and Inspecting Software

-CPU-Z - Can give a lot of information about your cpu.

-Heavy Load - A stress testing tool, good for when you want to see if your system is stable after a overclock.

-SpeedFan - Can show the status of your system fans, temperatures, and hard drive conditions.

-SIW - System Information For Windows can give you information about nearly everything on your system. Works off a single exe file, one of my favorites.

4. Internet Utilities

-FileZilla - A great ftp client, updated VERY often.

-Firefox - Internet browser --The very best of the best on the top ten lists of every uber geek.

-Foxit Reader - a very lightweight replacement for Adobe Reader. Less than 2mb, and it does every thing that Adobe does only faster.

- Pidgin - An instant messenger program that can work with nearly every type of instant messenging software. Can replace all of your other IM clients.

-ThunderBird - A great Email client that works like Microsoft Outlook. Easy to setup and use. Has built in spam killers.


5. Media

-Audacity - A very capable audio editor. Make sure you get the MP3 support with it.

-dbpoweramp - it converts and rips to a ton of formats. Some formats will require you to buy a license to use. This is one piece of software that I would pay (and have paid) to get the full functionality out of.

-DVD Shrink - This is a very controversial piece of software. It will decrypt and rip any DVD and then shrink it to fit onto a single layer DVD. I am not going to link to a download page but will link to his home page for you. DO NOT USE THIS FOR DVDs YOU DO NOT OWN. This is only for making backup copies of your own collection so that when your four-year-old uses it for a frisbee you don't lose your copy of Lord of the Rings.

-Gimp - A poor man's version of Photoshop. Very nice and works well.

-Paint.net - Easy to use version of MSPaint on steroids.

-VLC Media Player - Can play nearly any media format better than any other player can. Will play DVDs better than any other software I have used. Very simple small and uses less system resources than other media players.

-ZaraRadio - A fully functional free radio automation program. I work at a radio station that uses a $10,000 piece of software that does all of the same things that this does. Great for internet DJs.

6. Misc Utilities

-Autoruns - Shows every thing that is running on your computer.

-7zip - A full featured zip program similar to Winzip

-Advanced Windows Care - Cleans, repairs, and optimizes windows quickly and easily. One click fix for most problems. Works great, a new comer to my list of favorites.

-CCleaner - Cleans up unwanted junk from your pc.

-My Mouse Meter - Pointless program that tells you how far your mouse has traveled. Fun but won't make you any better as a person.

-nLite - If you have a old windows installation disk and want to add hot fixes, drivers, software, or service packs to your installation disk this will add all of that to your install disk and give other options such as making your disk fully automatic and put your key in for you so you don't have to babysit your computer while it installs.

-Primo pdf maker - Can turn any document into a PDF including web pages. Anything you can print it can turn into a PDF. Very useful, I use it all of the time.

-Real Desktop - Pointless desktop replacement. Turns your whole desktop into a 3D environment. You will need a fairly good video card to make it work.

-Visual Task Tips - Gives you Vista like thumbnail previews of all of the items in your task bar.

8. Office Software

-Abiword - Small and lightweight, this word processor is great if you need simple document making with out all of the bloat.

-Open Office - A full blown Microsoft Office killer. Works great and can fully replace Microsoft office.

9. Security Software ( I break this down into two categories: Anti-virus and Anti-malware)

ANTI-VIRUS

-AVG Free Edition - Works great I have it on all of my computers and have never had any problems.

ANTI-MALWARE

-Adaware 2007 - The free edition will clean up most all spyware from your system.

-Spybot Search and Destroy - One of the first things I run on a infected system. It looks for specific types of spyware and malware. This will quickly destroy your biggest problems.

-Threat Fire - This is know as a "zero day attack defense". It watches for suspicious behavior and alerts the user of it. This works great if coupled with AVG. When used with AVG it can keep you safe from most any problem.

-Windows Defender - A spyware killer from Microsoft. The 0nly free real-time scanner for spyware I know of. Works about as good as you can expect from Microsoft.



Unsorted Programs, zz Personal Stuff, and Drive Content Map?

These last three things are nice to have on your drive. The Unsorted Programs folder is great when you find that piece of software that you don't know where to put it yet.

zz Personal Stuff - Your personal junk. Start it with a zz so you will always have last in your list to find it easy.

Drive Content Map - This is a text document that has a index for all of your stuff. This is nice if you don't want to look through ever folder to see if you have something or not. You will want to keep it updated.

All of these programs will fit on a 1GB thumb drive. If you are looking for a place to get one for very cheap, check out NewEgg.com. I bought a 4GB drive from them for only $18 last month.

Clean Up Your Virus Infested PC!

Cryptic error messages, hour long startups, dirty pop-ups, and other strange behavior, seem to plague many people's PCs. This can become so bad that people throw out a good computer and buy a new one because they think it is irreparable. Never fear there is hope, even for the worst of infestations.

How to fix it...

1. Get a some software.
-If your computer is badly infected then use someone else's computer to download the required software.
-download:
Spybot Search and Destroy
AVG Anitvirus (the free version)
Advanced WindowsCare Personal
Threatfire

2. Restart your PC and then boot into safe mode.
-To get into safe mode, restart and then just before the Windows startup screen comes on push F5. This should get you to a screen that will ask you if you want to boot to safe mode.
-Log on to your account

3. Once you are in safe mode, install both AVG and Spybot.

4. Let both of them update.

5. Run a full system scan with AVG.

6. Order a pizza. (the scan might take over an hour)

7. When it is done you might have to restart. If you restart make sure you boot back into safe mode.

8. Run Spybot

9. Take your family out for ice cream. (this might take a while also)

10. When you are done with the scan, click the "Fix Selected Problems" (It's toward the top)

11. Once again you may need to restart and it might ask if you want to run it again when it restarts, say yes and then let your computer restart.

12. This time let your computer boot up normally.

13 . Spybot will run one more time to finish it's clean up.

14. Install Advanced WindowsCare. IMPORTANT: When you install it, it will want to install a Yahoo tool bar and change your default search engine to be Yahoo. Don't let it, uncheck the option boxes.

15. Run Advanced WindowsCare

16. When it is done with it's scan, click on the "Show Details" next to the Startup Manage button.

17. Go through each item in the green highlighted area and read the description about each. Decide which ones you need and which ones you don't, then uncheck the ones you don't need.

18. The items that are not highlighted in green do not have a description, look them up on google, then decide if it is something you need to have running.

19. When you have taken care of your startup items, click "OK" then click "Repair" on the main screen.

20. Install Threatfire.

21. Done. You should have your computer full repaired. Some viruses can be a little harder to remove. If you think you might need to check a little deeper then download and run the malicious software remover from Microsoft.

Of course this is not perfect but it will take care of most infestations. Here are a few tips to follow:

- Never let your computer get out of hand. You won't have to do all this every time if you keep your PC clean all you will have to do is scan your computer with Spybot every month or so.

- Keep AVG running and updated.

- Don't use Norton's. It is expensive, bloated, ineffective, and will suck the power out of your computer.

- Don't give into ads that tell you that you have viruses or spyware on your computer. These will install spyware and not be effective.

- Read my past posts for tips on keeping your PC clean.

Learn to Geek for Free

I have never had a formal training in computers or web design (except for a short course on the Internet when I was in high school.) I have learned everything I know from three sources.

One: Learn by doing.

When I was in 9th grade I had a shop class that offered a section on computers. It was more or less a joke. There was no books telling you what to do, no teacher who knew anymore than the students did, nothing. What they did have was two old IBM 386 computers. The teacher told me, "If you can strip this down to all of the separate parts then put it back together and have it still working then you can have it." WOW! A real working computer! How could I refuse? I stripped that thing down to the motherboard and then put the whole thing back together and prayed that it would still work. Sure enough, when I pushed the power button it came on and had no errors.
If you want to learn how to geek out then go get an old computer and tear it up. I don't recommend using your new Alienware gaming rig, that would not be a good testing platform. Instead find your old computer that you retired back in 2001 and see if you can fix it. If you start and get stuck, don't worry that's when my next point will come into play...

Two: Learn by Reading

We have the greatest resource that has ever been developed sitting at our fingertips. The internet has how-tos, walkthroughs, and tutorials.
Finding information does not have to be as daunting a task as you might think. Your first and best option is Google. Google is the best search engine ever developed, and most everyone has used it at least once, but most people have no idea about the power it really has. Google has many advanced 0ptions that most people have no idea even exist. For example, your computer gives you an error message, you search for it on google but you get a bunch of irrelevant links that just contain a couple of the words in the error, how do you get only what you want? If you put quotation marks around the phrase, google will only search for that exact phrase. This is only one example but there are many more that you can learn about for yourself here. When searching Google, remember that it looks through websites for the words your are looking for, so think about what might be written in the page instead of asking a question. Ok, I know that was confusing so let me give you an example: Instead of "How do you cook collard greens?" use "collard greens recipes" The latter phrase is more likely to be found on the site you are looking for rather than just asking a question.
Anything you want to know can be found on the Internet somewhere. The key is to look for it. There is even sites that are dedicated to teaching a certain subject. For instance, I've never had a formal lesson on web design but I have built several sites. I learned all of that from a site called W3Schools.com. This is a great resource for everything you would need to make a dynamic website.

Three: Listen to People Who Know

Whenever I find someone who knows more than me on geeky stuff I pick their brain for anything that I can pickup on. Don't be proud, be humble and let them know that you think they are smarter than you are. This will open them up more than trying to compete with them. Also in the last few years a new media has been evolving called podcasts. Podcasts are videos or audio clips that individuals make and post for people to download (usually for free). I subscribe to about a dozen different podcast, most of them are tech podcasts. These help me to learn and stay on top of the news in the tech world. The easiest way of getting these is to download iTunes from Apple then go to their iTunes store and search for podcasts.
Some of my favorite podcasts are Tekzilla, Geekbrief, DL.TV, and Webb Alert. These have a good mix of tech news and how-tos. These will help you to learn and to stay up to date.

I hope this will be helpful for those who want to geek but don't know where to start. Comment below with any questions your might have as well as any other tips you might have.

Computer Ownership 101

I work full time at a small Christian radio station, but I do some computer repair on the side. I am often shocked at what I find on people's computers. I once cleaned out a PC that had over 900 viruses! We spend hundreds, even thousands of dollars on our PCs and then we fill it with our music, documents, emails, movies, pictures, and other priceless content, and ignore some of the most basic of security measures. I understand that not everyone is interested in being a power user, but everyone who owns a computer should understand a few things.

Number One: Your Computer Needs Protection!

Your car has some built in security measures. You have door locks and it takes a unique key to start it. That said, if you live in a area where cars are stolen like my wife's cookies, then you put more security measures like an alarm on it. Your computer needs protection. If you run windows, then you should at least use an anti-virus. Lets face it, Windows is attacked more than any other system out there. Secondly, you need some sort of second layer of protection. A newer threat has started to attack windows, its purpose is not to destroy your computer but to learn anything it can to exploit you through advertisements, stealing of your personal information (credit card numbers, user names, social security number, your online habits, passwords, and any other information it can use to exploit you.) many times this is not picked up by your anti-virus. There are a number of anti-spyware programs out there that work to keep you protected.

"I don't have anything that is important on my computer so, I'm not concerned about all that stuff." This is the most dangerous mindset that anyone can have. Viruses don't just attack your system, but they also use your unprotected PC to infect others. If you don't care about your PC then please do everyone else a favor and protect it for our sake! Viruses can spread themselves by sending themselves to everyone on your email list as well as use all of your internet bandwidth (your internet speed) to do anything they want. Letting your PC become infected with viruses and leaving it, hoping that it will fix itself, is like giving your computer to a nefarious person to do what ever he wants with it.

Security does not have to make you take out a second mortgage on your home. My favorite set up is to use AVG Free Anti-Virus for viruses, PC Tools Threat Fire for zero day attacks (attacks that are not yet known), and Windows Defender for spyware and a few other problems. These three are free and do a very good job of protecting your system. As long as your computer is not made before 1998, you shouldn't notice any performance hit.

Number Two: Backup Your Stuff!

This is something that I can't stress enough. Most people don't do this, and many of those who do don't do it right. You don't have to do a full system backup to protect yourself. Sometimes you only have to put your documents on an USB thumb drive. Other times, it is important to clone your whole hard drive. The most important thing to remember is that if you are going to protect your important information then you need to get the information off the computer and put in a different place all together. If your hard drive dies then all of the backups you made on your hard drive will die also. With the price of USB drive going down and the capacity is getting larger there is no reason why the common person can't backup their info. Blank CDs and DVDs also make for a good backup medium, but beware these are not for long term. After a few years a CD or DVD will suffer from rot and all that info will be lost. This has happened to me with some of the CDs I burned when I was at college. If you have huge amounts of data, you will want to buy a external hard drive. If you are looking for some good backup mediums that won't break the bank then look on Newegg.com. Newegg has the best prices on hardware and also has the best customer service.

Number Three: Don't Be Stupid!

This is the most important tip that anyone could ever follow. I know people who have all of the super expensive anti-whatever software and total security suites and still get pwned by viruses and spyware. The best thing you can do is to use your brain before you do something. If you get an email from someone you have never heard of that says "check this out" or "here is what you requested" or (God forbid) "Cheap Viagra!" DO NOT OPEN IT, DO NOT REPLY TO IT, DO NOT BE FOOLED! These are like worms on a hook. Any message you get that has an attachment from someone you have never heard of DO NOT OPEN IT!
Update your security software. If your software does n0t auto-update then make sure you update it manually at least three times a week. If your software expires, renew it or get a free option but do not let it go unattended. I have cleaned out infested computers with the full Norton's suite that wasn't kept updated and had expired.
Don't trust other people's portable storage devices (Burned CDs, DVDs, USB Drives, etc...), viruses can be spread through them also. Stay way from "shady" sites. Porn sites are notorious for this. While they have your attention they will install all sorts of things that will destroy your computer. Have some self control stay away from sites offering things like free money, free porn, free screen savers, free wallpapers, etc... I use Firefox to browse the internet (which will help keep you safer). Firefox has these wonderful things called add ons. One of the best ones I've ever used is call WOT. It has a rating system for sites based on four things: trustworthiness, vendor reliability, privacy, and child safety. This is a quick and easy way to find out if a site is dangerous or not.
Be careful of pop-ups. Many times they are made to look like a normal window or have items that look like you can click to get out of them. Many times the "click here to close" button lies. If you are using Firefox or Internet Explorer 7 and you get an unwanted pop-up, be very careful. The best option is not to click the X on top because it can sometimes do something very bad to your computer. It is best to hit Ctrl+Alt+Delete and kill the pop-up manually in the task manager. This may seem like an over kill but it is better than spending an entire day trying to fix your PC.

If you own a computer you have some responsibilities that come with it. If you are responsible you will have many years of trouble free computing, if you are careless and ignore the advice of all your geeky friends you will have hours of headaches. So stop procrastinating and take care of your PC there is no excuse.

Drastic Measures...

My current computer is um... old. Actually it's not that bad it is a 1.3 ghz AMD Athlon with 768 mb of pc 133 ram with a 128mb PCI Radeon card. This is a decent computer for common tasks but when I start gaming it starts to get smoking hot! The inside of the case is stuffed full of IDE cables and a huge air flow director. I finally got tired of it and decided to take measures into my own hands. I have always wanted to mod my own case but never had a case that I thought would be worth it. So I decided to put a side viewing panel on it and then put a 120mm side fan on it. I hope that this is going to help, I also am planning on making those unsightly IDE cables look a little bit nicer and possible make them round. (we will see how that turns out) After a few case lights and some model paint the case might look almost cool.

I know what some people might be thinking "What on earth is he putting all of that time and effort into such a lame PC?" My rational is why on earth would I take a nice case and try to cut holes into it on my first try. If I totally destroy this computer then I haven't lost anything valuable and this gives me that opportunity to learn. After all, I'm cheap.

Comment and give me ideas about what else I can do as well as some of your own modding stories.

Linux. You Can Do It!

Linux. That's a word that will evoke all kinds of emotions in people. The fact is, Linux is the cheap geek's best friend.

Ok, so what is it?

Linux is an operating system just like Microsoft Windows or like OS X on a Mac. The major difference is that Linux is an open source project that has been developed by many different people. If you are completely lost at this point check out this link to learn what Linux is in detail according to Wikipedia.

What does this mean to me?

To the person with the lean wallet it means this, a total computing experience that is completely free (in more ways than one). In other words, your email, word processing, some gaming (I'll explain later), music, movies, internet browsing, social networking, voip, just about anything that you need to do can be done on Linux.
When I say free, I mean it in more ways than "I don't got to spend a dime on it" type free. I mean like freedom. No need for antivirus or antispyware. No need to type in long strands of random characters and signing your life away every time you install your latest piece of over priced software. No need for a "Genuine Advantage". No need to own a brand new computer just to make it start up. That's the kind of free I mean.

What's the catch? If it's so great why doesn't everyone use it?

I have just one long word to answer that: familiarity. Nearly everyone who uses computers got their start on Windows. People are used to it and don't like change. My wife, who I love dearly, hates Linux. When I ask her why she usually tells me "I like Windows". She told me the other day "It's kinda ugly and looks little kidish" which at the time I agreed. (I fixed it that same night) If you use Windows and it works for you or you have a hard drive with everything on it that makes you happy then you don't need to worry about this. But if you are sick of spyware, viruses, expensive programs, and intrusive end user agreements, then consider at least trying Linux. I am still suck with somethings that I need Windows for (such as instant viewing Netfix movies) so I dual boot my computer with both Linux and Windows. All you need is an old hard drive laying around and some room in your computer. Just install Linux on the old hard drive after Windows has been installed and Linux will do the rest.

What flavor of Linux should I use?

I struggled with this question for a very long time. There are literally hundreds of flavors of Linux to try. I suggest using Ubuntu 7.10 to start with. That is what I am using now. It is very user friendly and will make it a pleasure to use.

I recently came across another blog about converting over to Ubuntu that I think will help the not so convinced. Check it out here

Heart Stopping Cheap Geek Action!

There are times that being a cheap geek makes me more nervous than it is healthy to be. A few weeks ago while I was at work I was drinking a healthy drink (Dr. Pepper) then as I had done a thousand times before, I set it down next to my MacBook Pro. After about ten minutes of hard work on a different computer I forgot about the Dr. Pepper entirely. As I reached for a ringing phone my hand gracefully bumped the top of it and sent it spilling onto the uber expensive Mac. I manged to prevent most of it from bricking my laptop but enough of it got onto my keyboard to make the space bar stick... Needless to say, the space bar is a very important part of my typing experience, if I didn't have it allofmyblogswouldlooklikethis. I didn't think that my warranty would cover retards spilling soda on the keyboard, but I had to do something, and I did. I waited for about two months hoping that it would correct itself. Strange how hardware doesn't desticky itself. (Maybe Apple should look into developing that.) I looked online to see if were possible to rip keys off the keyboard and have any hope of using them again. I found this great website that shows how to completely tear apart every aspect (almost) of a 17" MacBook Pro. After reading it and then turning my Mac off, I proceeded to do the delicate surgery. I ripped the space bar off and found that this space bar was a bit of a pack-rat. Hair, wirey stuff, and yes Dr. Pepper had found its way into my space bar. Using great care and precision I removed the awful irritants. Then I smashed the key back into place. Strangely enough, it still worked!

In my long and wisdom filled life, I have found that being a Cheap Geek is more than buying junky hardware and putting up with disappointing software, its knowing how to make everything work together like a symphony of middle schoolers. Could have I called up Apple support and tell them that I was using my Mac for a rain gutter of soda? Yeah. Could I have forked out the money to have them fix my Mac? Possibly. But I say why not try to do it yourself and see if you can destroy it better than you have already! But seriously, many of the things that we need done can be done by ourselves for substantially less than someone else would charge us. Being a Geek is not as hard as some would think. The internet has everything that you could possibly need to find a solution to your problem. If you can't figure it out then you can always find someone else who knows how to in a forum or at least find others who have the same problem as you have.

Today's blog has been a little different but sometimes we poor geeks need a little encouragement and a bit of a pep-talk. Next blog I hope to talk about that much loved and too often feared word... Linux!