Maki & Brian DeLaet EduCyber founders

April 2005 EduNotes

Did you miss our March edition? So did we. Actually, you may have noticed you haven't been receiving this newsletter as frequently as you used to. In an effort to provide you with quality information and not overload ourselves, we have decided to make this a bi-monthly publication.

Inside this edition of EduNotes: Quality Free Stuff, To Fix or Buy, PDF Techsplanation. Send feedback or questions to edunotes@educyber.com .

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Quality Free Stuff

There may not be any such thing as a free lunch but there actually are several good free programs available on the Internet. Useful stuff. Stuff you can actually use. Stuff like free internet radio, like a free antivirus program that really works, like anti-spyware programs that keep your computer free from the bad guys and even a complete office suite that can open and save to Microsoft office formats.

OK, so the free Internet radio is maybe not useful but that doesn't mean it isn't fun. Screamer Radio version 0.3.6 is a nifty little download that connects you to a wide variety of music (and talk) from all over the world. You can also add your own favorite Internet radio stations. Created by a Swedish university student, Screamer Radio also has recording features so you can record your favorite music.

One downside for some listeners is that Screamer doesn't support Real Audio which means you might not be able to listen to an existing favorite if it is streamed in Real format.

While I didn't have any favorites before I tried Screamer, I enjoy listening to sounds from Asia and Africa as well as my new favorite – the 80's channel. Check out Screamer Radio at http://www.screamer-radio.com . Oh, and the creator is accepting donations from those who want to say thanks – more info on the web site.

Looking for a free antivirus program for your business? Keep looking. Grisoft's AVG antivirus program is free for home use but is NOT free for business use, even in non-profit or religious institutions. For a good affordable (yes, free) home-use antivirus program, you can't go wrong with Grisoft.

Grisoft is an international company that advertises themselves as “tough on viruses, easy on users.” I have installed their free program on several home-user client computers and found it to be easy on users. With automatic updating and the ability to schedule regular scans, it has all the features of a program that costs between $30 and $50 with none of the cost. In fact, their professional edition for business starts at $33.

The only downside (and not much of one at that) is that it will only automatically check for updates once a day and you can only schedule a scan once a day. Visit http://www.grisoft.com for more information or to download (click on products and then on Free Edition).

Home users have an easy choice for free, easy-to-use anti-spyware software. LavaSoft (a German company) makes a very popular and very good program aptly named Ad-aware (since spyware is called adware). Again, free for home use but $30 for other users, Ad-aware is a great little application. The free version must be manually updated regularly but they've made that as easy as possible as well.

When running any spyware program, pay attention especially to processes and registry entries that are flagged as spyware. These can be pernicious. If you reboot and run the program again and find more spyware, you probably ought to give us a call. It's easiest to download from www.download.com . Just do a search for ad-aware.

Microsoft is also testing a spyware remover program called Microsoft Anti-spyware. While it is unsupported since it is in testing, I've got it installed and I really like it. Best part of the deal is that, as the title of this article states, its free – at least for now. More at www.microsoft.com (look to the bottom of the page).

A FREE office suite? You gotta be kidding! No, we're not. OpenOffice is a free office suite that is available for download from www.openoffice.org . Part of the Open Source movement, OpenOffice is just that, an office suite (group of programs) built from open source code which means it's free. OpenOffice has an entire suite of programs: Write (similar to MS Word), Calc (spreadsheet program like Excel), Draw (a graphics program), Impress (business presentations) and Base (a database program). One of my favorite features of OpenOffice is that you can easily create your own PDF files from any of the applications. There is a PDF button on the toolbar that lets you export the file you're working on to PDF. Just a few clicks of the mouse and you've got your very own PDF file.

As the Open Source movement continues, there will continue to be new applications made available for free. If you use a free program not mentioned in this article, let us hear about it at info@educyber.com .

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To Fix or Buy New

Fixing a problem with a slightly older computer often appears to be straightforward. However, when a computer begins to have trouble, other troubles are often not far behind. For example, a client recently brought me his computer. The hard drive was failing. We got him a new drive and got everything copied over before the drive went bad. But he didn't have a lot of memory (64 MB) and also was interested in upgrading the processor. My recommendation was that he not spend any more money on that computer.

The choices I put before him were whether to spend another several hundred dollars upgrading his old computer (and still be left with an old computer) or spend just a hundred more dollars and have a new computer. With fairly decent computers available for as little as $550, it seems a pretty straightforward decision as to how to proceed. But we all hate admitting that computer we paid $1500 for just a couple of years ago is little more than junk now.

So are we recommending getting rid of old computers at the first sign of problems? No. Actually its more like the second sign of problems. In the story above, we fixed the immediate problem with the hard drive. That gave the owner a chance to back up data and make sure he hadn't missed anything important. But we recommended no more money be spent on it. So once you have a problem you should budget for a new computer in the near future.

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Techsplanation

What is PDF?

PDF or Portable Document Format is a special type of file that allows the creator to ensure those who view it will see it the same way he created it. Huh? For instance, if I create a really cool looking file in Microsoft Word that uses all kinds of special fonts and send it to my friends, if they don't have the same fonts, it won't look the same. If I create a PDF of the document though, they will.

PDF was created by Adobe Systems and, in addition to preserving the look the creator intended, it also compresses files which makes them so Portable. It is not unusual to have a graphic-laden document in the hundreds of Megabytes' size be compressed to 1/10 of its original size as a PDF.

While Adobe's free Acrobat Reader is required to view PDF documents, it is becoming increasingly easier (and cheaper) to create your own. As described above, the OpenOffice suite lets you create PDF files from any of its programs. There are also a number of free or low cost programs and applications that allow you to create PDF's. We are currently testing PrimoPDF (freeware) that allows you to print to a PDF. When your document is ready, you simply select the PrimoPDF printer as the printer. A screen asks whether you want the document ready for screen or for print and what you want to name the file. PrimoPDF is available from www.primopdf.com . There are many web sites that also can create pdf's “on-the-fly” with information that you've input.

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© 2005 EduCyber, Inc. This newsletter is brought to you by EduCyber, Inc. EduNotes can be viewed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week online at http://www.educyber.com/edunotes/ . Visit us on the web at http://www.educyber.com or call us at (720) 275-4646. Permission is hereby granted to redistribute all or part of this newsletter as long as this entire copyright message is included.
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