Brionglóid Media Blog

In today’s world protecting your privacy, security and your confidential and financial data is paramount.

Many computers come off the shelf with trial periods of major brand anti-virus suites installed, usually McAffee or Norton. These software suites may offer a degree of protection however once the trial period expires they tend to not just merely nag you, but try to actively terrify you into buying the full version.

It’s enough to make you afraid to get out of bed in the morning.

Thing is there are many antivirus programs out there which don’t cost a thing and, in many cases, offer superior protection to boot. (more…)

Last time we talked about Free Alternatives to Microsoft Office. Following on from that we’re now going to take a look at two more productivity suites, Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Photoshop.

Free Alternatives to Adobe Acrobat

I’ve never much liked Acrobat Reader. I’ve found it slows systems to a crawl, especially on startup, nags you for endless updates and is constantly crashing browsers, printers and causing systems to freeze.

Imagine my delight when a friend of mine – who had previously been having a seemingly endless nightmare involving 20-odd XP machines running Acrobat 7 printing to a Canon copier and crashing on print each time – introduced me to the answer to all his, and my, prayers.

Foxit Reader is free to download and use, it’s as light as a feather and does exactly what it says on the tin, opens PDF files – no more, no less.

Maybe it’s just me, because I love this product so much, but it also seems to me that Foxit actually renders PDFs better and sharper than Acrobat does.

Cute PDF Writer, meanwhile, is a free PDF printer, very handy for if you want to convert files or documents of any sort to PDF.

Free Alternatives to Adobe Photoshop

The Gimp is a free, open source program for editing photos and images. Whilst being called “The Gimp” isn’t exactly a compliment where I come from, this program is actually quite cool. It might not be a Photoshop beater, but it certainly comes quite close. The inbuilt GIF animation function is also ideal for those seeking to create banners and animations in GIF format rather than Flash.

Aviary is free, web-based creative suite. The suite is an offshoot project of Worth 1000, a popular Photoshop contest website (with some amazing graphic work on show). Each of the different applications all have (somewhat Mozilla-like) bird-themed names, such as Phoenix, its own graphic editor, Raven, the online vector graphic editor and Myna, for editing audio tracks. Other projects include an upcoming Word Processor (could this be another Microsoft Office competitor?) and a video editor called Starling. The latter, in particular, intrigues me.

Coming next, some great free antivirus and anti-spyware programs.

Many people still don’t know that, for every paid software solution they might consider, there’s always an open source or freeware alternative that, in many cases, is far superior.

When the price is zero it’s always a great incentive to try something new but don’t think that the applications listed here are somehow inferior just because they’re free. In many cases these applications offer far more options, far more protection and far more freedom of use than their paid counterparts and take up far less system resources too.

So without further ado, let me kick off my free software series with…

Free Alternatives to Microsoft Office

Generally if you buy a new PC with Windows it will be bundled with a copy of Microsoft Works. Works, however, saves its files in a completely different format to Office and so can be a hassle when you want to share your documents with others. Frustrated by this drawback most people generally give up and buy Microsoft Office not knowing that there are other alternatives that can allow you to edit and save Office compatible files without handing out huge wads of cash to Microsoft.

Open Office is among the most commonly used alternatives to Microsoft Office with its own versions of Word, Excel, Access and PowerPoint. It is available for Windows, Mac and Linux systems, in a variety of languages, and even gives you the choice of having either a US or British English version, which I think is really spiffy. In addition, as of version 3.0, Open Office is also compatible with proprietary Office 2007 files (.docx, .xlsx, etc).

With the ability to be installed on all major operating systems and full compatibility with Office 2007 but no licence costs, Open Office is the ideal solution for multi-platform offices or any organisation looking to keep costs down.

Google Docs is operating system independent. It is not a program but a series of web-based services that perform the same functions as any standard office suite, except that instead of being installed on your hard drive, all the documents are hosted from Google’s data centres with all interaction through your browser.

Google Docs is therefore a perfect example of cloud computing, a term which has become something of an industry buzzword of late but is in reality a concept almost as old as computing itself, that of large servers or mainframes hosting all the files and software for so-called “dumb-terminals”.

The only real limitation with Google Docs is browser compatibility, though this isn’t really an issue with modern browsers like Firefox, Opera or Chrome, as well as Internet Explorer 7 and 8. As of March of this year, however, Google has dropped support for Internet Explorer 6 entirely so Docs won’t work on older systems such as Windows 2000. (more…)

One of the things that many Skype users don’t know about is how to use it with a touchtone voicemail system. If you encounter such a system – e.g. “for accounts press one, for sales press two…” – you can use Skype’s built-in Dial Pad to emulate DTMF dial tones just like on a regular touchtone phone.

To do this firstly ensure you are running the latest version of Skype then follow the steps below:

1. Enter the phone number you wish to call and press the Call button as normal.

(more…)

Vertex42 is a website business owners are sure to find handy.

They’ve got all manner of goodies including free calender templates for Excel or Open Office

The calenders have all American holidays, so those of us on the other side of the Atlantic will need to alter them slightly. I find the monthly calender particularly useful, I edit it accordingly, like put in upcoming appointments, personal dates and, of course, F1 grand prix dates.

When I’ve got the time I’m going to check out their free photo calender template. It’s only a personal use license, though, but, with some careful thought and the right photos, would make an ideal Christmas present for someone, or at least a nice stocking filler.

There’s lots more free stuff there too, such as invoice templates, weekly & monthly planners and a project management planner template.

If you are searching for ways to get rid of spam you’ll find all manner of sites selling spam protection software. Although many of these programs do indeed offer protection, when it comes right down to it, no program, no matter how many stars and rave reviews it might receive, has yet to come close to the human brain when it comes to detecting and recognizing spam.

Caution and common sense – that’s the true secret to stopping spam. Software only offers a cure and a best-guess cure at that. We’re not here to talk about cures, we’re here to talk about spam prevention.

1. Abandon Ship!
If you’re reading this article odds are you’re already dealing with a massive spam infestation and you’re looking for ways stop it. The truth is, when it gets to that stage, you can’t. Your account is already compromised and the spammers have your address so no matter how many senders you block, a hundred more will take their place. That’s why it’s better to just abandon your old email account and start afresh. Backup any data you wish to retain, like your address book data, and migrate it to your new account. Then send an email to those addresses – and only those addresses – that you wish to remain in contact with.

2. Be Obscure.
A popular technique used by spammers is to automatically send emails alphabetically. (Like if you were to pick up the phone book and start ringing every name from A. Aaronson to Zeke Zimmerman.) Choosing a more obscure email address will help prevent this.

3. Filter, Filter, Filter!
When choosing your new email account, be sure to investigate what spam filtering service the provider offers. Talk to your ISP or hosting provider to find out what measures they have in place. Some companies offer far better protection than others, some offer spam protection for free, others expect you to pay so shop around.

Most free email accounts also offer inbuilt filters, some are quite basic whilst others are quite elaborate. The most effective filters are those which you can set and edit yourself. This way as well as blocking specific addresses and domains, you can also block certain keywords. For example if you’re getting a lot of messages selling counterfeit watches, you could create a filter that automatically deletes any email with the keyword “Rolex” in the subject and/or email body.

4. Keep it Private!
Never, under any circumstances, publish your private email address on the web – for example on forums, blogs, groups or social networking sites. Spammers use automated programs known as spiders to trawl through the web harvesting public email addresses. All it takes is for you to publish your address once and get picked up by one of these spiders and before you know it your new account will be submerged in spam.

5. Use a Dummy Account.
Never sign up to anything online with your personal email address. Create a new account (or just use your old account – it’s full of spam anyway right?) and the next time a website sign-up page requires that you give them an email address give them this dummy one instead.

6. No Chain Letters.
You’ve probably got dozens of these, “forward this on to everyone you know and good luck will be your reward.” More than likely, though, spam will be your reward.

These chain letters are a spammer’s dream. Think about it, they’re sent from one person to another, disseminating through offices and companies, multiplying all the while, collecting hundreds upon thousands of addresses in the process.

Beware, too, of chain letters masquerading as petitions. Even if their stated goal seems noble they serve the same sinister purpose. If you receive an email like this from a friend explain to them that you will not be forwarding the email and explain why.

Whatever your beliefs or affiliations may be there’s one thing we can all agree on – the planet doesn’t need any more spam. If you want to fight injustice or change the world you’ll do it far more effectively through acts of charity and conscientious activism than forwarding chain emails.

7. Never, EVER Reply to Spam!
Don’t take it on their honor that they’re going to remove you if you ask them. Spammers don’t have honor, that’s why they’re spammers. If you ask to be removed you’ve basically just told them that your address is active, and you’ll just get more spam.

And whatever you do, don’t ever click on links from any unsolicited emails. These links will either try to download a virus onto your computer, or will lead to a page trying to scam you or steal your personal and/or financial details.

So there you have it, all you need to know to stop spam. You don’t need to fork out huge amounts of cash for spam protection software suites or anything of the sort. All you need to do is use your head and apply what you have read and enjoy your bright, new spam-free future!