Amazing and cool site: Ninite.com

I am rarely impressed, but the function this site performs is one of the best things that have come along. How would you like to install all the programs you want in one go? Well that's what Ninite.com offers. It does something that we all need at one point or another. It certainly isn't used everyday, but Ninite.com is really handy when you set up a computer. Check it out here.

Basically Ninite lets you check off the programs you want to install on your computer. Programs like flash, firefox, vlc, aim, skype, and others are offered. It's an all in one function that bundles all the programs you wanted installed and does it all one in run. It downloads the latest programs from the original sites and installs every program one by one. So if you were to keep the program file, you can actually use it to also update those programs months or years down the line.

Enjoy!

Bandwidth as a resource

There has been talk about the way cellphone companies have been limiting bandwidth through subscription plans. As of August 15, 2011 Sprint remains the only company left in the United States that offers an unlimited data plan. It looks like data is now recognized as a commodity; something similar to how electricity is treated.

In economics services and goods have a certain value because they are limited. The scarcity determines the price. Cellphone companies are now trying to create a market in cellphones where there is a scarcity. Whether they intended to or not, scarcity means money. This Nytimes.com article has laid out the story of how data was a unlimited resource that became limited. For years, people have been using a phone jack or high school cable to connect to the Internet without worrying about how much bandwidth they used up. The cellphone companies claim that in order to control the flux of data intensive applications that cellphones use, they are billing subscribers in order to keep these subscribers from overtaxing the entire network.

These assumptions about overtaxing the network is not unfounded. Subscription plans now charge a fee for 2GB's of data or more. Video apps and other data intensive applications on smartphones especially, could eat up an enormous amount of data in minutes.

What the cellphone companies don't explain is why they don't just upgrade their infrastructure in order to meet demand as they grow. Or why they don't enforce a bandwidth cap. They'd rather charge for the privilege of using more data.

Now think of how electricity is billed. You use this much electricity, you pay that much. Sound familiar? I don't know about other people, but for me, I generally don't pay attention to how much bandwidth I use. If the cellphone companies are really trying to reign in on over-consumption of data from cellphone users, then they should provide feedback for every cellphone. Why not show a meter for how much bandwidth you have used? On the front screen of your cellphone perhaps?

I was once part of a project called the Kukui Cup a dorm room competition in the University of Hawaii that with competing dorms trying to use the least amount of electricity. The main focus was the observe how people used electricity and whether providing a meter that showed near immediate feedback could change their behavior in energy usage. As I write this, they are on their way to initiating the competition in October of 2011. The idea is that if you get to see how much energy you are using, you'll not only see the results for each appliance, you'll understand the impact on your wallet each time you use a electronic device and look at the meter.

These kinds of feedback interfaces and devices could go a long way to not only providing feedback, but slow down consumption by letting people make a conscience decision to change their behavior in the name of conservation or just to save money. Energy and data has been the very source of technological advance in everything. Charging people for data usage in a limited way is not going to be effective against over consumption. Since when did people stop watching TV or stop turning on their Christmas lights just because it cost money?

photo from cloudcentrics.com

iPhone and other 'i' products changing the way we speak

Before the iMac and the iPhone can out, were there any words that sounded like it? Maybe isosceles or Ikea, but most of them were obscure or brand names. Most other words with an 'i' in the beginning usually start with an 'ee' sound like in cheese. In fact most people now pronounce countries like Iran and Iraq as iRan and iRaq.

This bothers me a lot. Granted English is a very flexible language, but when technology companies reshape the pronunciation for a type of word, it's a monumental event. In effect Apple has repackaged all i-starting words into their own brand of things. Mad TV a now defunct television show had a skit that parodied how a lot of things could be branded into the Apple line, and is a metaphor for the Iraq war.

State of the Internet Issue #05: Addictions

You can't do too much of anything, the old saying goes. The same can be said of the usage of the Internet. As computers and the web become an accepted part of everyday life, there are those who will overuse these devices to their detriment. In Korea for example the high speed Internet infrastructure has fostered a culture where the next generation of kids spend all of their time playing and absorbing the content of the world wide web. Not only do they spend time there, researchers say that their social and mental stability is damaged because of it. There are actually boot camps that try to rehabilitate kids. Over 30 percent of Koreans under 18 are now at risk for Internet Addiction. A NYTimes article details how the rehabilitation centers try to teach kids, how to be kids. Activities included horseback riding, pottery making and chores. The program literally tries to dispel the compulsion to use the Internet and activities associated with computers.

People have been saying for awhile now that computers could lure people away from everyday activities. In fact, science fiction stories have used this idea to create future scenarios where entire societies are composed of people plugged into the web and have all their needs fulfilled by technology. Albeit it hasn't gotten to this point, kids most certainly spend an enormous amount of time using this new medium. Studies have also shown that kids most of all, spend more than seven and a half hours on average computer and cellphone devices everyday. Aside from school and sleep, that is pretty much all of their time.

Another subject comes up when using the computer and that's virtual hoarding. Others call it file hoarding or computer hoarding. It's when you accumulate files on your computer similar to how a person hoards physical items in real life. Most people do it on an unconscious level by just letting files and programs pile up. Yet, when you actively download files to a cache in the terabytes, it is an excess. If you never delete anything on your computer, you may want to ask why.

But don't start looking at your own computer just yet. When the term virtual hoarder is used, it's usually applied to those that do it in the extreme. There are actually people that have downloaded entire websites. A story I heard awhile back is of a person who actually downloaded nearly all the music that has ever been released. Those are the types of hoarders that are in the extreme. That particular example is even more dramatic because certain hoarders revel in hoarding objects stolen. Downloading music illegally, the person in the story was arrested by the authorities shortly after.

Those kinds of stories then add to a bigger picture about what is happening when we use computers and go online. A professor of mine back in college, Professor Dennis J. Streveler, once said, "the computer is an intellectual amplifier." It can be very useful in increasing our productivity. The computer is capable of increasing everything about us. If we like to look at pictures of cute kittens, we can do it all day long at lolcats. If we need a recipe, google can search for them in a split second. On the other hand, if we want to learn about making weapons, that is available too.

Entire archives of information is at our hands. Archives of Youtube videos are available too. Which will it be? With so much to do, we can be overwhelmed. We are consumers at the end of the day, with limited time. If we devote so much time on one thing, such as acquiring files, it may become the only thing we do.

Adblocker

A lot of pop-ups, banners, tracking and advertisements can be avoided by using an add-on like adblocker. The add-on's are very useful and in some cases allow you to view media without those pesky advertisements.

Case in point, streaming sites like livestream.com or ustream.tv have video advertisements that appear periodically in their interface. If you install the adblocker for Firefox, it can be avoided.

Firefox:

1. Go to the site for Ad-block plus on the Firefox browser.

2. Click on the "Add to Firefox" button.

3. Click on the "Install" button after it finishes loading.

4. Then allow Firefox to restart.

Internet fail

While surfing the web I came across some pretty interesting sites that cater mostly to people bored (everyone). They seem to point the most ridiculous of the worlds people and their incongruities with what most people think as normal. A lot of what we see on these sites are so outrageous, they are the selling the point. Take for instance parentfail.com. This site has these pictures of parents doing things that are so heinous they have effectively failed as parents.

Another site however also provides comic insights into our everyday life. Cracked.com features articles that talk about things like "6 Things You Won’t Believe Got Banned By Modern Governments", "5 Shocking Ways You Overestimate Yourself", or "7 Basic things You Won't Believe You're All Doing Wrong."

This ridicule from from websites are very pronounced. Sites like cracked.com and parentfail.com have lot of evidence to show that people are pretty much idiots. I chuckle and laugh at some of these examples of stupidity, but at the same time feel sad for these people. Does this amount of ridicule actually accomplish anything?

Images were from parentfail.com.

State of the Internet Issue #04: Internet Usage

How much time do we spend on the Internet these days? A look at the statistics will show developed nations are understandably the top Internet users. But what used to be a novelty is now a global dependence. The infrastructure providing internet access has ballooned as well. A look at the global internet usage will show the relationship of different countries and their connection to the Internet.

Electricity is key to the Internet. It's essential for the availability of the content and transfer of information from computer to computer. That is why the more developed countries are the top users of the Internet. They typically have the best electrical coverage.

Internetworldstats.com provided the information for the top users of the Internet; which is actually Asia with 825 million, and Europe with 475 million. North America used to be neck and neck with Asia back in 2000, with 108 million users to 114 million users.

Asian countries especially are showing strong Internet usage growth, because of their economic growth. For example Vietnam, now has over 27% of their population using the Internet. What that equates to is a population that is adapting to getting information from a different source than books.

The web is not only a way for people to get information, but it has become a way to organize and become connected to the rest of the world. As the usage has risen, countries like Egypt and Tunisia have used it to stage their political protests and to plea to the rest of the world for freedom. In fact, the Egyptian government had to disconnect the entire countries Internet access in order to prevent the civilians from disseminating their protest information to the rest of the world and organizing on facebook.

The way the people of Egypt has used the Internet for their revolution has changed the way people look at this powerful medium.

That is why the Internet usage increase globally has been a positive thing. Information dissemination now is important and also widely available to a lot of people. It's certainly a way for people to get access to all they might want to know and to stay in touch with other people in the world, making relationships that much more available.

State of the Internet Issue #03: BitTorrent

The word BitTorrent evokes a lot of cynicism and negativity. Over the course of this decade, BitTorrent has been associated with piracy and hackers. It has grown from an altruistic effort to provide efficient file transfer in the form of distributed networks, into this. People now believe the very act of using BitTorrent is illegal. Go to any casual internet user and they will provide you with their perspective of what BitTorrent is. And I can guarantee a majority of them will give you a story about how 'BitTorrent' is stealing movies. That is why I believe I need to give a very different perspective on what this program does and how the file sharing protocol behind it works. The News Media and other sources have provided only one use of BitTorrent. But it deserves more than that. Used properly, it is a very effective and egalitarian way of sharing files.

First you need to know is that, yes, BitTorrent is used to pirate films, music and any file that is of any demand to computer users. That is why the notoriety of BitTorrent is such as it is today.

The protocol behind BitTorrent is called the peer-to-peer protocol. This is how it works.

The peer-to-peer protocol uses networks made up of peers and seeders. Peers are the people requesting a certain file. They rely on people willing to share the files with them; those people are called seeders. The seeders leave their file open and the peer-to-peer program running, allowing others to access the file from the seeders computer.

Once a peer has successfully downloaded the file he/she requested, they too can become a seeder. So as the number of people who have the file increases., so does the availability of the file increase.

This is the whole idea behind peer-to-peer networking. Even if someone were to stop seeding, there would be others to take their place. Unlike a conventional server that can go down and be unavailable to users, the seeders are everywhere and are dependable.

The first users of peer-to-peer was Napster. Although the system they built still depended on a centralized list of addresses to relay to users where to download from, transactions were done between personal computer to personal computer. This was one of the most notorious programs during the late 90s to early 2000s. Napster had significant legal issues to deal with, and were brought down by a court order.

Kazaa was the second program to gain a massive following. It even had a CBS 60 minutes TV segment devoted to it. Kazaa was also vilified and the resulting media portrayal has snowballed into a negative portrayal of peer-to-peer programs.

It may surprise that Skype also uses peer-to-peer networking. Skype uses a peer-to-peer sharing method in order to run their processes on a users computer rather than on their servers. The creators of Kazaa also created Skype. They founded this Internet Telephony company and have garnered positive attention from the world community.

Although Bittorrent is being abused and used for illegal actions, it isn't a bad thing. The bad practices of its users are at fault. It isn't illegal to use Bittorrent.

Bittorent logo from bittorent.com

State of the Internet Issue #02: Internet Protocols

You may or may not know that the Internet is comprised of many different protocols. There are many protocols that handles things like, web pages, file transfer, email, and telephony over the internet. Here's an explanation of some basic protocols we all use everyday.

What we use for web browsing is just one of those called http, the hypertext transfer protocol. It transfers the data from a server and then the browser displays the data based on what the http tells your computer. It is probably the most known and used protocol.

Another protocol would be the email protocol. Email actually has a different way of handling data then the way webpages do. Email has to both serve and receive data. When you log in to a server, it displays the information for you. However, when you send messages the protocol actually handles the sending process as well. So there are big differences between the 'web' protocol and email, because http usually just sends you the data of web pages.

These Internet protocols are not only vital to keeping everything working, but some are relatively unknown compared to the more known like http. Why should you care about any of this?

The Internet is a place that is created by its users.

If no one were to produce content and contribute their time and efforts to maintaining it, then there would be no Internet. The IETF is the Internet Engineering Task Force, and they are made of volunteers and determine all the standard practices in the Internet. Yet don't mistake them for a governing body. There isn't any. The Internet is pretty much the wild west. Except for a few laws pertaining to child pornography, fraud, and identity theft, there isn't a lot of policing going on in the Internet.

The protocols that are used commonly today were first created by researchers and volunteers. That means anyone can contribute. Everyone can give their ideas. Just take a look on wikipedia of all the protocols there.

You would think that the something as vital as the Internet would need someone to govern it and provide protection, but there isn't. That's because this is the ultimate egalitarian construct. Leading back to my earlier article about Open Source, the Internet provides a medium for people to contribute their time and efforts in order to build interesting and wonderful things. Progress can be made here and not just for profit.

State of the Internet Issue #01: Open Source

If Google is good at anything, it's releasing products that are free. They and many others have supported open source for years. Open source stands for a methodology and philosophy that emphasizes sharing free content and distributing it for public use. Which I am all for!

Open source licenses like the GNU General Public License are attached to products released by entities that wish to release content for free. On the other hand, it protects them from plagiarism. A well known user of the GPL License includes Mozilla Firefox a browser given freely to users. In this case, Firefox under the GPL license allows others to modify that product as they see fit as well. This type of free distribution has allowed numerous benefits for people looking for software that doesn't cost a fortune to purchase.

Open source is a term for many things. What people don't know about is that it applies to any product you wish to distribute. Take for instance the OpenCola. It is a freely distributed recipe for a brand of cola made by individuals and companies alike. This was meant as a promotional project to explain the concept of open source to the public. What's ironic is that this brand of cola became more famous than the company that created it.

Open source distributions seems to be THE way people share content across the internet. It has always been a method for cooperation to be fostered. Copyright issues have been a great source of conflict due to people arguing over profits. Open source allows people to genuinely give and contribute to something without anything substantial in return for themselves. If anything it's better than donating money, because the results are seen by the people who contribute. Unlike monetary donations, people who contribute to open source projects know exactly how they are helping.

open source image from: weblogs.us

OpenCola image from: Wikipedia

Money making Internet Websites, reality

Internet users at one time or another wonder whether they can make money off of the Internet. They might consider blogging or selling things on eBay. Then there is the less creative intensive tier of people who visit sites like swagbucks. These are commonly known as "paid to click" PTC sites and "get paid to" GPT sites.

These sites are meant to generate enormous amount of hits from users attempting to get points in order to redeem prizes. In other sites, you can get miniscule amounts of money to complete services, for example 0.05 cents for completing a survey.

Swagbucks specifically attracts users to do search using their own search engine. For those registered users, if they search enough, a random point system awards them points for using that engine. A gift directory is provided for the users to redeem the points for prizes. Prizes range from a $5 gift card from Amazon.com to an Xbox 360. Prizes like the Xbox 360 require an enormous amount of points to redeem.

This need for a lot of points also brings people to use the referral system. Referrals on these sites are another hook for user. You can email the link to register to your friends, along with your name attached to the url which gives you credit for the referral. The referral then allows you to get points that your friend gets, similar to a pyramid scheme.

This system of "paid for clicks" require the attention of users willing to give up their time in exchange for a few dollars. Many people have tried to abuse it and many others have used the sites to scam users. Take for instance the videos flooding Youtube that offer cheats and hacks to circumvent sites like swagbucks. On the other hand, many sites have stopped paying out to their users or have never paid their users for the points and money they owe.

There is a directory of these sites provided by ptc-investigations. It seems there are a few good men and women who care about right and wrong. They take the initiative to investigate sites suggested by users in order test for themselves the legitimacy of the sites.

They determine the validity of the sites by looking at the pros and cons of the site. Some of the factors include whether the site is available in your country. Another factor is whether the investigator was able to successfully cash out when they tried to. Ultimately ptc-investigations acts as an third-party reviewer that can help keep scammers from taking the money and running.

When you take a high-level look of the way swagbucks and other sites make their profits, and the prizes they offer to people, there is a lot of risk involved. In comparison to other shady sites, swagbucks is considered a good site. It has consistently paid out to users who redeemed prizes. Other sites have not been so honorable. What you have to take into account is that there is no Internet police. Fraud at this level is usually not given any attention at all and those that spend a lot of hours trying to garner points will feel cheated.

So I suggest taking a look at the ptc-investigations site and trying out only sites that have been verified to be reliable.

Images from
1 2

State of the Internet Issue #00

In an ongoing effort to get a sense of what is happening in our world and specifically the computer world I will begin a segment that reports on the current state of affairs concerning the Internet. I want to assess one day to show what is happening on the Internet.

I'd like to give others a feel of what the Internet environment was like and maybe show people in the present and future what is going on. One objective of this new segment is to just show people things that they might or might not know about. The Internet is vast and I just want to explore it all I can and share the gems with everyone.

After all, the Internet is known as the information superhighway, a term popularized by former vice president Al Gore. Good information and bad can last forever. The world as we know it has become increasingly dependent on the Internet. Modern teens have not known a known a world without it. Just a decade ago, the majority of the modern world knew about the Internet as a growing phenomenon, but now it's part of daily life. Back in the 90's even the NBC morning show had a difficulty grasping it. Now it's in there regular vernacular and understanding.

1994

2010

Not only is it part of our daily lives, it's essential for utilities across the United States and other countries. Many films like Die Hard 4 incorporated the realities of cyber warfare and dependence into their story. In the movie Bruce Willis' character John McClane has to fight and rescue his daughter and the country from a cyber terrorist who threatens the countries utilities by breaking into the computer systems of all the utilities in America, which are networked. Because it is networked, the utility has become more efficient and yet more vulnerable to sabotage. One act of sabotage could theoretically affect the country's water, electrical and sewage systems.

With so much change all around us, is the Internet good or bad? The Internet has been seen as a great revolutionary tool to humanity. In the coming weeks, I'll be discussing the ramifications of its effect on our lives as we effect our change on it.

More to come when I get more ideas..

Video tutorial for saving Images

As promised, I've created a video to describe the process of saving images from IMDb and other websites. IMDB in particularly makes it difficult for user to save their images, so I've provided methods to do that in four different web browsers, Firefox, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, and Opera.

Tricks for saving images from IMDB and other sites.

Sometimes it's not so easy to save an image to your computer when the website is working against you. After cataloging images from the internet for years, I've come to learn somethings that I think everyone faces at one time or another. Whether you wanted to keep something interesting or beautiful from a website, the pictures can be downloaded from a website.

The usual "right-click"->"save image as" or "save picture as" options are very easy to do and that is why most people don't have to worry much about downloading pictures. However there are some obstacles on that when the the website owners specifically make it an obstacle for you. Some sites do not want you to download them.

Take for instance IMDB. They have a block that prevents users from right-clicking on images so you can't save the image. Here's a trick to get past that. I will offer solutions for the browsers Firefox, Internet Explorer, Chrome and Opera.

• FIREFOX: A method I discovered years ago on forums is that you have to look at the page info page. Go to the Tools, Page Info, and then the Media tab. There, you'll find all the images that are saved for this particular web page. Scroll through them and you will see the pictures on the bottom of the page displayed. Click the save as button to save the picture you selected.


• INTERNET EXPLORER: For Internet Explorer this is what you'll need to do. The key to getting the right-click to work is to disable the Javascript on Internet Explorer. First go to tools and click on internet options. Select the security tab, and then the custom level button. Under "scripting" you will need to choose the disable radial button for active scripting and click ok. Restart Internet Explorer and you will be able to right-click on the images on imdb. I do not recommend leaving the settings that way for long. You can reset the Javascript by following the same instructions I provided above, but click enable instead of disable for active scripting. Now that you can right-click, you will also be able to use the "save picture as" option. Thanks to mozillazine forums for providing the info.


• CHROME: This is what I discovered for Google Chrome. When you go to an imdb page with an image you want to download, right-click and select "inspect element." A new box will appear on the bottom of the page. Select the "Resource" tab and you will see all the images from the webpage listed for you. Find the image you wanted to download and right-click the image and save it. While the imdb website does not allow you to download the image on their page, the resources box on Google Chrome will.


• OPERA: The case for the Opera browser seems to be the same as Internet Explorer. You will have to disable Javascript in order to right-click on the image and save it. To locate that option, click on the menu, then settings, then preferences and then the content tab. There will be an check box for enabling Javascript, leave it unchecked to disable it. Restart the browser and you should be able to right-click. Again I suggest re-enabling Javascript afterwards.

Here is a video tutorial for all four cases

Others have different methods..

This article provided an amazing method for downloading the all the images in a website. The only downside is that the program is a free trial so you can't keep it for long. But it's pretty cool.

I can't stress enough how important it is to remember that these are not your images. I never use the images for gains nor in my own projects. I suggest saving them for your viewing pleasure, no more. They belong to the original owners from the sites you appropriated them from.

With these methods, you can save images from any website, not just imdb.com.

The one exception is if the image is published under a creative commons license. These photos below were obtained through http://www.bestpicturegallery.com/. While I am showing them on my blog, they will have to site the original creator and source.

Hope you like this article. Comment please.

by Elfreda, Eden Project

by owenbooth

by Christopher Chan

Don't let low bandwidth waste your time

Some of you out there may have the worst bandwidth, and have a bad time when it comes to watching streaming videos. Here's something to try. Orbit Downloader is free software that allows users to download any content from a website. The most obvious application would be to download videos.

Orbit Downloader can pretty much go to almost any site and download the .flv file, a standard in streaming videos. What this means is that if you have a slow internet connection, you don't have to wait on the video player to load. Just download the video and watch it at your own convenience. At a time when the internet seems to be extremely convenient, a limiting factor still seems to be bandwidth. Orbit Downloader could be a solution for that.

I do have a problem with this program however. I suppose through no fault of Orbit Downloader, Youtube has worked very hard for users to not download their content. So one main flaw in the program is that they cannot download Youtube videos.

Using the Downloader might take some getting used to. One of the easiest ways to download would be to enable the Orbit plugin for your browser. Whenever you load a page, an icon will appear for you to click on.

The icon will then give you options for the content page, particularly video files. If you choose one of those files, the downloading process should be pretty straight forward from there.

Converting FLV to AVI

It's no secret that people want to save Youtube videos onto their hard drive when they see a video they really like. But the .flv file extension isn't exactly the friendliest type of file for computer users. If you had the VLC media player with the right codec, it wouldn't be a problem. However a lot of people have been searching for answers on how to convert the .flv file to a .avi file. Here is a answer to that query.

The simplest answer is to use this program from www.pazerasoftware.com.

1. Download and install the program.

2. Load the file you wish to convert.

3. Then click on the convert button on top to start the process.

4. You get an .avi video outputted to the directory you specified.

*Note however that this program does not allow you to download the Youtube file.

I suggest you use this website for that. keepvid.com. Simply copy and paste the Youtube url onto the box and hit enter. The site will automate both the download and conversion of the file into either an .flv or .mp4 file based what you choose.

I really enjoy keeping some special videos around for my viewing pleasure. But remember that these are the creative property of the creators. So I highly advise against using them for your own projects without the expressed permission of the owners.

Top 5 free programs all computer users need

While googling my own questions about how to do this and that, it came to me that other people might be looking for the same things. Have you ever deleted a file and then emptied the trash bin, or needed to play a movie file but it said the computer does not have the required 'codec?' Look no further, I'll share some essential programs that can take care of the most important things internet and computer users face as they consume media and operate the Windows computer.

People routinely ask questions like:
What is a 'codec' and how do I get it to play a movie file?
How do I get back files that I deleted from the recycle bin?
What are some free image editors?
What are some free word editors?
Free Powerpoint editor?
Free stuff?

1. VLC player
This video player is the ultimate media player. Remember what I said about the 'codec' not found problem? This player has almost every codec that has been released, it will play files with extensions like .avi, .mkv, .mov, and .mp3 to name a few. It's interface is very simple and easy to use.

2. Restoration
Restoration is a program that can save the day. Created by Brian Kato, it can restore files from your hard drive if it's been removed from your trash bin. Remember having deleted a file and then clicking 'Empty the Recycle Bin?' Well if you do both steps and delete the file, don't panic. The file might still exist. This program looks inside of your hard drive and sifts through all the trash files that have been deleted for your program. All you need to do is either search for the file, or sift through the things you have deleted. Timing is of the essence! Everytime you use your hard drive to store new files, you'll be risking the deletion of your old file forever! Don't wait too long before using this program after you've hit the 'Empty the Recycle Bin' button.

3. Paint.NET
This free image editor is easy to use and resembles the regular paint in your accessories on windows, but it has a lot more tools to play with. Don't spend money on software that is extremely large just to edit your art. This free program can be the midrange program to get if you don't spend all day creating art, but just need it to do simple things. The regular paint is just not adequate for that.

4. Google
Have you looked at all the applications that Google offers in it's directories? It can offer FREE online programs for writing, presentations, and even email. And to boot, all of these are programs that you would normally have to pay for in a store. For instance, Google docs is a utility that pretty much does all of what Microsoft Office does. Take a look at the list of programs Google offers here.

Or just a quick glance.
a. Gmail
b. Youtube
c. Google docs
d. Google books
e. Google Earth
f. Google Labs

5. Mozilla Firefox
This web browser is exceptional for all users. It was the first to use the multiple tabs approach to browsing and remains one of the fastest browsers. I highly recommend this browser because simply of it's ease of use and uncomplicated interface.

All of these programs are free to be downloaded from their respective sites. They offer what everbody should have in their computer, the essentials. I wanna stress this because, I've also searched around for answers how to handle a movie file and what a 'codec' is. VLC can handle all that.
And these programs will eventually become necessary over the course of using a windows computer.

Hope you guys liked my blog. I'm planning to write more basically from my experience as a user.