TNPC Newsletter likes to point its readers in the direction of free software, so here is a place well worth visiting: SoftwareFor.org.
Their gimmick is “Software for Staving Students” – a bundle of free apps that comes in both Windows and Mac flavors. It can be obtained as a normal download, but you will get it much faster if you use the Bittorrent peer-to-peer network. (Plus it gives you a rare opportunity to download something from Bittorrent legally.)
You'll find a lot of the standbys often mentioned in TNPC: OpenOffice, FireFox, Thunderbird, and the like. But it also includes graphics, sound, and video software, security tools, system utilities, and even some games.
Included is my favorite multimedia player: VLC. An open-source program, it has proven itself capable of being able to play almost anything. Media streams or files that flummox most players will run in VLC.
Even if you aren't a starving student, the bundle could be well worth your while. Because of activation and other anti-piracy features in commercial software today, moving your apps to a new PC is no longer just a matter of reaching for the installation disks. You need to deactivate the software on the old PC first, leaving it useless. A free applications bundle will let you restore functionality to your old PC.
The striking thing about the Starving Students bundle is that the retail equivalents would set you back a sum well into the four-figure range. It demonstrates that the open source and freeware movements have generated some interesting alternatives to commercial software. To be sure, the free programs aren't as slick as their commercial counterparts. But you can't knock the price.
Their gimmick is “Software for Staving Students” – a bundle of free apps that comes in both Windows and Mac flavors. It can be obtained as a normal download, but you will get it much faster if you use the Bittorrent peer-to-peer network. (Plus it gives you a rare opportunity to download something from Bittorrent legally.)
You'll find a lot of the standbys often mentioned in TNPC: OpenOffice, FireFox, Thunderbird, and the like. But it also includes graphics, sound, and video software, security tools, system utilities, and even some games.
Included is my favorite multimedia player: VLC. An open-source program, it has proven itself capable of being able to play almost anything. Media streams or files that flummox most players will run in VLC.
Even if you aren't a starving student, the bundle could be well worth your while. Because of activation and other anti-piracy features in commercial software today, moving your apps to a new PC is no longer just a matter of reaching for the installation disks. You need to deactivate the software on the old PC first, leaving it useless. A free applications bundle will let you restore functionality to your old PC.
The striking thing about the Starving Students bundle is that the retail equivalents would set you back a sum well into the four-figure range. It demonstrates that the open source and freeware movements have generated some interesting alternatives to commercial software. To be sure, the free programs aren't as slick as their commercial counterparts. But you can't knock the price.
