Monday, July 17, 2006

Gratis Ten

Ten Things Provided at No Charge

Freeware caution: always scan free downloads of anything for bugs and other threats before dumping the programs into your hard drive.

1. AbiWord, a free word processing program similar to Microsoft Word, has released version 2.4.5 (anyone actively using an older version should upgrade, as they've fixed a lot of bugs.)

2. Dead Disk Doctor makes the following promise about its freeware: "allows copying files from scratched or damaged CD, DVD disks, unreadable Floppy and Hard Drives or other media." (Note here: I'd be interested to know if anyone can verify that this actually works; would be a nice resource for folks who can't afford the high price of data recovery.)

3. For all you MySpace lovers out there, George's MySpace Editor.

4. Point and zoom in on any earthly spot with the "3D interface to the planet": Google Earth.

5. GroupMail has a free edition of their bulk-mailing software. It's fairly limited (single connection, only sends to 100 recipients at a time) but could be a nice test drive or starter program.

6. Keep a calendar, diary, contacts list and map out your thoughts with Pooter4.

7. I'm in the process of revamping the freebie e-books from the old web site, and putting together some new ones, but due to popular demand I'll be uploading the old files and making them available for now (links will be listed on the sidebar under Freebies.) The latest addition is Deimos, a novella I wrote for my StarDoc readers a few years back (.pdf format, may take a couple of minutes to load or download on dial-up.)

8. Create your own gorgeous photo calendars for yourself or as gifts for family, readers and friends with TKexe Kalendar.

9. Authors who like to create their own manuscript style sheets, series encyclopedias or track overused words might want to take a look at Word Index Builder.

10. Download 13,051 public domain clipart images tailored for use with word processing programs and home printers for free at WPClipArt.

5 comments:

  1. Oooooo.... neeet! (Okay, enough juvenile glee.)

    Actually, I have these, although I don't think I know Night of the Chameleon. Is this to be a freebie? Can I have it? Pleeze? Pleeze? Pleeeze? PLEEEZE?

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  2. Anonymous7:24 AM

    Jaye wrote: Is this to be a freebie? Can I have it? Pleeze? Pleeze? Pleeeze? PLEEEZE?

    Yep, NotC is a freebie, and you'll have it as soon as I find the backup (I'm working my way through ten years' worth of floppies & CDs, which is why this is taking so long.)

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  3. Love Google Earth, and Abiword is a great word processor except it won't read .odt files. So if you're looking for a fantastic word processor, get OpenOffice.org at the same low, low price.

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  4. AbiWord looks interesting. If it doesn't second guess the writer, like Word, I'll have to switch to that. Thanks for the links!

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  5. my favorite freebies of the day--Abby Godwin's advice for RWA left behind people like me (who acutally sort of want to go).

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