In our work, it serves us well to know which products are generally the best for the buck, and some conclusions might surprise you, and you must consider “just because a particular program suite is popular, is it necessarily the best?” the answer might seem obvious at first, but because of modern aggressive advertising, the bigger company will always win regardless of the actual quality of their product obscuring smaller firms whose software eclipses that of the competitor.
Here are our recommendations on must-have software covering some of the more important themes of day to day computing. Most titles are tested on and intended for Microsoft® Windows XP™
Essential Software
Web Browser
Mozilla Firefox far surpasses the Internet Explorer that comes with any flavor of Windows™ in features, standards compliance and extensibility. The major plus for this browser is that it comes in identical versions for Linux and Mac. It’s free and easy to try.
Photo Organizers
In the age of digital cameras offering instant gratification to our primal urge to packrat memories, arises a need to organize and view these treasures more efficiently.
We have two choices in this category: Free and not free. They each operate differently but for their prices, they are the best.
Free: in its price range, Google’s Picasa picture browser wins the contest in this category hands down. It sports an attractive interface and is easy to use all around. This program is best suited for someone who likes to view their pictures regularly and doesn’t really care about the nitty-gritty of how the pictures are organized - as long as you can find and them easily.
In the Not so free price range, we like ACD Systems ACDSee, in fact we swear by this program to manage thousands of pictures dating back 10 years or more. There are two versions of the program you should be aware of.
The standard version, priced at $49.99 offers all the features you need to view pictures in dozens of file types, get organized, and perform all of the basic editing you would need such as resize, crop, rotate, and correct the colors in your pictures without degrading the quality. The best thing is that they offer a free trial, so you can try it first.
ACDSee Pro, priced at $129.99 includes all the features of the standard version but focuses more on a workflow that professional photographers tend to have when downloading the photos from their camera - this program lets you do it all from download to organizing to batch tagging, editing and correcting.
The nice thing about the ACDSee software is that it can read most media files including audio, video and stills such as your photos, as well as font files and images created with popular image editing software such as Adobe Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro.
Audio… ohhh Audio
I can’t imagine the day without listening to one single mp3, and this has been a constant thing since 1997. So when there is a recommendation for audio software, it must be evaluated.
Now, in a world of walking on the eggshells that are digital media rights, if you are accustomed to iTunes or some other purchase/download platform and use that to play your music, then you are set.
BUT, if you are currently unsatisfied with the usefulness of most audio software, check out Winamp they are veterans of the scene and have been there since the birth of MP3 popularity explosion. Winamp also plays video in many formats and includes a very powerful visualizations plugin with hundreds of different pretty things to watch dance to your music. Oh.. did I mention free?! Where would I be without Winamp…
Viruses, Spyware, and Worms - oh my!
Your data… everything you do daily on your computer is a very delicate thing, and to protect it is a far nobler thing to do.
Let me start by being negative about a certain well known antivirus package, that is Norton Antivirus or Symantec Antivirus (same company).
This used to be our standard and first piece of software to install on freshly formatted computers until we started noticing some ugly issues on almost every single computer. Everything runs SLOWER! Regardless of your processor speed or amount of memory, Symantec software, specifically Antivirus will slow down your computer, often to a crawl when restarting - and I’m not exaggerating.
After a great deal of research and testing, we’ve found the best virus protection available - they issue daily virus definition updates as opposed to weekly like Symantec.
Nod32 the name is very unassuming but the software, favored by most serious pc gamers out there is a serious tool - if not nearly invisible for any user. The setup is easy, and maintaining it easier. All the best options come set to the best choice by default, and the only time you’ll know it’s actually working is when you get a nice red notice on your screen telling you disaster has been averted and the day is saved.
Now it isn’t free, but it’s only fair that there be a price on this one considering the frequency of their updates and the quality of the software. The yearly subscription is $39, or $58.50 for 2 years. The renewals are discounted to $27.30 or $40.95 for 2 more years. In my opinion, well worth the peace of mind and performance.
Read more about Eset’s Nod32 on the product page, and click the download link on their top menu to download the free trial - don’t forget to uninstall any other antivirus package you may currently be running first.
Free Commodities
A excellent freeware recommendations coming soon!