Issue 31.10
There are many companies out there that provide free stuff for your computer. Most of them have other things to sell and hope to get to know you through the things they give away so you will be their customer. Microsoft, AVG, Mozilla, OpenOffice and Adobe are a few of the ones whose free programs I use and enjoy. The company that I get the most free stuff from however, is Google.
Most people know Google as the search engine company that helps you find information, programs, pictures and people on the internet. What many don’t know is the many types of free programs they offer for you to enjoy on your computer. You can find most of these by going to www.google.com and clicking the “more” tab at the top of the page. This shows you a list of services and programs such as finance, blogs, YouTube, Calendars, groups and others. At the bottom of this list is an “even more” tab.
When you click it, you find a whole world of cool programs available to you. This is where you can find Chrome (a fast and easy replacement browser if you don’t like Internet Explorer), Books (that you can read completely on line if you want), Earth (one of my favorites with aerial views of most of the world and street level views of many places), Picasa (an easy to use picture organizer/editor), Gmail (web based email that you can access from anywhere), and many more. Additionally you can find more info about the programs mentioned earlier such as the Blogger (create your own place to publish your thoughts and get fans) and Calendar (very cool way to post your calendar online and have comparison calendars from your friends, family or coworkers so you can organize your meetings, times together, etc.). Another one I am learning about that will soon be available is called Google Wave. It will make it easy to collaborate on projects in real time. You can have a whole group adding or commenting on reports, proposals or even writing a novel. Whenever anyone adds something, everyone else in the group (you choose who is in the group) sees the updates immediately.
Among all the companies out there, I think Google has the best chance to challenge Microsoft and break their monopoly to some extent. Hopefully that will be good for all of us.
In the meantime remember to be safe – and always have a backup of anything important.
Shaun McCausland has been in the computer industry for 29 years (locally with Musicomp & Bits ‘N’ Bytes) and currently does in-home and on-site computer consultation, service, training and repair. If you have questions, you can reach him at 668-7118.