Useful Programs - 6 - Free International Phone Calls

For the past 6 months, Kveta and I have been using a program called Justvoip, to make virtually free international telephone calls..

I write "virtually free" because there is a minor 5 (US) cent connection fee for each call (regardless of whether or not the callee is engaged or otherwise doesn't pick up), but other than the meager 5 cents, the calls made are free, and one can chat, as far as we are aware, indefinitely.. Certainly for significantly more than an hour..

It's a program somewhat similar to Skype, in that you are using the internet to initiate the call, but with the major difference that with justvoip, you can set it up to use your home, or, in certain countries, mobile/cell phone.. (thus it works with even the slowest of internet connections!!)

In other words, the program first rings to your private phone, and once you've picked up, then rings to the phone you wish to call, and seamlessly connects you both together..

It's a great service, and we've never yet had any problems using it..

The only requirements are that you have a paypal account with at least $10 in it, which you pay as advanced credit for your calls (for the 5 cent connection fees), and a mobile phone to set up your account (an activation key is sent to your mobile as a text message, which you'll have to enter to activate your account. - Not ourselves having a mobile, we used the mobile of a friend to receive the onetime only text message).. It's all explained pretty well on their website, from where the software can be downloaded free of charge..

- http://www.justvoip.com

The software can be used to make both national and international calls.. Admittedly, not every country is free to call, but the US, the UK, and several other countries are 100% free, apart from that 5c connection fee, of course.. And other countries offer significantly reduced fares in comparison to other methods of telephoning..

As I said, we signed up and started using it about half a year ago, and we've already saved ourselves well over a hundred dollars in phone calls, and from the initial $10 payment, we still have more than $6 left in our account..

peace,
mango.

Useful Programs - 5 - shrink pictures before sending them

You know when you take digital photos they are like, soo big! Sometimes they can be up to 7 megabytes (possibly even more!) for one picture, and if we want to send such pictures via email, it can take forever.. Especially on slower internet connections..

One solution is to open the image with an image editor, like paint, or gimp, or paintshop pro and reduce the size of the image before sending it, but that's not exactly a simple solution.. especially when we might want to email several pictures at once..

Recently I discovered a 2nd solution which is a real time saver.. It's neat little program called "Shrink Pic" It runs in the background, and when you try to attach pictures, to send in an email, it automatically creates a temporary copy, resizes it and sends it instead. It gives you a notice message, so you'll know the photo you sent was resized. Of course, the original photo doesn't change, only the temporary copy.

Interested? you can read more here: shrink_pic.htm

Also. I've found another little tool that let's you resize images via the "right mouse click" context menu.. It's written by microsoft, and is available together with a whole bunch of other little windows addons. To find out more, go to:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx

and look down the page until you find "Image Resizer". On the right side of the webpage you'll see the downloadable .exe file..

Both work fine under windows XP

Peace,
Mango.

Useful Program - 4 - Get a free copy of LInux

Are you one of the growing number of people dissatisfied with Microsoft Windows and all the faults it has..

Excessive slowness at times, bugs, system crashes, cryptic messages.. Maybe even the fact that you may be running a version illegally.. A copy of XP or Vista that was never really paid for or registered..

Well, I've had experience with much of the above, and had my fair share of frustrated cursing sessions..

versions of Windows XP, off the rack, can cost several hundred dollars US, and I imagine the same goes for Windows Vista, and no doubt there'll be no decrease in price once Windows 7 (Microsofts follow on to Vista due to be released in a few years) hits the streets..

So now I'm considering switching to Linux..

For those not in the know, Linux is an alternative operating system to XP and the rest of the Microsoft stuff..

The most attractive thing about Linux is it's 100% free!! If you are geeky enough, you can even get the source code for it..

- Nothing's hidden!!

There are several Linux Distributions available for downloading for free off the internet (possibly 100s!), but for many of us, downloading a DVD sized program may be just too time consuming, so I've got an even simpler solution for getting hold of a couple of the many Linux versions that are available out there..

1. UBUNTU

I'm told that the Ubuntu distro is one of the easiest Linux's for beginners to handle.. I've played around with it a little myself, but never really had the opportunity to fully familiarize myself with it.. At a glance, it is very similar looking to Windows (although under the hood, far smoother!)..

If you want to get hold of a DVD for free, you can do so via:

https://shipit.ubuntu.com/login

They'll send one right to your snail mail address, completely free of charge..

2. Oracle Unbreakable Linux

The same goes for this Linux Distro, someone out there is being very generous, and shipping DVDs worldwide at no cost..

No doubt Bill Gates will still die stinking rich though..

anyhow, get your free oracle unbreakable linux on DVD, directly to your postbox, here:

http://www.oracle.com/go/?&Src=5634329&Act=10

regards,
Mango

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Useful Programs - 3 - Free alternative to MS Office

MS Office is very pricey these days.. Costing easily several 100 dollars for an above board, off the shelf copy, and far out of the price range that most of us are willing to pay..

But there is a legitimate alternative to the MS Office suite.. It's Called the Open Office Org, and has everything you're likely to need as far as office software is concerned.. It's got a Word equivalent, called Writer, and an excel equivalent spreadsheet thing, called Calc.. as well as data base stuff and image stuff and more.. And can create and edit PDF files..

Open Office is one of the many Internet available free applications created by a dedicated team of software engineers who believe that software should be free.. thus if you are geeky enough, you can even download the source code..

The latest reliable version is 2.4, and is available for download and use here:

http://download.openoffice.org/index.html

If you are feeling a little more adventurous, you could even download the version 3 beta version, which has no guarantee of being flawless, but nevertheless likely to be mostly stable for simple needs. Version 3 beta can be downloaded here:

http://download.openoffice.org/3.0beta

Peace to all,
Mango.

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Useful Programs - 2 - Resizor

I am regularly sent photos by various people around the globe, generally they are sent with such large dimensions (straight from the camera no doubt), that it can be quite time consuming just waiting for them to download.

Well, there are lots of programs out there that one can use to resize a picture before sending it. Most of them are quite complex for the novice.

Resizor is different though, it's a small standalone application used for image resizing and retargeting.

Unlike Photoshop its small, loads quickly, and easy tostart using.

It features something called "seam carving technology" for image retargeting, which is basically a technique used to resize the images with out losing the quality of the image.

You can use filters for resampling of images for superior quality, resizor claims that some of these filters offer superior quality than photoshop.

It's currently available only for Windows.



Have fun, and send me a less bulky picture next time!!

regards,
Mango

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Useful Programs - 1 - Flock 1.1

First in my series of useful programs to download..

This is for anyone out there that blogs or uploads photos, Flock is an excellently useful tool.

It's essentially a web browser (like firefox, Internet Explorer, opera, Safari and many of the other web browsers available out there..).

Basically, it's built upon Firefox version 2, but has some pretty niftily impressive extensions built into it, making blogging and photo sharing a real pleasure.

These are just some of the things you can do with it:

1. Easily post a blog entry to your blog (works with most blogs, but not with myspace. - Yet.)
2. Easily upload pictures to photobucket, picaso, flickr and other photo sharing websites.
2a. The great thing about this is it can automatically resize your images to the size you prefer, and also lets you crop the image so you can just select the part of the image you want to upload..
3. Lets you drag and drop any picture into your blog entry, and resize it to fit with your blog..
4. Checks your email (currently only works with gmail and yahoo)

There's heaps more stuff too, but those are the main things that have us hooked..

Both Kveta and I use it to  post our blog entries.

You can download Flock version 1.1 beta, from here: http://www.flock.com/beta/download/

regards,
Mango.

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