Software on the cheap
Published: 29 May 2003
There are many reasons why you might want to populate a system with free or low-cost software. You may be handing on a computer to a friend or relative, but need to retain the licensed software from that machine for your own use. Or you may be starting a business and want to keep costs down. Or you may suffer some computing disaster on the road and have to put together a working system in a hurry. In such a case you're unlikely to have the installation CDs and key codes for the expensive products you already own; and since you don't want to have to buy all your applications again, what you want is to assemble a system on a replacement notebook that works well enough to get you through to your return to the office.
For this exercise, we're going to make the wild assumption that you have a Windows machine. Yes, you can assemble a no-cost or very low-cost system using Linux. But you can do it in Windows, too -- and the scenarios outlined above are much more likely to happen with a Windows system. What follows is meant to cover the basics that every computer needs, plus one or two luxuries.
Office suite
The most obvious choice for word processor, spreadsheet and presentation software is the free OpenOffice. Currently in version 1.0.3.1, this office productivity suite has come a long way since its early days. It now reads and writes Microsoft Word files (several different versions, from 95 onwards) seamlessly, while its native format is XML -- as Microsoft Office 2003's will be.
There are plenty of niggles about OpenOffice's word processor: it can be slow, some features don't work perfectly, and it isn't quite as slick as Word. On the other hand, it has a few conveniences of its own, and it exchanges files seamlessly. The most important functions are there, and are entirely usable.
Similarly, although you won't find every Microsoft-equivalent feature in the spreadsheet and presentation modules, they do work admirably well -- and, of course, very few users exhaust the functionality of the applications they buy. OpenOffice also includes drawing, maths and Web editing modules, making it a good array of productivity software. Once it's installed on your low-cost system you might find that there's no compelling reason to replace it.
Personal Information Manager (PIM)
Every so often a good company's bad luck is our good fortune. Ecco Pro was an award-winning PIM in its days as a commercial product. But competition from Microsoft Outlook caused its owner, NetManage, to stop developing it further in 1997. Now, the software is free to download and use.
Surprisingly, you can even get technical support for Ecco Pro, because those who used the software liked it so much they still use it, and congregate in a forum on Yahoo! Groups. There you'll find not only links to the software itself but advice, tips on using it effectively, FAQs on a variety of technical support issues and instruction materials.
Ecco Pro has held up well for several reasons. First, no other PIM really works the way it does. It's based around outlines, but these are quite sophisticated, as any item can be assigned to more than one outline. The upshot is that you have many ways of linking the same data: all the people you worked with on a particular project, all the dealings you've had with a particular person, and so on. Second, one of the last NetManage developments was to add a conduit for the then-fledgling Palm. Therefore, Palm users can synchronise contacts, schedules and notes with Ecco Pro quite easily.
If you use a Pocket PC, a little extra expenditure on Laplink's PDASync will give you an extra option. PDASync is also disappearing software, but you can find copies around the Net via eBay or the occasional download store that still has it.
Email
For a long time the most popular email program on the Net was Qualcomm's Eudora. Although the full-featured Pro version costs $39.95 (~£24), for free you can use an ad-sponsored full version or a cut-down 'Light' version that gives you the basic functions and a few extras.
Because Eudora is still widely used, a lot of programs import and export its address books. You can also, of course, use the email facilities built into Microsoft's Internet Explorer or Mozilla (or its spin-off, Firebird). The latter in particular is getting rather sophisticated, including spam-blocking and other functions. Mozilla is even capable of synchronising its address book to Palm handhelds.
Among other free choices is Ameol, originally developed for the London-based electronic conferencing system CIX. Ameol handles POP3 mail from any ISP and is also a tolerable Usenet newsreader. Ameol lags behind on some features such as HTML rendering, but does allow automated scheduling. It could use some improvement to its search facilities though.
For junk filtering there are a number of free options. SAProxy, for example, integrates the well-known SpamAssassin technology into email clients. Mailgate, which makes mail transfer agent software, also gives away a spam filter that works with any client (download it here). Most of these things work by interpolating themselves between your email client and POP3 mailbox and marking junk as it comes in. Then you just set your email client to filter out anything so marked.
Web browser
Hardly anyone pays for a Web browser, but you don't have to use the copy of Internet Explorer that comes bundled with Windows. Here, you have choices. Mozilla is getting better and better, and includes many clever features such as tabbed browsing and ad blocking. Opera runs on many platforms and is far leaner than any of its competitors.
In conjunction with your Web browser, you may like to pick up a copy of Proxomitron, also free, which aggressively blocks ads, pop-ups and other clutter. With Web advertising getting increasingly aggressive, the motivation to use an ad blocker is getting stronger. Alternatives to Proxomitron can be found on the Junkbusters page: the campaigning organisation makes one of its own as well as linking to others.
Finance
This is one area where you're probably going to have to shell out. You can certainly do the basics of tracking a single account using a spreadsheet. But if you want to track multiple bank accounts, download and reconcile statements electronically and even -- if you're a small business -- handle VAT and tax, you're going to have to shell out for either Intuit's Quicken (£54 inc. VAT) or Microsoft's Money (£29.99 inc. VAT).
This situation seems unlikely to change, because it's difficult to imagine that small competitors to these market leaders will be able to secure the necessary agreements with the banks, and in any event neither Quicken nor Money is exactly expensive.
For a bit cheaper option, however, you might try Moneydance, which for $29.95 (~£18) incorporates online functions for managing stock portfolios and -- unusually for a small-company US product -- international currencies. What it doesn't do, however, is manage a small business (as Quicken can) with invoicing, tax tracking and other niceties. However, there is a UK-based accounting package aimed at small businesses, Simply Books, which for £99.99 includes all those modules. Designed by an accountant, Simply Books is intended to make small-business accounting truly accessible.
Utilities
A lot of the utility software you used to buy separately -- defragmenters, memory managers, disk cleaners and so on -- is either bundled into Windows or no longer really necessary. There are two major exceptions: the first is anti-virus software, and the second is a firewall.
In the anti-virus category there's a high-quality free product in the shape of AVG from Grisoft. It is regularly updated, and the company makes the effort to issue patches and tools to remove the latest new viruses as they emerge. The only price you'll pay for using AVG as opposed to paying an annual subscription is a little bit of time and effort every month, as you'll need to update the databases manually. If you're willing to shell out $39.95 (~£24) for AVG's professional version, you can make the updates automatic.
The most popular free firewall software is Zone Alarm, which monitors your Internet connection and allows you to block any undesirable activity. For the first few days, Zone Alarm can be annoying, since every time an application attempts an outbound or inbound Internet connection a dialogue box pops up to ask you whether that application should be allowed access. You allow or block the application once, and Zone Alarm remembers the setting. After a few days, the only time you should be interrupted with a query is if you install a new application, or if someone attempts an unauthorised operation.
Zone Alarm isn't perfect, but it's better than nothing and many people like it. If you have a home network, however, you may find it troublesome; in such a case your cheapest option is probably a router that includes a firewall as well as multiple ports and other functions.
Other Internet utilities
Quite a few of the traditional Internet utilities -- Ping, Telnet, FTP, Traceroute -- are built into Windows, although many people are unaware of it. To access those functions, pull up a command prompt and type them in with the host name you're trying to reach. Ping and Traceroute are network debugging utilities. Telnet allows you to operate a remote computer as though you were typing into a terminal connected directly to it. FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol, and its functionality is built into your Web browser. Nonetheless, there are times when you'll need to be able to use FTP, and times when you'll find it handy -- for example, if a connection keeps dropping, because unlike the Web protocol HTTP, FTP can resume a download partway through.
Besides those, you may like an IRC client for chatting to other people around the world, instant messaging software, video conferencing software, IP telephony software and perhaps blogging software. The main instant messaging services -- ICQ, AIM, Yahoo! Messenger, and MSN Messenger -- are all free. VoIP (voice over IP) software is free from the service you buy your calls from; blogging software may be free if you subscribe to a service such as LiveJournal that uses its own clients (but you should pay for LiveJournal -- about $25 [~£15] a year). There are free IRC clients, but the one most common among Windows users is mIRC, which will continue to work if you haven't paid for it, but properly costs $20 (~£12).
Social responsibility
Finally, while you're setting up your low-cost system, consider donating your spare computer cycles to one of the several distributed computing projects around the Internet -- SETI@Home, cryptanalysis, or folding proteins.
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