In the past I have covered the free website blogger.com but have been suitably impressed with WordPress to feel that it also deserves a mention. In much the same fashion as Blogger, WordPress allows you to either host your blog on their website or install the open source code on to your own web server; the latter does of course require a small amount of knowledge relating to uploading files to a web server, or the desire to learn. Going down the route of installing the software yourself is a little trickier although it does allow you to have your own domain name along with complete control over the way things function. Typically, a blog hosted on your own server will also look more professional than if it is hosted as part of the main WordPress site.

Once you have downloaded the installation package from www.wordpress.com and uploaded it to your server, you simply run the configuration file and WordPress will set itself up and present you with the default template which can then be changed to one of your choosing. From the admin section you can begin changing the way your blog site looks and the way that it functions without having to edit any code whatsoever but by simply using the inbuilt tools. For more advanced changes you can choose to use any of the several thousand free of charge plug-ins created by the community; these allow you complete control over practically every element of your blog, from making it search engine friendly to integrating a photo album.

When it comes to actually adding content to your site, you can import from another source if you have previously hosted a blog or alternatively you can simply start typing and copying and pasting in to a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor. Any articles that you produce and tag will automatically be published so that when other users search for a matching subject they will have the opportunity to visit your page; this kind of exposure can be invaluable if you are writing a blog relevant to your business as a marketing exercise to drive more traffic to your website.

If you choose to allow visitors to comment on your articles then you will be glad to hear that WordPress employs a sophisticated anti-spam system so that your blog won’t quickly become a playground for automated comments relating to sexual health products and fake Rolex watches. It is also good to know that they host a support forum and have a technical support team who will be happy to point you in the right direction should you encounter any problems.

If you have an interest in writing and a desire to air your thoughts then WordPress does represent a good quality, free piece of software which will allow you to achieve this.

Don’t get my wrong, all in all Office 2007 is a lovely new piece of software, but it’s because of these teething problems that my mind started wondering back to several years ago when I first used a piece of open source software going by the name of OpenOffice and decided to give it another go.

Now up to version 2.2, OpenOffice has developed quite nicely since I last had a play around and best of all it’s still completely free of charge. I’m not going to advocate for a minute that those who have already paid for a recent version of Office should make the switch over but for those without an Office Suite installed on their computer (or even worse, the dreadful Microsoft Works), OpenOffice is a fine choice.

There are six main applications which make up the OpenOffice suite which include:

Writer – This is essentially Microsoft Word which we will all be familiar with. As you would expect it has all the usual features of a Word Processor along with the ability to export files in PDF format which is certainly a handy feature.

Impress – An alternative (albeit cut down) version of Microsoft PowerPoint which is used for generating presentations and slide shows.

Math – This application will be next to useless to everybody but for those that need it this allows you to create mathematical functions and equations for text documents.

Draw – Again not necessarily suitable for all users, Draw is a vector drawing tool which would be ideally suited for creating diagrams and flowcharts.

Calc – All of the primarily functions of the spreadsheet application Excel have been covered in this application with no major omissions and a couple of nice improvements compared with the Microsoft offering.

Base – I don’t recall this functionality being present when I last used OpenOffice but the base application is designed as an alternative to the Microsoft Access database package and packs some pretty powerful features.

Those used to previous versions of Microsoft Office will not have any trouble whatsoever picking up any of the above applications as particular effort appears to be made OpenOffice look as familiar as possible. In addition to this it’s nice to note that you shouldn’t have any problems opening your old files or saving in an industry standard format as OpenOffice does support an impressively large number of file formats.

Whilst not a tiny, the Windows version of OpenOffice weighs in with a fairly modest 93mb download which is extremely comparable when pitted against the huge Microsoft Office package. It is worthwhile mentioning that there are other versions also available for both Linux and Mac users, and all these versions can be downloaded free of charge from www.openoffice.org

Broadband connections are continuously getting faster but at the same time also coming down in price; to the best of my knowledge most places in Torbay are now able to get at least a 2 Meg connection with prices starting around the £12.99 mark. For the majority of moderate Internet users there simple is no longer an excuse not to have broadband and the growth of this technology is set to continue at a fantastic rate. Such strides in the technology mean that streamed video over the Internet is now something that everybody can access and this is where our featured program for today TVexe comes in.

TVexe (www.tvexe.com) is a small, free program which sorts out many of the channels that are broadcasting over the Internet into some kind of order. With such a wide choice it helps to have such a system and soon you will have access to over 300 live channels from across the world sorted into categories or simply listed by country of origin.

The first thing you’ll notice is that TVexe doesn’t need to be installed – You simply download it onto your PC and there is only one file which does the lot. Unfortunately the next thing that you’ll notice is that the interface is extremely cluttered and the Interface could have been assembled so much better however the point of todays article is to highlight the potential such software has for the future.

With broadband speeds increasing across the country it is not uncommon for users in more built up areas to benefit from 8 Meg connections and in some areas the speeds are even faster. When viewing streaming video it is of course important that all computers in-between your connection and the TV stations connection work well otherwise bottlenecks will soon reduce the quality of the broadcast. Providing everything runs smoothly a good picture is obtainable and over time it shouldn’t be too long before we can get streamed TV quality broadcasts for free over the Net.

The primary advantage of this technology isn’t hard to see – in addition to gaining access to many UK free to air transmissions you’ll have your pick from a HUGE selection of stations from all over the world. Watching TV broadcast from a different country can not only give you an insight into a completely different culture but also provide you with a completely different perspective on the world. In these modern times such technology is especially important – For example, if we look at Iran who have taken the action of banning western influences from much of their media we can see that the Internet is a powerful tool for reducing the impact of state imposed propaganda.

I do recommend those of you on a broadband connection download TVexe and give it a quick blast on your computer – Asides from keeping you amused for a good few minutes you’ll hate it but things can only get better from here.

Slipping in at only 4.7mg (compared with around 80mg for Internet Explorer) the Mozilla developed Firefox browser offers several important advantages over its Microsoft counterpart which I’ll detail below so you can decide for yourself whether it would be worthwhile downloading to improve your Internet browsing experience.

Tabbed Browsing:

This allows you to have only one browser window open which then has all the pages you are currently viewing available to switch between; one of the most annoying things I find about Internet Explorer is that if I’m doing some heavy work then I’ll often have around 20 different pages up which means 20 copies of Internet Explorer cluttering my work space. With tabbed browsing I just have the one instance of the program running which keeps things a lot tidier.

Downloads Manager:

Once again everything is kept simple by having a dedicated downloads manager which keeps all the files you gather off the Internet in the same place so that you can view what is currently downloading and you can delete or move files already completed. Internet Explorer insists of opening up a small download Window every time you try and retrieve a file which again leads to a messy interface when you have a few on the go at once.

Themes and Extensions:

Firefox makes it simple to integrate third party skins and extensions which allow you or others to design different looking user interfaces and additional features that can be integrated into the browser to allow it to become better suited to the way you want it to look or behave.

Others

We also have available a pop-up stopper, password manager, update tool and a number of other small management utilities. The pop-up stopper is a worthy addition that no one should be without although to be fair to Microsoft this has been present in Internet Explorer since the last update (IE 6, SP2)

Simplicity

The user interface of Firefox is kept extremely simple and easy to use. In addition the phrase ‘less is more’ would tend to summerise this program as although it doesn’t have a huge number of features, those that are present are extremely well designed, not to mention the only ones you’d use anyway. The lack of excess baggage means that the program is small and nimble which are qualities that Microsoft seems to care little for nowadays; in order to keep their browser up to date the average dial up Internet Explorer user would most likely require to spend several hours a month on the Net just downloading updates! Hopefully this could be a thing of the past with Firefox.

If I’ve whet your apatite head to www.firefox.com to download this fantastic piece of software for free; as mentioned at the beginning of the article it is only 4.7mg so should take just a couple of minutes even on the slowest connections.

Unfortunately however most Linux releases have not been able to establish themselves as a viable alternative for the majority of home users for a number of reasons. Primarily, the main two reasons for this is that Linux is generally less user friendly than Windows to use and that much of the existing Windows software does not run correctly under Linux.

All this may be about to change though after the release of ‘Lindows’ in a couple of months time. Currently under pre-testing, when the product is released it will retail for approximately £70 which compares to Windows XP which is currently sold at between £150 and £250 depending on whether you purchase the home or professional edition.
One of the most promising aspects of the Operating System is its ability to run existing Windows software; initially we will be only looking at mainstream applications such as Microsoft Office but eventually the team hope to have full compatibility with all existing applications. The interface it uses also looks very similar Windows so anybody with existing experience of using Microsofts’ program shouldn’t have any problems switching over to this new Operating System.

Now comes the downsides; very few people actually know anything about Lindows at the moment even though it is so close to being released. To make matters worse, even their own is somewhat vague, giving very little information on definite features or release dates. The CEO behind the project is Michael Robertson who recently sold the music website www.mp3.com, a site which has been under a lot of pressure related to the online pirating of music. Some are sceptical that Lindows will actually succeed, although if it does live up to its promises then it may pose a considerable challenge to Microsofts monopoly on the desktop market. Unsurprisingly Microsoft are currently suing Lindows for the similarity between the names of the two products, stating that it could possibly mislead customers.

I look forward to the release of this product and hope that it may pose a viable alternative to Windows as healthy competition has been proven to encourage more aggressive pricing structures by both parties and faster development of existing products as we have recently witnessed between processor rivals Intel and AMD. I recommend that you continue to check the website www.lindows.com for the latest information but be sure to read independent reviews when the product is finally released to avoid the possibility that it won’t be as good as promised.