First published: 10/6/06
Last update: 14/1/07
Minor update: 5/12/08
Clusty (used to be Vivisimo)o is my favourite search engine. Search results are "clustered" as they call it. These clusters are represented in a tree-format in a panel on the left. This makes it much easier to select interesting or relevant pages from the bulk of search results. Another useful feature is keyword search in the clusters. Entering keywords, clusters and sub-clusters containing these keywords are highlighted in the tree. http://clusty.com/
With the search engine of Google, one often can find sites which don't show up in Clusty. The crawlers of Google search the whole Internet for sites to index.
Many entries in the free web-encyclopaedia Wikipedia are well written and have a good level of detail. Since it is written by volunteers, one can’t be sure of the reliability of the information. http://www.wikipedia.org
Points I consider important in software.
There are many examples where freeware options are better in performance and size-performance relation than commercial equivalents.
Normally, when you ask information about a new computer, software is referred to as an add-on, as something useful to have. To sell the computer, the dealer normally installs copies of necessary software for free. If you'd have to buy all the software you need to be able to use your computer properly, the total price easily gets so high that the hardware becomes an add-on to the software.
Free dictionary for several forms of English. You download software and database to install on your computer. Not perfect in all definitions but very useful for being extremely fast (select word, press ctrl-alt-w and results appear in an instant) and having many search functions like: nearest, synonyms, type of, types, replace. http://wordweb.info
Email client I use because it has good default settings and is very mouldable. Here are a few important settings I use.
Mailbox and settings files, are placed in the user directory. This has the advantage that when backing up the user-directory, emails and settings of Eudora are also backed up.
Setting the software to leave emails on the server for two weeks, keeps recent emails available in case I am not home or when my computer crashes.
I've set emails to be filtered to mailboxes which open. This makes it easier to see if I have important new mail. http://www.eudora.com/download
For me Opera is the easiest and fastest browser. Many say Mozilla is the best. I’ve tried it but don’t agree. Older versions of Opera used to crash a lot but now I hardly have that problem anymore. http://www.opera.com
Since long WordPerfect is the best wordprocessor for me. It has good default settings but is also very mouldable. It’s easy to change things like layout, fonts, styles. Most of the special things I want to do with my text or to facilitate the use, I can, and it isn’t difficult to find out how to do whatever I want.
WordPerfect’s trump feature is "reveal codes". A perfectionist in layout inevitably comes to the point where a text starts to have a will of its own. It can for instance start to indent, flush, left or right and no way to tame the thing. Press Alt-F3 and a window appears showing all codes like bold, indent, language, font size, graphic line. In this window you can edit these codes. You can for instance delete, select-cut-past and place the cursor between elements where you couldn't in the normal edit window or in other wordprocessors.
I still use WordPerfect version 8 which, was distributed for free by Corel, with computer components. I got mine with my motherboard. I think it can still be found on the Internet. It serves me much better than newer versions of other wordprocessors.
The best file-browser and -manager I’ve found is Xplorer2. It is similar to the famous old Norton Commander Has several useful features like tree and two panel view, compare panels, preview. It comes with Editor2. http://www.zabkat.com
Editor2 is a simple small fast text-editor. It has practical features but is small and easy enough. I use it for simple text files and to make small changes to HTML files. http://www.zabkat.com
SequoiaView gives visual representation of the size of files and directories. It shows in a glance which files or directories take up much disk space, helping to chose which to delete or move if necessary. http://www.win.tue.nl/sequoiaview
I use the database of the famous CNET-Download.com mostly to check on the quality of software suggestions I get. I often find the user reviews most useful. As a matter of fact, I found some of my favourite software in these user reviews as alterative suggestion for the software I was checking on.
I used to have a subscription to one of their e-mails. I cancelled it because they became to much M$ loving to my taste. I think there database has become to big to be practical for finding good stuff. http://www.download.com
Another free software site I use is Tudogs In general they are more selective in the software they include in their database and e-mails (am still subscribed). Sometimes it seems the description is not much more than a repetition the publisher's description. When I find something interesting at Tudogs, I go to Download.com to look at the editor and user reviews there. http://tudogs.com
Nowadays malware protection software is almost as important as an operating system. These are programs I use to protect my machine.
What is often said, I’ve seen on my computer. Apart from an antivirus and firewall one needs more than one anti-mallware. None find all threats. Having two you have a good chance that one finds something the other doesn’t.
Below software and services I use and used to build and maintain this site as well as to learn about it.
Stone Webwriter is an easy to use HTML editor, free for noncommercial use.
http://www.webwriter.dk/english/index.htm
Core FTP is the free software I use for up and downloading web pages. No adds or nag-screens.
http://www.coreftp.com
AceFTP is software I used to use for up and downloading web pages, free
for small users. Heavy though, takes long to load. After installing Core FTP
Lite and using to access the FTP server of a new host, I saw that AceFTP had all
the access information including the password of this new site. It had copied or accessed
the information I had entered in the other application. This and the fact that it instals "VMN Toolbar", causes some suspicion that it is spyware.
It also has adds and nag-screens.
AceHTML is a pretty good HTML editor from the same publisher, free for small users.
http://www.software.visicommedia.com/en/ (Since 8/11/8 can't access their freeware page.)
HTML kit is an other free but less easy to use HTML editor. It has interesting feature: a function for checking and correcting HTML code, according to the standards of www.w3.org.
StatCounter provides statistics about your site such as page views, unique visitors, where visitors came from. It’s free and doesn’t place ads on your site. You can choose whether you want to place their logo or banner on your pages or not.
http://www.statcounter.com/
http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/Guide/
http://www.w3.org/2005/03/slideshow.html
http://validator.w3.org/docs/help.html
http://www.searchtools.com/robots/robots-txt.html
http://www.htmlgoodies.com/beyond/css/
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