Loudmouthman

Following on from the 4th of July those Wacky Americans and their immigrants were celebrating that all-day festival for freedom and those switched on and informed chaps at DL.TV have been listing many useful tools and applications all available for free and without the nags and time limits.

At this point I really wanted to embed the Video from the show; but they dont appear to provide a suitable link so here it is in all its url glory: http://dl.tv/2007/07/episode_179_freebie_software_t_1.php

Get some time to add this show to your respective RSS Feed for later viewing because, unlike BBC Click, these guys seem to have a balanced view on all platforms and content. What really impressed me though was the amount of tools they discussed which I have been using for quite some time.
Open Office
As an alternative to MS Office, with the exception of MS Access, the Open Office suite has been the main stay of my business for several years now. Its getting easier to promote this to other clients as well since the download and use along side MS Office enables clients to just get on and work without the whole hunt for the registration key efforts that usuall accompany installing MS office. Oh and its ability to read and write to Microsoft word and Excel and Powerpoint is of course a small bonus considering that I would rather send the Open Office Document and a link then ask the person to download the application to read the data file. This is already something people do to read PDF and Zip files so why not download OpenOffice to read my document file format ! Did I mention that Open Office also runs on Windows, Linux and OSX

VLC
An incredibly flexible and smart video player application that has handled more content via more networks with a simple interface than any other video playback application that I have ever used, yes its another Windows, Linux application.

Foxit Reader
If you want to read a 80Kb Adobe PDF File , should you have to download a 20Mb application file to access it. Especially if that application keeps requiring Mbs of update every few weeks. Foxit reader is far smaller , less than 2Mb and doesnt nag and run every few weeks.

AVG Antivirus
Now this Antivirus product is only free if you are a Home user however its price to business is so incredibly cheap and like the other products it wont nag you and harass you with huge downloads every few weeks.

Firefox
This browser that is becoming so synonymous with surfing the internet amongst my own clients and contacts that I rarely see Internet explorer being opened. There really is not much more to add except to wish the mozilla team great success in the 3.0 release.

One product they missed thoug was an alternative to Project Manager from Microsoft.

OpenWorkbench
Theres not much in software that I have seen impress even my Dad but receiving an email in which he proclaims “Open Source Rules” shows that we are making more headway in the open source is a credible replacement meme. Ive not had a play with this product yet however the testimonials on the site and from my Father would be enough for me to recommend it.

If you have any other recommendations or free software suggestion for the Windows world then let me know and I will try to update the post later this week.

Thanks for reading.

UPDATE: The article in question has been removed. The cached version is still available to read via Google. Bear in mind that Peter made many positive comments about Ubuntu and its ease of use and with the exception of a support issue, detailed later in this post, the article was in itself positive. There are many worthwhile and appropriate articles on that site, such as this one about Document Formats.

The Ubuntu-UK Mailing list has recently been discussing Peter Scargills post about Linux and Open Source software. As a member of the Federation Of Small Business and the Ubuntu community, as well as a self employed business man I feel particularly unimpressed with Peters position on this topic.

The Federation of Small Business is an organisation which I feel every self employed individual , small and medium sized business should take part in. The value of support, contacts and networking within the FSB are incomparable to the cost of membership and the fact it is there is an assurance of support for me. The additional oversight and review that the FSB provide in interaction with Government and Policy provide a measure of assurance that a greater community is supporting me and you in our own business endeavours.

This is why I feel it should not be the position of the FSB IT Committee to be writing or commenting in just such as way as the recent posts. I do not expect the FSB IT Committee to be reviewing and making suggestions about technology especially from the level at which that particular post has been written. I would hope the IT Committee would be taking time to consider issues such as software patents, IP rights, e-commerce taxation and data protection and in turn writing and commenting about how those issues impact on every small and medium sized business out there.

Recently Jo Parker and Suzy Miller of Certain Shops asked me to help them with their own IT Strategy and they were very interested that there is a large amount of valuable and effective software which does not lock them down to a particular vendor or future direction. Having used Ubuntu desktop for the last two weeks Jo Parker was very kind in sending me this comment.

“I am not at all technically minded and I have been using Ubuntu now for 2 weeks and I am finding it,incredibly easy and user friendly. Initially I was nervous about making the change and because it took me a while to master Windows and Outlook Express I didn’t want the hassle of learning something new.

Nik gave me a quick and simple lesson on how to use it and left me to experiment (safe in the knowledge that I could call him if I needed to). I was up and running confidently and quickly and have had no problems at all. It is fantastic. ” Jo Parker, Certainshops.

I have plenty of clients whom are using Open Source, Microsoft and Apple products jointly and without issues in interconnection or sharing of data and information. Whilst they make use of my own services to help them in delivery they tend towards the low end of maintenance and support requirements for exactly the reasons that Linux Enthusiasts keep expounding.

Peter you mention that finding support for Linux is difficult; all I can suggest is that if you are having trouble with an IT platform and its integration then I recommend Canonicals support package which other then being fantastic value for an SME will also give you access to the IT support answers you and other SMES may require. Alternatively you can contact me directly and I will be happy to help.
Thanks for reading.