Free Friday is here!
PDFs. Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em. Adobe has been the ruler in the land of PDFs for nearly as long as computers have existed, mostly because it distributed its PDF Reader with new computers. Now Adobe no longer has downloadable software and pretty much only offers PDF software as a monthly subscription. I'm sure that we all wish them well. 😐 Thankfully, there's a new kid in town. Icecream Apps! They have made the perfect PDF app for Windows. Seriously. I hate PDFs (admittedly that was because of the bloated, klunky, unintuitive Adobe programs). But this program might change my mind about them. I sat down with it last night and was able to create and edit PDFs without breaking a sweat or reading an instruction manual. Can you imagine what I could do if I read the directions? There are tons of features without the bloat. There are too many to list here. The download and installation is a breeze straight from the site. Uninstall Adobe and get Ice Cream PDF Editor now. Go on. You really should. And while you are there, check out their other apps. I'm pretty sure I need some of the others.
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It's FOSS Friday! Today's free and open source program is PeaZip. It's a very intuitive file archive application that is available for Windows (XP/Vista/7/8/8.1/10 32 and 64 bit), Linux and BSD. It's easy to install and the graphical interface is quite nice.
PeaZip provides full archiving and extraction capabilities for the following formats: -7z -7z-SFX -ARC/WRC -bz2 -tar.bz2 -tbz -tb2 -gz -tar.gz -tgz -PAQ8 -LPAQ -ZPAQ -PEA -QUAD/BALZ -tar -WIM -xz -Zip PeaZip is able to browse, test and extract the following archive files: -ACE -ARJ -CAB -CHM -Compound Files -CPIO -deb -EAR -ISO -JAR -LZMA -LZH -NSIS installers -OpenOffice's OpenDocument -PET/PUP (Puppy Linux installers) -PAK/PK3/PK4 -RAR (including archives created with new RARv5 standard) -RPM -SMZIP -U3P -WAR -XPI -Z (compress) -ZIPX PeaZip is also able to repair archives with FreeArc's ARC. In addition to archiving, it can also be used for browsing files. Give it a look-see here: Today's free software comes from Microsoft. Process Explorer is a really handy bit of software when you want to find out what's running in the background on your computer or which program has a particular file or directory open.
Give it a look! Microsoft has some very useful utilities and this is one of them. I don't recommend stopping any files or programs if you aren't sure what you are doing, but it can be extremely helpful if you are calling for help with a problem. Today's free open source software goodie is Franz. It ropes all of your messenger software into one handy package that lives on your desktop.
I downloaded it a couple days ago and once I got it set up (easy!), I started wondering how I lived without it. Currently I'm rocking Telegram, Twitter and Facebook Messenger on Franz, but I'm a moderate user of messenger services. The nice thing about having Franz on my desktop is that I can use more than one account for the same service. I have more than one Telegram account and, of course, I have both business and personal Google accounts to keep up with. Franz supports a wide range of services including Slack, WhatsApp, WeChat, HipChat, Outlook, Github, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, Google Hangouts, Discord, Twitch, Skype just to name a few. I've only touched the surface of this app's usability. It's open source, so there are plugins available. The services available for the platform will definitely grow as the number of users increases. Give the app a try! It's FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) Friday!
Night sky watching is something that is so much better in rural areas. We are able to see so much more because we have far less light pollution than urban areas. Walking into an open field at night can be an awe inspiring experience. But, not all of us are astronomers. I can't tell Polaris from Capella. I'm lucky if I can spot the planets. Thankfully, there's an app for that! Stellarium has been around since 2001 and is available on about as many platforms as possible. It's "a free open source planetarium for your computer. It shows a realistic sky in 3D, just like what you see with the naked eye, binoculars or a telescope." Stellarium is also available online for people who want to test it out before they download the software. It's an awesome work of cooperation and one of the best examples of FOSS out there. Anyone who can imagine a use for the the Stellarium software code is free to join the project development or use it to develop it on their own or for others. |
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