Open Source
For those of you who read my last article on iTunes and liked or disliked it, I received both kinds of email, let me say that the purpose of it was not so much to compare it to other services, but simply to let you, the reader, know what Apple tries to hide. Rather than write an article correcting Zach Gage’s pro-iTunes inaccuracies, I thought it might be better to show you programs that are not made from money-sucking, vampirish, and yes EVIL corporations. These programs are aptly called “open-source.” The programs mentioned below are alternatives that are either free of cost, or simply a better solution to what companies offer and charge for.
Open source is loosely defined as software whose source code (a program’s code) is made publicly and freely available for use and/or modification. Open source software is made so that anyone can download it for free and modify it to their personal satisfaction. It is the main reason behind Linux’s success in the operating system world. Companies can replace all their Microsoft and Apple software with comparable programs that are free.
- My favorite open source program is Gaim. It is my favorite because it replaces the ad-filled and otherwise crummy AIM program with a very similar interface and offers more features. Gaim, to put it plainly, is a chat program for instant messaging. You may have heard of Trillian, also a very good chat program, but Gaim goes beyond that. I don’t have the space to list all the benefits of using Gaim so let me just name a couple. Gaim has no ads, it can become partially or wholly transparent, and will work with other chat services including AOL’s AIM, ICQ, IRC, JABBER, MSN, Yahoo and Napster. It has a very clean and simple interface that can be customized with plug-ins. As with most open source it requires less memory and runs faster. After some initial learning time, you won’t want to go back to AIM.
- There are many great programs to list so I’ll be brief. Another favorite is Firefox. My first technology article was all about it so I won’t go into the whole speech again, but here is a quick list: it is fast, ad free, simple and clean, can block ads, can display weather, is safer that IE (Internet Explorer), and uses less memory. I will probably end up listing this for all the programs because less system memory usage means more RAM for other programs which can translate into faster performance.
- I recently found a wonderful program called musikCube. It looks similar to iTunes, so some of you in favor of that interface may like this as well. The advantages of musikCube are that it is very fast, uses very little memory, is ad free, doesn’t make you install software, can play music iTunes can’t, and has features most players do not.
- Any of you work with audio? Audacity is a great program for editing or recording audio. It is very easy to use, unlike professional software I have tried, and is very fast. I used it once to edit out applause on a cd I have and it worked flawlessly; it even re-saved the file as an mp3. Another program I recently found is called Kristal and is also very feature-rich and free.
- For those of you who use Norton anti-virus, Sophos, or Mcafee, I personally don’t use any of them, you might notice how annoying they can be. All of these force you to update when it might not be very convenient to do so. They also might start scanning files when you don’t want them to and make your computer, overall, very slow. Enter ClamWin. It is much less advanced, but that is a good thing. ClamWin will scan your computer for viruses manually or automatically and will auto-update its virus library, and that’s it. And really, that is all one needs. My only recommendation is to go into the preferences and tell ClamWin automatically to remove the virus, not simply notify you. ClamWin is significantly faster and much less of a drain on your system. I did a test with it and Clamwin found the viruses the others did, only faster. If you are not convinced you can also simply use an online scanner; I recommend Housecall (search for it in Google).
- Tired of Microsoft Office or want a free alternative? OpenOffice, made by Sun Microsystems, is a free and feature-rich alternative, which looks very similar to what you are used to. There are 5 main components in Openoffice.org 1.0. They are Writer, Calc, Impress, Draw and Math. Writer is a word processor like Microsoft Word; Calc is a spreadsheet application like Excel; Impress is a presentation application like PowerPoint; Draw edits digital graphics; Math constructs mathematical equations. This suite can not only read Microsoft word documents but can save them as a MS document as well.
- For those of you who want but cannot afford the $700 Adobe Photoshop there is GIMP or (GNU Image Manipulation Program). There is not much to say about GIMP other than it can do much of what Photoshop does for free.
- Finally, there is VLC (VideoLAN Client) media player. If any of you watch movies you have ripped or downloaded, or watch DVD’s, VLC can play anything, and I mean ANYTHING. It’s free, fast, takes very little memory, and can play any movie or audio format known to mankind.
If you’re interested in more, here is a list of a few more great programs: LameFE, Monkey Audio, foobar2000, Quicktime Alternative and Real Player Alternative (highly recommended), Filezilla, DAEMON tools, and Emule.
