Free and Cheap Resources for Our Windows Computers 

Free Programs and Online Services: 
Office Suite:   www.OpenOffice.org

IBM Lotus Symphony: a prettier version of OpenOffice:   symphony.lotus.com 

Gmail: full support for POP Email programs, 6 GB InBox: gmail.com

Email:  Thunderbird:  www.mozilla.com 

AntiVirus and AntiSpyware ("AVG"):  www.grisoft.com 

Firewall:  ZoneLabs.com 

Backup:  www.mozy.com, up to 2 GB backed-up for free, automatically.
 

Better and Safer Web Browser:  Mozilla Firefox:   www.mozilla.com 

Graphics Editing:
GIMP www.gimp.org

Paint.NET http://www.getpaint.net/download.html,
docs at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paint.NET

Typesetting:
TeX: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TeX


Security checkups:
Symantec Online Security Scanner: 
  http://www.symantec.com/norton/security_response/index.jsp#
 

ShieldsUP! and other free Windows Security utilities:  www.grc.com 

Syncing between Multiple Devices and Computers:
Sync your Palm, Pocket PC or Outlook with another computer, via Yahoo Calendar:
http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/calendar/sync/
 

Google offers a Sync between their Calendar and Outlook, as well:
http://www.google.com/googlecalendar/new.html
 

Office Applications:
Google offers free Word Processor, Spreadsheet and Slide-Show Presentation software via their Google Docs: docs.google.com and they're all compatible with Microsoft Office and many other file formats. 

Media Player:  VLC VideoLAN:  www.videolan.org/ 

Sync files between multiple computers and/or devices:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/prophoto/synctoy.mspx
 

FTP (for large file transfers):
FileZilla:  www.filezilla-project.org 

Web Page Editing:
Arachnophilia:   www.arachnoid.com/arachnophilia/ 

Cheap Programs and Services Online: 
Carbonite.com, $50 per year per computer, for unlimited, encrypted, automatic online (off-site!) backup.

Mozy.com, same idea, same price for Personal User.

MozyPro.com for Businesses. 

If those don't give you enough ideas, well then...

"The Best Free Software", March 2008, PC Magazine: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2260070,00.asp  
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This document can be found at   http://noveltyhill.net/Handouts/Free_and_Cheap_Computer_Resources_2.0.html

Version 2.0 --- June 24th, 2008
Bill Thomassen, Novelty Hill Networks, www.NoveltyHill.net, bill@noveltyhill.net, 425-952-0274