Claire's Random Thoughts

This is post 3/7 in my weekly series of my Top Free Applications

If you don’t know what this is, chances are that you will probably never need it. Basically, FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol and is a tool for transferring multiple files and folders to and from servers. If you used FTP regularly prior to reading this post, you have probably already heard of FileZilla. However, I thought it was worth mentioning, because this week’s project is on my seven favorite free applications, and this happens to be one of them, so it deserves recognition.

This is one of the best FTP tools around (in my opinion), not to mention that it’s free, a benefit of all the software I am introducing this week. The interface is also intuitive and among one of the easiest to use out of the FTP clients I have tried. FileZilla is fairly straightforward for an FTP client, so I don’t have too much additional information to share about this program other than the fact that it’s my choice for FTP, and I use it for this site that you are on right now.

This is post 2/7 in my weekly series of my Top Free Applications

I picked AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition, even though it’s not open source, because it’s free and has protected my computer for the past few years. Since this great program has served me for years, I figured I could return the favor by promoting the program for anyone hasn’t heard of it yet. For personal use, I would consider this the best security suite, and many people seem to agree with me, because it’s currently the most frequently downloaded program from download.com. If you are currently a paid subscriber of any security software, such as McAfee or Norton, AVG Free Edition may be an effective and cost efficient alternative.

Looking back at my post yesterday, you can probably see that I prefer software with a bundle of features rather than a separate program for every function. AVG does a good job with bundling security features into one package anti-virus, anti-spyware, email scanning, and an option of real-time protection (when I currently have disabled, because it is annoying when you are trying to install anything that can potentially modify a registry file). If you look at this page to compare the free and paid editions of AVG, you will see that the free edition already has most of the essential features.

The only feature that is not in the free edition that I would use regularly is a firewall. However, this minor drawback is not enough to deter me from choosing this security suite over other ones, paid or free. If anyone decides to use AVG Free Edition and needs a firewall, it is fairly easy to search for a free one from download.com, but I have no single favorite recommendation at the moment.

This is post 1/7 in my weekly series of my Top Free Applications

SeaMonkey is my favorite and most frequently used web browser, not to say that I don’t use other ones. Its main function is for web browsing, but it also serves many other useful purposes, such as html editing, IRC, and as an email client. I think of it as Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird combined with a few additional features.

Since web browsing is its main function, I will begin at that. Why do I prefer browsing the web through SeaMonkey over other web browsers. SeaMonkey is based on Mozilla code, the code from the ever so popular Mozilla FireFox. Before I discovered SeaMonkey, I was a FireFox user, but now I use SeaMonkey so I can have a program similar to FireFox with many additional features. The Mozilla code is considerably safer from hackers than the old standard Internet Explorer. Tabbed browsing also originated with FireFox, which allowed for considerably more organized navigation. Yes, Microsoft stole the tabbed browsing idea and added it to their own Internet Explorer. That’s all they do, copy other software developers’ ideas. Sorry for the rant, now back to the browser.
The other standard features that attracted me to FireFox are also all included in SeaMonkey. A popup blocker and the “find as you type” feature. The “find as you type” feature allows you to search the page for specific letters or terms if you simply type in what you are looking for. There is no need to open the “search” function. So, you get secure browsing, organized tabbed browsing, no annoying popups, and a convenient way to search whatever pages you are on as basic features of the SeaMonkey browser.

SeaMonkey also features an html editor, which is very useful for web designers, such as myself.

It features a WYSIWYG mode, a mode that highlights tags, plan html source editing, and allows you to preview a page, all with the simplicity of clicking on the desired tab. This definitely eliminates any need for me to use a separate html editor.

For those of you who use an IRC (Internet Relay Chat) client, SeaMonkey also features a great alternative to whatever your current IRC client may be. Its features can be comparable to those of Mozilla’s ChatZilla. I am not a regular user of IRC, but I thought I would mention the feature in case it might encourage somebody else to download the suite.

Last but not least, I would like to mention the email client feature, for those of you who still use an email client instead of email in a browser. I prefer checking my email directly in the browser, but this is a great alternative to those of you who use Microsoft Outlook or Mozilla Thunderbird. Since the entire suite is based off Mozilla code, SeaMonkey’s integrated email program can be comparable to the features of Mozilla Thunderbird.

SeaMonkey is one program, whereas if you would like to use more than one of its features, FireFox, Thunderbird, html editors, and ChatZilla are multiple programs for similar features. I also think FireFox, Thunderbird, and ChatZilla are great open source programs, but the combination of multiple programs uses more computer resources, I am choosing to go the route of one simple suite to suit all my needs. The only potential drawback I can think of is that when you run separate programs and one crashes, the other is unaffected. If you use SeaMonkey for all your needs, all its features are affected in the event that the program crashes. However, this minor inconvenience is greatly outweighed for me by the benefits of using the SeaMonkey suite.

SeaMonkey does an excellent job of integrating multiple internet applications into a single suite without compromising quality for quantity. I am already grateful for its many features, but in the future, I would like to see an FTP client and possibly also a bittorrent download feature.

I will spend this week, the week of November 17, blogging about my seven favorite legally free applications, one per day. The majority of software I use is open source, because I can find no reason to justify paying for software when I can use a free and often better alternative. Some paid software, such as Microsoft Office, is not only ineffectively written but also highly priced, so I support the open source versions of programs with similar functions.

I am not saying that the programs I am going to introduce this week are the best available in their categories, even compared to the highest class paid versions, but they are my choices, because they are just as suitable for my needs as paid software would be, and I always look for cost effectiveness (i.e. As long as you’re not a professional graphic designer, you can perform all your needed photo editing functions using GIMP, even though the most expensive version of Photoshop probably does have more features, features that the average user will never need). After all, I am a poor college student at this point in life and have better things to spend hundreds of dollars on other than software. I hope readers of this week’s entries can find something useful and save more than few bucks at the same time.

Sure, some will tell me that the standard more popular software can be free too from bittorrent or P2P sites, but isn’t that the same thing as calling them “free” if you’re willing to steal them from the store?

Pre-determined list:
1. Seamonkey all-in-one internet application suite
2. AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition
3. FileZilla FTP Client
4. Cerulean Studios Trillian
5. OpenOffice.org
6. VLC media player
7. Stepmania

Stay posted the week of November 16, 2008 for my personal reviews, features, and tips about these programs.

Update: This weekly series is now complete

Perhaps you want to hack into your enemy’s email account and send an email to his girlfriend telling her he wants to break up;) Perhaps you just wish to keep your online accounts secure. Either way, here are the top 10 most common passwords. I highly suggest against using any of these, especially for anything important. Yes, there are people who are bored enough to try to guess passwords.

*I’m not promoting hacking into somebody else’s account

password – Well, this is an obvious one for someone who isn’t very creative
123456 – A classical first password for beginners

qwerty – Lazy? Just hit some keys that are conveniently next to each other
abc123 – A little better than 123456 but still unoriginal and guessable

letmein – I’m not too sure about this one, but it is on the list

monkey – A very popular instinctual password if you just try to think of a random word

myspace1 – Common password for myspace where you have to have at least one number and letter in a password

password1 – Need a number in the password? Just add 1 after your unoriginal one.

blink182 – I’m not too sure about this one either, but somehow it’s also on the list. They’re fairly well-known, but probably not the first band that comes to mind.

Whatever your first name is – Well, this one should be obvious to avoid