Claire's Random Thoughts

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

My favorite open source game is Stepmania Advanced Rhythm Game. Since all my other posts in this week’s free software series were utilities, I decided to post about Stepmania instead of my original plan to post about GIMP, the open source Photoshop alternative, mainly because I’m trying to create variety instead of posting about all utilities and no games.

Stepmania is a game similar to the popular arcade game, Dance Dance Revolution. There are four arrows, up, down, left, and right. Arrows gradually scroll up the screen and are to be pressed when they reach the “target” arrows area to simulate dance moves. Of course, real dancing is still quite different (I know from experience that I can play this very well but can definitely not perform real dance moves), but I still think the overall concept is a neat idea. Users can also create their own “simfiles” to customize arrows to audio files of their choice. More commonly, however, songs can be downloaded. For song downloads, I recommend Stepmania Download Source. Even though their site is no longer being updated, the downloads are still all available.

If you like rhythm games such as Dance Dance Revolution, Stepmania is definitely for you. However, it’s most likely that if you do, you have probably already heard of it.

For really hard-core players, you can even connect a dance pad to your computer and use that to play instead of keys on the keyboard, so it feels like real DDR. I recommend connecting real pads to the computer for maximum enjoyment as well as an added benefit of exercise. Chances are, once you get into the game, you will want to try playing it the way it was originally intended, by stepping on arrows with your feet to simulate “dance” moves. If you already own pads for a Playstation 2, I recommend the PS2 Game Controller to PC USB Adapter from Dealextreme for only $5.63 to convert them to USB game controllers. There is an option in Stepmania to map keys, including buttons from external controllers, so PS2 controllers connected via my suggested connector will be compatible with Stepmania.

This post concludes my weekly series of my Top Free Applications. I hope you enjoyed reading about my favorite free software and will try using some of them! Check back in the future for more weekly “series” in closely related blog posts.

This is post 6/7 in my weekly series of my Top Free Applications

VLC Media Player by VideoLAN is perhaps the most compatible media player available. It is also open source and compatible with all popular Operating Systems. My top reason for using VLC is its support for virtually every video and audio format (except for real video), although I tend to use it mainly for videos. VLC Media Player is a must have if you frequently download videos from the internet, because you definitely don’t have to worry about needing to download the right codec or a separate program altogether in order to play your downloaded videos.

See VideoLAN’s page for full features.

This is post 5/7 in my weekly series of my Top Free Applications

Some may call OpenOffice.org “Poor Man’s Microsoft Office” but I will have to respectfully disagree. Open Source does not necessarily mean inferior to paid software. I use Open Office for my document composing needs, not only because it’s open source and free (which is also a great reason for using), but because I truly believe it is better written than Microsoft Office. Here are some of my comparisons below.

Looking at my Add/Remove Programs panel, Microsoft Office’s suite takes up over twice the memory as OpenOffice.org yet provides almost no additional features. Hmm…so which one is more efficiently written? Microsoft has a reputation for inefficiently written programs for a reason.

Now, let’s compare which programs are included in the two packages. For clarification, I am giving Microsoft as much credit as possible for their software by comparing Open Office to Microsoft Office Professional Edition, the biggest and most expensive package. Five out of the six programs in each suite directly correspond to one in the other, not to mention that the five that directly correspond are probably the five most frequently used.

OpenOffice.org Base features the same functions as those of Microsoft Access
OpenOffice.org Calc features the same functions as those of Microsoft Excel
OpenOffice.org Writer features the same functions as those of Microsoft Word
OpenOffice.org Draw can be comparable to Microsoft Publisher
OpenOffice.org Impress can be comparable to Microsoft PowerPoint

There are some slight differences. OpenOffice.org also features a math program that can perform advanced math operations, similar to functions of a graphing calculator. Microsoft InfoPath (I never use it anyway), a form designer is probably the only feature I can find that is offered in Microsoft Office but not Open Office. I don’t think it’s a very popular program anyway, but I’m sure there is someone out there who uses it. For my purposes, InfoPath is completely useless, but it is the only potential justification I can find for choosing Microsoft Office over Open Office.

Best of all, Open Office is compatible with Microsoft Office files, but not vice versa. This makes it extremely simple and painless to make the change over to Open Office if you are a current Microsoft Office user. If others who use Microsoft Office, like the majority of the population that hasn’t discovered Open Office yet, send you Microsoft Office formatted files, you will also still be able to open them with Open Office. If necessary (i.e. to send to someone who hasn’t yet discovered Open Office), you also have the option of saving your Open Office document in a Microsoft format.

This is post 4/7 in my weekly series of my Top Free Applications

Another free but not open source program I thought was worth mentioning is my favorite IM client, Trillian by Cerulean Studios. It features both a free and pro edition with the free edition only lacking features of video chat and support for jabber. If you frequently use video chat, then this program may not be for you, because the pro edition costs $25.
For all my Instant Messaging needs, I use Trillian rather than the “Native” clients. I’m sure you have seen a pattern in my previous posts this week about all-in-one software/bundles/suites. They are designed to make my life slightly easier by combining multiple features that I frequently use into one program. Trillian is also in this category, because it supports multiple popular Instant Messaging networks all in one program. I only have an account for AIM, MSN, and Yahoo Messenger, but the free edition also supports ICQ. The pro edition that costs a one-time fee of $25 also supports some other less frequently used networks, such as Jabber (i.e. google talk), Novel Groupwise Messenger, and Rendezvous. However, I feel like the free edition offers enough standard features (for those of you who do not use video chat) that the original applications are not even installed on my computer anymore, because I have deemed them obsolete.

Trillian features a beautiful interface, easy integration of multiple networks, plenty of opportunity for user customization, and no advertisements of any type. In my opinion, Trillian’s interface is far more attractive than the default clients for all three of AIM, MSN, and Yahoo, but again, that’s a matter of opinion. If it’s not beautiful enough to suit your aesthetic requirements, there are also downloadable skins that you can use to customize the looks to your liking. Buddies from all three (or four if you use ICQ) networks can all be displayed simultaneously in one window and are color coded by network (yellow for AIM, red for Yahoo, blue for MSN). They are integrated in such a way that it practically feels like you can be down to the simplicity of one Network but still have the opportunity to chat with people in up to four (or more with the pro edition). Customization is on par with, if it does not exceed those of the original applications. Furthermore, there are no advertisements in any form in the free edition making it an ideal replacement for the default clients that do feature ads.

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.