Friedbeef’s Tech

Sometime last year I had the good fortune of attending a lecture at University Malaya by Richard Stallman. Largely seen as a pioneer in the open-source movement, and founder of the GNU license, his words left a lasting impression on everyone in the auditorium.

This post will however focus on two great free open-source programs which you can get at Sourceforge which to me is the best place to get your genuine open-source programs which you can use without fear of getting infected by viruses or having your machine getting clogged up by spyware or adware. Both pieces of software are available under the free software GNU license.

PDF Creator is a fantastic program which enables quick free easy conversion of office documents to PDF files. .. which I find are great for non-editable documents like certification and final versions of contracts. Full benefits of using PDFs rather than normal office documents can be viewed here.

Filezilla is a free FTP client which is powerful but yet still pretty intuitive. There are plenty of free FTP software solutions out there like cuteFTP, if you are a private user, but most of them require a commercial license for business purposes. This is fine in most cases, but if you suddenly need to use FTP don’t have an IT budget to play around with you might have been forced to use Windows explorer copy-paste *cringe* to do your work.

Both PDF Creator and Filezilla are great examples of how well open-source works if implemented properly, as they are two very robust and powerful pieces of software, which I make use of on a regular basis at work.

Bonus Tip: Don’t use Google to search for “free software”. You never really know what you are installing. As far as possible, try to make reliable sources your first stop. Using Firefox Smartsearch enables you to search souces like Sourceforge and Softpedia directly is a great way to save time, and be assured that whatever you install is safe.

Related Links:

Sourceforge
PDF Creator
Filezilla
Sourceforge Firefox Smart Search
Softpedia Firefox Smart Search
GNU

Technorati Tags: gnu, gpl,open+source, stallman, filezilla, pdf, pdf+creator, sourceforge, softpedia

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Games with no clear apparent aim or purpose have a special place in my heart. There is no pressure to accomplish something within a timeframe, you have the freedom to play as you choose, and there are no truly right or wrong decisions.

Simple to play, basic graphics, but endlessly entertaining, it is then no surprise that this addictive game was part of the Top 100 Digg stories of 2005.

Created using the open source Processing 1.0 engine, this game has caused a storm on the net. For user created submissions of this game see the post on Fark.com

Enjoy!

Bonus Tips:

Wall = Basic wall structure
Fire = Used to burn oil, cera, and
Water = Grows plants and grows the Namekuji Monster
Plant = Wall like structure which grows when it touches water (Flamable)
Sand = Just flowing sand
Cera = Wall like structure made of Wax (flamable)
??? = Nuke the puzzle
Oil = Flamable liquid
Eraser = Erases items drawn on screen
Salt = Kills the Namekuji Monster
Namekuji Monster = Goes about disrupting your puzzle

Via digg

Technorati Tags: digg, zen, sand, falling+sand, games

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