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How-to Guides » OLD GUIDE Kit out a PC for free

Getting your PC up to scratch doesn't have to break the bank - in fact it needn't cost you a penny!

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OLD GUIDE Kit out a PC for free

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1) Free video and media player

VLC offers PC and Mac users free media and video playing software.

2) Free picture editing software

IrfanView is simple and great for basic image viewing and editing - it's far better than the free image programs in Windows.

For advanced image editing, Gimp is a good option (basically a free version of Photoshop). You can do a lot online these days, too - try SplashUp.

3) Free web authoring software

Linux, Windows and Mac users can even get free software to help create your own web page from NVU.

4) Sharing files

Dropbox is a way to share your files between computers, and back them up online. And it costs nothing. It's also simple to use.

You install it on your own computer, then define a particular folder as your 'dropbox'. Anything you save there automatically gets backed up online, with a full version history. And, if you install Dropbox on another computer, you can share your 'dropbox' folder between the two computers. So it's easy to share work - no more carrying USB keys around.

Dropbox is free for up to 2GB of files.

5) Conversion software

If you need to convert an obscure file format into another obscure file format, don't pay out shed loads for conversion software.

If you use Google to search for conversion software, the first page of results will usually be expensive bits of software with good search engine optimisation, and do just that one thing for about £20. So make sure you look lower down the list. There's usually something free.

The most common conversion problem is Word to PDF. You can pay for the full version of Adobe Acrobat to do this, but CutePDF is free.

6) Free games

If you fancy adding some games to your PC, check out Scratch and you could write your own!

7) Free music

For completely free listening, Spotify is fantastic, as is Last.fm.

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Tips on this task (8)

2

hzplj9 said

Plus also check out Audacity for your audio. that's free as well.

Report on 15 November 2009 | Love 0 love
53

Carl said

Dropbox is really good. However, overall, it is probably best to think about how much storage you want/need.
If it is actually more than 2GB (quite easy if you have thousands of photos) you probably will have to pay. If so, look at the pricing of a few, they vary quite a bit.
Others free up to 2GB include sites like MyOtherDrive and Mozy. If you have less than 2GB you are spoilt for choice really.

Report on 17 November 2009 | Love 0 love
7

philippasutton said

I thoroughly agree with the recommendation of Audacity. Note, however, that it's not basically a program for listening to music, it's an editing program, and a stunningly good one for free software. This means that you can, for example, take a sound file and edit out just one small clip from it, save it as a new file and use that as a ringtone, or for other computer tasks. It's a little bit like a word processor for music - not a substitute for a jukebox.
If you just want something to play sound or video files, one option is WinAmp. Of course you will probably have Windows Media Player free on your machine, or downloadable - but it's fussy about Digital Rights Management (DRM), as lots of media players are these days.
For video files there's also DivX, where the basic player is free.

Report on 26 November 2009 | Love 0 love
0

stumark said

You can create pdfs direct from Word 2007 as long as you have service pack 2 installed

Report on 16 January 2010 | Love 0 love
0

penti said

A great bit of free software from Microsoft is their Worldwide Telescope.
www.worldwidetelescope.org

Report on 26 January 2010 | Love 0 love
0

bagelschmagel said

Don't forget about the educational discounts from Microsoft - for those of you with kids. You can get Office 2007 for about 70 quid.

Report on 19 February 2010 | Love 0 love
2

aphexbr said

You can also save to PDF with any version of OpenOffice, which also reads Word files.
Unless you really need some of the more advanced functionality or need to work heavily on Office 2007 formatted files, even the discounted Microsoft package is £70 too expensive IMHO.

Report on 22 March 2010 | Love 0 love
414

Mike10613 said

I'm using Windows Live now to talk to a writer in Nevada and that comes with 25 Gb of online storage as Windows skydrive. You can share documents, photos, music or whatever you want to. You can send files direct to your friends too, I often send files to my friends in China and they send me MP3's in Chinese! lol.

Report on 12 May 2010 | Love 0 love

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