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Five free alternatives to Micorsoft Word

Without a doubt Microsoft word is the best word processor money can buy but not all of us cannot afford it, also most of the people who buy Microsoft word never use all the features it offers. Hence Here is a list of best free word processors available in market for download.

1. Abiword: Without a doubt one of the best freeware word processor available. Abiword can read and edit almost all the coomon documet formats like MS word documents, open office documents, rtf files, txt files etc. Also Abiword is multiplatform it can run on windows, linux, solaris etc giving user the flexibility to run on any operating system. Another major plus point about Abiword is its ligh weight and quick startup , it almost starts in an instant so you are not pestered by annoying splash images at start and can jump into work right away. Give it a try and it will be liked for sure.

2. OpenOffice.org Writer: Probably the best MS word alternative known to most people. It has almost all the features that MS word can offer and a common man can use. Very simple to use and an elegant interface are an added advantage. Only disadvantage i can think of is that it is slightly slow to start with that annoying splash, which will bog down a few potential users. But for users looking for a complete word processing package to replace MS word Openoffice.org Writer is the best choice.

3. Google docs : For all the online lovers word processing cannot get better than this. Although the product is in beta stage it mimics almost all the most used features of MS Word. And with offline functionality of google docs ( with google gears ) it can be used without internet connection which makes it one of the best competetor in word processing market. The biggest plus point for google docs is availaility of documents on the move ( atleast where ever internet is available ). Also google docs can read and import all the common document types. Give google docs a try and you will love it.

4. IBM Lotus Symphony : Relatively unkown in office suite market IBM lotus Symphony is attrating good share of attention these days. This office suite based on openoffice.org includes a writer with very good features and support for all the common document types. The interface is much smoother and betterl organized than openoffice writer.

5. Zoho Writer: Zoho office was one of the first complete online office suites available, and as with all the other online office tools its still in beta stage. But dont let this beta stop you from using it, zoho writer is probably the best online writer available and in my personal opinion beats google docs fair and square. It even supports offline editing just like google docs.

Top Ten Must Have Freewares For A Notebook/ Netbook For Windows XP

Dexpot
One of the best free virtual desktop softwares. Both Features and usability are topnotch. By default it comes with 4 virtual desktops, in netbook where space is a real constraint this is really useful. Download

The KMplayer
Being low on resources netbooks need a very good media player to play 720p videos. I tried windows media player, VLC player and noticed small hitch in both of them when playing 720p videos, but when i tried KMplyer no hitch was noticed. Just make sure that during initial configuration you select 1Ghz as your processor speed for good performance. Also KMplayer plays almost any video you throw at it. Download

Chrome/Firefox
Its very hard to decide which one to use. I will say both are good chrome is best suited for netbooks because of its minimalistic interface thereby increasing the space avaialbe for browsing. Download

Firefox can be configured to do the same using small tweeks like full screen mode, hiding status bar, hiding bookmarks bar. But dude to firefox addons i prefer firefox more than chrome. Download

Avira Antivir
Freeware Antivirus cant get better than this. Just try it and you will know what you have been missing. After trying avast, comodo i finally found this much better. Only drawback is one pestering Ad per startup. Download

Everything
Everything is a must have for any computer with NTFS file system. Instantaneous search is what you get by using this software. Best of all it can be run from a pendrive. Only drawback i can think of is that it cant search in FAT file system. Just use it to believe it, windows default search is ages behind this tool. Download

Free Commander
Since netbooks lack desktop real estate, opening too many windows can be a real hassle, this is where free commander comes to rescue, with ability to open upto four locations at a time, tabbed file manager support. Free commander is the best alternative to standard windows file manager. Download

Teracopy
Speedup, Pause and be in total control of your file copying using teracopy. Teracopy is a worthy replacement to standard windows copy function, with many addons that will make you forget windows copy in a jiffy.The best feature of teracopy is ability to pause and resume copying. Tera copy with free commander is a superb combination that will put windows explorer to shame. Download

Pidgin Having a simgle IM client handle all your accounts is really useful for a netbook as it reduces the resources utilised, there is no better free universal IM cleint for windows than Pidgin.
Another worthy mention here is Digsby. But it is still not as polished as Pidgin. Download

CCleaner
This a free privacy, registry and optimization tool. It is more important for netbooks since there is less ram and processing power in hand and keeping it optimized is always a requirement. Download

Openoffice.org
Last but by no means the least is openoffice.org. The best freeware office suite available, and also it is very light on resources hence the best office suite for netbook. Download

Another superlight weight wordprocessor worthy of mention is Abiword. It is best for users who are looking only for word processing. Download Abiword here

Protecting your Pen Drive (USB)

Nowadays, USB sticks are the most useful and handy storage solution and cheap too. Protecting data needs to be taken care of, hence you need to protect your USB. Below are a few points for the same.

Life of the USB
The only thing(apart from normal wear and tear) the affects life of a usb drive is write cycles.You can read data from a drive any number of times you want but writing a data to it will decrease its life by a bit. Writing includes deleting/defragmenting etc. Thus unless sufficient space is not left in your drive for your new file , DO NOT delete old data from it , just insert more new data.









Defragment
Unlike normal hard disks with moving spindles , pen drives do not have slow and fast zones. Data kept anywhere will be read at same speed in a pen drive. Thus NEVER defrag your pen drive as it introduces one more write cycle and reduce life of ur pen drive (by just a little bit). Also usb drives don't have any head that needs to move its position (thus wasting time to read a fragmented file on an a hard drive drive).

Safely remove your external drive
Well speed of Hard disk is much faster than pen drive. Thus when you transfer data to yuor pen drive , to speed things up , some of the data may be "cached" by your Operating System. Thus when the dialogue box showing file transfer to pen drive has vanished , the data may not have been completely written to pen drive. That is why whenever you copy something to your pen drive you must always make sure that you "safely remove the hardware" just to be sure that all data has been transferred.

When you are reading from your pen drive , no such thing occurs , thus the moment the transfer dialog is complete , tou can simply take out ur pen drive without any fear of data corruption.

File system
Default is fat 32. some guys prefer ntfs , linux geeks may try out ext3.
Well these journaled file systems carry no real benefit in terms of data security.
but they have a lot of overhead in terms of journaling , keeping extra record bout files etc.This again introduces useless write cycles which again is bad for life for ur pen drive.

Preferable file systems ----- fat32 / ext2.

Viruses
If you are using Windows OS, always disable autorun of removable drives also keep anti virus updated .

If u must transfer data from a usb and if you already know that the usb is INFECTED, ( and you dont want to let the virus infect your PC) then follow this :

Once you plug in the USB, do not let it Auto Run. Open Windows Explorer, see that you open the USB folder from the Folders pane at the left side. Or just right click on the usb drive and click Open. This will not enable the autorun.inf file, hence avoiding the chances of spreading the virus on the PC.

How Much Data Is That???

Its weird how this one came to me. So I was at work and to pass the time
we usually watch movies on the big screen TV. Today we were watching
Ocean's 13, and the word exabyte came up. I was then pondering how
many bytes is that actually?? Then I did a bit of research and came across
this piece by Jamess Huggins I would like to share..its pretty cool


How Much Data Is That?

Whenever we discuss quantities of data, we tend to do it in the abstract. We speak of a kilobyte, or a megabyte or a gigabyte without really knowing what it represents.
The following table shows various quantities of bytes, in each power of ten. Usually, they are shown with multiples of 2 and 5 also. For example, 1 Kilobyte, 2 Kilobytes, 5 Kilobytes.
All the examples are approximate and are rounded. For example, a computer card has 80 columns. If 50 columns contain data on a card, then two cards will be 100 bytes. Also, a 3-1/2 inch diskette can contain 1.4 Megabytes. Showing it as 1 Megabyte reflects both (a) the diskette not typically being filled and (b) rounding. Finally, a CD-ROM can hold more than 500 Megabytes. However, it is listed at that level as "typical" and as the closest match.
Bytes (8 bits)

* 0.1 bytes: A single yes/no decision (actually 0.125 bytes, but I rounded)
* 1 byte: One character
* 2 bytes:
* 5 bytes
* 10 bytes: One word (a word of language, not a computer word)
* 20 bytes:
* 50 bytes:
* 100 bytes: Telegram; two punched computer (Hollerith) cards
* 200 bytes:
* 500 bytes:

Kilobyte
1,024 bytes; 210;
approx. 1,000 or 10 3

* 1 Kilobyte: Joke; (very) short story
* 2 Kilobytes: Typewritten page
* 10 Kilobytes: Page out of an encyclopedia
* 20 Kilobytes:
* 50 Kilobytes: Image of a document page, compressed
* 100 Kilobytes: Photograph, low-resolution
* 200 Kilobytes: Two boxes (4000) punched computer (Hollerith) cards
* 500 Kilobytes: Five boxes, one case (10,000 of punched computer (Hollerith) cards

Megabyte
1,048,576 bytes; 220;
approx 1,000,000 or 10 6

* 1 Megabyte: Small novel; 3-1/2 inch diskette
* 2 Megabytes: Photograph, high resolution
* 5 Megabytes: Complete works of Shakespeare; 30 seconds of broadcast-quality video
* 10 Megabytes: Minute of high-fidelity sound; digital chest X-ray; Box of 3-1/2 inch diskettes
* 20 Megabytes: Two boxes of 3-1/2 inch diskettes
* 50 Megabytes: Digital mammogram
* 100 Megabytes: Yard of books on a shelf; two encyclopedia volumes
* 200 Megabytes: Reel of 9-track tape; IBM 3480 cartridge tape
* 500 Megabytes: CD-ROM

Gigabyte
1,073,741,824 bytes; 230;
approx 1,000,000,000 or 10 9

* 1 Gigabyte: Paper in the bed of a pickup; symphony in high-fidelity sound; broadcast quality movie
* 2 Gigabytes: 20 yards of books on a shelf
* 5 Gigabytes: 8mm Exabyte tale
* 10 Gigabytes:
* 20 Gigabytes: Audio collection of the works of Beethoven; five Exabyte tapes; VHS tape used to store digital data
* 50 Gigabytes: Library floor of books on shelves
* 100 Gigabytes: Library floor of academic journals on shelves; large ID-1 digital tape
* 200 Gigabytes: 50 Exabyte tapes

Terabyte
1,099,511,627,776 or 240;
approx. 1,000,000,000,000 or 10 12

* 1 Terabyte: Automated tape robot; all the X-ray films in a large technological hospital; 50,000 trees made into paper and printed; daily rate of EOS (Earth Orbiting System) data (1998)
* 2 Terabytes: Academic research ligrary
* 10 Terabytes: Printed collection of the U. S. Library of Congress
* 50 Terabytes: Contents of a large mass storage system

Petabyte
1,125,899,906,842,624 bytes or 250
approx. 1,000,000,000,000,000 or 10 15

* 1 Petabyte: 3 years of EOS data (2001)
* 2 Petabytes: All U. S. academic research libraries
* 20 Petabytes: 1995 production of hard-disk drives
* 200 Petabytes: All printed material; 1995 production of digital magnetic tape

Exabyte
1,152,921,504,606,846,976 bytes or 260
approx. 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 or 10 18

* 5 Exabytes: All words ever spoken by human beings.

Zettabyte
1,180,591,620,717,411,303,424 bytes or 270
approx. 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 or 10 21

Yottabyte
1,208,925,819,614,629,174,706,176 bytes or 280
approx. 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 or 10 24

Test Your Anti Virus If Its Working Or Not

How to... Test if your Anti-Virus has been Compromised

Do you think you might have a virus on your machine? Not sure if your AV is doing its job? Well, here’s a simple test.

First, create a new text file and paste the following code into it:

X5O!P%@AP[4\PZX54(P^)7CC)7}
$EICAR-STANDARD-ANTIVIRUS-TEST-FILE!$H+H*

(trust me, it is harmless, it has been tested by myself)

Then save the text as a .COM file (any name will do, like eicar.com). Either scan the file manually or the auto protect feature of most AV programs should have already caught it. (My Nod 32 caught it immediately upon saving it as a .txt file.)

This test string is a way to test to see if an anti virus program is not working. It was created by the anti-virus industry as a standardized test and should not be taken to be an effective measurement of your anti viruses ability.

The whole point of the EICAR test is to see if an anti-virus program has been infected. If the anti-virus program doesn't detect the string, then there is a chance a virus has done something nasty to it. This was only meant as an internal test for developers though, not for end users. Also, this doesn’t mean that your system is free of viruses. Just that your AV is working to the best of it capabilities.

The only reliable test for how well your anti-virus program is doing, is how well it's doing funnily enough. Is your computer on fire? Have missiles just launched? Are robots trying to tear down your office door? If so you may have a virus, otherwise your AV is doing it's job.