Simple Note Taking App

One of my favorite applications on my computer is definitely Evernote, but there are a lot of people I talk with that don’t like the complexity it has to offer. They just want something simple that they can use to jot down a phone number or other basic information. For them I typically recommend Simplenote since so many different apps have been created to sync with this free online service.

If you use Simplenote you may want to check out an equally simple desktop application called Notes that syncs with the Simplenote service.

via cybernetnews.com

Look like really simple, yet quick and easy ways to jot down notes.

I know I will be checking these out for personal use.

Also, I like the Dropbox idea, so I don't have to worry about copying to a thumbdrive or something to keep with me.

Windows only.

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Geek And Poke: This Was 2010 - Part 4: Facebook

 

 

via geekandpoke.typepad.com

How true!

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Five Best Virtual Machine Applications

Earlier this week we asked you to share your favorite virtual machine application, and now we're back to highlight the five most popular picks.

via lifehacker.com

Good list, some free, some not.

VirtualBox is my personal preference.

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15 MORE Free Guides That Really Teach You USEFUL Stuff

Enjoy! Downloads are free, no strings attached. Even if you’re not a MakeUseOf subscriber you may easily download a PDF of your choice with a click of a button.

Please also do us a favor by sharing these manuals with your friends!

via makeuseof.com

Make Use Of, in my opinion, always has great PDF Guides.

I suggest that you review these, download, save and share with others, as they are of interest, and if you like these return to Make Use Of and check out all the others.

There should be something for everyone.

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Teach Parents Tech? | bLaugh

via blaugh.com

Sounds like a good resource from Google has been found.

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Recuva - A free, easy to use undelete and file recover tool

As you might expect, I have a small collection of useful tools that I keep available for assorted system maintenance and troubleshooting tasks. However, for the longest time I haven't really carried a file un-delete utility with me. Not because there aren't some good ones out there, but more because I never really got comfortable with any of the ones I had tried. I certainly was not comfortable enough to recommend any.

I recently discovered Recuva, which I just added to my toolkit. It's free, it's easy to use, and it's from the same people that bring you CCleaner, which gives added credibility.

via ask-leo.com

I was going through the Ask Leo weekly email newsletters that have been piling up and found his write up about Recuva, in the October 5, 2010 issue.

Check it out and see if Recuva is something you can use for yourself.

According to the http://www.piriform.com/download page, Recuva "Runs on Microsoft Windows 7, Vista and XP. Including both 32-bit and 64-bit versions."

You can get a lot more information yourself by signing up for his free weekly newsletter http://ask-leo.com/leos_answers_newsletter.html.>

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Keep Your Laptop Running when You Close the Lid in Windows 7 [How To] | Windows 7 Customization | Windows Tools, Help & Guides

This guide helps you learn how to keep your laptop running when you close the lid in Windows 7.

via mintywhite.com

This is useful, if like me you tend to move around with your laptop. My laptop runs Vista, but it is a similar adjustment to the Power Options.

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Delicious Bookmarks for Computer User Groups

I have been using delicious.com for a long time, and have been tagging things I think are of interest to computer user groups. Now I thought maybe it was time I let people know where to find them.

Items I have tagged as user group related (not necessarily MSWindows only, or freeware / opensource) can be found at the following link:

http://www.delicious.com/sefc.ug/bundle:ComputerUserGroup

I usually find a few things each day in my perusal of my Google Reader RSS feeds.

Check them out, maybe there will be something of interest to you also.

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As usual, leave me a comment and let me know what you think.

Freeware

Why use freeware?

Free software is a valid choice for many home computer, office computer and Internet server uses. Freeware comes in two basic types, free software with proprietary (ie private) code, and open-source software. It's important to remember that freeware is not a cheap or second-class option - it can often be functionally superior to equivalent commercial software and even of higher quality.

via techsupportalert.com

A good article for those interested in freeware.

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50 Free Apps We're Most Thankful For

Earlier this week we asked you to share the free apps you're most thankful for, and you came through with thousands of votes for apps covering the desktop, mobile phone, and devices in between. With a little spreadsheet magic and a few choices of our own, we bring you the top 50 free apps we're all most thankful for. Whether you're celebrating the holiday or not, it's a great list of free software that ought to make for some gluttonous downloading. The popular apps are some of the more obvious, however, so be sure to look further down the list for new free software you may not yet know about.

via lifehacker.com

A good listing of free apps, from Lifehacker. You should be able to find something that interests you.

If one is of particular interest to you, and you would like to know more, let me know and I will try to set it up for a BRCS Freeware SIG session in the future.

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Download Office 2010 Training Courses for Free

Get free, downloadable versions of  training courses for Office 2010.
View courses for Access, Excel, OneNote, Outlook, Powerpoint, Project, SharePoint Server and Word 2010.
All the courses come as PowerPoint 2010 presentations - if you don't have PowerPoint you can download the free PowerPoint Viewer to view the files.

Tip: you can also download Office 2007 and Office 2003 training presentations and access all Office.com web-based training from links at the bottom of the page.

Download Office 2010 Training Courses
[via]
 

Enjoy,
Rhiannon

Click here for more items like this. Better still, get Rhiannon's latest tasty tech treats delivered daily via your RSS feeder or alternatively, have the RSS feed sent as email direct to your in-box.

via techsupportalert.com

Free training, who says you can't get anything free from Microsoft?

techsupportalert.com comes through again!

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How to Tell if a File is Malicious

If you’ve just downloaded a file to your computer how do you know if it’s safe to run it? These days many malicious files are specifically designed to seem safe in order to trick you into running them. As soon as you do they go about their nefarious purpose and may infect your computer, steal your credit card information and passwords, or other tasks which I can promise you won’t enjoy. So how can you tell the difference between these files and the legitimate ones?

via techsupportalert.com

Very good information from one of my favorite freeware source sites.

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20 Things I Learned About Browsers and the Web

via 20thingsilearned.com

Found a post on snaphow.com which talked about this, and I thought it was very interesting.

Very good information about browsers and the web.

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October 28, 2010 Freeware SIG Session

The files from the October 28, 2010 BRCS Freeware SIG session, Online Storage, have been posted in the OnlineStorage-Oct10 folder at http://www.box.net/brcs-freewaresig.

The notes and presentation files are posted in OpenOffice.org, Microsoft Office, and PDF formats with Creative Commons licensing, to allow other user groups to utilize as well.

If you use them, please let me know and what your comments are.

While you are at the box.net location, check out what has been posted for previous sessions. There will be nothing for the November 2010 session, as that is Thanksgiving evening.

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If you would like just the links referenced during the session, check out the Links Referenced in SIG Sessions page of this blog:
http://brcsfreewaresig.blogspot.com/p/links-referenced-in-sig-sessions.html

xkcd: Tech Support

via xkcd.com

Another great cartoon from xkcd.com.

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Official Google Blog: Goodbye to an old friend: 1-800-GOOG-411

Back in 2007 we launched 1-800-GOOG-411, a voice-powered directory assistance service that connects you quickly to businesses across the U.S. and Canada. On November 12, 2010, we will shut down the service.

via googleblog.blogspot.com

This was posted October 8, 2010 but, I did not see until today.

I have used this service infrequently, but when I did I was out of town and it came in very handy.

The only alternative I have been able to find is 1-800-BING-411, but I don't know much about it.

Does anyone know of other alternatives for people who don't have smart phones, like me?

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The Office Worker’s 101 Guide to a USB Thumb Drive [Download]

In MakeUseOf’s latest free PDF guide “The Office Workers Guide To A USB Thumb Drive” you will learn the full potential of what you can do with flash drives and what type flash drive is right for you.

via makeuseof.com

Another excellent PDF guide from MakeUseOf.

I recommend anyone interested in using USB thumb drives, or even those currently using them, download and read this.

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Where to Start with Photo Editing

via iffles.com

This is geared towards the GIMP, but is good advice for any digital photo editing software that uses layers, at least in my opinion.

Since the 23SEP10 BRCS Freeware / Open Source SIG (Special Interest Group) meeting, it seems that I am seeing a lot of posts dealing with digital photo editing, both freeware / open source and commercial.

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Free Microsoft applications you may have overlooked | Microsoft Windows | TechRepublic.com

If I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard someone say, “For all the money I’ve spent on Microsoft products, they should be giving me free software by now,” I’d be rich! Well, unfortunately, that’s not going to happen. But Microsoft does have a lot of Windows software that is free for the taking. We’re all familiar with the free Windows Live offerings, but that’s not all there is. Microsoft has a lot of free software just waiting for you to find it. You just have to know where to look. Here are 10 free programs to get you started.

via blogs.techrepublic.com.com

A listing of some free Microsoft apps, most do not know about, but might be useful.

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Top 10 Beginner Level Video Tutorials To Learn GIMP Fast

You can find a myriad of written tutorials and websites on GIMP, the open-source Photoshop alternative, as well as YouTube channels dedicated to GIMP tutorials, but which tutorials are more suitable and totally worthwhile for beginners?

Since I’m also a learner of GIMP, I thought that tutorials illustrating the first few points of the official user manual from GIMP.org may just be what beginners need to familiarize themselves. This collection here gathers clearly-narrated screencasts and are thus very good starting points for those that don’t prefer to read long user manuals.

So hit the jump to learn more GIMP terminology.

via makeuseof.com

Yet another post related to the discussion about free photo editing software at the 23SEP10 BRCS Freeware / Open Source SIG (Special Interest Group) meeting.

Some excellent videos for GIMP beginners.

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