Make the best of Windows

Even if I can avoid Microsoft Windows both at home and at work, I also realize that some less fortunate people are forced to use Windows on daily basis. The Windows experience can be made a lot more pleasant with some free software.

In this post I have tried to collect links to some useful free Windows software. These applications might not be fully equal with their commercial counterparts. Sometimes they are better sometimes worse, but they are free and get the job done.

Most of these programs are also less resource hungry then their commercial counterparts and are thus excellent for use on netbooks.

Office:

• OpenOffice.org - MS Office alternative (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Access )
  
• AbiWord - Lightweight MS Word alternative
  
• Scribus - Page layout software (PageMaker, FrameMaker)
• Dia - Drawing program inspired by MS Visio
  

Internet:

• Firefox - Powerful Web browser (Internet Explorer replacement)
  
• Thunderbird - MS Outlook alternative e-mail client
  

Graphics:

• Gimp - Adobe Photoshop / Corel Photo-Paint alternative
• Paint.NET - Adobe Photoshop alternative
• Incscape - Adobe illustrator / CorelDraw alternative
• Hugin - Panorama photo stitcher
  
• Blender - 3D content creation suite

Audio & Video:

• MPlayer - Most advanced video player available. Works well on older hardware because of very good resource usage.
  
• VLC - An advanced but more user friendly media player than the one above.
• Audacity - Sound editor
  
• CDex - Audio CD extractor
  

Misc:

• 7-Zip - Advanced file archiver with a high compression ratio.
• Notepad++ - Advanced text editor, people used to Pfe will like this.
  
• ISO Recorder - Quickly burn ISO-files to CD/DVD
  

Representing your company

When you have a sticker proudly marketing your company with both name and logo you should remember to behave. Most people will associate your behavior with the company you are "marketing". This is specially important if you have bad manners and can't behave like normal people.

Sitting frequently on the train between Turku and Helsinki this problem is something that I encounter much too often.

Case study:
You currently sitting in front of me at the other side of the table in the IC2 train.
Stop behaving like you own the train spreading your belongings over the already minimal table and screaming into your phone (that does really not improve the reception). I also have no wish to smell your foot sweat so kindly keep your shoes on.
Finally, please cover your mouth when you cough, I have no time to catch tuberculosis, or something similar.

I understand that you do big business deals and know everything, but still I really don't even care to know your existence.

I'll step off the soapbox now.

Hiding the door

Why did you Nokia S60 guys hide the main sync menu in the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic (Tube) at Menu -> Settings -> Connectivity -> Data transfer -> Sync? This makes e.g. the calendar synchronization with Ovi a bit painful. The idea to get the contacts easily synchronized in the contacts application is OK, but why is this not possible in the calendar application?

In the E51 the complete synchronization was at least in an visible easy to find location Menu -> Tools -> Sync.

More opinions about the Tube will follow.

Aboard Air Force One

Reuters senior staff photographer Larry Downing, assigned to the White House, gives a glimpse of the life of a press photographer working aboard the Air Force One.

Don't save on your {}

Why are there still people who insist on not using curly braces when writing if-statements? Braces should always be used, even if the code block only contains one line of code, because sooner or later someone will add another line without noticing the absence of braces.

This is something I would expect to find in an returned Programming 101 assignment, but not in production level code, but hey life is full of surprises.