The Consumer’s Corner

If you’ve been using some version of Microsoft Windows for nearly your entire life, it can be down right scary to boot up another operating system on your precious computer. Especially Linux. You’ve heard great things about it, but you’ve also heard it can be a geeks paradise, and you might need a computer science degree to operate it.

Then came Ubuntu. It’s a Linux distro that I’ve been paying attention to the past couple years, even going as far as to beta test their in-Windows installer, Wubi. Ubuntu is ‘Linux for human beings,’ meaning it was designed to be used by children and grandmothers alike, and Windows/Mac converters. The idea is to be able to be up and running without a mile long learning curve.

The latest version of the software has just recently been released, and I took it for a spin yesterday, using a LiveCD. A ‘LiveCD’ is a disk image of the Ubuntu operating system that you can run from your CD drive, so you can try before you ‘buy.’ I was really impressed, and I’m very tempted to attempt to turn my system into a dual-boot machine.

Everything loaded very quickly, as far as I could tell all my hardware was recognized, my wireless card worked(!), speakers, everything. And even despite the fact it was running off of a CD (well, I used a DVD), it had my computer just humming. Never has it ran so fast in a ‘Windows’ environment.

No one at this point could tell someone with a brand new computer that Linux is the way to go, and you’ll be just fine formatting your hard drive and doing a dedicated install. There are still limitations, and getting certain things to work in Linux will be infinitely more difficult than in Windows. That will continue to be the case until software and hardware manufacturers embrace Linux as a whole.

So who do I recommend this for? People who have a spare computer lying around in the garage, that became orphaned after an upgrade. Or disgruntled Windows users who either deliberately pirated XP, or were unfortunate enough that someone decided to upgrade them at a repair shop. Right out of the gate, without any tweaking, Ubuntu can make an unused machine productive again; it handles the basics of word processing and internet browsing with ease. As you get more comfortable, you can try some more complicated tasks, but there is zero need to open a command prompt to do your more common, remedial tasks.

The best thing, it’s completely free, completely legal. It is ‘open source’ software, so it experiences a constant flow of updates, as there are huge teams of people that do nothing but fish out bugs to squash. I look forward to dabbling in the future; I have a dusty XP system with decent specs that is going to get a face lift soon!

Official Site

–Jeremy Hobbs

AbiWord - Super Simple Processing was/is one of my most read articles, so I thought I might throw it out their to everyone that an update has been released! Here is a list of the new features; most definitely looks like it is worth upgrading! I will be! Still free, still multi platform, still open source, still recommended!!

Official Site

–Jeremy Hobbs

After getting used to, and eventually attached to Apple’s iTunes application, I was excited to give Safari a spin. And, since Apple has had prompts popping up on my screen lately, I thought now would be as good a time as any to try it out. Safari, for those of you unaware, is a web browser.

The damn thing wont even load it’s default start page in less than a whole minute, and other sites such as the popular MySpace and Facebook were considerably worse! That’s just sad. Apple software has often frustrated me in it’s usability, but I generally write that off as being a devout Windows user, and used to that interface. But web browsers all basically work the same. No excuses here Steve, this is just bad.

I recommend ignoring the prompts if you have Apple Updater installed on your system, and I certainly encourage you to avoid seeking it out on your own. I’ll keep an eye on it, and if it gets better, and becomes a viable alternative to Internet Explorer or Firefox, I’ll let you know.

Official Site

–Jeremy Hobbs

Have some avi., XviD, or DivX files lying around on your hard drive, that you wouldn’t mind watching on your television instead of your computer monitor? Think I may have found something for you; for free no less!

This is hands down the simplest converter I’ve ever used; something like 4 clicks and I was off to the races. My movie was converted, in a disc image file, and ready to burn to DVD. Conversion time will depend on your system specs, and options.
Have yet to throw an avi file at it that it hasn’t been able to convert. I highly recommend this, I’ll be getting a lot of use out of it.

Download Link

–Jeremy Hobbs

While checking my traffic logs the other day (yeah, I care enough about this blog to keep track of data), I happened to notice that nearly all of my readers are still using Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. Why?

Do you happen to enjoy spyware? Fan of adware? Have a ‘thing’ for viruses? Is leaving your system open to a wide range of attacks something you get a big kick out of? No? Then I’ll just assume that you were left unaware that there is a much better, much safer alternative to surf the internet with.

Firefox is, very simply, a better product. Firefox is faster. Firefox is safer. And Firefox is more customizable. It will do almost everything Internet Explorer will do, minus Microsoft specific stuff that they wont share (looking for Windows Updates, ect). It will do some thing IE cannot; like the Acid2 test. For you tool bar fans, there are tons of (useful) options in that arena, their extension library is huge, and it’s even skin-able, so you can make it match your unique style.

Negatives? It’ll crash now and then. Positive; it’ll restore exactly where you left off at. And don’t insult my intelligence by telling me you’ve never had IE crash on you before, I don’t allow fibbers on this site (wink, wink). On the whole, this is an incredibly stable product; one just recently made more stable by a new update. I use it everyday, and you should too!

Available for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Official Site

–Jeremy Hobbs

(Firefox newsworthy article from a fellow blogger: http://www.nowg.net/2007/06/01/14-of-online-users-choose-firefox/)

firefox, internet, computers

It’s been years since I blew the dust off of my dictionary; God bless the internet. You can get more information in a fraction of the time. Instant gratification is a wonderful thing. The program that I’m reviewing, jDictionary, now makes ‘instant’ even faster.

No more web browsers. This open source program is a stand alone application. Not that opening Firefox or Internet Explorer is all that difficult, but hey, one of the first rules of good consumerism is that you should cut out the middle man whenever possible. jDictionary allows you to load multiple dictionary plugins, allowing you a variety of results. Conversion dictionaries are available, as are stand alone foreign language dictionaries, thesaurus plugins, just about anything to do with words. Plus, with it being open source, new additions should be added to the library of information on a regular basis.

My hope is that jDictionary will make your experience here at Consumer’s Corner a more enjoyable one. A great dictionary is a writer’s best friend, so hopefully this will help the quality of the content you read here. My vocabulary could use some expanding, and jDictionary is just what the doctor ordered. It’s super simple to use, very efficient and effective, and completely free! It will be getting a great deal of use; I recommend it! Available for Windows and Linux.

Official Site

–Jeremy Hobbs

jdictionary, dictionary, open source, freeware

FreeramXP Pro is my favorite RAM monitoring and optimization program. It’s been programmed to work on most of your Windows driven systems (even works very nicely with Vista). I’ve used this FreeramXP Pro on four different computers I’ve owned over the past few years, I’ll use it on the next four as well, and is one of the very first things I install when setting up new systems for my friends.

I’m not sure exactly how it works (nor do I particularly care), but I do know that it does work. See, what I do know is that as you use your computer by opening and closing programs, sometimes the RAM that a given program was using does not get released, or ‘dumped,’ back into the memory bank. If you don’t have a generous amount of RAM on in your PC, this can will dramatically affect the overall performance of your computer; especially if you use some RAM hungry applications.

FreeramXP Pro can be set to run at user defined timed intervals, or you can just set it when your available RAM reaches a certain ‘low point’ (also determined by you). I use a combination of the two. Another handy feature; the program constantly monitors the amount of RAM you have available, and keeps that amount (you can choose a MB display, or percentage) displayed it in the system tray. When I notice my system is running sluggish, I look down there and usually find that I’m running a bit low. With just a simple right click, I can tell it to free up my RAM right now, and things are often okay. If FreeramXP Pro doesn’t free up enough to speed me up, I try to close some unneeded programs, and run it again. If that doesn’t work, I know I might have something weird going on, like a virus or adware infection. So in a sideways way, it can be an effective diagnostic tool; it wont tell you what the issue is, but at least you’ll know there’s an issue.

This is one of many tools that I recommend for the betterment of your computer. I’m a major proponent for preventative maintenance; it’s far cheaper to prevent problems than it is to fix them. Especially when the only tools needed are 100% free!

Official Site

–Jeremy Hobbs

Related Articles:
CCleaner

ram, freeware, software, computers, windows, maintenance, freeramxp

I’m sure that you’ve all been able to tell by now that I am a Christian, seeing as I’ve reviewed quite a few Christian ‘products.’ My faith is something I will forever take very seriously, and the Bible is the most critical component of that faith. I believe in this Book, every single word in it, even when it is not very convenient for me to do so. A major example being some parts of it are not exactly politically correct.

As much as I love reading the Bible, it is a very BIG book. Not the most convenient piece of text to to be hauling around with you. During a Church service, you can have to turn hundreds of onion leaf pages at a time to read along with your pastor; and that is something that can be hard for new Christians who aren’t yet familiar with the layout of the Book.

Enter GoBible. It’s a java application that installs on nearly all Java enabled cell phones (most cell phones). Until you begin to use it, it’s hard to believe how convenient this little piece of (free!) software is. First of all, it takes up no extra space on your being, because we almost always have our cells with us anyway. Some features; you can change ‘books’ by hitting the ‘Go To’ feature, you can bookmark, SMS passages to friends, and carry multiple translations on one device. And again, it’s free.

The biggest plus I’ve also noticed in my life is I’m simply reading more. I’ll open it up and do some studying when I’d have otherwise been playing a mind numbing game. Reading the Word has become an enjoyable habit, not some chore that I feel that I have to do, and that’s always a good thing. My faith and knowledge is growing because of this program, and I have to recommend it to fellow followers of Christ.

The link I’m providing is for the King James Standard version, as it appears to be the ‘official’ version of the software (I’m not certain that this is fact, and will edit this post if shown otherwise). If you look hard enough, you can find alternate translations (I have both KJV and NIV). Members of other faiths should not be disheartened, I’ve seem similar programs featuring other sacred texts. Google is your friend.

Enjoy and grow!

Official Site

–Jeremy Hobbs

free software, freeware, cell phones, java, christianity, bible

I was hoping to review this program for you; I remember using it a few years ago, and it was a nice little media player. But the newest version is crashing my system every time I open it. Granted, I’m running Vista, but developers should have figured this out by now.

So, for now, I’m saying avoid. I’m not new to program issues with Vista, in fact it’s something I’ve come to accept, but this is the very first program to give me the ‘blue screen of death.’ Stay away, especially if you’re using Vista.

Official Site

–Jeremy Hobbs

My computer, as well as yours, gets filled up with piles and piles of useless crap. Each and every time you visit a website, something gets saved to your disk, at least temporarily. After awhile, all this ’stuff’ starts to add up, and slow you down. Things start to act funky, and you have no clue why. Your anti virus scans are coming back clean as a whistle, as well are your anti spy-ware runs. Folks, it’s just simple clutter.

CCleaner is a free (though donations are encouraged) program designed to eliminate a great deal of that clutter, and it does a really good job. Some time ago, at a friend’s home, I was doing some maintenance on a laptop, and noticed it was just a bit sluggish (by just a bit, I mean crawling.) I’m know that the biggest problem was she hadn’t updated her adware elimination program in nearly a year, but regardless, CCleaner found 770 MB of useless garbage files, and dozens upon dozens of bad .dll files and registry files. Those are some big numbers. They can, and will cause performance issues. When I was finished, she was running well again.

The program works great on brand new, right out of the box systems do. During the installation of your operating system at the factory, tons of files and registry entries are put on to your drive, never to be used again. They’re just not needed any more. Anytime you can get rid of useless garbage, your PC will thank you, and reward you with a few less headaches.

Operation is incredibly simple; click ‘Cleaner;’ ‘Analyze;’ and ‘Run Cleaner.’ You can run it without analyzing, but I do it anyway, because I’m a strange person. Next, under ‘Cleaner’ is ‘Issues.’ ‘Analyze’ and ‘Fix.’ That’s all there is to it. Under ‘Tools’ is a useful little program uninstaller and ‘Start Up’ utility.

Just a warning, when you run the ‘Issues’ part of the program, it will alter your Windows registry, and there is a very(!) slight chance this could mess something up. CCleaner will give you the option the back up the registry, and you’ll go ahead and do that if you’re a little chicken. Heh. Also, if you play around with the Start Up utility, only remove things you can actually recognize that you don’t want opening at during Start Up. There’s lot’s of stuff there that needs to boot that you’ll have no idea what it is just by reading it’s name.

Vista friendly.

Get to CCleaning!

Official Site

–Jeremy Hobbs

ccleaner, utilities, free software, freeware, computers