Thursday, October 27, 2005
GREAT SITE FOR FREE SOFTWARE (NCH company)
My all-time favorites for photo and video and sound-editing are as follows:
Pinnacle Studio Plus (for video and even still-photo-into-movie) software
Thumbsplus (for managing huge numbers of photos and simple photo editing/manipulation)
GoldWave for fiddling with various sounds, also voice recording
Photoshop CS for everything-beyond-the-simplest photo manipulation
However, these are all commercial programs, and some of them not "free," nor even close. Adobe, in particular, takes itself VERY seriously.
So, it's always a pleasure to come upon some young company which is making its way in the "commercial" world by giving out free programs as introductions. Some of these are excellent, if not quite up to the standard as noted above. There are even some features of these programs which their big buddies do not possess (e.g. the ability to handle .dss sound files).
The link above goes to such a site. This "NCH" company puts out at least 4 very nice, very free programs. I think that each has something definite to offer. "WavePad" is like a free version of GoldWave. "Express Rip Plus" is a CD-t0-MP3 or CD-to-computer file transfer program. "Express Burn" is a neat little program for compiling and making an audio CD quick and dirty. (good example: when you want to make a little voice recording to somebody else). Finally, "Switch" is an audio file conversion program, and as such, recognizes a few audio files which even GoldWave doesn't acknowledge. Above all, they're good, and did I say it, "free." Go see their site.
My all-time favorites for photo and video and sound-editing are as follows:
Pinnacle Studio Plus (for video and even still-photo-into-movie) software
Thumbsplus (for managing huge numbers of photos and simple photo editing/manipulation)
GoldWave for fiddling with various sounds, also voice recording
Photoshop CS for everything-beyond-the-simplest photo manipulation
However, these are all commercial programs, and some of them not "free," nor even close. Adobe, in particular, takes itself VERY seriously.
So, it's always a pleasure to come upon some young company which is making its way in the "commercial" world by giving out free programs as introductions. Some of these are excellent, if not quite up to the standard as noted above. There are even some features of these programs which their big buddies do not possess (e.g. the ability to handle .dss sound files).
The link above goes to such a site. This "NCH" company puts out at least 4 very nice, very free programs. I think that each has something definite to offer. "WavePad" is like a free version of GoldWave. "Express Rip Plus" is a CD-t0-MP3 or CD-to-computer file transfer program. "Express Burn" is a neat little program for compiling and making an audio CD quick and dirty. (good example: when you want to make a little voice recording to somebody else). Finally, "Switch" is an audio file conversion program, and as such, recognizes a few audio files which even GoldWave doesn't acknowledge. Above all, they're good, and did I say it, "free." Go see their site.
Saturday, October 15, 2005
Verizon Broadband update:
On a recent trip from Phoenix, Az. to New England, I used the service at every airport and found no difficulty gaining instant access at rapid speeds. I found this somewhat interesting in Manchester, NH where wi-fi was also available---at a spellbinding $8 per day. A few days of this and you'd pay for a month's worth of Verizon.
In Concord, NH and in Laconia, NH, both smallish towns with only digital service (no rapid access assured) I was able to access the internet at above landline speeds. At a friend's house outside of town and behind a mountain (where my Verizon cellphone registers "zero"--the broadband access would not work. Similarly, it would not work in a country house in the wilds of Central Vermont. Obviously is very closely follows the availability of Verizon cellphone service. So far I have not encountered a spot where there was digital cellphone service where I could not also access the Web.
On a recent trip from Phoenix, Az. to New England, I used the service at every airport and found no difficulty gaining instant access at rapid speeds. I found this somewhat interesting in Manchester, NH where wi-fi was also available---at a spellbinding $8 per day. A few days of this and you'd pay for a month's worth of Verizon.
In Concord, NH and in Laconia, NH, both smallish towns with only digital service (no rapid access assured) I was able to access the internet at above landline speeds. At a friend's house outside of town and behind a mountain (where my Verizon cellphone registers "zero"--the broadband access would not work. Similarly, it would not work in a country house in the wilds of Central Vermont. Obviously is very closely follows the availability of Verizon cellphone service. So far I have not encountered a spot where there was digital cellphone service where I could not also access the Web.
