Essential Pieces Of Free (and Open) Software for Windows

The is a whole bunch of us who have alot of pirated softwares or copies that are always expiring installed in our notebooks and Pc's. When you a heavy computer user you don't need to be thinking about re-installing some of this app's when you need to use them or even worse think about the impact of a cracked software on your registry.

So i've gone into a research of some about the most useful softwares that we use in our daily usage and found replacements for them that are FREE and OPEN.

What follows is a list of thirty pieces of software that are the cream of the crop of open source software for Windows. Not only is every piece of it free, almost all of them directly replace expensive software packages.

1. Firefox
http://www.getfirefox.com/
Replaces Internet Explorer
If you haven’t switched to Firefox for your web browsing needs, do it now. It stops annoying popups and it has tons of amazing plugins that can make surfing the web even better. I could evangelize all day about Firefox, but one thing’s for sure: the first thing I do on any new Windows machine is run Internet Explorer just long enough to download Firefox.

2. Thunderbird
http://www.mozilla.org/thunderbird/
Replaces Microsoft Outlook or Eudora
Thunderbird is an email client that has five big things going for it: it’s free, it’s full featured, it’s lightweight and runs quick, it has an unparalleled spam filter, and it protects you from those ridiculous phishing attacks by clearly indicating which emails send you to a bogus website. If you’re not already using a web-based email solution, Thunderbird should be your client.

3. Sunbird
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/sunbird/
Replaces Microsoft Outlook’s calendaring functions
Might as well get the Mozilla trifecta out of the way by mentioning Sunbird, which is the Mozilla Foundation’s calendaring program. It’s extremely easy to use (I figured out everything I needed in a minute or two) and easy to share your calendar with others. I consider a calendaring tool to be essential if you’re using a laptop, and this is no different.

4. Abiword
http://www.abisource.com/
Replaces Microsoft Word
Want a good word processor but find Microsoft Word too expensive? AbiWord is my favorite replacement for Word. It’s lightweight (meaning it runs quickly) and includes pretty much every feature that I use regularly in a word processor, plus it can save files in formats that you can exchange with Word and WordPerfect users, plus open any of their files, too.

5. OpenOffice
http://www.openoffice.org/
Replaces Microsoft Excel and Microsoft PowerPoint
If you want to replace the rest of the Office suite, your best bet is OpenOffice. It includes very nice replacements for Excel and PowerPoint (and workable replacements for Access and other Office elements). In fact, I actually prefer their Excel and PowerPoint replacements to the real thing.

6. ClamWin
http://www.clamwin.com/
Replaces Norton AntiVirus or McAfee
ClamWin is a slick anti-virus software that’s quite easy to manage and is unobtrusive while keep your system free of viruses. That’s pretty much all I want from a package, so why pay money for McAfee to keep bugging me all the time?

7. Gaim
http://gaim.sourceforge.net/
Replaces AIM, Windows Messenger, etc.
This is a very clean instant messaging program that allows you to be on AOL Instant Messenger, Windows (MSN) Messenger, and Yahoo Messenger simultaneously with one program. There are other free packages that do this, but Gaim is stable and clean and simple.

8. BitTorrent
http://www.bittorrent.com/
Original but essential (somewhat-ish like Kazaa or Limewire but safer)
From their website, “BitTorrent is a peer-assisted, digital content delivery platform that provides the fastest, most efficient means of distributing, discovering, and consuming large, high-quality files on the Web. Our mission is simple: to deliver the content that entertains and informs the digital world.” In other words, BitTorrent allows you to download large media files and also use your bandwidth to help others download these files. Search for media files you want and download ‘em.

9. GIMPShop
http://www.gimpshop.net/
Replaces Adobe Photoshop
This is a version of the GNU Image Manipulation Program that does a pretty solid job of imitating Adobe Photoshop - a regular user of Photoshop (like me) can adapt to it quite quickly. It’s very richly featured and runs quite well - in fact, I see no reason to ever go back, even if Photoshop were free.

10. Gnucleus
http://www.gnucleus.com/Gnucleus/
Replaces LimeWire, BearShare, etc.
Sure, LimeWire and BearShare are free, but why not just get the same basic software without all of the spyware? Gnucleus is pretty much identical to those software packages - but without all that extra junk that slows down your computer.

11. VLC Media Player
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/
Replaces Windows Media Player, Quicktime, RealPlayer, etc.
If you get tired of having tons of media players on your computer, get this package that runs pretty much every media type you’ll run across without breaking a sweat.

12. Juice
http://juicereceiver.sourceforge.net/
Unique but essential
Juice lets you effortlessly subscribe to podcasts, organize them, and listen to them at your convenience. In conjunction with PodNova, I find it easier to use Juice to organize podcasts than using iTunes itself.

13. Audacity
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
Unique but essential (for some)
If you’re interested in recording your own podcast (or just want to make your own voice recordings for whatever reason), Audacity and a microphone are pretty much all you need to get the job done. I’m not much for podcasting (let’s just say I don’t have a radio voice), but I use Audacity for other voice recording purposes.

14. RSSOwl
http://www.rssowl.org/
Unique but essential
RSSOwl is one of many open source RSS readers. In other words, it enables you to use one program to keep track of the content of a lot of different blogs; if you read a lot of blogs, it’s the only way to keep tabs on all of them without devoting hours jumping from site to site. If you have a laptop, it’s preferable to using sites like Bloglines, but if you’re on a desktop, a web-based feed manager might be better.

15. Filezilla
http://filezilla.sourceforge.net/
Replaces WinFTP
Many people occasionally have a need to FTP files to other computers; if you ever have the need to transfer files in such a fashion, FileZilla will do the job slickly and quickly.

16. Keynote
http://www.tranglos.com/free/keynote.html
Unique but essential
Keynote is basically designed specifically for the task of taking notes on a laptop. If you ever find yourself in a meeting or a presentation with your laptop open and want to jot down notes and organize them just a bit, Keynote is unquestionably the program for you. It’s not good at quality word processing, but that’s not the point. In my professional work, I find myself using Keynote almost as often as any other utility.

17. MusikCube
http://www.musikcube.com/
Replaces iTunes
If you’re not already committed to downloaded music from the iTunes Music Store, then MusikCube is the best choice available for a music organizer and player. It organizes your mp3s, makes it really easy and really fast to find them, and allows you to make some incredibly clever smart playlists.

18. Handbrake
http://handbrake.m0k.org/
Unique but essential
Handbrake enables you to stick a DVD in your DVD drive and have the contents of that film stored to your hard drive in a form that can be read by pretty much any media player. I often use it to put a few movies on my laptop for travel purposes, so I don’t have to worry about keeping track of DVDs while on the road.

19. X-Chat 2
http://www.silverex.org/
Replaces mIRC
X-Chat is a free IRC client. For those unfamiliar with IRC, it’s a place for technical people (and, as my wife loves to point out, nerds) to meet and discuss topics in an open environment. I often find it very useful when piecing through difficult technical issues.

20. KeePass
http://keepass.sourceforge.net/
Unique but essential
KeePass is a program that securely stores and manages the abundance of passwords we all use on a daily basis. I have literally hundreds of usernames and passwords spread out all over the place; KeePass keeps them all for me and keeps them safe.

21. TrueCrypt
http://www.truecrypt.org/
Unique but essential
TrueCrypt enables you to convert a memory stick into a strongly encrypted data storage device, meaning that you can store personal data on it without worrying about losing it and having personal information get out and about. I use it to keep some of my most personal data off of my laptop and strongly secured, just in case.

22. PDFCreator
http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/
Replaces Adobe Acrobat
PDFCreator creates a virtual printer on your computer that, if you print a document to it from any program, creates a PDF of that document that can be read on any computer with Acrobat Reader on it. After installing PDFCreator, all you have to do is print like normal and out comes a PDF!

23. Freemind
http://freemind.sourceforge.net/
Unique but Essential
Freemind is a “mind mapping” software program. In essence, it enables you to brainstorm and link together ideas quickly, creating “maps” of concepts similar to what you might do on a whiteboard. I find it incredibly useful when putting together ideas for new posts or planning small projects or assembling the backbone of a writing project.

24. NASA Worldwind
http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/
Replaces Google Earth
WorldWind is very similar to Google Earth in that it allows you to browse the globe. While it isn’t strong for creating maps (but why not just use Google Maps for that?), it is utterly incredible for viewing three-dimensional landscapes of any place on earth.

25. Notepad2
http://www.flos-freeware.ch/notepad2.html
Replaces Notepad
Notepad2 is a replacement for the traditional Windows Notepad that just adds a few sweet little features: multiple documents; line, word, and character counts; and some highlighting of tags. In fact, I’m using Notepad2 as I draft this post (after using Freemind to organize it).

26. HealthMonitor
http://healthmonitor.zucchetti.com/
Unique but useful
HealthMonitor enables you to keep an eye on the health of your computer. It identifies slowdowns and other system issues quickly and lets you know (for example, it gives a popup if your system memory gets to a certain percentage of fullness, or if your hard drive has only 10 GB free). This can keep you out of trouble and also give you clues to problems your machine might be having.

27. Workrave
http://www.workrave.org/
Unique but useful
Sometimes late into a writing session, my wrists get sore from too much repetitive movement. Workrave basically jumps in before this happens and locks down the computer for a while, preventing me from working too much and causing repetitive stress injury. Since I’ve started using it, it hasn’t significantly hurt my productivity at all and my wrists are thanking me!

28. GanttPV
http://www.pureviolet.net/ganttpv/
Replaces Microsoft Project
If you do any project management (or have a need to dip your toes in the water), GanttPV does a brilliant job of managing the task quickly, easily, and freely. If you need to move to MS Project later, you can export from GanttPV to Project, but once you start digging into GanttPV, you’ll likely have no reason to use Project.

29. GnuCash
http://www.gnucash.org/
Replaces Microsoft Money or Quicken
GnuCash is a slimmed-down version of the bloated Microsoft Money and Quicken packages, but it contains all of the features I want for managing my money. The interfaces are incredibly simple - it functions much like a checkbook ledger on your computer - but there’s a lot of meat hidden throughout the software.

30. True Combat: Elite
http://www.truecombatelite.net/
Replaces Quake IV, Halo, etc.
After all this downloading, you’re going to need to blow off a little steam, and I’ve yet to find a more enjoyable free game than this one. It’s basically a third person combat game, but the graphics are spectacular and the game is quite engrossing.

If you’ve downloaded and installed all of these, you’ve got access to all the productivity software you’ll likely need, clean and open and best of all free.

31. PlayBilling - Web Based

http://www.osscc.org/?p=9

Replaces alot of pirated cyber softwares
PlayBilling is a webbased billing system for internet cafe and wireless hotspot provider mostly written in Java featured with: tariff management, prepaid, postpaid and discounts, user management and extensive reporting system

Personal Branding

Target Setting for Success- Lessons on Personal Branding

A talk by Eric Kimani to the British Council Leadership Forum in Nairobi, Kenya on 19th September 2007

Distinguished guests ladies & gentlemen,

I am delighted to have been invited to come and share some thoughts with you.
Tonight I have chosen to address one of the topics you asked me to speak on-target setting or planning for success. This is a wide topic and I have chosen to provoke our thoughts on Personal Branding.

To answer the question why brand yourself I will narrate in short a chapter by Tom Peters the management guru in one of his books - "The Circle of innovation".

He tells the story how in 1980 Percy Bernevik left his job in the US to take up the leadership of the giant Swedish engineering firm ASEA.

There he inherited a 2,000 -person headquarters. He pruned it quickly to 200 people!
In 1987 ASEA merged with Switzerland's Brown Boveri to create the world's largest Electrical engineering firm Asea Brown Boveri (ABB) inheriting Brown Boveri's 4,000 strong headquarters. Six months later the headquarters was down to 200! As of 1998 the headcount had gone down to 140 down from 6,000.

The message is that if it has not happened to you it soon will- 59 out of 60 of you and me here tonight are at risk and hence the need to brand ourselves!

How do we brand ourselves?

1. Keep time! As a general rule we have little respect for time. You give someone an appointment and they come half hour or an hour late. You call a meeting and half the people turn up late. Until you have a reputation for respect for time you will not project yourself as a powerful brand. I have chaired a professional committee for over 8 years and we meet from 7.30 to 8.30 a.m. and occasionally to 9 am. We have never started the meeting late or ended it late! I chair many others and I will be on time 99% of time.

I have a reputation for keeping time. It is part of my branding effort. I have little respect for people who do not keep time. Ordinarily they are unreliable and weak brands. This is an area of life that is easy to improve.

In some cultures like Germany, it is commonly taken as a personal affront to be late and they will cancel important business or social appointments on this score alone.

2. To build a powerful brand of yourself you must be passionate at what you do. I once worked for a large tea company and my calling/visiting card besides my name had the inscription "Passionate about Tea". And those who knew me will tell you I was passionate about it! I have heard someone comment that if I worked at Sameer with the same passion heaven would be the limit for "Yana". I am intending to print new business cards screaming "Yana where the rubber meets the Road"! Like Martin Luther said once- if you are a sweeper sweep to the glory of God.

I say if you are a teacher here tonight teach with passion; whatever your vocation give it your best. If you cannot account for the day don't bother to wake up and burn energy and fuel through the Nairobi traffic. If you do not show up on time to passionately deliver a measurable product you will not be a powerful brand. I get to work often earlier than 6.30 a.m. to keep my brand equity higher than the competition! My friend Bill Lay the CEO of General Motors sometimes comes for coffee to my office before 7 a.m.!

Martin Oduor Otieno the CEO of KCB Group gives me a 7 a.m. appointment! This is the branding I am talking about! These men are passionate about the work they do!

3. You must learn how to deliver extra-ordinary service. You must be reliable to your customers- and this applies whether you are talking of a finance department staff, HR or any enterprise. For 10 year we have run a small family business with my wife in a service industry dominated by big competitor firms. Our customer base is largely what I would call the 5-star institutional market. Our customer retention in that decade has been close to 95% - the greatest reason for this is that we are reliable in service delivery! Most great managers and leaders are head hunted for their extra ordinary service delivery which portrays them as powerful brands.

4. Understand globalization. I will never forget a picture that appeared in the Economist somewhere in the late 90's showing a Maasai herdsman looking after his cattle with his legs traditionally crossed and talking on a mobile

phone- it looked so distant then; it became a reality so soon thereafter.
The world is not a global village anymore but a virtual one! Jobs are no longer limited to within borders. The boundaries are no longer in existence except in our politicized minds! Our competition for the jobs and market share is not local - it is global. Entrepreneurial competition is also now global. I am incoming chairman of Help Age International the leading global Non-Governmental Organization on ageing with headquarters in London. I fly out on a Wednesday night to attend board meetings and other functions on Thursday and Friday and I am back in Nairobi on Saturday night! I tell people to stop complaining about Chinese and get their acts together- China is here to stay! We must be prepared to compete with China and anyone else on a global level.

Today Indians are sub-contracting Kenyans on technology for back office operations; the government of Kenya has announced that each constituency will have a technology village. In the Sameer Export Processing Zones we have American Corporations run by Kenyans on Kenyan soil but the call centre customer has no clue and does not care who handles the call!

The world has truly flattened. To appropriately brand yourself, you must understand globalization and the flattening of the world. I heard a serious joke the other day that not long ago mothers threatened their kids in America to think of the starving Indians and eat their food; I hear that today they are implored to read or an Indian will take their jobs! To project yourself as a powerful brand in the world we must understand globalization.

5. Jobs have been re-engineered and continue to be re-engineered by technology. I joined Sameer Africa 2 years ago. Six of us had 6 secretaries. Today we share 2!It takes weeks or months before anyone types a letter for me in the office! Today you can buy your air-ticket from the comfort of your office or home; print your boarding pass and show up at immigration. Travel agency has been totally re-engineered by technology- what next? You must think and brand yourself appropriately!

6.To create a brand of yourself you must stop thinking employment/employee and begin to see yourself as an independent contractor irrespective of whether you are a cleaner, a CEO, a teacher or a middle executive. No independent contractor will refuse to show up for work or do a shoddy job because the repercussions will be major in lost income and bad future references. A couple of years ago a Jewish friend who thought I was a good brand stopped me at a roundabout to offer to ask whether I would take a job contract with a certain company! I did and it was one of my most lucrative jobs. Not long ago I negotiated a very good job contract in a Java Coffeehouse! I tell people that I am not employed by Sameer Africa- I work with Sameer Africa and my intentions are to passionately deliver an extra-ordinary performance that will raise my brand equity higher!

Begin to be known as the best Accountant around; the best lawyer; the best sales person; the best at whatever you do- it is at the heart of the brand you wish to become.

You are Chairman/CEO/of life; forget that you work for someone. It is liberating like you cannot imagine.
In the same way Coca cola, Yana, Keringet are powerful brands, you need to make Kamau, Otieno or Kioko a powerful brand! You must understand that it does not work any longer to tell a prospective employer that I was Finance Director, or General Manager of XYZ- You must say what it is you

achieved- A measurable achievement! I know this one man that was CEO of a company that then fired him many years ago and for the last 20 years all he has told anybody who cares to listen is that he used to be the CEO of XYZ....! He made a poor brand of himself and no one ever employed him again.

7.To brand yourself, you must pass what one management writer called the Painter test. Imagine that your painter did not turn up for work would you pay him on a daily rate? Why is it then that a manager who habitually misses work and deadlines only gets away with a down grading on his/her annual appraisal while a painter would go without pay? Would you recommend a painter who misses to show up or does a shoddy job? In the same measure a Brand You requires that you pass this test. This test is increasingly becoming the measure in an era of performance management.

8. Branding yourself for success demands that you exercise power that is far beyond what is vested in your employment, contract or work enviroment. I tell those wishing to grow their careers that authority is never given; authority must be grabbed.

Most well branded managers know that you take action and then seek affirmation- Powerlessness is indeed a state of mind.
I have done things in the past that even my immediate boss could not have the "power" or "authority" to do. I once successfully recommended to my boss's boss to relieve him of his job and give it to me. I got it without undermining anyone!

9. Powerful branding demands a high level of moral authority. This is the highest form of authority anyone can have- far higher and transcendent than any form of formal authority. Moral authority will give you access to people and places you have never imagined. It increases your brand visibility.

This is the kind of authority Mother Teresa, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King etc had. Moral authority gives you access to a very large circle of influence. I am sure Nobel Laureate Wangari Maathai will be remember far into the future for the moral authority she built than for the fact that she was in parliament! Recently I conceived an idea to strengthen the activities of Palmhouse Foundation- an educational trust I co-founded with my wife and whose mission is to finance the secondary education of bright and deserving children.

I invited 13 extremely highly regarded and placed Kenyans to become the Advisory and Oversight Board. Some are men and women I would otherwise hesitate to ask for any kind of favor because of their high status in society. Not one of them turned down the request! And why?

What authority did I have? I have moral authority. Moral authority belongs to those who offer themselves for the well being of others. The reward you get is a powerful circle of influence and a very high brand visibility!

Many of you know me for higher positions I have held in society but I can guarantee you that none of those positions would beat the Palmhouse Foundation and its moral signature on my life.

10.Personal branding demands higher credibility. Credibility comes from trust. I recommend a book by the chairman of one of the leading companies in the USA titled "winners never cheat". Those looking to establish a truly transcendent brand must be trusted. I have on many occasions told the story of a man who years ago offered me a seven digit "thank you" for something he perceived I did for him. I was aware that I had done nothing out of my work/job and he had won the contract transparently and performed it judiciously. I turned down his thank you offer. To this day he remains perhaps one of my greatest brand testimony to many in his very wide and global circle of influence! Credibility and trust are central to protecting your brand equity! Nothing will kill your self confidence and self worth as taking a bribe and no matter how rich you become through this avenue, you will remain a weak brand in the market. I know many seemingly successful and rich people who would pay anything to increase their brand presence but their credibility kills it!

11.To increase brand visibility it would help to build yourself a website. I have had one since 2003! Some of the most incredible lessons I learn today are from some of you who visit and post messages on my website.

It is need not be the most state of the art. Very soon a website will become as much a necessity as an email address and if you do not have one you are "mteja" - you cannot be reached.

Four months ago I received an email from Australia from a man I do not know.
He was looking for the founder/chairman of Group Four Security a gentleman by the name Ed Van Tongeren. He told me in an email that he had been looking for him for a long time because he once saved his life many years ago but they lost contact. When he went to the World Wide Web and searched, the only Ed Van Tongeren was mention in a speech I posted on my website. I was able to connect the two gentlemen. I trust you understand the power of the website.

12.Finally learn and upgrade your skills to improve the brand you! Read voraciously. I am an accountant, lawyer and motivational public speaker!

To retain my command on these and many areas I have to read widely. Only this way can you learn to anticipate the future! People ask me where we get the time. I respond by saying to them redeem time! Many people spend unnecessary time on TV, and reading newspaper from end to end. Like my chairman likes to put it by the time you finish reading the news paper your morale is so reduced by the bad news that are the hallmark of our newspapers that your output is greatly reduced. I read all my three papers in about 10 minutes and if I missed to read them I would not notice. I can go without TV for days. I choose to do things like reading that enhances my brand.

Having spoken about how to set targets and brand ourselves for success, I will conclude by trying to answer the question often posed;

How much success does a man need?

I will attempt to answer this question with a short story told by the famous Russian writer Leo Tolstoy in his book- "How much land does a man need".

In this book he narrates the story of a man who was asked to walk all the land he needed as long as he had to be at the starting point before darkness.

The deal then was that he would get all the land as far as he walked and back.
He started at day break and walked and walked and walked. Every time he thought it was time to start heading back he would think of a little more land to walk ahead.

The sun started threatening to go down and he started walking back. The sun was now threatening to set faster. He began to run. He ran, and ran and ran.

He tried harder and faster. Finally as the darkness was about to fall he crossed the finishing line with final leap and fell on the ground with blood oozing out of his mouth he died! His servant who had accompanied him dug a shallow grave long and deep enough to bury his master's dead body. Leo Tolstoy answered his question- how much land does a man need? - Only enough to cover him from the head to the toe.

How much success do you need?

Thank you and God bless you.