Get that computer ready for back-to-school
As summer’s end draws near, parents and students will begin to prepare for the onset of another school year. Part of the preparations will be purchasing school supplies, and an essential component on many lists will be a laptop computer or tablet. Unfortunately, the initial expense of a computer can be compounded by the cost of software needed to make it truly functional for a student. Luckily, there are numerous free or moderately priced apps available on the internet which will ease the financial burden.
An essential program for any computing device is an anti-virus suite. There are several excellent retail programs, but be aware of the available free alternatives. Windows 10 comes with its anti-virus program, called Defender, pre-installed but if you’d like something more robust and customizable you could try a free internet security suite from the company that supplies your internet connection. Users of Cogeco get two free licences for the highly-rated F-secure internet security suite (www.cogeco.ca/en/internet/ security-services) and Bell customers can install McAfee security for free (www.bell.ca/Bell_Internet/Security).
Other free, highly rated anti-virus programs are AVG free (www.avg.com/en-ca/ free-antivirus-download) and Avast (https://www.avast.com), which has a version for Windows and Mac computers as well as mobile devices.
All tablets and smartphones come with pre-installed email programs which work well. Windows 10 has its own Windows Mail program but it’s very limited and a good alternative is Mozilla Thunderbird (www.thunderbird.net) which is free, has the simple, functional look of the old Outlook Express program, will open several different email accounts at once, and stores your messages on the computer.
The predominant use of a student computer or tablet probably will be taking notes and writing assignments. Microsoft Office with Word, Excel, and Powerpoint is the program of choice for many individuals and businesses and Microsoft is offering several ways to get it for free.
A basic, free version of its Office suite of programs is available at the Google Play store and Apple’s App store for any device with a screen size of 10.1 inches or less. However, for some reason, Word on the iPad is unable to access documents stored online at Google Drive, although this is not a problem with the Android version. For laptop and desktop computers a student or teacher with a valid educational email address can get Office free (http://tinyurl.com/y9z8rla2).
Microsoft is also offering a free online version of Office complete with Word, Excel and Powerpoint (https://tinyurl.com/pbl63mu). The applications are limited in terms of features and only run in a browser window which means that you’ll need to be connected to the internet in order to work on a document, spreadsheet of presentation.
A viable alternative to Office is the free LibreOffice suite (www.libreoffice.org) which is fully compatible with Microsoft Office programs. Ableword (http:// www.ableword.net) is a nice, basic, free word processor which can read and create Word and PDF documents and convert between the two formats.
Microsoft’s Publisher has long been a favourite for producing dazzling brochures and publications, but a free alternative is Scribus (www.scribus.net), although your publication will be saved as an Adobe PDF document.
If you’d like to produce interactive presentations with tons of multimedia features then Microsoft’s Sway is free for the iPad and Windows 10 computers and as an online application. The Sway website (https://sway.com) has information and video tutorials.
Adobe Photoshop is the ultimate photo editing tool but it’s incredibly expensive. Free alternatives for your laptop are Gimp (http://www.gimp.org) or the more complicated Paint.net (www.getpaint.net). On your tablet try Photoshop Express (https://www.photoshop.com/products/ photoshopexpress).
For Android or Ipad tablets and phones you’ll be getting apps from Google Play or the App store, but things can get a bit risky with free programs for Windows. To avoid installing useless add-ons, getting your browser hijacked, or being tricked into purchasing the retail version of a free program, carefully read installation windows and instructions carefully.
A brilliant resource for free Windows programs, is Ninite (https://ninite.com) which has dozens of free programs, including many I’ve mentioned, which are devoid of spyware or malware. Visit the site, browse around, and see what interests you.