Readers share free programs they’ve found to be useful

I’m taking a break from writing the column today. Oh, I’m here and thankfully I’ll still get paid. But today you will do the writing and I’ll just be your typist.

A couple of months ago I wrote a column about some of the free programs that I find useful and that aren’t loaded with malware like some you’ll find on the web. At the end of that column I invited readers to tell me of programs that they’ve found useful. And there was a good response. So today I’ll let the readers explain. In most cases I’ve edited comments for length.

Too many readers responded to include everyone today so I had to make some hard choices. Sometimes the choice came down to space – some needed more length than I could spare and stay within the space that newspapers allow me.

First, a warning. I’ve looked at these programs and believe them to be safe but I have not used them extensively. So use your own judgment as far as deciding to try them. I now turn over the floor, or at least the keyboard, to you.

Irfan Photo software - www.irfanview. com. “Irfan is the ultimate graphics toolbox. Photoshop’s price is a killer and so is the learning curve. I’ve found whatever graphics task you need to do, if you Google it you’ll find step by step instructions for getting it done with Irfan.

Here’s another I like. I use Audacity (www. audacityteam.org/) for audio editing. It’s very powerful for digital editing of mp3 and wav files. I’ve even edited the music we use for our corporate VOIP system. People got tired of the same canned audio they heard.

If it’s free it’s for me.” — Bob Haine

Whatsapp – free telephone software www.whatsapp.com. Note from Bill: OK, I have to go back to work here so you’ll understand the next recommendation. There are various online services that let you make free telephone calls, including international calls. My wife, who frequently travels to Italy, uses one called Viber to keep in touch with me.

Now I’ll turn the keyboard back to the reader.

“My three kids live in Europe and we all agree that Whatsapp is a better choice than Viber.

For instance, using Whatsapp, we can have a family group with all five of us on the line at the same time. And we can send audio, video or photos using the app.” — No name given

Getting into PDFs – PDF-XChange Viewer. www.tracker-software. com/product/pdf-xchangeviewer. “Editing PDF files is important to me because of my job. I didn’t want to pay for Adobe’s expensive program but I had never found a good free substitute until recently. Then I found PDF-XChange Viewer. It works like a charm and the price is hard to beat at free.

I can add comments, pull out and copy text inside the PDF and even for search for text inside the PDF. There must be things this program can’t do when it comes to a PDF but I haven’t found them. The same company makes a commercial version and I’m so happy with the program that - even though I can’t imagine what that version adds - I may buy it just to thank them.” — James Macon

OK. Thanks to the readers for doing all the heavy lifting today. I enjoyed typing for you – we’ll have to try this again.