Continuing from where I left off… More soon!
Browsers
Firefox – I’ve completely moved over to this browser now. When I first used it I admit I wasn’t impressed and soon got rid of it, but I gave it another chance and it won me over. The best thing about it is the tabbed browsing so I can view several websites without taking up any room on the taskbar. Another plus is the many extensions available meaning that your browsing experience can truly be a unique one.
Opera – Like Firefox, Opera offers a pop-up blocker and tabbed browsing. It has a very clean interface and one of the features I like is that in the address bar it says the percentage of the website loaded and then how many images have downloaded and the total amount on that page. The only thing I don’t particularly like about Opera is that you either have to pay or put up with adverts (admittedly they are small text ads, but I prefer Firefox which has no ads or a price tag).
Netscape – I can’t say I know much about Netscape because I rarely use it, although it seems to be exactly like Firefox with a few integrated Netscape extras (Email, Weather, Local News, etc.). As I don’t use many Netscape services regularly I’ll stick to Firefox, but I figured it was worth a mention.
i-Screen EC – I’d definately recommend a high speed internet connection to use this to its full potential. This is more like a free media centre than a browser as it has various sections where it lets you listen to selected streaming music, watch commericals, funny clips, movie trailers, play games (either online or downloaded), view special advertisements and spend some time in their designated shopping area or “Mall”. It’s very new so their isn’t a great deal of content, but some which can pass the time for a while. I don’t know if it’ll take off but I think it has great potential and is worth a look.
3B – This is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before… It’s like a little village that you use your keyboard directions to “stroll” around and websites appear as billboards on buildings all around you. From a distance it can be difficult to tell what the website is for, but the closer you get the clearer it is. You can click to see any interesting websites in full screen as a normal website would show, and visit other villages (in the entertainment city, for example, you have villages for music and art), even adding your own and building it up with websites you enjoying going to. If that wasn’t enough of a novelty, you can take the subway or go to the airport to find other cities or use a map to click to a section you want to go to and travel by taxi (which is a faster and automatic way of getting there instead of “strolling”)! It can take a while to initially load cities and villages, but it is a completely different way of viewing websites that’s for sure!
Miscellaneous
Weather Watcher – This is a nice little download. Just put in your nearest town and it will give you the weather for your area currently, over the next few hours and the next few days. You can view information such as temperature, wind speed, visibility, sunset and sunrise for practically any town in the world. A nice added feature is the ability to view satellite / weather related maps (even set them as your desktop picture) of various countries.
Audacity – I’m not a huge user of Audacity but from what I’ve seen it’s a great piece of software. You can use this program to record your own music with a microphone or line inputs, cut tracks, use special effects on a song, split tracks, merge pieces together and a whole host of things I don’t even know about! For any budding singer or musician (or someone who justs want to experiment) this is a must have download.
DVD Region+CSS Free Lite – Firstly I have to say that this is not a free product, although a trial is available on the website. I like watching DVDs but the problem occurs that you’re stuck to one region – not anymore! This program doesn’t alter your hardware settings as some other DVD Region removers do, and it’s also perfectly safe to use. It works with many popular software DVD players (PowerDVD, Windows Media Player, etc.) and is the only program of its kind I have managed to get working. Those those more adventurous than me, it also allows you to copy DVDs that are CSS protected. Different versions are available, but this does all I need it to.
CyberTime – Times Map – Not much to explain about this download – it has a map of the world with popular cities you can roll your mouse over to find out the various time zones. Useful, simple, reliable.
Thank you for the Cyber-time link. I might find that useful.
Yay – one of the programs I listed someone finds useful! I was starting to think everyone had everything