15 September 2009

Software Freedom Day - 19 September

15 September 2009 | Loquaciousness

Saturday 19 September is International Software Freedom Day. Software Freedom Day aims to promote and inform about programs that are freely available to everyone to install and use. You may be using some of these well known programs:

* Firefox – Web browser
* Thunderbird – Mail client
* Open Office – An office suite for word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, graphics, databases and more.
* Scribus – Desktop publishing
* Inkscape – Drawing program
* Gimp – Image editing
* VLC – Media player

To help you become familiar with these and others there are two events organised over two weekends.

Event 1: The Stall

Come to the Software Freedom Day Stall where we’ll be handing out free software as well as demonstrating and discussing the software available. If you have any questions about Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) this is a good place to start. Come and have talk to a local expert, or try one of the programs one one of the demonstration machines. Free CDs will be handed out (while available) and many examples of FOSS software for use on Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Location: Computer Markets, Old Bus Depot Markets
Date: Saturday, 19th September 2009
Time: 10am to 2pm

Event 2: Install Fest
If you want help installing your free software, or just want to ask some more questions, then come along to the install fest. Bring your
computer and your questions to:

Location: Room N101, Ground Floor, Computer Science and Information Technology building, ANU
Date: Saturday, 26th September 2009
Time: 10am to 3pm

For more information:

General information. http://www.softwarefreedomday.org/
Information about the Canberra events http://softwarefreedomday.org/teams/Canberra
Information on some of the programs being given away http://www.theopendisc.com/programs/
Open Source as alternative http://www.osalt.com/
One of the distributions of Linux available on the day http://www.ubuntu.com/
Another distribution of Linux available on the day http://fedoraproject.org/

Contact Details
Organiser Paul Wayper
Email paulway@mabula.net
Phone 6251 5257

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H1NG02:59 pm 21 Sep 09

I absolutely loathe Internet Explorer. Firefox is a must on any PC I use. The add-ins you can get for it are fantastic as well. The add-ins I use include ForecastFox (Weather Forcast Toolbar), bandwidth throttle and a Download Manager.

OpenOffice.org is almost passable as an Office app. Good for a free application in its own right but not a very good substitute for MS Office. I still use Office XP which is pretty much trouble free.

Lots of good free apps out there. My current favourite is Google SketchUp.

ilmarinen11:53 am 21 Sep 09

Yes; may have something to do with the fact that they sell Microsoft products? 🙂
http://www.ubuntu.com/ is a good place to start.

You can find out more about OpenOffice at http://www.openoffice.org/
It’s available for Windows, OS X, as well as Linux.

VITURE12:28 am 18 Sep 09

Hi thank you guys for the information on Ubuntu, were I have my computer fixed, they advised me to stay with Microsoft as Ubuntu was harder to operate, I suppose they would say that, I tried to buy Office professional editon 2003, I was informed they no longer sell it, I don’t like the new office 2007, Someone also told me Ubuntu was quite a good package, I needed more input about Ubantu from others who have tried it.

Loquaciousness3:30 pm 17 Sep 09

Hank said :

Is there any free software for video editing?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_free_software_packages#Video_editing

Hank1:20 pm 17 Sep 09

Is there any free software for video editing?

Jivrashia11:39 am 17 Sep 09

Skidbladnir said :

At times, Firefox can be a fantastic way to turn your laptop cpu into a portable stove.

!!
And all this time I thought foxy was just being VERY affectionate…

Up The Duffy11:05 pm 16 Sep 09

toadstool said “On the subject of software, does anyone know where we can get a copy of Office 2003? We’ve tried the new Office 2007 and can’t stand the new format of the menus. Alternatively, can the menus on 2007 be converted to the 2003 look? Why they decided to change it I don’t know. The original version was great.”

Buy a MSDN subscription msdn.microsoft.com/en-au/default.aspx (All Microsoft software) Costs you heaps, or just work for somebody that gives you access to one. Then watch the bandwidth usage.

If you are a Internode customer their mirror supports a lot of open source software un-metered download.

And the new Opera 10 web browser is now better, works good on Ubuntu too at last.

toadstool4:23 pm 16 Sep 09

On the subject of software, does anyone know where we can get a copy of Office 2003? We’ve tried the new Office 2007 and can’t stand the new format of the menus. Alternatively, can the menus on 2007 be converted to the 2003 look? Why they decided to change it I don’t know. The original version was great.

Skidbladnir12:35 pm 16 Sep 09

At times, Firefox can be a fantastic way to turn your laptop cpu into a portable stove.

Mr Evil12:22 pm 16 Sep 09

Cheers for the Firefox advice – will give it a go. I had a quick look at the Mozilla website last night, and have to admit that it did sound pretty impressive.

I just have a problem thinking that something free can actually be good. 🙂

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