filezilla-project.org

Here is some more great, free & open-source software, this time it’s an FTP client, FileZilla. Something every webmaster needs is a good FTP client for uploading (& downloading) their web files (along with some hosting).

At just under 3MB, FileZilla is a quick download so you’ll never have to worry about using shareware FTP clients again. FileZilla is a fully featured program including;

• Simple to use, familiar FTP interface (GUI)
• Runs on Windows, Linux, OSX (& more)
• Includes a site manager (for one-click access to your websites)
• Can resume broker transfers
• Drag-and-drop UI
• Speed controls
• Folder permissions

… and everything else you’ll need for your FTP work.

This just had to be posted, one for all the Star Wars fans.

www.openoffice.org

While we’re on the subject of Office & productivity programs, let’s look at a non web-based solution, OpenOffice. The actual name of the suite is OpenOffice.org but don’t let the name fool you, this isn’t an online application like Google Docs but a fully fledged productivity suite that will do everything that Microsoft Office will plus a little bit more. Don’t forget, it’s also open-source and free. The standard install comes with a word processor, complete spreadsheet solution, presentation software just like PowerPoint, a dedicated drawing application (so adding diagrams to your documents is made easier) and even a database program to fill in for Microsoft Access.

The user interface of OpenOffice will be familiar to anyone who has used Microsoft Office before, so finding your way around and getting started will be easy and while OpenOffice does have it’s own standard file extensions, you have the option to save all your files by default in a huge range of formats, including Microsoft Office so you can open all your existing files without a problem (for Office 2007 files, you can use the Office 2007 File Converter for OpenOffice too).

Also included is built-in handling of PDF files, so instead of using Adobe Acrobat (or a free alternative like CutePDF), you are able to turn your documents into PDF files (for free) as a standard option & you have access to security features on your PDF files, so you can stop others editing, printing or even opening your PDF without the right password. This is a great solution if you need an Office program with a bit more functionality than Google Docs.

documents.google.com

Google Docs is great. It gives you a word processor, spreadsheet and presentation solution all for free, all online, all from your Google account. It is basically Office on the web, replacing well known Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint with a solution that lets you access your files from anywhere in the world. With a limit of 5,000 stored word docs and presentations & 1,000 spreadsheets, you have plenty of room for all your files and without the worry of a hard drive crash wiping all your important data.

Apart from creating and saving new documents, Google Docs also allows you to import existing files from most popular formats like Microsoft Office, Open Office and .CSV, so you can even use it to backup the documents you already have and transition totally to Google Docs if you want to.

Other great features include;

• Fast & familiar interface, like most Google sites, Docs is designed to download pages fast and each program is set out to be familiar to uses of other Office suites.
• Share your work with others. You can let others access your documents so that they can view your progress or even set them up us a collaborator so files can be created by a group of people. Great for team presentations and projects.
• Just like Gmail, with it’s access-anywhere approach, you can open, edit & export your files from anywhere in the world and they can all be organized into folders/ file type/importance

This article is part of a series showing you stuff you can do with your Google Account.

www.nationstates.net

NationStates is an online game that lets you run your own nation. You deal with the different issues your nation faces and your choices result in the civil rights, economy and political freedoms increasing or decreasing accordingly as your population grows. You name your nation, as well as it’s currency and national animal (which can also become the nation’s favorite snack), you even get to create your own flag.

You’ll deal with problems ranging from crime and health to education and the environment, with new issues arriving everyday for you to govern over. There are also the NationStates forums where you can chat with other Nations about issues and get involved in International Incidents (you can even declare war) which role playing fans should enjoy. Then there is also the NationStates General forum where you can find plenty of political, religious and all sorts of other ‘discussions’. Lots of fun!

http://fretsonfire.sourceforge.net/

This one is for all the Guitar Hero fans out there (which is a lot, considering the franchise has made over $1 billion in North America alone). Frets on Fire is a free, open-source game for the PC inspired by Guitar Hero, the gameplay involves emulating playing a guitar by hitting the right notes as you strum along, getting the right rhythm and timing is key. To play Frets on Fire, you can use your keyboard instead of a Guitar Hero controller by flipping it around and using the F1-F4 keys to hit the notes. However, you can use the official Guitar Hero controllers too! Some will plug straight in via USB while others (like the Wii version) might require a bit of tweaking but will work wirelessly and give you the feeling of playing the regular Guitar Hero with all the benefits of Frets on Fire!

What are the benefits exactly? Well apart from being totally free, there is a dedicated community supporting Frets on Fire, creating mods, skins and (best of all) tons of custom songs to play! Not only can you find the entire Guitar Hero back catalog of songs but plenty of other tracks by different artists. You can even make your own songs to play with the built-in song editor. A great place to start finding custom songs is the Frets on Fire wiki and the Frets on Fire fan forum where you can find hundreds of songs, including different difficult levels to suit new players all the way up to rock legends.

http://video.stumbleupon.com/

StumbleVideo is a service from StumbleUpon and works similar to the idea of stumbling websites except it’s just for videos. StumbleVideo pulls clips from different video sites like YouTube, Google Video and MySpace and let’s you give them a thumbs-up or thumbs-down. which will influence what kind of videos you get shown in the future. You can also pick from different video channels, so you only get shown video game or music (for example) clips if you like.

You don’t need a StumbleUpon account to get started but if you want your stumbles and ratings to be saved, you’ll need to sign up with one. There is no commenting on the videos at the moment, which is it’s only real drawback. This is a good service for those who already spend plenty of time on sites like YouTube, here are a couple of cool videos to get you started.

Some great freeware to check out

Cool video from the Line Rider flash game

http://www.utorrent.com/

µTorrent is a great torrent application with all the traits of great software - easy to use, small & efficient with lots of features! As far as being easy goes, it doesn’t get any easier than µTorrent, you just download the program and double-click. No installs, no setup - you just start adding torrents and downloading. The program itself isn’t even 1MB in size, in fact it’s current version (1.7.7) is only 214kB, so it’s a really tiny download too. µTorrent is also very stable, which is good for a torrent program that gets left running for big downloads. You don’t have to worry about memory leaks or other issues if you leave µTorrent running overnight, every night.

As for features, apart from the standard features you’d expect for downloading torrents like multiple simultaneous downloads, resumed downloads, skinning support, selecting individual files from torrents and bandwidth control, µTorrent also offer

• Scheduler so you can leave µTorrent running but it will only download at certain times (even at specific speeds if you want). This is great for getting the most out of your off-peak downloads.
• RSS Downloader which lets you pick up a feed from a tracker (torrent website) which will pick up all the latest downloads on offer for you to choose from or download automatically (great for keeping up to date with a series of shows you like).
• Web UI is a new feature to µTorrent and while it is still in beta it is available to use right now. This lets you control you µTorrent downloads on your computer from any other computer in the world via your web browser, so you never have to miss a download again.

Tip: On the μTorrent information screen (Help > About μTorrent…) try hitting the T key for a bonus.

http://www.stumbleupon.com/

StumbleUpon is a popular plugin for your web browser (with toolbars for Firefox and Internet Explorer) that’s helps you discover great new websites, videos, articles and more from around the web. The main feature of StumbleUpon is the Stumble button, when you click this it’s like channel surfing the web, bringing up a new page that other StumbleUpon users have liked and added. You can try out the demo on StumbleUpon.com before you sign up so you can see how it works.

You can give any site you’re on a thumbs up or a thumbs down using the toolbar and StumbleUpon will remember the kind of sites you like and show you more of them in the future, and vice versa with the kind of pages you don’t like. You can even add your own pages to StumbleUpon to share with other users. Even StuffToGet is on StumbleUpon so if you want to discover some great new things to see while surfing the Internet, sign up and start stumbling!

LogMeIn.com

LogMeIn is a great program for remotley accessing a PC. With it you can leave your home PC on and access it from the office, out on the road with your laptop (and an Internet connection) or while you’re on holidays interstate or overseas. There are different versions of the software but the free version is more than enough for simple remote control of a PC (more advanced versions include features like remote sound and drag-and-drop file transfer).

LogMeIn is available for both PCs and Macs and the setup is easy. You just sign up and install the small client file onto the PC (or Mac) you want to control and then from any web browser, you can click onto logmein.com and sign-in, then just select your computer and you’ll have remote access. With the free version, you can have access to up to 5 different computers on one account, so you can have you home PC, office workstation and your laptop all available at once. This also makes it handy for helping out friends & family with their computers (and for complete IT support solutions, LogMeIn offer software such as LogMeIn IT Reach). If you’re looking for a remote access solution that is easy to setup, secure and quick then LogMeIn is for you.