Windows

The Fine Art Of Finding

Posted by on Oct 10, 2007 | 4 Comments

My senior course on how to obtain freebies safely has attracted more than student interest. Several local tutors have asked me about it and I have received comments asking more about the content. In response, I will talk more about it here with the provision that this is still experimental, and the nature of the subject is that presentations must be altered in response to the changing environment. Therefore I prefer to emphasize the techniques of how to find out what is available from relatively safe and trusted sources instead of presenting a list of URLs which students can dutifully visit and click on downloads. Besides, any list of freebie URLs is bound to be idiosyncratic.

We started the session by suggesting that a good way to find interesting things is by referral from a trusted source such at Lockergnome or SeniorNet. For instance, Meryl K. Evans listed some neat things recently. She gave references to several places to get information on words. That might not seem interesting enough to build a course around, but I know that some of my students like to study the origin of words and would appreciate the links. Naturally I also suggested that students look up my old postings for gems such as my reference to Iconoid. One of the other sources I showed them is PCDon. Don has a nice selection of freebies and writes a column published in our local paper. Any tutor can easily suggest many other sources such as PC Magazine. The idea of using a filter to sort out good and bad places to visit and look for freebies sounds obvious, but it had not occurred to some of my students. They thought simply searching on keywords and downloading the first thing that popped up would be sufficient.

Simply searching even with advice is often inadequate. I suggested to one client that she download and install Spybot Search and Destroy. She searched on "spybot" and went to the first site to pop up. What she got was not what I wanted her to have.

For the free downloads, I suggested that free does not always mean second-rate and showed them both OpenOffice and StarWriter 8 (and the rest of the Google package. Picasa was particularly popular.) We talked briefly about other powerful applications that could be found such as image and video processing software. Then we spent some time talking about free security programs. Because of time limitations, I only demonstrated AVG, but as Cindy Solberg points out there are other options such as Windows Defender. Throughout the discussion, I emphasized that I was not endorsing any single application, but that I was trying to show them how to find things.

The next part of the course was to assume that none of the students would become power users and loading their computers with resource-depleting software is not an issue. That allowed me to show them several types of eye candy. Although some of these downloads are frivolous, I think that the benefit of building a student’s confidence is worth the time. In addition to giving them experience in downloading and installing software, it also helps to establish their sense of control. Many seniors are concerned about harming their computers by pressing the wrong key. I want to empower them to reach out and feel free to make appropriate changes.

Since the most boring part of most PCs is the desktop, I showed them several places where they could download high-res images for free. I also suggested several desktop management packages, but in the interest of time only demonstrated Webshots. We discussed applications that allow multiple desktops, and I showed them one, but nobody seemed to be interested. We talked about how they could put their own photographs on the desktop, and reduce clutter by using Iconoid.

They perked up a bit more when I showed them how to change the appearance of folders for easy identification (for instance, Rainbow Folders). We discussed the operation of Caps Lock and by searching on Google, quickly found and downloaded a small patch that makes the perverted operation normally found on a PC into the rational thing like old-fashioned typewriters used complete with a release by pressing the shift key.

We finished with ObjectDock and a few other minor amenities before I mentioned SourceForge. I use an application called Synergy from there, which allows me to control several computers with a single keyboard, monitor, and mouse. They thought that was interesting, but wondered why I would be interested in having more than one computer.

Next time I will likely work in a font organizer and several free font sites. Audio clips are nice, but one has to put limits somewhere.

Any feedback from other tutors who have tried the same thing would be welcome.

Click here to read about my new tutorial on helping seniors. The new version has grown considerably over the original. It has more topics and anecdotes, and fewer typos. While you’re at it, check out my expanded tutorial on decision theory.

  • Ray

    I have found that most seniors are into pictures of their grandchildren. One of the best freeware programs is Irfanview. This is a powerful photo editing program. Be sure to download plug-ins on same site.

  • http://luem42.com Mark Donaldson

    If you want free check out my free COOLSITES newsletter at http://luem42.com

  • http://wp3.lockergnome.com/nexus/eldergeek/ eldergeek

    Hola Sherman, Don Crowder (AKA Eldergeek) here.

    Every computer geek I know has a list of favorite freeware apps and, for the most part, they aren’t impressed with someone else’s list but nevertheless, here are a few that I find especially useful.

    The first thing any malware must do is insure that it’s turned on when the computer is turned on. To do this, it must write instructions to Windows Registry. Mike Lin’s Startup Monitor is a tiny little app which won’t allow any changes to Windows Registry without your authorization, via a little pop-up box which gives you a yes/no choice. Once it’s installed, there’s a new entry in the Start menu entitled “Stop Startup Monitor”. Which is useful if, for example, you’re visiting Microsoft Update.
    http://www.mlin.net/StartupMonitor.shtml

    Even seasoned veterans sometimes get carried away with downloads and wind up staring at a “mystery” zip file, trying to remember what it is and why they downloaded it. Here’s where a little application named File Note is worth it’s weight in gold. Right click on any file, click on “FileNote…” and your default text editor (usually Notepad) opens a plain text file, bearing the same name as the file you’ve chosen (for example if the file was ‘something.zip’ FileNote creates a file named ‘something.txt’). You need only paste in a description (from the website where you downloaded it), or type a description of your own choosing, and save the text file. This is also useful for adding descriptive text to photos.
    http://www.moonsoftware.com/freeware.asp (scroll down, it’s the next-to-last file on the page)

    XnView isn’t as well known as Irfanview but I much prefer it for editing jpeg images and it has plenty of nice features which make it a valuable component of my graphics toolbox.
    http://www.xnview.com/

    The DC Enhancer is just about the coolest little stand-alone tool I’ve ever seen for tweaking digital photos. It only has a few controls so don’t be afraid to use them all and be prepared for the magic.
    http://www.mediachance.com/digicam/enhancer.htm

    The Open Office suite is pretty darn awesome but sometimes you just want a nice word processor that’s lean and mean without the crippling limitations found in Wordpad. In those situations, Abiword is the perfect solution.
    http://www.abisource.com/

    Once you get to be a freeware junkie, like me, you have several applications for any given file type. You eventually learn to associate that file type with whichever application you use, most of the time, with that type of file. This is good but doesn’t help much when you want to open a given file with something other than its associated default application. This is where the OpenExpert becomes a terrific application. Right click, scroll to Open With, and select from a customizable list of applications. Quick, easy, thank you OpenExpert.
    http://www.baxbex.com/openexpert.html

    These are some that I thought you might not be aware of. The rest of my personal list is available on my website.
    http://www.don-guitar.com/donspick.html

  • http://www.vintageviolets-by-twospirit.com Dri-Anna Davis

    Hi Sherman:
    If you already have not, I would think that opening and using PDF’s would be a good subject. Even AARP’s site has PDF’s and their online Formulary for Medicare D is in PDF Format.
    Something for you to consider with regard to addressing PDF. Adobe’s Reader has always been and still is a mess, very slow, not very intuitive and they seem to be always in the process of plugging holes from the bad guys.

    I have been using Foxit: http://www.foxitsoftware.com/ . Foxit opens a PDF very quickly. Using it as a PDF Reader is a snap. Foxit upgrades often, they have just come out with Version 2.2.

    And there is a lot of nice “Candy” accessible in the Foxit Tool Bar. I believe that Foxit was developed “for the rest of us” so to speak.

    Another subject you might consider is Internet Radio and/or Audio Steaming. Foxit has an on-board player that allows one to select streaming music of just about every flavor.
    I realize that the words, “Internet Radio” and “Streaming” Might be daunting to some Seniors. However, even sites that do not have a player allow you to stream their contact if you have your own Player.

    The thought of using a player is scary to a lot of folks. However, WinAmp, Windows Media Player, to name just two are very easy to use if you just want to stream/play something. In fact many of the Internet Radio sites have a button that when pushed will turn on Windows Media Player or Real Player (Yuk!) if they are installed on the computer. I opted for WinAmp and made it my default player.

    One more thought. Present “Secunia” to them. It is easy to use and a very good tool to determine if any of their software has unpatched holes.

    Ya take care, Ya Hear
    Dri-Anna