Software Good Free Utility/Productivity Programs

Joe said:
Oracle Database ==>MySQL
Oracle Database==>PostgreSQL

http://www.mysql.com/
http://www.postgresql.org/
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Yep, these can also replace Microsoft SQL Server in many instances I would think. MySQL is now owned by Oracle, but there are a couple of good forks called Percona and MariaDB. The latter is developed by "Monty", the original owner/developer of MySQL.
 
Indian Summer said:
Yep, these can also replace Microsoft SQL Server in many instances I would think. MySQL is now owned by Oracle, but there are a couple of good forks called Percona and MariaDB. The latter is developed by "Monty", the original owner/developer of MySQL.
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Rankin's "alternatives" pamphlet is dated 2011, so may not be entirely up-to-date.

Percona
http://www.percona.com/

MariaDB
https://mariadb.org/

See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MariaDB

MariaDB is a community-developed fork of the MySQL relational database management system, the impetus being the community maintenance of its free status under the GNU GPL. As a fork of a leading open source software system, it is notable for being led by its original developers and triggered by concerns over direction by an acquiring commercial company Oracle.[5] Contributors are required to share their copyright with Monty Program AB.[6]

The intent is also to maintain high compatibility with MySQL, ensuring a "drop-in" replacement capability with library binary equivalency and exact matching with MySQL APIs and commands.[7] It includes the XtraDB storage engine as a replacement for InnoDB,[8] as well as a new storage engine, Aria, that intends to be both a transactional and non-transactional engine perhaps even included in future versions of MySQL.[9]

Its lead developer is Michael "Monty" Widenius, the founder of MySQL and Monty Program AB. He had previously sold his company, MySQL AB, to Sun Microsystems for 1 billion USD. MariaDB is named after Monty's younger daughter, Maria.[10]
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Joe said:
Rankin's "alternatives" pamphlet is dated 2011, so may not be entirely up-to-date.
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I think it's fine - although Oracle now owns MySQL, it's still open source and is released with either a GPL licence or optionally a proprietary licence.
 
The free audio player WinAmp will be closing down soon--by December 20, according to one article.

http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/11/20/end-era-popular-media-player-winamp-closing-december-20/

I have used WinAmp to play .MP3s, .WAVs and .FLACs for years. I like it a lot better than Windows Media Player.

Several articles are advising people to visit the website www.winamp.com and download the latest version while you still can.

There is also a version for the Mac. Another for Android.

I'd also be interested in any recommendations for substitutes, and for sites that might make the current or older versions available for download even after the WinAmp site closes.
 
I used a similar player on Linux called XMMP I think. Not sure if that's available on Windows or if it simply was the Linux version of WinAmp. In more recent years I've used MPlayer which can play all sorts of audio and video formats. I think there's a Windows version of it.
 
Gizmo has a column about a free "super pointer" application for Windows, called Pointer Stick.

http://www.techsupportalert.com/con...our-mouse-pointer-heres-ultimate-solution.htm

Could be very useful, especially for visual presentations.

The program is a tiny download, works on Windows XP and above, and is malware-free according to Virus Total and Web of Trust. Get it from http://www.softwareok.com/?Download=PointerStick, where you'll find both 32- and 64-bit versions available. It's a portable app too, so there's nothing to install and it's easy to delete if you don't like it.
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Indian Summer said:
I used a similar player on Linux called XMMP I think. Not sure if that's available on Windows or if it simply was the Linux version of WinAmp. In more recent years I've used MPlayer which can play all sorts of audio and video formats. I think there's a Windows version of it.
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Gizmo has a column on best free MP3 players.

http://www.techsupportalert.com/content/best-free-music-players-and-organizers.htm

I think these are all Windows programs. Not sure which ones have Linux versions or counterparts.
 
Joe said:
Bob Rankin has a column about ten free cloud backup services.

http://askbobrankin.com/ten_free_cloud_backup_services.html?awt_l=J0thh&awt_m=JdU0ofhKauP6SL

Two that sound interesting to me are MediaFire

http://www.mediafire.com/

and ADrive

http://www.adrive.com/personal_basic

each of which offers 50 Gigabytes of storage free.
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Thanks Joe, that's good information. My biggest concern with many of these companies is "will they be here tomorrow", or will my data disapear if they go out of business.
 
beancounter said:
Thanks Joe, that's good information. My biggest concern with many of these companies is "will they be here tomorrow", or will my data disapear if they go out of business.
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That is my concern as well. There ought to be some way of easily transferring your data from one cloud storage provider to another, in the event of them going out of business, or simply I want to switch to a better deal.
 
I retract what I said about Incapsula. They were great for the first few weeks, then suddenly my websites became inaccessible. I've been trying to fix the issue all afternoon and I still have nothing.
 
Calliegirl said:
I retract what I said about Incapsula. They were great for the first few weeks, then suddenly my websites became inaccessible. I've been trying to fix the issue all afternoon and I still have nothing.
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From reading their website, it seems it should be easy to stop using it and revert back to your original setup though. (Just update your DNS settings.) Of course, it takes a while for changes to DNS settings to propagate through to everywhere on the Internet. (A couple of hours or so? A day?)
 
It turned out the problem was that they gave me incorrect settings. When you remove your site, they give you the DNS settings to change back to. The ones they gave me were wrong.
 
Bob Rankin has come out with a new newsletter called The RankinFile (I just saw the pun, duh!). It seems a bit more geared to small business than personal use, but still seems to have plenty of good stuff. You can visit the website or subscribe free via e-mail.

He has a recent article on free or cheap alternatives to QuickBooks:

http://rankinfile.com/seven_alternatives_to_quickbooks.html
 
Bob Rankin has an article in which he advocates ditching commercial software in favor of freeware or webware (possibly as part of the process of ditching XP).

It's a good article, but it often just links to other articles he has written. So you sort of have to follow the daisy chain of links to get to all the content.

Nevertheless, worth reading IMHO.

GO FREE! Replace Your Paid Software
Category: Software

Read more: http://askbobrankin.com/go_free_replace_your_paid_software.html#ixzz2zdfV1Gop

http://askbobrankin.com/go_free_replace_your_paid_software.html?awt_l=J0thh&awt_m=JSmyAzFkjuP6SL
 
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I have been having problems with the Adobe Flash Player Installer, particularly with respect to its not having a "minimize" button.

Well, I've found a solution--at least, something that works well enough for me.

There is a freeware program called ResizeEnable. www.digitallis.co.uk
It's author describes it as: "It's a very ugly system hack that sits in your system tray and attempts to make windows
that can't usually be resized, resizeable." It came out in 2003, but it seems to work fine on my Windows 7 computer.
 
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