All About Freeware

Several Windows and Macintosh software applications are available for business card design purposes, although few are actually free to use. Here are two freeware programs of this type…

Clickable Card 3.0: Freeware program for designing a business card in Windows 98 or later. Images and different fonts can be used in the design process. Relatively fast to DOWNLOAD (1.6 MB).

Avery DesignPro: Enables the user to design business cards and other Avery products in Mac OSX. Includes many sample templates and graphics, but downloading this software will take some time. DOWNLOAD (262 MB)

There are also shareware/trialware programs of this kind, and some word processors or drawing applications can be set up for designing these cards.

Although computer software isn’t normally associated with Thanksgiving, a number of free programs, GUI themes, and screensavers are relevant to this holiday…

SCREENSAVERS, THEMES

Thanksgiving Season: Windows autumn and Thanksgiving themed screensaver. It also has music. Download (2.4 MB)

Thanksgiving Blessings: A theme for Windows 9x and ME; includes wallpaper, holiday-oriented icons, and a special color scheme. Download (1.1 MB)

OTHER SOFTWARE

Yum 3.0.1: Recipe collection program for Macintosh computers, with sample recipes and a grocery list feature. Download (3.5 MB)

Turkey Revenge: This is similar to the classic video game “Space Invaders”, except that the invaders are turkeys! It installs as a Windows screensaver and is controlled using the arrow keys. Download (0.3 MB)

OpenDOS is an open-source variation on the operating system DOS, which is more commonly known in its MS-DOS, FreeDOS, and DR-DOS versions. OpenDOS is legally free to use for non-commercial purposes, and is available for free download on the Internet (note: I recommend downloading DODL701.EXE).

After installing OpenDOS on an older computer, I found that it provides several memory management and security features which either aren’t offered or are more difficult to use in MSDOS. It has a GUI-style setup and configuration program which is relatively convenient.

I tested several commercial DOS programs from the ’80s and early ’90s under OpenDOS and all of them worked, despite probably being designed for MSDOS. The operating system also includes a text editor, an equivalent to MSCDEX, and many other useful utilities.

PC-BSD is an alternative computer operating system that is most closely related to Unix and FreeBSD. Version 7.0.1 of PC-BSD was recently introduced in late October; pcbsd.org reports that some bugs have been fixed and improved features added. It is promoted as being more user friendly than other operating systems.

I put an earlier version of it on a computer 1-2 years ago and found it easier to install and use than a few different distributions of Linux I had tried. The system requirements are somewhat demanding, but less so than Windows Vista; it requires 256 megabytes of memory and a Pentium II or faster processor. As with Mac OS and Linux, viruses are less of a concern than they are with Windows.

It is available for free as a large download of about 1.1 GB; purchasing PC-BSD on CDs or a DVD is preferable for many users. A few different web sites sell it for prices ranging from about $6 to $30 dollars. For more details on this operating system, review the online PC-BSD Guide.

While free software concepts like freeware, shareware, open source, and trialware are relatively common, other lesser-known types can also be found. One of these is called postcardware. Here are some details about what it is…

According to wikipedia.org, the programmer of a postcardware application or game asks that the user mail him or her a postcard. Such programs and software add-ons are otherwise free for anyone to download and use.

Some examples of postcardware include Bome’s Mouse Keyboard, Dan Smith’s Fantasy Fonts, Xmas List, command-line file downloader HTGET, and text editor EditPad Classic. Games of this type also exist, such as Piramidka and Ancient Domains of Mystery.