Best free CD Label Writer is ....

I've spent the last day or so downloading and evaluating at least a dozen CD and DVD label writers. Pretty much most of them pretend to be free, but they're in actual fact shareware.

The ones I've tried include:

• CD Label Designer
• UnderCover XP
• Zoner Draw 3
• Disketch CD Label Creator
• Nero's Label Maker

And you know what, even after this lot and a whole lot more searching, I still couldn't find a good free one. The truly free ones are extremely limited. Some are OK, then when you go to print them out on Avery style labels, they simply don't line up.

But then I discovered, the easy way. Open Office again. There are some great templates available for Open Office Writer that do the trick perfectly and basically put all those other guys out of business. This method allows you to more easily align the CD or DVD with the label and import images and text etc more freely.

Had I realised that you could do it so easily in Open Office (one of my current favourite apps), it would have saved me a whole lot of time. I hope I've saved you some.

OpenOffice is the best free open source Microsoft Office alternative

As some regular readers would know, I had installed and used Microsoft Office 2007 for a little while now.

Well one of the big things that has always frustrated me is Word's drawing capabilities.

I do a lot of sales proposals with diagrams and the like. Word's drawing system mystifies me. The inconsistencies in the way that things are laid out and objects sometimes do not snap to where you'd expect them to have caused countless hours of frustration. I guess Microsoft figured that their Visio application is specialised for this sort of thing but I have always found Visio quite chunky and clunky and not integrated enough with Word. Having used it before from time to time as a Microsoft Office alternative, I have found Open Office to excel in this area.

Using Open Office Draw, however Open Office 3.0 has given me an all new appreciation for the Open Office suite. This is a very well put together application. Even though I am now used to the ribbon (which is apparently to feature quite heavily in the new Vienna edition of Windows), I am constantly drawn to the classic and simpler to use Open Office interface.

I don't want to turn this into a Microsoft Office 2007 vs Open Office 3.0 debate, because for the time being I'm happy to run both side by side. Most computers these days can handle the additional space and processing power required.

I was once compelled to use Microsoft Office because of the integration of things like Outlook, the synch and Business Contact Manager. However frustration with these applications has reduced my reliance on the integrated approach. I still find Outlook's calendaring and invitation system (because many other clients also use it it can be handy), however I now use these apps independently of each other. An open standard for calendaring and meeting invites would be the icing on the cake. So I've really started to question whether I am locked into Office 2007 at all (aside from its obvious buying price).

I really think that Microsoft Office 2007 has matured as a product and while using the Open Office suite, this is very evident. The Writer is, in more opinion, more solid than Word. I've found that it supports almost everything I need to do. I've used the Calc application as an Excel and found it to be just as good. I've also used the Impress application, which is the equivalent to PowerPoint and can confidently say that it offers everything that PowerPoint does. To top it off, even though I know Open Office 3.0 runs using Java, it does seem a lot snappier, possibly moreso than Microsof Office 2007. However I do get these annoying Java pop-ups from time to time on Windows Vista (doesn't happen on my XP machine) that I'm not sure yet how to turn off.

Anyway, I'd just like to share with you the fact that integrated features in Open Office are truly impressive and has come a long way. I would definitely recommend giving it another go.

A freeware screencasting alternative to Camtasia Studio

I do a lot of screencasting and in the past, I've used trials of Camtasia Studio to create demonstration videos for software.

Problem is that Camtasia is very expensive. I've also found it to crash on some computers.

Well I've been using CamStudio recently and I can say that it is very good, in combination that is with other programs such as Windows Movie Maker.

There are a few limitations in CamStudio that I have found that you should be aware of. One is that I like to use digital zoom and pan. You won't find that in free screencasting software yet, however. Camtasia in comparison has a lot of built in movie producing stuff, which personally I find to be a bit of overkill. Windows Movie Maker is pretty good for that sort of thing. The concept of CamStudio is simple - just do one thing and do it well. And that thing is recording what is happening on screen.

Media Monkey digital Media Player kicks some butt

I don't know why, but I'd been using Apple iTunes as a digital media player for so long, I never questioned it.

In the old days, I was a big fan of Winamp. Especially getting into its visualisation plug-ins, skins and format compatibility.

At one point I started using iTunes. I think it just became a pseudo standard. It was easier to import music and plug in to my Sony Walkman MP3 player for a start.
But I always found that iTunes to be limiting in visualisations, and it generally got bloated, slow, incompatible and unusable. I got sick of the ads in the interface.

Recently I've discovered Media Monkey. Not sure why it took so long, because it is not only faster, but it offers a lot of the features that I used to like about Winamp, but takes it to a whole new level. I'd definitely recommend looking at it at least.

If I haven't made your mind up for you, then check out this blog which provides a pretty decent and detailed comparison between the products (there is also a wikipedia article, "Comparison of Media Players", but there are so many on their list unless you have the time I would much prefer to cut straight to the chase).

Paint.NET is a Photoshop killer

I've recently discovered Paint.NET. This great application is not only completely freeware, but it offers pretty much all of the most common things I once used Photoshop for.

I have been using version 3.35 and only found a couple of limitations so far, notably I can't find a way to do find rotations ... it only seems to support rotating and flipping in lots of 90 degree which is pretty useless. But combined with Irfanview, it seems to work a treat and I can't complain about what is a pretty fast and slick application.

Filezilla is my FTP client flavour of the month

I've tried everything, from SmartFTP to CuteFTP and WS_FTP for uploading files to file and web servers.

Most of them have issues. They are either clunky or have compatibility issues, and particularly drag and drop problems. Cute FTP has the best interface, but I just couldn't get it to work with some servers.

Anyway, I'd recommend Filezilla. I have not had an issue since I installed this software (apart from the odd very minor drag and drop frustration). It is fantastic and free and apparently it works with Macs as well (if you're into that sort of thing ...).

Irfanview is still the king of image viewers

Since I first started using the great free image editing software that is Irfanview way back in 2001, it has not taken a backwards step and has only continued to improve.

I refuse to use anything else. It is fast, easy and intuitive.

I find the bulk image conversion functions to be particularly useful and it supports almost any format (handling its file associations particularly well). While it isn't an image editor, it is fantastic for quick and easy viewing of images.

The best freeware multimedia format converter is the hardest to get

If you're trying to convert Quicktime or Apple Flash video to AVI or Windows media or vice versa, it can be a pain finding an application to do the trick. Finding a free one is extremely hard.

And as I've found, even when you find one it can be a pain.

Well, I found one, eventually, that does almost everything - SUPER. Problem is that the eRightSoft website is such a convoluted mess that you'd assume either that they don't want anyone to find out or download it or that they are somehow making a lot of money from subtle advertising on their website by forcing people to click on the ad links. I'd guess the latter. Interesting business model, but bloody annoying and frustrating all the same.

There is a really, really difficult process to obtain this app, but I guarantee you that it is definitely worth it. This blog tells you how.