The following is a list with links to some great, free software. You'll find stuff from browsers and email clients to web building programs and anti-virus software. Use this stuff, it's all great and it's free. Every program (unless otherwise mentioned) is available for OS X, Windows, or Linux.
1. ClamAV (see description for download links)
Believe it or not, this program is probably scanning the messages going through your email server for viruses. It's a very supported (daily virus database updates) anti-virus program that I use on our two OS X machines at home and my Windows machine in my office at the school. There are two different links as the Mac version and the Windows version are written by two seperate developers.
ClamXav for Mac OS X.
ClamWin for Windows 98/Me/2000/XP/2003.
2. A good text editor
If you're writing code, or just plain text, a good text editor is a must. I'll give you three, one for OS X, one for Windows, and a Java app that will run on pretty much anything.
2a. jEdit
jEdit is written in Java so it runs on just about any platform. jEdit is a full featured text editor with more overall capabilities than either of the programs mentioned below. One key feature not included in one of the programs is syntax coding, which automatically colors the text as you type depending on what the word is (programmers know what I'm talking about). Another feature not in either TextWrangler, BBEdit Lite, or NoteTab Light is auto tag completion. I've moved this app from 2c to 2a since the more I use it, the more I love it. And even though I like the BBTidy plug-in for BBEdit Lite more than the JTidy plug-in for jEdit, I don't miss it that much. Since I preview my work in Firefox first, I just use the Web Developer extension (listed below) to check my syntax. I've found I rarely open my old stalwart BBEdit Lite at all anymore. jEdit contains tons of plugins and has a very active community on the web to download more plugins and get help from other users of jEdit.
2b. TextWrangler (Mac OS X)
From Bare Bones Software, TextWrangler can be thought of as the OS X native version of BBEdit Lite. It improves on the already great feature set of BBEdit Lite, particularly by including syntax coloring. It was recently made available for free from Bare Bones Software. If, after trying TextWrangler, you still prefer BBEdit Lite, you can download a copy of it here
2c. NoteTab Light (Windows)
NoteTab Light is packed with tons of guides for different programing and web languages in a small, fast package. As close as you can get to BBEdit Lite for Windows.
3. Firefox
The stand alone browser from Mozilla.org. It features more security (like pop-up blocking) and better web standards rendering than the "other" guy. If you are using anything other than Safari or Camino you should be using this browser.
3a. Web Developer
The Web Developer extension for Firefox is a great tool for those who code or build web pages. It adds another toolbar to Firefox with tons of useful tools (especially code validation) to assist with making your web page.
3b. fireFTP
fireFTP is an FTP extension for Firefox. You can access our FTP server and upload or download files right from Firefox with this extension installed.
4. Thunderbird
The email sidekick to Firefox. If you're using Outlook Express, I'd suggest you switch to Thunderbird.
5. An FTP client
In order to get your files uploaded to our server, you'll need an FTP client, a program that will connect to the server and upload the files for you. Here are two free options for OS X and one free one for Windows. Also, don't forget the FireFTP extension for Firefox listed above.
5a. Cyberduck (Mac OS X)
Cyberduck has a nice, clean, basic, drag and drop interface. It handles both FTP and SFTP connections. It's appearance is a little more refined than RBrowser Lite.
5b. RBrowserLite (Mac OS X)
RBrowserLite handles basic FTP connections via drag and drop between a "local" window (your computer) and a "remote" window (the server). Not as "pretty" appearance wise as Cyberduck, but I used this for a long time until I discoverd Cyberduck.
5c. FileZilla (Windows)
FileZilla also handles FTP and SFTP connections. It's free and works great for uploading your files to our server. Just a hint when running it for the first time... make sure you expand to window to take up the whole screen. You'll be able to see all the "many" window panes available.
6. A web album creator
6a. JAlbum
JAlbum is a web photo album generator with built in FTP upload. Just point JAlbum to a folder full of pictures and it will build a web photo album and let you upload it to our webspace. Justin has used this for the albums in his section.
6b. Galerie (Mac OS X)
Galarie works with iPhoto or even just your own folder of photos. Just drop your photos, folder of photos, or iPhoto album onto the drop section of the program, set your parameters, and Galarie does the rest. Jere has used this for the majority of the albums in his section. He used a custom built template for his albums.
7. Nvu
Nvu is a complete web page builder (similar to GoLive or Dreamweaver, except free). You don't have to know or ever learn any HTML to build a webpage with Nvu. Click on the page and start typing, then drag graphics to where you want and manage links. When everything is all set, Nvu will even manage the uploading of your files to our webspace.
8. Mozilla
The Mozilla suite is a set of bundled applications all in one package. Firefox and Thunderbird are both spin-offs of this suite of applications. Mozilla contains a web browser, email client, and web page creation module all bundled as one application. You could use Mozilla just for the web creation program which some believe is a little more polished than Nvu (listed above).
For most of the download files you will need the latest version of StuffIt Expander (part of the StuffIt Standard package) for your operating system. This can be downloaded from StuffIt.com. The Expander part of the application is free. Most of the download files are in .sit or .sitx format which produces a file size just a tad smaller than .zip files. There are a couple of .zip files around also though.
For the movie files you will need version 6 or later of QuickTime (also free). Download the standalone installer from Apple's QuickTime site.
Finally, if you absolutely need a file or movie in a different format, just drop me a note.
You can access your webmail from the link to the right and on the main page. There are two different interfaces you can use: SquirrelMail or UebiMiau mail. I don't like really like the UebiMiau interface so all the links to webmail on this site go to SquirrelMail. If you really want the link to UebiMiau let me know and I'll email it to you. It sometimes works in those rare instances when SquirrelMail is down. Anyway, a brief summary of SquirrelMail can be found by downloading the link below.
First up, there is an excellent beginning tutorial for HTML and CSS at one of my favorite sites, Web Page Design for Designers. Visit CSS from the Ground Up to see this excellent tutorial, now in it's third installment.
To go along with this tutorial, I've come up with a couple of templates that you could use to build your own site. All you have to do is fire up "template.html" and then "stylesheet.css" in either jEdit, TextEdit (Mac), SimpleText (Mac), Notepad (Windows), BBEdit Lite, TextWrangler (Mac), or NoteTab Light (Windows), and fill in your own info where you see something in ALL CAPS. Just email for more help.
Site Templates (sitx, 132KB) | Site Templates (zip, 152KB)