computer first aid

Alternative Programs

  • Mozilla Firefox and Mozilla Thunderbird - alternative programs to Internet Explorer and Outlook Express - have become two of the most popular programs in the world, see below for more information.
  • Paint.NET - is a free image and photo editing software for computers that run Windows. It features an intuitive and innovative user interface with support for layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools. An active and growing online community provides friendly help, tutorials, and plugins.
  • OpenSource VLC Media Player - If you're tired of media players constantly prompting you to upgrade to their paid versions, trying to direct you to their website or continually wanting to check for updates, then try this highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols.
  • For information about to use the program start here: http://wiki.videolan.org/How_to
    or here: http://wiki.videolan.org/Windows
  • Foxit Reader is a free PDF document viewer and printer, with incredible small size (only 1.67 M download size), breezing-fast launch speed and amazingly rich feature set - a great alternative to the bloated Adobe Acrobat and it won't nag you to download updates.
  • PDFCreator - create your own PDF documents with this easy-to-use, free tool that enables you to create PDF files from any program that is able to print. PDFCreator won't hog computer resources like another well known PDF reader.
  • Happy Fish RSS Reader & Podcast Client - RSS stands for "Really Simple Syndication". RSS is used to deliver content over the internet, the most common type of information delivered are news headlines and other timely information. An RSS source, like your favorite news web site, is called an RSS Feed.
    Podcasting is delivering audio content to iPods and other portable media players on demand, so that it can be listened to at the user's convenience. The main benefit of podcasting is that listeners can sync content to their media player and take it with them to listen whenever they want to. Because podcasts are typically saved in MP3 format, they can also be listened to on nearly any computer.
  • If you're a little bit adventurous, you'll find many more open source alternatives at Source Forge.

Firefox 3 Mozilla Firefox

The award-winning Web browser is now faster, more secure, and fully customizable to your online life.
Firefox 3 has powerful new features that make your online experience even better --

  • the ability to disable un-requested pop-up screens/ads but retain other Javascript functions such as internet banking
  • active protection from online scams to keep you safer
  • import your Favorites, settings and other information from Internet Explorer
  • tabbed browsing (now copied by Microsoft in Internet Explorer 7)
  • an Internet Explorer type Links bar
  • fully customisable toolbars
  • plug-in extensions and themes to personalize Firefox and make it your own
  • built-in Google search
  • automatic update notification and updating
  • small download size

Mozilla Thunderbird

Thunderbird is a full-featured email application that supports POP and IMAP mail protocols, as well as HTML mail formatting. I will seamlessly import your existing email accounts and messages from Outlook Express and it has powerful quick search, spell check as you type, global inbox, deleting attachments and advanced message filtering.

Automatic updates ensure you get the latest security and feature updates to Thunderbird and you can change the look of your browser with themes, add-ons and extensions.

Online Knowledge Bases and Documentation

You will find answers to all your questions at one of these links:

Firefox Help

Thunderbird Help

If you can't find what you're looking for try the Google Search below
Google