Software

"There is a greater range of software available than most people are aware of.

If you know where to look, you can edit photos, protect your computer with anti-virus and anti-malware applications, install and use office software, e-mail, desktop publishing and website building software, all legally and free of cost...and on as many computers as you like.

The problem for most people is knowing that it exists, working out how to get it, how to install it and how to use it.

This is were Techfriend becomes your friend :)"

Most people are aware of some software because of the marketing involved (eg. Microsoft and Adobe products).

For many people, the software they use was either on the machine when they got it, given to them (frequently illegally) by a friend or relative, or their computer had a 'trial' version on their machine which they then bought. You see software in boxes on shelves in a shop, with lovely wrapping, glossy icons and text and a 'Sale' sticker on it. Very attractive.

Yet there is a whole other world out there, if you know where to look, if you follow technology sites and writers or if someone tells you. Browser software is just one example where there are a number of options. For instance, if you have a Windows machine, Internet Explorer is installed by default. Yet there are others:

OpenOffice is another example. With OpenOffice you can create text documents, spreadsheets and presentations which are readable in any other major text editing office software suites. You can also import, edit, return or print documents from other major text editors. You can read more about it here and download it here (again, free of cost).

Can you write your thesis or high school essays in OpenOffice? Sure!

You can also directly save files as PDFs for sending to other people.

Techfriend staff can show you how to use the functions of OpenOffice and Microsoft Office. It's up to you. 

By the way, if you want to know whether anyone else uses OpenOffice, you can always check here. Additionally, the UK government has recently released a paper in which the use of OpenOffice is specifically mentioned as an option for government to reduce costs.

Scribus is a desktop publishing software application. It highly effective at producing flyers, posters, magazines, newsletters and so on. 

Not as easy to learn as an office suite, but more efficient, effective and once you know how and far easier to create documents that are acceptable for printing by professional printing companies.

School kids produce far more professional documents when using Scribus (I know mine do!).

What about website building?

Now we can easily show you a link to a site that was created using Kompozer - we built it ourselves!

Kompozer allows you to build a website using a GUI (Graphic User Interface - which is what you're using now) and then upload the site to a hosting company - don't worry, we can explain all this to you as well.

We can even show you how to build a website in under two hours without installing any software. Now, it won't immediately look as good as this one, but we'll have you well on your way (remember that artistic flair is not software, so we can't provide you with that!).