| ASP |
| CGI |
| FrontPage |
| HTML |
| Java |
| JavaScript |
Visit the Mortgage Loan Place for Home Loans and also click here to find VA Loans on our site. 
|
Free Software for the World
The explosive growth of the Internet has been helped in a large part by the widespread availability of free software and information. It is now possible to set up a very useful and powerful computer system using only freely available software. Often, this software has excellent documentation, with useful help and information that can be obtained from mailing lists, newsgroups and other websites. Many times, the authors of the software are quite willing have discussions with users. They may even add features, eliminate bugs and just generally improve their software packages based on user feedback. Of course, with the source code available, adventurous users can modify the software themselves.
Much of the software discussed here is licensed under the GNU General Public License. Of course, before trying any of the software, it's always a good idea to read, understand and follow all the instructions that come with it. Often, reading the files named README and INSTALL are excellent places to start.
Operating System
One of the most powerful and reliable operating systems available for PCs today, Linux stands as a jewel in the crown of free software. A large group of dedicated programmers from around the world have been working for many years to develop this operating system. It's a version of Unix that can run on many different types of hardware, including Intel PCs (386, 486, Pentium, etc.), Macintoshes (68k and PPC), Sun Sparcs, Dec Alphas, and others. Various software companies (or groups of users), such as Red Hat, Slackware, Caldera, and others package the Linux kernel with many other files into a distribution. Each company's distribution may have some unique features, but in general all will should run the same software binaries.- http://www.linux.org - general information on the operating system in general
- http://www.redhat.com - this very good distribution of Linux for Intel PCs, DEC Alphas and Sun Sparcs has won many awards. You can order a CD online or download the necessary files from their ftp site.
- http://www.linuxppc.org - has Linux for PCI-based Power Macintoshes
- http://www.mklinux.apple.com - has mkLinux, which is basically compatible with Linux, for NuBus based Power Macintosh computers.
- http://www.clark.net/pub/lawrencc/linux/ - has Linux for old Motorola 68000-series Macintosh computers.
Image Processing
Dealing with images is important to every web site. A common problem with images is the myriad formats that are currently available for storing them. As you undoubtedly know, web browsers support only a few specific formats, such as .gif and .jpg. How can we easily and quickly convert between all these strange but interesting formats? Using a free software package called ImageMagick, image conversion, manipulation and display. For example, to convert a TIFF image named foo.tiff into a GIF image named foo.gif:convert foo.tiff foo.gifTo resize the image named bar.bmp to 512 by 100 pixels and save it as bar.jpg:
convert -sample 510x100 bar.bmp bar.jpg
ImageMagick makes all image processing chores much easier.
Another cool image editor is The Gimp. This software package has many features found only in high- end and expensive products like Adobe Photoshop. From the Gimp website, "[The Gimp] is an extremely capable piece of software with many capabilities. It can be used as a simple paint program, a expert quality photo retouching program, an online batch processing system, a mass production image renderer, a image format converter, etc." With its large collection of plug-ins and a powerful scripting language, this software offers capabilities not found in any other image processing products.
Database
Keeping track and organizing vast amounts of data is a can be a difficult and complex task. By using a database, it is possible to easily sort through and create reports using information. An excellent and powerful SQL-based relational database called PostgreSQL is available at PostgreSQL. Of course, there is a lot of competition in the world of relational databases. It's interesting to take a look at how they compare.Text Editing
Where would I be without Emacs? This powerful text editor is probably the best thing since sliced bread. But, it does take some getting used to... Try reading the FAQ to get started.Web Browsers and beyond
On January 22, 1998, Netscape Communications Corporation announced plans to make the source code for its Netscape Communicator client software available for free licensing on the Internet. Incredible! Who knows what great new features will be added to the web browser with its source code freely available?This article has covered only a tiny fraction of the free software that's available in the world today. You'll also want to look at Perl, Python, Squid, and Generic Mapping Tools. Take a look around and discover great, fully functional software that's just a few mouse clicks away.
Author: Doug Steinwand
Date: [01/23/98]
More articles about CGI
More articles by Doug Steinwand
Author Biography
