Michael Bowen's VC Course Pages

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Free Software

Please email the author of this page if you find an interesting site that you think should be added to the list. The following software downloads appear to offer zero-cost licensing provisions to students and faculty members of recognized educational institutions. In most cases, these programs are not free to businesses or commercial users and a licensing fee must be paid in order for such users to employ the software legally. Software copyrights remain the property of the respective owners.

All of the links in the following list are "off-site" and not under the control of the sponsors of this page. The sponsors of this page receive no payment or other remuneration from the software owners whose links are listed; rather, the author of this page has selected his favorite free programs from the Internet and listed the download sources as a courtesy to Ventura College students and faculty, who may also benefit from these useful programs. Most programs listed run only under Windows 9x, although in some cases versions for other operating systems are also available. Some of the programs listed are "limited" or "light" versions, for which it is necessary to purchase licenses in order to use the corresponding "full" or "professional" versions, even when the user is a student or faculty member. However, the free version must be useful by itself (in the opinion of this page's author) in order to appear in this listing.

Provisions of the Terms of Use apply to the use of this page.

Adobe Acrobat Reader:

This program allows display and printing of Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) files. The program can read all downloadable files on this site with a PDF indication.

Dimension4:

This utility allows you to compare your computer's clock setting with various time servers linked to the cesium atomic clock in Boulder, Colorado, USA, and optionally adjust the computer to match the official time standard for the United States. It automatically adjusts for your time zone, assuming that this is properly set from the Windows Control Panel. Although this is a browser-independent, standalone program, it does require a functioning Internet connection from your computer in order to run properly.

Ghostscript, Ghostview, and GSview:

These programs convert files between nearly all known printer output formats. They are most useful for converting PostScript (*.PS) and printer (*.PRN) files into Adobe PDF files without the need to spend hundreds of dollars to purchase the Adobe Acrobat software. In conjunction with the appropriate Windows printer drivers, these programs make it possible to create a PDF file from any Windows program that can print, including word processing, electronic spreadsheet, and graphics/presentation software. All PDF files on this website were created using these programs. Recent versions of GSView now display a "nag screen" at opening until you register the program. I registered (sent them some money) because the software was worth the expense.

Graph Paper Printer:

Print your own graph paper (rectangular, polar, logarithmic, etc.). This program, in conjunction with a good printer, allows you to create many kinds of graph paper, including those used in mathematics, statistics, and science. Users may save graph paper images for future use in Windows Enhanced Metafile (*.EMF) format.
Note (added August 2006): The original web site for this program no longer exists. However, it was so useful that many other sites still offer it. Obtaining software from a site other than the original author's always entails a slightly increased risk of acquiring a computer virus or other malware. Be sure that your virus/spyware checkers are updated and active before downloading from the link provided.

Free Online Graph Paper:

This is different from the previous site in that you must have a functioning Internet connection every time you want to create a new type of paper. However, you can save paper to your own computer in PDF format, so a copy is always available once you have the options set the way you want. The site also includes templates for number lines, musical notation, calligraphy, sudoku, and others, and it also accepts requests for styles not already available.

IrfanView - Freeware Graphic Viewer:

This is one of the best graphics viewers on the Internet. It displays and converts between nearly all standard graphics formats and allows palette editing, resizing, resampling, and color depth modifications. In addition, it plays many types of audio and multimedia files.

NoteTab Light:

This is a text editor (not a word processor) that acts as a superior drop-in replacement for the standard Windows Notepad accessory. This program can display multiple file windows and, unlike early versions of Windows Notepad, it can handle very large files. It has numerous features that aid writers of web pages, and can easily be used to hand-craft HTML code. All text files on this website were created using this program.

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