Software : Round up: The best free website builder 2016 |
- Round up: The best free website builder 2016
- Round up: The best free software for authors 2016
- Round up: The best free data recovery software 2016
- Firefox joins the phase out Flash party
- Round up: The best free YouTube video converter 2016
- Round up: The best free PDF reader 2016
Round up: The best free website builder 2016 Posted: Download the best free website buildersBuild your own websiteWeb design software transformed web building: if you were a keen coder, software could speed up your coding with auto-completion and macros; if you preferred to design visually, your software would turn your designs into code and stick them online. Although more and more web building platforms are online and based around fairly inflexible templates, web design software still has a key role to play - especially if you like to get things done when you're far from a data connection. So which web design apps are the best? Let's find out. 1. CoffeeCup Free HTML EditorMake your own professional-standard website in minutes
It lacks some of the features of its paid-for siblings - features such as the useful Color Schemer and built-in FTP uploading are reserved for the paid products - but unlike some rivals it's in continual development to keep it current.
2. PSPadA powerful text-based editor packed with extra tools for web developers PSPad might not be pretty, but it's pretty good. Inside the defiantly old-school Windows interface is a powerful programmer's editor that includes an FTP client for on-server editing, templates for common languages such as HTML, PHP, VBScript and many others, multiple document editing and macros that you can use to create and trigger commonly used code.
3. Google Web DesignerCreate stunning HTML5 animations for your own site Google Web Designer's name is a little misleading, because it's really an advert and animation designer: it's best suited to people who need to create animated, cross-platform elements that they'll then use in another program (or add to their otherwise hand-coded sites). But if you're one of those people there's lots to like including Google Drive integration, 3D objects, layers and events.
4. KompoZerAn older website builder, but still a favorite We have a soft spot for KompoZer, which is a spin-off from the same Mozilla that created Firefox - but where Firefox has been in constant development from day one, KompoZer hasn't been updated since 2010.
5. SynWriteA text-based editor for more experienced web developers It's overkill for beginners, but if you're a keen coder then SynWrite is well worth a look, and not just because it's small enough to carry around on a modest USB flash drive.
6. Mobirise Website BuilderCreate responsive websites that look great on desktop and mobile devices You've got to love an app whose sales blurb says "creating well-designed websites is a real fun" (sic), especially when it actually is. Mobirise can create good looking, responsive websites with the minimum of fuss.
7. TOWebAnother responsive design tool, but keep its limitations in mind The free version of TOWeb is there to promote the more powerful paid-for versions, so as you'd expect, its features are limited: you can only create one website, the size is limited to 10MB and TOWeb will put ads in the website. It's simple, based on customisable and generally good looking templates, supports multiple languages and enables you to publish automatically to a wide range of web hosts.
8. Weebly FreeA simple drag-and-drop editor that's ideal for making your first site We've steered clear of online-only services in our round-up as they tend to be template-based web builders rather than web designers, but Weebly is a little bit different as it enables you to design the content of your pages by dragging and dropping. You get free hosting and unlimited pages, and while you can't remove Weebly's branding - that's £5 per month for the Starter package, which enables you to use your own domain name - it's a great starting point if you want to make something that looks good without taking forever to build. 9. openElementA web-based site builder that's very capable, but intimidating for beginners The dark, dense interface might be a little off-putting for absolute beginners and it isn't as easy to use as some rivals, but there's no doubt that openElement offers a lot of power for more confident designers. It does much more than most other WYSIWYG apps, and in the right hands it's capable of great things, but we think the interface is a little confusing compared to similarly useful apps like CoffeeCup Free. 10. WebflowA stylish online web builder if you don't mind the ads and limited page views Like Weebly, Webflow is an online app that's part of a suite of paid-for services - and like Weebly, that means there are limits on what you can do with it. The free edition won't let you export HTML/CSS code for use outside Weblfow's own hosting, your site will include ads, there's no tech support other than a discussion forum and you're limited to 1,000 page views per month. If those limitations don't bother you, Webflow is a great web app for designing pages that pop. Have we missed your preferred web design software? Share your recommendations in the comments below. |
Round up: The best free software for authors 2016 Posted: The best free writing softwareBetter than Microsoft WordWriters tend to make a very big deal of their tools, whether those tools are delicate pens or ancient typewriters. Increasingly, though, they'll talk about their software. Even the most genteel literary event can soon devolve into a fist-fight between fans of Scrivener and Ulysses (both of which cost around £27, US$40, AU$54). Word is the default tool for many writers, but the latest version – Microsoft Word 2016 – will set you back £109.99 (US$109.99, AU$149) for the non-commercial edition. That's almost as much as the full Microsoft Office 2016 suite, and a hefty price for cash-strapped wordsmiths. There's often a better option for those of us starving in garrets: free apps. Come with us as we discover the best free apps to turn your talent into something tangible. 1. FocusWriterBlock out distractions and get on with some serious writing Available for Linux, Windows and OS X, FocusWriter is designed to eliminate distractions so you can actually get on with the job of writing. To that effect it enables you to hide other apps, customize the way your text appears on screen and keep track of your progress. If you're feeling particularly old-school you can even add typewriter sound effects.
2. WriteMonkeyA text editor that cuts down on distractions, not features We're big fans of Markdown, the text-editing language that enables you to format, annotate, classify and link as you type with the minimum of fuss, and the superb WriteMonkey makes good use of it. This free program delivers an incredibly stripped-down user interface that's considerably more powerful than it looks. There's an excellent outliner, automatic syntax highlighting and file organisation, and although Markdown takes a bit of getting used to, you'll be very glad you made the effort.
3. CeltxScriptwriting made simple - ideal for solo writers or small teams Hollywood scriptwriters swear by the famous Final Draft software, but if you're yet to sell a script then you might prefer an option that doesn't cost any money. Say hello to Celtx, an online scriptwriting platform that's designed for small creative teams and includes a solo screenwriting package - all for the excellent price of zero.
4. LibreOffice WriterA fully-featured alternative to Microsoft Word, completely free LibreOffice is a free, open source alternative to Microsoft Office, and that means its Writer word processing app has many of the power features of Microsoft Word without the accompanying price tag.
If you're interested in more full office suites, see our guide to the best free Microsoft Office alternatives. 5. SigilDesigned specifically for creating your own ebooks ready to publish online Many writing apps concentrate on print, but of course we're Kindle kids now and many authors publish direct to ebooks. There are lots of ways to do that, including exporting from your favourite word processor, but Sigil is designed specifically for ebook editing; it isn't something that's been bolted onto an existing print-focused app.
6. TrelbyA powerful multi-platform screenwriting tool for budding playwrights Trelby is available for Windows and for Linux, and it offers a very powerful screenwriting tool for free. It enforces standardized layouts, includes a character name database to avoid calling your hero Shooty McShootface, imports and exports in all the formats you could need, and has a built-in PDF generator 7. ScribusWrite and design great-looking magazines and books If your words' appearance is as important as their meaning, give Scribus a go: it's a free, highly-rated desktop publishing application for Linux, OS X and Windows that's capable of producing entire magazines (a little like a cut-down version of Adobe InDesign).
We wouldn't want to make a 400-page book in it, but for shorter works it's very clever. 8. HemingwayA streamlined text editor in your web browser In addition to paid-for desktop software for Mac and Windows, Hemingway is available as a free web app. It's well worth bookmarking: it's designed to highlight long, complex sentences and common grammatical errors, and its use of colours makes it abundantly clear how clear or otherwise your text has become. It'll spot excessive use of unnecessary adverbs, and it can ensure that instances of the passive voice have been marked to alert you to their use. Hemingway is a really good tool for anyone who needs to communicate with maximum clarity. And we deliberately wrote this paragraph this way to annoy it. 9. EvernoteGather ideas together throughout the day so they're ready to use later Evernote isn't much cop as a writing app, but it's an absolutely superb research tool. We've used to organise all kinds of content including old photos of locations, snippets of overheard dialog, PDFs of scanned documents and all the little ideas that pop up when we're out and about.
Don't forget about other note-taking apps either: Microsoft's free OneNote is superb, and if you're a Mac/iOS fan Apple's Notes app is handy to have, especially when you can get Siri to add notes for you. 10. FreemindOrganise your ideas and defeat writer's block before it can strike Here's another app for writers that isn't strictly for putting your words on the screen: Freemind is all about mind mapping, and it enables you to record all the leaps and bounds your imagination makes whether you're plotting a potboiler or trying to organise complex threads of an investigation.
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Round up: The best free data recovery software 2016 Posted: Download the best free recovery softwareRestore lost or deleted filesData recovery can be an expensive business, which is why it's no substitute for backing up your key documents, photos and other data on a regular basis. But that's of little comfort to anyone – even those with good backup regimens – who suddenly find themselves confronted by the stomach-churning feeling of data loss. As soon as you've become aware of data loss, it's critical you stop using the drive affected immediately. Whether the drive itself is failing or you've simply deleted a file accidentally, this is the golden moment when you may be able to get your data back without an expensive purchase or trip to a data recovery specialist. We've cherry-picked five of the best free data recovery tools in the business. Just pick the one closest to your requirements and with a bit of luck (and no small measure of help from the app involved), you could yet save your files. 1. DMDE Free EditionThe most effective way to recover files from a dead hard drive
DMDE may not be the simplest tool to use, but it's one of the most effective, and our step-by-step file recovery guide will help you with the basics. DMDE works by letting you select a drive and then identifies all mountable partitions, with the most obvious choices highlighted. If successful, you're then shown a File Explorer-like view to browse the drive and recover what data you need from it.
Read on to discover four more of our favourite tools for recovering lost data in an emergency. Have we missed a program that's saved your skin in a near-disaster? Let us know in the comments below! 2. RecuvaRecover files accidentally deleted from your Recycle Bin, quickly and easily Recuva is purely concerned with helping you get accidentally deleted files back, but to this end it makes things as easy and stress-free as possible. It opens by default to a wizard, which advanced users can subsequently skip: from here, choose the type of file you're trying to recover (picture, documents, compressed, emails and all files are among those on offer) and it'll focus its search accordingly. You can target your search to a specific location or search all your drives, and you can opt to choose a quick or deep scan. The latter takes much longer, but flushes out more results. Then click 'Start' and wait for the scan to complete.
Recuva is also available as a portable app - essential for any emergency toolkit. 3. PhotoRecRecover lost files from any media, with support for hundreds of file formats Don't be fooled by the name, PhotoRec recovers far more than just photos. It works with a wide range of file systems and media, from hard drives to CD/DVD, USB flash drives and memory cards, and there are builds for Mac and Linux, giving you flexibility to recover data from a different computer if necessary. It also has deep knowledge of over 200 file formats, which helps with reconstructing lost files, and comes packaged with TestDisk, which can be used to recover partitions.
4. MiniTool Partition Recovery FreeLost a whole partition? MiniTool's excellent recovery software can help One of the most frightening data loss experiences is when an entire drive or partition goes missing. Often this can be traced to an accidentally deleted partition or one where the partition header has corrupted. If the issue is this simple, getting the partition back can be done quickly and easily without leaving Windows using MiniTool Partition Recovery Free. Just fire it up, select the drive containing your lost partition, then choose whether to scan the entire disk or just a portion of it (say the part where your missing partition should be). Choose between full and quick scans, then sit back and let the program do its work.
You can also double-click a partition to view its file contents – perfect for verifying it's the one you're after. 5. Paragon Rescue Kit 14 Free EditionCan't boot into Windows? All is not lost with Paragon Rescue Kit All of the recovery tools we've covered so far assume you're able to boot into Windows to use them. But what happens if Windows won't boot at all? This is where Paragon Rescue Kit comes into play. The best time to install it is now while your PC is running, otherwise you'll need to do so on a working Windows PC. Once done, you'll need a blank CD/DVD or flash drive (512MB or larger – if you're planning to recover data to this drive, go for the biggest drive you can) – the setup wizard does the hard work.
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Firefox joins the phase out Flash party Posted: Firefox will begin blocking Flash elements that aren't essential to the web experience starting this August, Mozilla announced today, continuing the slow death march of the once-mighty Flash. The browser joins Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge in phasing out the use of Flash across the web. Google announced plans to stop advertising support for Flash by Q4 of this year, though the plug-in will still run in the browser. Chrome will instead default to HTML5 wherever possible. Adobe's Flash technology is being slowly phased out for newer technologies, like HTML5, due to repeated security exploits, instability, battery drain and slow performance. The demise of Flash has been a long, arduous process, and it continues bit by bit every day. Mozilla expects to make Flash elements around the web click-to-activate by 2017. This will result in a 10% decrease in crashes and hangups in Firefox, writes Mozilla in a blog post. "These changes are part of our ongoing efforts to make browsing safer and faster without sacrificing the Web experiences our users love," Mozilla says. "We continue to work closely with Adobe to deliver the best possible Flash experience for our users." Even Microsoft's Silverlight web plugin isn't safe. Mozilla is urging websites that use Flash and Silverlight to adopt HTML technologies "as soon as possible." The company still plans to support plug-ins like Silverlight and Java until 2018 to give companies more time to transition technologies. For users, you most likely won't notice this change as more websites transition to HTML technologies. There may be certain sites you visit that will show a play button to activate Flash, but it's a small price to pay for a more stable and quicker browsing experience. |
Round up: The best free YouTube video converter 2016 Posted: The best free YouTube convertersDownload and convert YouTube videosYouTube is a great resource for viewing videos, but at some point you might want to download them to a computer or mobile device. You might want to watch them offline, burn them to a DVD for archiving, or convert the audio to an MP3 for entertainment while driving. So what's the answer? Hunting down a YouTube conversion tool would be a good start, and luckily there are plenty around that won't cost you a penny - such is the magic of freeware. It's important to note that you should only download videos when you have the copyright owner's permission to do so. YouTube's terms of service explicitly prohibit unauthorised downloading. 1. aTube CatcherDownload and convert videos to play on your PC, mobile device or console aTube Catcher is an appropriately named YouTube conversion tool that will catch any video downloads you throw its way before converting them to your chosen format.
The installation process is speedy, and once up and running you'll be presented with a colourful Windows 10-like grid that clearly presents the available options. From there you can dive straight into aTube Catcher's video conversion utility for converting to another file format, or convert the soundtrack to an MP3 for audio playback.
2. Free YouTube to MP3 ConverterConvert YouTube videos and rip soundtracks to MP3 format Free YouTube to MP3 Converter is a freeware program that converts videos from YouTube to other popular video formats - including WMV and AVI - in addition to audio ones formats such as MP3. The program lets you queue up multiple files for conversion and features a clean interface that clearly displays what files are waiting to be converted.
3. Freemake Video ConverterSuper-speedy conversion into almost any video format you can name Freemake Video Converter features an attractive design and supports more file formats than you can shake a USB stick at. You can convert your downloaded video into more than 200 formats - including AVI, MP4, WKV, WMV, DV, RM, QT, TS and MTS - and you can choose to rip and convert audio to MP3 if you just want the soundtrack.
4. Free StudioTweak clips for perfect playback on your chosen device Developed by DVDVideoSoft, Free Studio comes with a massive 25 video conversion options that can convert your files automatically once they've downloaded for viewing on different devices. It's particularly useful because it bundles multiple convertors into a single program, saving you hunting for several solutions when converting to different formats.
5. YTD (YouTube Downloader)Dropped connection mid-rip? No problem with YTD YTD (formerly known as YouTube Downloader can download and convert videos from some of the most popular video websites - including Facebook, DailyMotion and College Humor - in addition to YouTube. It features the ability to convert videos into most popular video formats - from MP3 and MP4 to WNV, FLV, MOV, 3GP and AVI.
It also has the handy feature of resuming downloads automatically if your internet connection goes down temporarily. Have we missed your favorite tool for converting YouTube videos to a different format? Let us know in the comments below. |
Round up: The best free PDF reader 2016 Posted: Download the best free PDF readersThe best free PDF readersWhen you need to open a PDF, you'll usually opt for one of two options: the Reader app for Windows 8 and 10 (often pre-installed with the operating system, or available from the Windows Store), or trusty stalwart Adobe Acrobat Reader. Both are solid options, but there are many other free options, each with its own advantages. If you want to merge documents, convert them to a different format or extract images, there's a free tool that will make it straightforward. If you're short on drive space, there are also ultra-lightweight viewers available that will occupy under 2MB (compared to Adobe Acrobat Reader, which takes up 148MB), plus portable apps that run directly from a USB stick. After installation, each of these programs will ask if you want to make it your default PDF reader. We recommend leaving your settings as they are until you've had a chance to try the new software and see if it's right for you. If you're satisfied with its performance, you can make it your go-to program for PDFs by right-clicking one and selecting 'Open with'. Browse to the EXE file for your new PDF reader, check 'Always use the selected program to open this kind of file', then click 'OK'. Most programs will also ask you to install their corresponding browser extensions. Again, we recommend skipping this until you've had a chance to get used to the new software. You can always install the extensions through your browser's store at a later date. 1. Foxit ReaderA clear interface and all the tools you remember from Adobe Acrobat Reader Foxit Reader is perhaps the best known alternative to Adobe Reader, and it's easy to see why. Its ribbon-based interface takes inspiration from Microsoft Office, so you'll instinctively know where to find its impressive array of tools.
The ubiquity of the PDF format makes it a popular target for malware and virus developers, so Foxit Reader offers a Safe Reading mode that provides control over things such as internal links and Javascript integration. Downloadable add-ons are available to convert PDFs to other formats (and vice versa) and to combine multiple PDFs into a single file. File conversion is incredibly simple thanks to the inclusion of an entry in Windows' context menu.
2. Nitro PDF ReaderA great PDF reader for collaboration, with tracked changes and sticky notes Like Foxit Reader, Nitro PDF Reader bears more than a passing resemblance to Microsoft Office applications - and this is no bad thing. Right from the start this feels like a highly accomplished piece of software and there are plenty of document viewing options to choose from. But this program is about more than just viewing. As well as including an annotation and highlighting option, Nitro PDF also lets you add sticky notes to the documents you open.
3. PDF-XChange EditorA classic PDF reader, overhauled for the Windows 10 generation PDF-XChange Editor replaces the now discontinued (but still superb) PDF-XChange Viewer. The free edition contains handy features such as tracked comments and the ability to insert or extract pages, but those marked 'Pro' in the menu are only available in the paid-for version. The free edition's killer feature is OCR (optical character recognition). You can scan printed documents, have the text converted into searchable format, and save the resulting document as a PDF.
PDF-XChange Viewer is also available as a portable app for your mobile toolkit. 4. SlimPDF ReaderA frill-free PDF reader that barely makes a dent in your disk space SlimPDF Reader is by far the smallest download in this roundup, occupying just 1.43MB of space, and makes a virtue of its frill-free approach. This really is little more than a viewer, but that's no bad thing. Controls and navigations are simple and self-explanatory, and the program benefits from being lightning-fast. Search, print and rotate are the most advanced features you'll find, although you are invited to try a free trial of the PDF to Office converter.
5. Icecream Ebook ReaderNot just for ebooks - Icecream's tool is great for PDFs as well As the name suggests, Icecream Ebook Reader is designed primarily for viewing EPUB and MOBI documents, but it doubles as a simple PDF reader. As this is an ebook reader, you are encouraged to organise all of your books into a library, sortable by type and fully searchable - but there's nothing to stop you from just opening individual PDFs. The program has a slightly unusual look, but it is a joy to use. Navigation of PDFs is wonderfully simple, and there are a number of viewing modes to choose from, including an eye-friendly night mode. You can quickly add bookmarks and create notes, which are accessed through the fly-out Contents pane.
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