abc: 10个出色的免费软件

10 Great Software Programs You Can Get
Gratis

http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63527.html

伟大在英文里面是great，但是这两个词我觉得不是完全同义。
如果夸奖某人做一项工作很出色，用great也可以，但这就跟中国人所说的“伟大”不沾边了吧。所以译成“出色”。

By Peter Grad
The Record
06/27/08 4:00 AM PT

Bergen Record PC columnist Peter Grad
closes out the latest season of his column with a rundown of some
of the best free software available on the Web. Some of it is open
source, some isn't, but it's all free (as in beer) and useful, he
writes.

[下文不是翻译。]

免费软件和开源软件的确是这个时代伟大的东西，也许有一天，我们连操作系统都可以用免费的（别跟我说现在有免费的用，我还不想找罪受）。

不过现在，我还得打开我的Vista，使用微软给的免费软件Live
Writer贴这个鬼东西上去。

As we bring another season of The PC Guy
column to a close -- I'll be off for the summer -- let's take a
quick look at 10 cool and free software programs.

Paint.net 3.08

Coming out of left field in an already
crowded category of Photoshop competitors, this beauty of a program is simply amazing. Features such as a gradient tool that
blends images and colors in real time to generate stunning effects,
a cloning tool that makes blemishes, obstructions and other
unwanted elements disappear, red-eye removal, layer manipulation
and a battery of slick filters make this one of the best graphics
editors you're likely to find.

这个东西是可以代替Photoshop的，但是它的功能实际上还比不上Photoshop（要是比得上Adobe干脆关门算了……）。其实Gimp也是一个免费的图形软件，是从Linux来的，大概还能用吧。

EssentialPIM 2.5

Think of Outlook, now supercharge it with
colorful enhancements, improved functionality and easier access to
components. That's EssentialPIM, a suite of
utilities (minus e-mail) to help you organize your time, contacts
and chores. Its Notes program is excellent and lets you include
graphics and hyperlinks, and its classy color-coded Scheduler can
be printed out for daily, weekly or monthly tasks. It's a wonderful
all-in-one desktop office manager.
IrfanView 4.0 Considered by many to be the premiere image-viewing
program on the market, IrfanView is compact,
fast and powerful. It works with a ton of image formats, does basic
adjustments and lets you create cool slide shows on the
fly.

这个东西我没用过，好像是用来管理联系人，计划表等等东西。不过这一段里面介绍了IrfanView，似乎不搭？看图软件我喜欢Xnview，它是免费的吗？

OpenOffice.org 2.4.1

What would you say if you were offered a
full-fledged word processor, an industrial-sized spreadsheet
program, a powerful presentation utility, a strong graphics program
and a professional-caliber database compiler, all comparable to the
best Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) has to
offer and it was all free, no strings attached? If you'd call it
the best software offer in computing history, you'd be right. One
catch: You may need to shell out some bucks for an
extra hard drive, since OpenOffice.org requires
800 megabytes.

在这个时代，跟微软作对除了获得一个听起来不错的名声，通常没什么好处。OpenOffice真的不错，但是谁告诉我微软新的docx这种格式怎么用别的软件处理？

PDFCreator 8.1

PDF files, created by Adobe (Nasdaq: ADBE)
in the
'80s, remain the most popular, versatile text and graphics document
format that can be accessed on any computer operating system. Now
you can create and save your own at no cost with
PDFCreator. You can merge multiple
documents easily and encrypt them as well.

创建PDF，除了那个Adobe Acrobat，还可以试试这个。

CDBurnerXP 4.0

Some professional CD/DVD burners offer
handy extras, but if you just want the basics, to easily burn music
or data to discs without the hassle, here's your utility. You
can create your own audio discs with no gaps between songs,
bootable discs and high-def discs in Blu-ray format.

这个是用来烧录CD的，不过买刻录机时应该会送一个正版的软件吧。但说实在的，Nero现在开始往高大全方面发展，我可不打算拿一个刻录软件来编码。

7-Zip 4.57

Not the kind of utility you might get all
excited about, but we all need compression programs to zip and
unzip all sorts of files from all sorts of sources. 7-Zip handles plenty of
formats, bundles files tightly and unzips them fast.

Zip格式的作者宣布放弃版权，现在这位可称伟大的业余程序员已经不在了。WinZip还是商业软件，WinRAR比WinZip好一些，也是商业软件。至于WinAce之类的，忘掉它们吧。此外RAR的格式7z是不能完全支持的。

Stickies 6.5

There are programs that mimic Post-it notes
everywhere, but
this one is my favorite. Create
your own colorful notes, align them to the side of your desktop or
let them stand free-form, attach them to specific Web pages where
they'll remain when you revisit a week later, or assign them to a
specific file or folder. They can be timed to pop up as reminders,
and each can even play its own assigned song or sound to alert you
to an event.

我不知道这是做什么的，谁知道？

WordWeb 5.1

Remember those big things you used to store on
your desk and thumb through when you needed to spell or define a
word? I think they were called "dictionaries." WordWeb is one of the
best digital versions of a dictionary and thesaurus I've seen. It
has a massive database, and it could not be easier to use.

Simply install, go to any printed word on
your document or Web site and press control-right click, and Word
Press will instantly display definitions and synonyms, and also
provide immediate access to online Wikipedia and
Wiktionary references to
the word as well.

这个也不知道...

ooVoo 1.6.1

There are several free Internet-based
telephony programs available, but ooVoo is easily the
slickest-looking one, and it performs beautifully. Have your
friends download a copy, and make unlimited-length calls to them
for free, anywhere, anytime. Try out the free video phone call
feature as well. In fact, if you're a college student going away
soon, why not place a video phone call to your worried parents,
assure them you're OK, and then hit them up for a few extra bucks
for that hard drive you'll need for OpenOffice.org?

网络电话？

abc

Tuesday, July 01, 2008

10个出色的免费软件