5 Free Online Editors

Editors and word processors are personal things. Some people like command line editors like vi and others hate them. Some people want a GUI but want it to just sort of sit there, others want bells and whistles.

I like online editors because I use a lot of different computers. I tend to store text documents and source code on-line. That way it doesn't matter where I am, I always have my documents and source code available to me (as long as I have an internet connection).

Here are a few different editors (all available online) for you to try. I've run into quite a few editors (amongst other sites) that require MSIE. All of the links below will work with Firefox.

Big Huge Labs Writer - Nice, clean editor. Keyboard short cuts. Auto save. Simple, elegant. Distraction free writing.

Edit Pad - Very bare bones. Blank screen. Just start typing. If easy and free is your type, this is your editor.

Google Docs - Full featres, MS Office compatible, word processer. All the bells and whistles. Now with offline support.

Dark Copy - Another distraction free editor. Small area or full screen.

JavaScript VI - It doesn't get any more painful than this. If you hate VI, do not click this link. If you love VI, now you can access it from any computer.

Technorati : editor, free, word processor

More Free Books

I can't believe I haven't blogged about this as yet. It's been around for a long time.

Baen books has the Baen Free Library. Now, I wouldn't call this their A+ catalog. Most of these are more frequently seen in the bargain section at Barnes and Nobles rather than a best seller list but some of these are hidden gems. There are also some books from the masters: Norton, Bujold, Hogan, Lackey, Laumer, Niven, Pournelle, Saberhagen and Turtledove.

This site is well worth a look and a bookmark. Heck, download them and put them on your laptop just in case you get stuck in an aitport some where. It might be fun to just browse them and find a new favorite.

Technorati : books, free, sci-fi

Free Sci-Fi Books

Tor has opened a new Sci-Fi community called tor.com. How appropriate. ;-)

There are blogs, forums, etc but the most important thing is the freebies. Free books to be exact. Some really good ones too. Scalzi, Carver, Turtledove, and lots more.

There are also free short works available.

Right now there are mote free novels available than stories but I expect that ratio to flip in time.

Get'em while they're hot!

Technorati : free books, sci fi

Recommend a good, free HTML Editor?

This isn't related to my blogging. I use Zoundry Raven for blogging and am very happy with it. I am asking about HTML editors for a regular web site that I am working on.

I used Arachnophilia for a long time as my HTML editor. It's a robust editor, but it really is that, an editor. It's starting to feel a bit long in the tooth for me. I've decided to move on to a more CSS oriented WYSIWYG style editor. I used Dreamweaver many years ago but don't feel like dropping that kind of money on an HTML editor.

Right at the moment, I am using Amaya. While Amaya is free and supports CSS (to a degree) it has some very annoying issues. In general, like most open source, it feels somewhat incomplete. It also has a tendency to lose my background, icons, etc every now and then. Most times, resaving the file fixes it but sometimes I have to exit and come back. The worst thing though, is that it doesn't support SSI so my pages all look funky. Still, it's completely free and that's a bonus.

I loaded up Trellian Webpage and it looks promising. I played with it for a few minutes but haven't actually started using it. Two others I've downloaded but not played with yet are Aptana Studio and Evrsoft 1st Page 2000. The Aptana Studio looks good because it also does Ruby, PHP and Adobe Air via plugins.

Before I invest anymore time on this, I figured I would put the question out to you. What tool are you using for HTML development and/or can you recommend a good tool for me to try? It needs to support CSS and I would prefer some kind of support for SSI. Do any of the ones I already have fit the bill? Any better suggestions?

Thanks in advance,

LewisC

Del.icio.us : css, editor, free, html

Free Floor Panning Software

I've started playing with a new online tool, Floorplanner.com. This is a really neat little tool. From the site:

Buying a new home, rearranging your room, or moving into a new office? You can save time and have more fun if you lay out your ideas ahead of time.

Floorplanner is the easiest, quickest, and best looking way to create and share interactive floorplans. Using point-and-click, drag-and-drop tools, you can make your floor plan in minutes, and rearrange it as often as you want. Then you can save, send, and print your designs to share them, or place them on your own website.

It's easy to use and works in almost any modern browser, no extra downloads required.

I haven't used it heavily but so far it works fine. The free version will only let you create a single floor plan. Since I ownly own a single house, that's not a problem for me. ;-)

You can upgrade to the Plus version. That gives you 5 floor plans. It costs $30.50 per year. That's about what you would pay for a comparable desktop version but a desktop version would give you unlimited floorplans.

You can also upgrade to Pro for $24.50 per month. That seems really steep to me even for a professional.

The free version is definitely worth a look though.

Sauerbraten, It's not your mama's cabbage!

I recently ran across the 3D FPS Sauerbraten. All I can say is "Excellent!" Completely free and open source, Sauerbraten is first person shooter with it's own style and graphics.

In looks it might have a little in common with Quake but that's a stretch really. The creatures that you fight are fairly unique looking.

The one complaint that I might have is not enough ammo for my weapons. I have that complaint for every FPS I play though so it;s not a biggie.

The performance is amazing. With no tweeaking at all, I was running at about 60fps.

The game has multiplayer support but I haven't had the opportunity to try it out yet.

An added bonus is a work-in-progress RPG called Eisenstern. Eisenstern is a parallel project using the same game engine. I played it for a while and while it's still rough, it's kind of fun and mindless entertainment. I was able to kill the golem but not the dragon.

If you're into RPGs or First Person Shooters, you owe it to yourself to give Sauerbraten a chance.

Free Movies, Cartoons and More

There are a lot of sites with homemade video but more and more are adding public domain movies and cartoons. These are basically the same movies and cartoons that you can buy in the bargain bin for a buck.

Save a dollar, watch them online.

WatchFilms.com

Free 3d Design Software

DesignWorkshop Lite: A fast, fun and free tool for creating 3D models, images, and walkthroughs, from sketches to presentations.

I first found this software a couple of years ago. I used it to design some landscaping. Decent tool for the price.

The complete freeware DesignWorkshop Lite software package provides all you need to build your own 3D models for home design and visualization of architecture, landscapes, exhibits, or any kind of spatial design. With DesignWorkshop Lite you can view and walk-through ready-made models of any size, like the free 3D building models in the Great Buildings Online, in DXF, DesignWorkshop, or 3DMF format, with amazing live 3D speed.

You can get the software with documentation and tutorials for $9.95 but the download version is free.

Free Woodworking Plans

Hey woodworkers! This site has an extensive list of woodworking plans.

FreeWoodworkingPlan.com has thousands of free plans and projects in a searchable database.

I used plans from this site to build my first workbench. Some good stuff here.

Free 1st Person Shooters

OTS Software has released all of their games as freeware.

As a THANK YOU! to all our loyal fans, OTS Software has decided to make all of our retail and shareware games FREE! Over the next few weeks, we will be re-releasing all of these games as freeware.

Check out the OTS Games page. They have plenty of online and downloadable content.

None of these games are going to change your life. These are games you would normally find on the bargain rack at Best Buy or Circuit City. There's also not a lot of replay value here, at least not for me. However, they are neat little games. And there are plenty of them.

In this list of games you can fight dragons, undead, aliens, mad cows and even lawyers! How cool is that. There are a few games for the kids also.

AVG Anti-Rootkit Freeware

AVG has one of the best free anti-virus programs around. They now have an anti-rootkit tool:

AVG Anti-Rootkit is a powerful tool with state-of-the-art technology for detection and removal of rootkits. Rootkits are used to hide the presence of a malicious object like trojans or keyloggers on your computer. If a threat uses rootkit technology to hide itself it is very hard to find the malware on your PC. AVG Anti-Rootkit gives you the power to find and delete the rootkit and to uncover the threat the rootkit is hiding.

400 Free Dos Games

DOSGames.com lists classic DOS games available for download. Not all of these are truly free. There are a bunch of freeware games but there is also a lot of shareware and demo files.

Still, it's a good resource to keep on hand. I've played many of the games on this site and I occasionally go back to replay some of the "nostalgia" games.

If you have questions about licenses or how to play a specific games, be sure to check out the dosgames faq.

Free Gaming Magazines

GamerZines offers free EZines for gamers. The EZines are professional quality and are available for download in PDF format. You can download individual issues from the site or you can sign up for a free subscription.

This is a very professionally down set of EZines. I was surprised how good they are when I first downloaded one. Imagine PC Gamer in PDF format. That's pretty much what these look like.

The site is currently offering zines on Xbox 360, PS3, PC Games, and a Handheld Gamer zine.. A zine geared for MMOs will be released later this year.

Check it out!

Get this widget!

Gizmo Central - Free Desktop Extender

Gizmo Central is a collection of utilities designed to extend your desktop and make your daily computer use easier. There is something for everyone in the list of utilities.



Features:

• Gizmo Toolbar - Configurable quick launch bar for the Windows Shell


• Gizmo Drive - Mount ISOs, encrypted hard drive images to a virtual drive


• Gizmo Script - Automate your PC and execute functions using script


• Gizmo Database - Query Analyzer and stored procedure analyzer


• Gizmo Editor - Colorizing text editor and hex/binary editor


• Gizmo Hasher - Calculate hash values for files, folders, and drives


• Gizmo Synchronization - Synchronize files and deploy software between clients

Gizmo is 100% free. Check out the FAQ.

Why is Gizmo free? What's the catch?

Answer:
There is no catch! Gizmo is free, and always will be. We do encourage you to check out our other products while you are here.

Free Game - Urban Terror: 1st Person Shooter

Urban Terror is built using the quake 3 engine. Urban Terror calls itself, "Where Quake meets Reality." The graphics, as expected, are great.



This is not JUST a mod. You do NOT need to own quake to play this game. The team has created the ioUrbanTerror engine which lets you play this game for free.



As the tag line, Where Quake meets Reality, might imply, this is a reality based game with completely new gameplay.

Check out videos before you decide to download.

3000+ Free Games

It looks like the people who run this site are car dealers. Whatever. They have a huge selection of neat little games. You won't find an Oblivion clone here but there are some good RPG, Adventure and Platform games.

Caiman Free Games

10 Free Ebooks For Bloggers

From Mashable comes the Top 10 Free E-books For Bloggers. These completely free, downloadable ebooks include:

Authority Black Book - Jack Humphrey
Beginner’s Guide to Search Engine Optimization - SEOMoz.org
BlogBash: Deep Secrets of Successful Blogging - learn from 30 experts
Blog Profits Blueprint - Yaro Starak
Dive Into Web 2.0 - Deitel
Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber Dissidents - Reporters without Borders
Make Money Online with John Chow dot Com - John Chow
Unleashing the Idea Virus - Seth Godin
Web Style Guide - WebStyleGuide.com
Who’s There - Seth Godin

Voice Recognition Software

For developers, Sphinx is "a set of reasonably mature, world-class speech components that provide a basic level of technology to anyone interested in creating speech-using applications without the once-prohibitive initial investment cost in research and development; the same components are open to peer review by all researchers in the field, and are used for linguistic research as well".

Not for end users but I am sure some enterprising developers are wrapping front ends around this.

Completely Free Games

The Libre Game Wiki is an encyclopedia of free games. Launched in August 2007, it is quickly growing.

You can get a list of all the free games in games index.

Free in the case of this wiki is pure open source free, not freeware. That means most of the games are available on source forge and all of the come with source code.

Free Software Magazine

Free Software Magazine is the free online magazine about free software. It is free to subscribe and free to read online. Please, feel free to read all of our issues, book reviews, newsletters, and blog entries and participate in our forums. We now have hundreds of articles online, so you are sure to find what you are looking for in our archives.



For more information about the magazine, check out the Free Software Magazine About page.

If you like to write, Free Software Magazine is also looking for contributors.