free

SitePoint say:

Our Sensational Photoshop book is now FREE to Download!

That’s right! No catches, no samples. For a LIMITED TIME only, a COMPLETE COPY of Corrie Haffly’s Brilliant Photoshop Web primer is free to download.

[Mentioned on the Wise Women mailing list.]

By the way: the catch is that you must supply your email address, then they send you a download link. As I write, I’m in the middle of downloading the 63Mb, high resolution PDF, but there’s a smaller file available too.

Popularity: 19% [?]

Phonecalls can be expensive, especially if you have to pay national or international toll fees. By using your Internet connection you can make those calls for free. [First published November 2005.]

I knew it was over when I downloaded Skype, Michael Powell, chairman, Federal Communications Commission, explained.

“When the inventors of KaZaA are distributing for free a little program that you can use to talk to anybody else, and the quality is fantastic, and it’s free — it’s over. The world will change now inevitably.”

— Fortune Magazine, February 16, 2004 [Quoted at www.skype.com/company.]

That ‘little program’ is Skype. It allows you to use a thing called Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), which is a fancy way of saying ‘phonecalls over the Internet’.

What you need

You need a computer connected to the Internet and equipped with a microphone and speaker (and sound card). If you don’t have these built-in then you buy them as extra peripherals. You’ll achieve the best results with a fast Internet connection and good quality microphone and speaker, but even a dial-up connection can work just fine.

Prepare for calling

Sign up for a VoIP service, such as Skype and install the software. Exchange Skype names with your regular contacts and add the names to your Skype address book.

As with many services these days you can sign up free or pay for more advanced features. The free service includes calls to other Skype users; you pay extra to be able to call regular phone numbers.

Make a call

The main Skype window shows which of your contacts are online. To make a phonecall double click a contact’s name. After a short time the call will be connected and now you just talk as though this were a regular phonecall.

If you prefer you can just send messages by typing, or if you both have a camera attached to your computer and a high-speed Internet connection then make video calls.

How much does it cost?

The basic Skype service is free and allows you to call other Skype users over the Internet. There is no cost beyond your normal Internet charges. For a tiny extra fee you can call regular phone numbers using SkypeOut. At time of writing that rate is 0.017 Euros per minute (about 3 cents NZ). That includes international calls.

Compare that with Telecom’s Anytime plan, charging 18 cents per minute for national calls and 49 cents per minute to the UK, and you can see why VoIP is becoming so extraordinarily popular.

It may be worth doing some sums and experimenting a little.

More information on VoIP

computer.howstuffworks.com/ip-telephony.htm

Written for and reproduced from CommunityNet Aotearoa Panui, November 2005. The article has been edited a little for use here. Costs quoted refer to 2005.

Popularity: 11% [?]

If you need to keep people informed but e-mail isn’t enough and you don’t have time, skills or money for a website, then a Blog may be the answer. It’s free, and really easy; read on for a guided tour. [First published May 2005.]

A plea for help

CommunityNet Aotearoa recently received the following plea for help. (We’ve changed a couple of details for privacy reasons.)

We are a free service that provides information to members on what — where — when. We were wondering whether there was a free website available to keep informing our members? We are a non-profit organisation and therefore have no funds to run a website, but this is desperately needed. At present we are using the email system which is less than satisfactory. PLEASE help!

A free blog was our suggestion. A blog is very easy to set up and you don’t have to know how to make web pages — you just fill in a form on a web page to add a new notice. WordPress.com and Blogger offer free Blogs.

[Note: when I wrote this tip the superb WordPress.com was not available. I'd recommend that rather than Blogger for many reasons — quality being the main one.]

Free Sign Up

I visited Blogger at the above address and worked through the sign-up process. I chose the Username: KiwiCNA and a secret password. Then I read and agreed to the Terms of Service.

Name the Blog.

The next screen asked me to choose a name and address for my Blog. I chose CommunityNet Kiwi and cnakiwi.blogspot.com.

Next I had to deal with a “captcha”. That’s a picture of some distorted text, which helps ensure that I’m a real person filling out this form and not some kind of spam robot. This may cause difficulties for users with visual disabilities and I have not yet established how blind people will manage this step.

Choose a layout.

The next step gives me some attractive layouts to choose from. I note these have been created by some leading web designers who know how to create websites which meet current standards. I chose Minima.

Now start sharing information.

That was it for the set-up phase. Now I can start putting information into my website. I write a title and a few paragraphs and press the button marked Publish Post.

A few settings.

There are many settings you can change if you wish, but you don’t have to change them to run a perfectly good Blog. It is worth setting the Time Zone to NZ time; visit Settings — Formatting — Time Zone and scroll down until you reach UTC + 12 Pacific / Auckland. After you’ve changed it click the Save Settings button.

Written for and reproduced from CommunityNet Aotearoa Panui, May 2005.

Popularity: 12% [?]