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“As for me, I am rather often uneasy in my mind, because I think that my life has not been calm enough; all those bitter disappointments, adversities, changes keep me from developing fully and naturally in my artistic career.”
Sent in by VanRamblings reader Daryl Magnusson, an artful retrospective on Vincent van Gogh, an absolutely gorgeous and inspiring presentation on the father of Impressionism.
To view the Powerpoint presentation click here.
Although a little late in arriving, VanRamblings offers insight into 7 essential pieces of free software that will enhance your computing life.
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Irfanview: Who says that altruism is dead? Certainly not Irfan Skiljan, that’s for sure, the creator of one of the web’s most popular free downloads. A compact, fast and friendly image viewer that supports all major graphic formats (including bmp, dib, jpeg, gif, animated gifs, png, pcx, multipage tiff, and tga), Irfanview offers a free, scaled down Photoshop-like tool featuring drag-and-drop support, directory viewing, TWAIN support, slide shows, batch conversion, and modifications — such as colour depth, crop, blur, and sharpen — as well as plug-in support for most video and sound formats, including mp3, avi, audio CD, and wma. IrfanView wraps just about every feature you could desire in an image viewer in a free download. Heck, it’s the best image viewer around.
Adobe Reader: This nifty little piece of software allows you to read the common pdf (portable document format) files that are created by Adobe’s Acrobat software. In addition to the standard features found in the standalone Acrobat Reader client, Acrobat Reader offers PDF viewing from within your Mozilla Firefox (plug-in technology at work once again) or Internet Explorer (via ActiveX technology) browsers.
Tweak XP Pro: Tweak-XP Professional adds more than 56 time-saving productivity improvements to Windows XP. In addition to tuning Windows XP to run faster, Tweak-XP has easy-to-use functions that allow you to tailor Windows XP to meet your personal needs. This useful utility provides you with the opportunity to remove My Network Places, or other icons, from your desktop, prevent Shortcut to from being appended to new shortcuts, offers a memory optimization function and supports as many system enhancements as you’ll require to ensure a safe and satisfying computing experience. Click here to download.
PowerDesk: Absolutely the best file management utility available, and a must have alternative (or replacement) for the cumbersome and annoying built-in Windows Explorer, PowerDesk offers a simple, fast and easy way to organize and manage files, digital photos, MP3 music files and web images on your PC. In just one, two or three clicks, you can customize your PC: rename, move, copy, zip, label, colour code, search, view, prioritize, convert, and use your files the way you want to use them. Try the fully functional free version of PowerDesk 5 — you won’t be sorry you did.
Windows XP IP Config Tool: Windows XP offers several methods for finding out your IP address and performing other tasks that help you troubleshoot network settings, but some are easier than others. This free tool identifies your IP address, subnet mask, and default gateway, and allows you to easily verify the IP-address assigned to your system, as well as release and renew your IP address when your network broadband connections goes on the blink. Think you don’t need it; just see how much easier life is the next time you phone your Internet Service Provider for assistance and s/he asks you for your IP address. Here’s an essential tool that’ll give you the answer with one click of your mouse. To download this free utility, click here.
WinZip: The reigning essential utility tool of the PC world, WinZip’s Classic interface accommodates both first-time and experienced users. With WinZip you can quickly and easily compress and decompress files, folders, and entire folder trees to save storage space and reduce e-mail transmission time, as well as encrypt and decrypt your sensitive documents. WinZip 9.0 features tight integration with Windows Explorer, support for most Internet file formats, and one-click zipping and e-mail.
And, last but not least, the …
DivX Player (with DivX Codec) 5.2.1: Although the latest version seems to be a bit glitchy, and as the folks at Download.com suggest, you may wish to wait for a version later than 5.2.1, the DivX player remains, nonetheless, an essential PC download. If you read through the reader reviews you’ll run across a pretty happy bunch of campers who praise the DivX player for possessing just about every codec necessary to properly play audio or video you download off the ’Net.
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The first order of business when purchasing a new computer — or in keeping your existing computer safe — revolves around ensuring that your computer is saved harmless from external malicious intrusions: malware of all sorts, including viruses, Trojan horses, worms, spyware, adware and any other sort of infection which might impact on your computer’s ability to perform the tasks you set for it.
Herewith, then, six pieces of essential free software to download and install.
Anti-Virus Software: Now, you could go out and purchase Norton Anti-Virus and pay anywhere from $35 to $99. Or, you could download and install a very effective Anti-Virus alternative, AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition 7.289, which includes automatic update functionality, the AVG Resident Shield (which provides real-time protection as files are opened and programmes are run), free Virus Database Updates for the lifetime of the product, and AVG Virus Vault for safe handling of infected files.
A firewall: Perhaps the most effective free firewall is ZoneAlarm 5.5.062.004, which includes four interlocking security services: a firewall, an application control, an Internet lock, and Zones that control the ‘door’ to your computer, allowing only traffic you understand and initiate. Just be sure that during setup that you don’t opt for the paid version.
Anti-Spyware programmes: The two best free anti-spyware programmes are Spybot - Search and Destroy and Ad-Aware 1.05, which together will eliminate spyware from more than 22,000 different companies spying on you through your computer. Another must-have security tool, and recent addition to the anti-spyware arsenal, is Bazooka Adware and Spyware Scanner v1.13.02, which detects a multitude of spyware, adware, Trojan, keylogger, foistware and trackware components — in only seconds.
In addition to the programmes above, smart computer users run the latest version of the McAfee Stinger, a stand-alone utility used to detect and remove specific viruses. McAfee Stinger is not a substitute for full anti-virus protection, but will root out viruses, Trojans and worms missed by the programmes above. Stinger utilizes next generation scan engine technology, including process scanning, digitally signed DAT files, and scan performance optimizations. If your computer is acting up, and you’ve run a scan employing the programmes mentioned in the first part of this article, McAfee Stinger will likely find the malicious miscreant that has infected your system, even when the other programmes haven’t.
On Tuesday January 11, 2005, return for more essential programmes to install in order to take full advantage of your computer’s capabilities.
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With only 163 days to go to the next provincial election, the campaign for the hearts and minds of British Columbians is well underway.
As Bill Tieleman wrote in his November 25th column for the Georgia Straight, “the recent information mailing about the province’s economy … is nothing less than pre-election Liberal Party propaganda, as well as false advertising paid for by taxpayers.”
Where the B.C. budget for 1999 was balanced under the New Democratic government, and the 2000 budget had a record surplus of $1.5 billion, upon their election in 2001 the B.C. Liberals racked up the largest two deficits in provincial history, adding more than $5 billion in debt to the province’s books between 2001 and 2005.
Although Gordon Campbell’s Liberals cut taxes for the rich by $2 billion dollars within a month of their ascension to power, in the following two years the Fiberals actually hiked taxes by $1 billion, most of which hit lower-and middle-income earners.
David Schreck, of Strategic Thoughts.com, also weighs in on the Fiberals reign of mismanagement of the B.C. economy, and the half-truths and outright lies that have been propagated in the thinly veiled, taxpayer funded, multi-million dollar Liberal Propaganda Achieve B.C. ads that have littered the airways and filled up whole pages of newspapers across B.C.
Caring British Columbians are not about to sit back and allow the Fiberals to hoodwink us into voting for them a second time. To that end, the Hospital Employees Union has released this ad, to provide information and historical insight into one of North America’s most regressive governments.