Artificial intelligence has revolutionized the way we work, offering powerful tools that automate tasks, enhance creativity, and boost productivity. While many premium AI tools promise cutting-edge features, some free alternatives not only compete but outperform their paid counterparts. If you’re looking to cut costs without sacrificing quality, here are five free AI tools that are better than paid versions.
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Iceland’s volcanic eruption has caused a huge headache for those stranded away from home, and while the big problems of finding alternative transport are yet to be resolved, iPhone users could at least find a little joy with Lonely Planet’s free guides to European cities.
Stranded or not, you need to be quick to get hold of them, as the offer ends this coming Thursday, 22nd April.
Grab city guides for Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, Budapest, Copenhagen, Istanbul, London, Moscow, Munich, Paris, Rome, Stockholm and Vienna.
Beware, though, because it might be cheaper to get a train, boat or taxi home than incur hideous roaming data charges. If you’re near a Wi-Fi hotspot, though (or are in your home country with free data), head over to the iTunes store and search for Lonely Planet City Guides.
InfoWorld has an interesting list with the best free services and software on the web. They are divided into several categories, including productivity, file sharing, security, video and audio, system utilities and more. Below you will find some of my favorite tools that made it to the list:
Paid Windows software like Norton AntiVirus, Adobe Photoshop and Nero are etched into the minds of users thanks to years of advertising by the powerful corporations that own them.
Most of the times the users are not aware of the fact that there are several free alternatives on the market. More importantly, these free alternatives tend to perform just as well as their paid cousins, while consuming less resources and providing a cleaner interface.
Below you will find 8 free software that you can use for a wide range of purposes.
1. Avast AntiVirus: Currently at version 4, and free for home use.
Avast is the best antivirus in terms of resource consumption. It has a low CPU and memory footprint, even while scanning. Several independent tests have found out that Avast is comparable to Norton Antivirus, Kaspersky etc. in terms of scanning accuracy, quicker than every other antivirus, and has the smallest online updates among them. Virus definition updates often go unnoticed, and we are alerted only when the update is complete.
There are several skins available for Avast. My personal favorite is the Mac OS X theme that mimics the Mac interface well, but there is a Vista theme also.
2. Spybot S&D: Free for private use.
Spybot S&D is one of the best anti-spyware tools available. Working in tandem with Ad-Aware SE, these two tools can sweep out most malware. The interface is simple, and presents three large buttons: Check for problems, Recovery and Search for Updates. Self-descriptive commands and options are the hallmark of Spybot S&D. There are two modes, Default and Advanced. Advanced mode adds many new options, but one wrong step and you may make or break the computer. The program will warn this when you try to switch to Advanced mode, though.
3. Foxit PDF: Free for personal use, contains an upgrade option for PDF editing and advanced usage.
Adobe Reader takes several seconds to load up. However, a free, lightweight alternative called Foxit is available. Foxit can be used as a basic reader for free, but advanced features like editing require a paid upgrade. It is the ‘light-weight’ factor that makes Foxit so attractive. Foxit also includes nifty features like minimizing to tray to reduce clutter on the taskbar.
4. ImgBurn: Currently at version 2.4, and free for personal use.
ImgBurn is a lightweight disc burning program, with a focus on getting things done quickly. Too many options may come in your way in Nero, but ImgBurn makes disc burning look easy. When starting up, you are met with a startup screen with options like ‘Write image file to disc’, ‘Write files to disc’ etc. Clicking one of those large icons takes you to the appropriate window.
5. FeedReader/FeedDemon: Free.
Feed reading can be made fun and enjoyable by using a desktop feed reader. While these do not have features like ‘Shared Items’ in Google, they are quick and easy to use. You can read feeds much like reading emails in a desktop app. There are options to bookmark favorite posts for further reference, and there is a separate folder for these bookmarked posts. FeedDemon has another useful feature – synchronization with Newsgator online account. This can be particularly useful if you move between several computers regularly, and want to stay synchronized.
6. VLC player: Free and open-source.
VLC player is best known as a play-it-all media player. The open-source VLC player can play videos with ease. The interface design is rather drab, but not difficult to use. Weighing in at a hefty 35 MB, VLC might look heavy. However, this extra megabytes is caused by the codecs that are bundled. So, you can play most formats without installing any codecs on the PC.
VLC is one of the few players that can play FLV and mobile video files without conversion.
7. Digsby/Pidgin: Free (Digsby) and open-source (Pidgin).
Multi-protocol instant messenger clients are always desirable for those who chat often, or need to connect with users of different protocols. Digsby was launched recently and is invite-only (get invite codes here and here), while Pidgin is free and open-source. Pidgin has a large number of plugins and themes available, while Digsby is feature-rich by default. Digsby has inline email reply(within the client) and integration with Facebook and MySpace – two innovative features. If you’re tired of Pidgin’s drab interface, try Digsby – it has a pleasant-looking interface.
8. IZArc: Free.
IZArc is a powerful archive/unarchive utility. It is free and lightweight. It has all the features of other archival utilities, plus some extra features like unpacking .iso files to component files. This can be particularly useful when you get a disc and need to extract and install any single part of the software, say the .net framework (I have used it for that particular purpose).
I have been using these freeware for over a year, and have never felt like going back to the paid software. Of course, this would require slight adjustments in our mentality and habits, but these can be done easily, once you remember that the benefits of using these are saving money, and saving system resources.
The web is home to a treasure-trove of free culture. Thousands of artists, writers, film-makers, poets and illustrators craft impressive creative works and share them freely online, in the interests of making their work accessible to as many people as possible. We thank them for that.
In this post, I want to highlight a booming segment of the online free culture movement: graphic novels.
Each link will take you to a page where you can download or view a high quality graphic novel or excerpt freely and with no strings attached.
There are plenty more to be found, but these seventeen are some of the best you’ll find.
1. NYC2123 is a graphic novel designed for the Sony Playstation Portable, though it can easily be viewed as an image slideshow on any PC. It’s a B&W cyberpunk story, set on a post-apocalyptic earth. There are currently 6 issues available for download.
2. Fell #1 by Warren Ellis and Ben Templesmith follows Detective Richard Fell, recently dumped in the roughest part of town and forced to try and stay afloat amongst the decay. Like many graphic novels, this one is heavy on the dystopia and will please anyone who likes their characters dark and morally ambiguous.
3. Crossing Midnight Vol. 1: Cut Here is a fantasy meets Asian horror story of two twins born under strange circumstances. It’s set in present day Nagasaki, Japan, and is bound to please fans of J-Horror.
4. Fables Vol. 1: Legends in Exile asks the question: what if classic fairy-tale characters were banished to present day New York?
5. Deadman Vol. 1: Deadman Walking follows the journey of a man struggling to solve the mystery behind his own death.
6. Salamander Dream is the whimsical story of a girl and her salamander spirit friend. The print version of the novel was named one of the best comics released in 2005 by Publisher’s Weekly.
7. Y: The Last Man Vol. 1: Unmanned is the story of Yorick Brown, the last man alive in a world inhabited only by women.
8. Meanwhile is an interactive comic from Jason Shiga — kinda like a much cooler version of those Choose Your Own Adventure books you read as a kid.
9. The Sandman Vol. 1: Preludes and Nocturnes, written by best-selling Sci-Fi author Neil Gaiman, chronicles the story of Morpheus, Lord of Dreams.
10. The War of the Worlds graphic novel adaptation is available freely online courtesy of Dark Horse Comics.
11. DMZ Vol. 1: On the Ground is the story of an embedded war journalist trapped in the war-zone that is now New York City.
12. Outside the Box chronicles the dangerous adventures of a bored dotcommer drawn into events much larger than himself.
13. Doom Patrol Vol. 1: Crawling From the Wreckage twists the group of superheroes stereotype on its head.
14. Indefensible Positions is a modern day story where magic and myths are real.
15. Hellblazer: Original Sins follows the early days of John Constantine, a British occultist with murky morals who is often forced to save the day.
16. Chaos PhD is a finely crafted and off-beat homage to the Silver Age of American comic books.
17. Swamp Thing Vol. 1: Saga of the Swamp Thing tells the tale of an unlikely hero: a swamp creature forced to fight against the destructive influence of a corrupt and decadent human-kind.
A couple of months ago I made the switch from Windows to Linux, and I doubt I will ever look back. Sure, sometimes business endeavors force you to use Windows applications, but other than that Linux gets the job perfectly done.
If you are considering to migrate to Linux as well, or if you have already been using it for a while but want to improve your knowledge, you might want to check the free Linux eBooks library on Homelinux.org.
You will find pretty much everything you need, from tuning the performance to shell scripts and kernel programming. Below you will find my favorite ones: