1 | 2014 Christmas Gifts for You, Your Family & Your Home Computer | ||||
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2 | Programs, websites, tools, tips & tricks and all are Free (Note-- some also have paid versions and all listing are for informational purposes and do not include any type of warranty) | ||||
3 | Please leave feedback at- | http://tiny.cc/advcalcom | |||
4 | Date | Day # | Item | Description | Link |
5 | Nov-26 | 1 | PNotes | Sticky Notes for your computer | http://pnotes.sourceforge.net/index.php?page=1 |
6 | Nov-27 | 2 | Advent Calendars | Making and filling Advent calendars yourself | http://www.my-adventcalendar.com/index.html |
7 | Nov-28 | 3 | Cold Turkey | Hate distractions? Cold Turkey will temporarily block you off of social media sites, games, programs and any other addicting websites. Imagine how fast you could do your work without all those distractions! Best of all, you choose the price! | http://getcoldturkey.com/ |
8 | Nov-29 | 4 | Free eBooks & More | Free eBooks, Online Books, Audio Books, Podcasts, Educational Videos, Study Guides, Online Courses & MOOCs | https://sites.google.com/a/apps.sparcc.org/resources/free-resources |
9 | Nov-30 | 5 | Recover Documents or other Files | Six free and cheap tools to help you recover (almost) anything Few things are more panic-inducing than losing an important file on your PC. Whether it's a big project for work or a priceless family photo, the data stored on your hard drive is precious. | http://www.pcworld.com/product/collection/13588/six-free-or-cheap-tools-designed-to-help-you-recover-almost-anything.html#tk.nl_down |
10 | Dec-1 | 6 | Ninite | "Always Up-to-date You don't have to watch for updates, our bots do that. No toolbars. No clicking next. Just pick your apps and click Get Installer. Run it again later Your installer will update apps to the latest versions. If something is up-to-date we'll skip it." Automatically install your choice of over 60 free programs. Great for that new computer you will be getting as a present from Santa (maybe, if you are good) | http://ninite.com/ |
11 | Dec-2 | 7 | Italian Family Recipes | Today's gift is a little more personal-- First, I love to eat! Second, I love to cook! So it was great to have Italian grandparents, parents and extended family to learn from. I have collected some of these family recipes in a small booklet. It includes many simple dishes and a few fancy ones. Some old and some new (not all are Italian as I haven't met a cuisine that did not have something I like . It has a few great holiday ones- Pizzelles (Italian Waffle Cookies), Christmas Struffoli Pignoli Honey Cluster, Figs Poached in Marsala and even a Swedish one- Christmas Sulta (Swedish Salted Pork) from my wife's family. | http://tiny.cc/irecipes |
12 | Dec-3 | 8 | Lookup Definitions Online- Chrome Extension | Look up definitions from free online sources. Look up words in free online dictionaries/thesaurus. Current version includes: Cambridge Advanced Learner's,, Longman Contemporary English, The Free Dictionary, Merriam Webster Dictionary, Wiktionary, Thesauruss & more. (Requires Google Chrome Browser) | https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/lookup-definitions-dictio/okmbiihjdbcblijmobaacddifcoaggeg |
13 | Dec-4 | 9 | Collection of Helpful Chrome Extensions & Apps | If you enjoyed yesterday's Chrome Extension here is a our Google Help Page, which includes collections of both Chrome Extensions & Apps from Eric Curts & I that you might find helpful! | https://sites.google.com/a/apps.sparcc.org/google/resources |
14 | Dec-5 | 10 | Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol | "Mister Magoo's Christmas Carol 'is a musical adaptation of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol. It was the first animated holiday program ever produced specifically for television, originally airing in December 1962, and the only one until the stop-motion Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was first shown in December 1964. It featured the voice of Jim Backus as Magoo,. I guess I am showing my age but I remember seeing the first showing while the family decorated our Christmas Tree! Our you can watch the clasic 1951 movie with Alastair Sim at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPCPdrE4J2c | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AFfPsvbyvs |
15 | Dec-6 | 11 | Jing | Share Ideas Instantly Try Jing for a free and simple way to start sharing images and short videos of your computer screen. Whether for work, home, or play, Jing gives you the ability to add basic visual elements to your captures and share them fast. | http://www.techsmith.com/jing.html |
16 | Dec-7 | 12 | > 101 Searching & Research Tools | Now grown to over 200 sites. Includes specialized searching sites, meta searching (multiple sites at once), kid's searching sites, image and font search tools, witting tools, All sites are color coded by category and you can use the tabs to filter by type of tool Scroll down on the page.... | https://sites.google.com/a/apps.sparcc.org/resources/searching |
17 | Dec-8 | 13 | Passmark Benchmarking (CPU Speed) | Think of buying a new computer and not sure how to compare processor speed? Passmark will give you relative rating for each processor"... a searchable alphabetical list of all CPU types that appear in the charts. Clicking on a specific processor name will take you to the chart it appears in and will highlight it for you." If you are buidling your own PC or updating its components visit - http://pcpartpicker.com for help. | http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_list.php |
18 | Dec-9 | 14 | Martindale's On-Line Calculators Center | Go figure! "Calculators, Applets, Spreadsheets, and more. Currently... contains over 23,875 Calculators & Spreadsheets, 4,285 Courses, Lectures, Manuals, Handbooks, & 1,000's of Movies, Videos, Simulations & Animations". You may also want to visit the home page- "Martindale's The Reference Desk"- www.martindalecenter.com | http://www.martindalecenter.com/Calculators.html |
19 | Dec-10 | 15 | Paint.NET | "... is free image and photo editing software for PCs that run Windows. It features an intuitive and innovative user interface with support for layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools. An active and growing online community provides friendly help, tutorials, and plugins". | http://www.getpaint.net/ |
20 | Dec-11 | 16 | Audacity | Audacity is a free, easy-to-use, multi-track audio editor and recorder for Windows, Mac OS X, GNU/Linux and other operating systems. The interface is translated into many languages. You can use Audacity to: *Record live audio *Record computer playback on any Windows Vista or later machine *Convert tapes and records into digital recordings or CDs* Edit WAV, AIFF, FLAC, MP2, MP3 or Ogg Vorbis sound files. *Cut, copy, splice or mix sounds together. *Change the speed or pitch of a recording.****And more! "" | http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ |
21 | Dec-12 | 17 | Ghostery Browser Add-on/Plugin/Extension | Who is tracking you online? What pages AR you actual accessing when you visit your favorite sites? "Ghostery is a browser tool available for Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera, Internet Explorer, as well as a standalone app available for iOS. It scans the page for trackers - scripts, pixels, and other elements - and notifies you of the companies whose code is present on the web page you are visiting. Usually, these trackers aren’t visible, and they are often hard to find in the page source code. Ghostery allows you to learn more about these companies and their practices, and block the page elements from loading if the user chooses." | www.ghostery.com/ |
22 | Dec-13 | 18 | OSalt.com (Open Source as Alternative) | "Find open source software alternatives to well-known commercial software. Our mission is to provide easy access to high quality open source alternatives to well-known commercial products. And remember that open source software is also a freeware alternative." A cornucopia of Free Software Alternatives! | www.osalt.com/ |
23 | Dec-14 | 19 | LSNED- Learn Something New Every Day | OK, it almost Christmas Break! But instead of turning off the brain, Rev It Up and Learn Something New Today and Every Day at LSNED! | https://sites.google.com/a/apps.sparcc.org/resources/lsne |
24 | Dec-15 | 20 | Cameyo- Virtual Windows Installer | Today's item is a little techie, but easy to use or you can use the many pre-built applications. "Cameyo's virtualization technology is about bringing entire application environments into one single executable that can run anywhere, and whose usage will not affect or modify your system. Windows applications usually have dozens of files, DLLS, registry keys and other components that install and possibly influence your system. Our purpose is to bring the benefits of application vitalization to everyone, with 3 fundamentals Simplicity, Light weight & performance, Cloud." Although there is a cost for commercial use, it is free for personal computers and up to 49 machines for small enterprises. | http://www.cameyo.com/ |
25 | Dec-16 | 21 | National Geographic Education | "... has worked to educate audiences about our planet. National Geographic Education is responsible for creating educational programs and resources for schools, out-of-school settings, and the home. National Geographic Education’s work targets two goals: Geo-literacy is an essential skill for decision-making in 21st century personal, professional, and civic life & Educational Outreach: home to rich and diverse resources that have enormous potential to support learning." | http://education.nationalgeographic.com/education/?ar_a=1 |
26 | Dec-17 | 22 | CCleaner | Empty your caches, fix registry errors, select start-up programs and generally de-junk your computer. "CCleaner is our system optimization, privacy and cleaning tool. It removes unused files from your system - allowing Windows to run faster and freeing up valuable hard disk space. It also cleans traces of your online activities such as your Internet history. Additionally it contains a fully featured registry cleaner." | https://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/features |
27 | Dec-18 | 23 | Video Streaming Devices | Looking for a last minute gift or something to go along with that new TV your family is getting? Take a look at wide variety of Streaming Media Devices | http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/roku-3-best-streaming-box/ |
28 | Dec-19 | 24 | The Free Dictionary | More than just an online dictionary- Thorough Definitions, Pronunciations, Idioms, Acronyms, Thesaurus with Synonyms, Related Words & Antonyms, Translations, Mentioned In, References in Classic Literature, Word of the Day, Article of the Day, Hangman, Spelling Bee, Word Match Up, Quote of the Day, Encyclopedia and More! | http://www.tfd.com/ |
29 | Dec-20 | 25 | 7-Zip File Compression | Sending and receiving large files: It's something we all need to do. Even cloud storage services like Dropbox and Google Drive can't replace the convenience of a quick email. But email poses problems, limits that many ISPs impose on the size of file sent or received. To get the file size down without losing important data, you can zip it with compression software. The software is also used to unzip compressed files. | http://www.7-zip.org/ |
30 | Dec-21 | 26 | LSNED- Learn Something New Every Day | OK, it is Christmas Break! But instead of turning off the brain, Rev It Up and Learn Something New Today and Every Day at LSNED! | https://sites.google.com/a/apps.sparcc.org/resources/lsne |
31 | Dec-22 | 27 | Free Video Chat & Conference | ""Reach and touch someone" during the Holiday season, you don't even need to run up the phone bill and a bonus is the ability of these systems to not only chat but see each other. See "Online Meeting And Web Conferencing Tools – Best Of". (We use Google Hangouts here at work and you can even join us for our twice-a-month online TechEd Professional Development at http://google.apps.sparcc.org/pd live or on-demand.) | http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/online-meeting-tools/ |
32 | Dec-23 | 28 | VLC Video Player | ""Simple, fast and powerful media player. Plays everything: Files, Discs, Webcams, Devices and Streams. Plays most codecs with no codec packs needed: MPEG-2, DivX, H.264, MKV, WebM, WMV, MP3,etc. Runs on all platforms: Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, Unix,etc.Completely Free, 0 spyware, 0 ads and no user tracking. Can do media conversion and streaming."" | http://www.videolan.org/vlc/index.html |
33 | Dec-24 | 29 | NORAD Tracks Santa | Get ready for Christmas Eve. Gather the children and grandchildren and follow Santa as he makes his magical journey! | http://www.noradsanta.org/ |
34 | Dec-25 | 30 | Family & Friends!!! | After the last gift has been opened , spend some quality time with family and friends and chat (in person no digital or texting allowed!). And what could be better place to sit and chat then in front of a cracking fireplace. Don't have a fireplace, don't want the heat, out of wood? Then take a look at these fireplace videos for you big screen TV or tiny laptop or tablet. Good night and a Merry Christmas to all, hope you have enjoyed the gifts! Don't forget to try out one or more of the recipes from December 2nd. Please leave a thank for our team of elf workers or a comment by going to go to http://goo.gl/nW2KtP | http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=fireplace&sm=3 |