Portal » SLT Student Portal

• I've stood on my soapbox many times and thrashed on on-board video and yet this setup has it. The reason is it's about equal to the old GeForce MX400 video cards and it's getting really hard not to get on-board video in a budget board. If you're into gaming you want to buy a PCI-express video card immediately.
• I chose an AM2 socket board when I could have saved $30 on a socket 939/754. Why? Because it will get harder to find those boards in the future or cpu's that match them. For $30 you ensure against obsolescence for a few years.
• By going with the AM2 socket board I also ended up with a slower cpu (by 400mhz). Really, you won't be able to see the difference.
  
• I went with a 160 GB SATA drive instead of a 250 GB ATA for the same price because they're nice to work with (smaller cables). There will be no speed difference between the two so if you're on a budget and need the space go for the 250 Samsung.
• As usual the power supply costs more than the case (which has one). Don't skimp on the one component that has the power to fry the whole computer (and don't use the included power supply).
• I didn't include keyboard and mouse as I usually do. I mean really, if you can't choose your own keyboard and mouse what are you doing building a computer anyway?
  

Fry's Electronics?

"You may want to keep an eye on Frys electronic's specials on harddrives. I built a similar package as this one using Fry's Electronics parts since they are considered to be very inexpensive. The total was $362 after tax including a $40 mail-in rebate. So it ended up being about $20 more and the quality wasn't as good. The powersupply was Antec (good) but only 300 watts. The cpu was a Sempron 2400+ (good) but the MB was an ECS (not so good). The harddrive was larger by 40 GB but the quality of the cdrom, keyboard and mouse weren't as good. That was with a CPU/MB combo special and a mail-in rebate. If I wouldn't have gotten the combo deal and there wasn't a rebate on the harddrive the Fry's system would have cost about $80 more than the Newegg system. Shopping at Fry's is all about timing. I've bought several thousand dollars of stuff there but only because they were killer deals."

1. Human stupidity
2. Human ignorance
3. Windows' ability to contract viruses, trojans and spyware

2 Best Free Anti-Virus Software
There are two equal recommendations in this category. First there is AVG Antivirus 7.0 Free Edition. It's relatively small, light on resources, has regular automatic updates and handles email scanning. There is a free and a pro version, the only difference being that the free version has a few non-critical features disabled and has no direct technical support.
[1] http://free.grisoft.com
[2] http://www.avast.com (5MB)
[3] http://www.free-av.com (6.8MB)
[4] http://www.techsupportalert.com/free-vs-paid-av.htm <= review of the effectiveness of free security software

3 Best Free Adware/Spyware/Scumware Remover
My top recommendation is Microsoft's Antispyware program which is currently available as a free beta to users of Windows 2000 and later. The Microsoft program is based on the Giant Antispyware product that Microsoft purchased late in 2004. For Windows 9x and ME users I suggest two free products: Ad-Aware SE V1.6 and SpyBot Search and Destroy V1.4. Both work well together and between them you'll get excellent protection.
[1] http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/default.mspx ( 6.4MB)
[2] http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/ (1.7MB)
[3] http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html (4.6MB)

4 Best Free Browser Protection Utility
Your Internet Explorer homepage has been changed, your default search setting altered, unwanted ads pop up on your screen and worse. You can help protect Internet Explorer against these attacks by using SpywareBlaster. SpywareBlaster can be used with Firefox but there's not much point as Firefox doesn't need to be protected against ActiveX exploits.
[1] http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html (2.2MB)
[2] http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareguard.html (1.96MB)

5 Best Free Firewall
No other single product class seems to cause as much angst to average users in their installation and day-to-day use as Firewalls. That's why my choice for "best" goes to Kerio Personal Firewall, the product that seems to cause the fewest problems for users yet manages first rate protection as well. The latest free version (V6) of the ZoneAlarm firewall comes in a a good second choice though there have been considerable teething problems with the new version.
[1] http://www.kerio.com/kpf_home.html (7.3MB)
[2] http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/company/products/znalm/freeDownload.jsp (9.0MB)
[3] http://smb.sygate.com/products/spf/summary_spf.htm (8.8MB)
[4] http://www.netveda.com/consumer/safetynet.htm (6.3MB)

6 Best Free Trojan Scanner/Trojan Remover
Ewido is the best of a new crop of anti-Trojan programs. Note that Ewido only works with Windows 2000 and later so Win 9X users should consider the free version of a2 (a-squared) anti-trojan as an alternative. It's not quite as effective as Ewido but is still an excellent product. High risk PC users such as P2P file sharers and frequenters of hack sites, should however consider the industrial strength protection of Trojan Hunter or the full version of Ewido both of which offer the active protection they need. Note: The free version of Ewido is actually the same as the paid version but after 14 days the active protection (i.e. memory monitor) becomes non-functional.
http://www.ewido.net/en/ (2.2MB)
http://www.anti-trojan-software-reviews.com/review-ewido.htm <= review of Ewido

7 Best Free Rootkit Scanner/Remover U
Rootkits are a special kind of software tool used to hide trojans, viruses and other malware from your anti-virus scanner and other security products. BlackLight is currently available as a free beta from F-Secure until the 1st of January 2006. I suggest everyone download this product and scan their PC. Currently the biggest gun in the rootkit detection war is a free Chinese product called IceSword. It will reveal just about everything running on your PC.
[1] http://www.f-secure.com/blacklight/cure.shtml Windows 2000 and later, 911KB.
[2] http://www.xfocus.net/tools/200509/IceSword_en1.12.rar <= slow Chinese site, 565KB
[3] http://www.techsupportalert.com/rootkits.htm <= How to deal with the threat of rootkits

8 Best Free Intrusion Prevention and Detection Utility for Home Use
Anti-virus and anti-spyware products dramatically reduce the chance of infection but you can enhance your protection further by installing an additional layer of defense with an intrusion detection program. For advanced users Prevx is a stand out recommendation. For other users (but not beginners) I recommend the free version of WinPatrol.
http://www.prevx.com/prevxhome.asp (7.5MB)
http://www.winpatrol.com/ (880KB)
http://www.techsupportalert.com/intrusion-detection.htm <= Brief survey of IDS software

9 Best Free Anonymous Surfing Service
There are lots of reasons folks have for wanting to surf anonymously, ranging from simple paranoia to possibly being murdered by a malevolent foreign government. One of the best services JAP, is totally free. An alternative to JAP is another system called Tor. It not only allows anonymous browsing but anonymous email, IM, and IRC chat as well. However expect your surfing to slow down as you'll be relayed through a chain of servers. You'll also need to change your browser settings to work through a proxy.
http://anon.inf.tu-dresden.de/index_en.html
http://tor.eff.org/

10 Best Free Software Suite
The Open CD site offers for free a wonderful collection of just about every application software product you need to run a PC including the latest version of OpenOffice. There is Abi Word as an alternative for MS Word, OpenOffice for MS Office XP, Thunderbird for Outlook, The Gimp for Adobe Photoshop, 7-zip for WinZip and many more.
[1] http://theopencd.org
[2] http://www.ubuntu.com/download/support/documentation/faq/shipit/
[3] http://www.paulstamatiou.com/2005/10/24/how-to-ubuntu-linux-for-novices/

12 Best Free Email Client Updated October 20, 2005
Thunderbird is a free open source POP and IMAP email client developed by Mozilla.org, the same folks who brought you Firefox. Feature-wise it sits somewhere between Outlook Express and Outlook which means that it offers an upgrade to Express users and a downgrade to those who use the more advanced PIM features of Outlook.
http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird
http://www.nidelven-it.no/articles/introduction_to_thunderbird

13 Best Free Web Mail Accessory
Two suggestions: the first is a nifty free product called YPOPs! (formerly YahooPops!) that allows you to collect your Yahoo webmail from within your POP email client such as Outlook, Thunderbird or Eudora. I use it on multiple Yahoo accounts and it works wonderfully. The second suggestion is an Open Source utility called MrPostman. It's a much more flexible product than YPOPs! and will download HotMail, Lycos, Yahoo and several other webmail services into your POP email client. Io be installed on your PC.
http://yahoopops.sourceforge.net/ (1.3MB)
http://mrpostman.sourceforge.net/ (1.5MB)
http://2mod2.com/mohot/ <= Installing Mr Postman
http://sourceforge.net/forum/?group_id=68124 <= MrPostman forum

14 Best Free HTML Editor
Nvu is nothing new but rather a reworking of the old Netscape Composer. Here is an HTML editor and site manager that's easy enough for beginners to use but powerful enough to build large sites. It's closer in concept to Microsoft's FrontPage more than any other product but unlike FrontPage it, thankfully, produces standards compliant code. Its easy-to-use WYSIWYG editor will delight
http://www.nvu.com/

15 Best Free Spam Filter for the Average User
MailWasher is for most folks, the best free option. MailWasher is an email preview utility that allows you to check your email on your mail server before you download it to your PC. The advantage of this approach is that you can kill unwanted messages including spam, viruses and large attachments before they get anywhere near your computer.
[1] http://www.mailwasher.net ( 3.05MB)
[2] http://www.321download.com/LastFreeware/page2.html#Mailwasher (1.57MB)
[3] http://www.artplus.hr/adapps/eng/xterminator.htm (1.87MB)
[4] http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-antispam.htm <=brief review of the best spam blockers

16 Best Free Spam Filter for Experienced Users
There are many different spam filters available employing lots of different techniques. In my experience "learning" spam filters that use the Bayesian statistical approach out-perform most other types of filters I've tried. Not only are they better at detecting spam they are also less liable to classify your real mail as spam. This effectiveness takes a little time to develop as the filter has to be trained to recognize your spam from your normal mail.
http://popfile.sourceforge.net/old_index.html (4.3MB)
http://spambayes.sourceforge.net/ (3.6MB)
http://www.keir.net/k9.html (113KB)

17 Best Free Popup Stopper
If you need a separate popup stopper and have good PC skills I suggest you try The Proxomitron. It operates by filtering and transforming all your Web pages on the fly. For Novice PC users I suggest you try the Google toolbar rather than The Proxomitron.
http://computercops.biz/files/ProxN45.exe
http://accs-net.com/smallfish/prox.htm
http://www.sankey.ws/proxomitron.html
http://toolbar.google.com/

18 Best Free Digital Image Editor Updated October, 2005
The Gimp If you are used to Photoshop you might like to look at GIMPShop, which changes the user interface of GIMP to something more familiar. For other less experienced users I have two recommendations: First there is Paint.net, an amazingly sophisticated piece of work from computer science students at Washington State University.
http://www.gimp.org/windows/ (7.07MB)
http://www.gimpshop.net/ (7.4MB)
http://www.eecs.wsu.edu/paint.net/ (1.1MB)
http://www.freeserifsoftware.com/software/PhotoPlus/default.asp (19.4MB)

19 Best Free Notepad Replacement Updated 20th October, 2005
EditPad concentrates on simply being a better plain text editor and in that role, it succeeds brilliantly. It has a Notepad-like interface combined with tabbed document windows, the ability to open as many documents as you like, no file size limitations and unlimited un-do capability.
http://www.editpadlite.com/editpadlite.html (973KB)
http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/site.htm (807KB)

20 The Best File Archiver/Zip Utility Updated October 20, 2005
7-Zip. 7-zip decompresses archives that winzip chokes on...
http://www.izarc.org/download.html Windows 9x and later, 3.1MB
http://www.7-zip.org/ Windows 9x and later, 1.05MB

21 Best Free Registry Cleaner Updated November 18, 2005
[1] http://www.321download.com/LastFreeware/
[2] http://personal.inet.fi/business/toniarts/ecleane.htm

22 The Best Free FTP Client
http://filezilla.sourceforge.net/

23 Best Free Registry Editor
Registrar Lite, the free version of Resplendent Registry Editor. To start with, it works totally reliably - an essential feature for any registry editor.
http://www.resplendence.com/reglite

24 Best Free PC Inventory Tool
The freeware utility AIDA32 was the best system inventorying tool ever, regardless of price. It documented just about every aspect of your hardware and software configuration as well as checking networks and providing memory benchmarks.
[1] http://www.lavalys.com/products.php?lang=en (4.0MB)
[2] http://www.soft32.com/download_9181.html (5MB)
[3] http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html (830KB)