As I am sure any of you who regularly read this blog are aware Edge PCs is trying to be as energy efficient as possible. As part of this we are moving over to much more eco-friendly equipment.

We have just upgraded our office computer systems to a more energy efficient model. This system is also able to run in a low power mode in order to conserve even more power when it is only being used for menial tasks such as paperwork or web browsing. Each week we will post our energy savings through using this low power mode.

Reduced CO2 Emissions this week = 53485.336mg of Carbon Dioxide

There are many “premium” software packages out there that offer advanced features at a very high cost. What many people do not know is that there are lots of free alternatives out there which are just as good, if not better, than these premium packages. Below I have listed some free software packages along with a comparison to their expensive counterpart.

OpenOffice.org = Microsoft Office

www.openoffice.org

OpenOffice.org is a free alternative to Microsoft Office and is most similar to its 2003 offering. It doesn’t offer the beautiful but useless eyecandy of Microsoft Office 2007 but is able to edit files created in almost any version of Office. OpenOffice.org can easily be used as a replacement for the core software of Office which contains Writer (Word), Calc (Excel), Impress (Powerpoint) and Base (Access).

Picasa = iPhoto

www.picasa.google.com

Googles excellent Picasa software is an excellent photo organisation and tweaking application. It offers many of the features included in Apple’s iPhoto software but is available for Windows. It is able to import your photographs from many sources, automatically tag peoples faces for you and then upload them to your Google profile (Provided you have one). You are also able to manually tag people for all of those odd angled photos, tweak the images colours, contrast and add effects. There are so many features in Picasa that the best way to find them out is just try it!

VLC = Windows Media Player/Apple Quicktime

www.videolan.org/vlc/

VLC is very much the same as Windows Media Player and Apple Quicktime except for a couple of differences. Firstly VLC is able to play almost any music or video file that you throw at it, which is excellent if you like to watch a lot of online programs which would usually involve swapping backwards and forwards between other players. The other difference is its appearance, which is much less attractive than these other high profile programs.

Mozilla Firefox = Windows Internet Explorer

www.getfirefox.com

This is more of a preference thing than anything else. There are many other free browsers available but I find that the most useful out of them all is Firefox. Firefox offers many features over other browsers, the best of which is the ability to install additional features using add-ons. These features start with things as simple as an appearance modification or as advanced as copying features from other browsers such as Opera’s great Speed Dial screen which allows you to select 9 favourite websites to be listed on your home page.

Unfortunately due to unforeseen circumstances our main telephone number has been changed. The number to contact us on is now 0117 3701812 but don’t worry our mobile number hasn’t changed!