Free For All The Internet is a gold mine of free software...if you know where to look.
Opinions expressed by BIZ Experiences contributors are their own.
The Internet is full of free or low-cost software. Of particularinterest to BIZ Experiencess are business and productivity tools. Thetrick is to find them. Fortunately, there are Web sites to assistyou. These sites give you a search engine to hunt for softwareprograms. They may divide files into categories or list the mostpopular ones.
I tried a series of searches to test some of the most popularsites. The searches were for:
1. a restaurant-management software program (a typicalsmall-business function);
2. a compression utility (the well-known PKZIP and WinZIP);and
3. a picture of a pyramid (to use in a marketingcampaign).
Experimenting showed a single word was enough to narrow theresults. Boolean searches (e.g., "pyramid AND egypt")weren't helpful.
Filez
Filez (http://www.filez.com)claims to be the largest file site, and it's probably thebest-organized. You can use its subject categories, or browse thetop 20 applications or new files posted in the past 20 days.
A search for "restaurant" under the heading"Windows" yielded one hit: a compressed file calledMcDonald's Restaurant.zip. A search for "compression"under "Windows-All" resulted in 13 utilities for variousfile formats, but no PKZIP or WinZIP. (I did find WinZIP listed asone of the Top 20 applications.) A search for "pyramid"under "Graphics" produced 20 files with .jpg and .gifextensions, two common graphics formats.
FTP Search 97
Scroll past the crass ads to reach FTP Search's prompt(http://www.ftpsearch.com).This site provides several options for displaying search results,but they don't add much value. The odd thing about this siteis, it seems to use the Filez search engine rather than its own.Even odder, each search generated more than 100 matches.
That doesn't mean the matches were accurate."Restaurant" produced mostly FAQs about restaurants, notsoftware. "Compression," however, did list what appearedto be compression utilities, but not PKZIP or WinZIP."Pyramid" gave a variety of results, including one for anAlan Parsons Project album.
Shareware
Shareware (http://www.shareware.com) lets youscan its "New Arrivals" and "Most Popular"files. It gives a brief description, not merely a single line, foreach matching file found.
Under "MS-Windows (all)," "Restaurant"yielded two matches, both demo programs. One was for point-of-salesoftware and the other for taking inventory."Compression" gave 90 matches, all apparently compressionutilities; one was WinZIP. "Pyramid" generated 13matches, including a screensaver with an Egyptian scene and severalgames.
helpful hints
If a site lists several files, a few tips will help you identifythe right one. Look at the file's extension. If it's an.exe or .com, it's a program. A .jpg, .gif or .tif is agraphic, and a .doc, .txt or .faq is a document.
The file's name may include its directory and subdirectory,preceding the actual name and separated by slashes. Often, thedirectory parts will give you some idea of what the file is andwhat platform it's for (WINDOWS or MACINTOSH).
File-searching is still hit-or-miss. Because there's littleor no duplication between the sites, your best bet is to start withone and work your way down the list.
Robert Schmidt is a computer and business writer in CulverCity, California.
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