The Cheap Blog

How to keep trial version of software working after it expires

2009-07-10T17:13:00.000-07:00

NOTE: This strategy doesn't work with everything.

Although it's probably common sense to people with computer knowledge, you can easily make your computer think it's Jan 3, 2007 (or any other date), thereby UN-expiring the trial version of the software you want to use. How to do this?

Step1- Double click on that little digital clock in the corner of your screen. A "Date and Time" window should pop up. It looks something like this:

Step 2- See that box with the 2009 inside it? The one circled in red paint? Good, now click that 'down' arrow to the right of it until you reach a date that took place before you downloaded the free trial. Now you'll be able to use that demo forever. Unless, of course, the the program is wired to it's host website's server, in which case you'll have to buy something, and we definately don't want that.

How to use Laptop Print Screen

2009-07-09T15:12:00.001-07:00

Sometimes Print Scrn can appear to be missing on laptop keyboards: it's not. Actually, it's written as Prt Sc in small blue letters on the bottom of the "insert" button. Click on the image to the right to see it's location. Now, in order to use it, you MUST hold down the button with the letters 'fn' on it. The 'fn' button is located right next to the "ctrl" button and is a similar color to the Prt Sc button. Click on the image on the left to see it. Hold down 'fn' and press Prt Sc. Done.

How to get pics for FREE w. Print Scrn.

2009-07-09T13:58:00.000-07:00

"Every single pixel that can be viewed on a computer screen can be obtained for free." This is not illegal. This is not frowned upon. In fact, it is made so easy that any human being with a keyboard (you included) can, in 10 seconds obtain and download any image displayed on your computer screen. You can -- right now -- take pictures Google Earth (or any other map program), any website (like this one), or ANYTHING. These images can be pasted into virtually ANY photo manipulation program (click here to get your hands on one) such as Microsoft Paint and edited/printed out any way you see fit.

All photos will be yours with the magical Print Scrn button, which is located right in front of your face on that thing called a "keyboard". Click on the image of the keyboard above (yeah, The Cheap Blog knows it has Chinese characters on it. Just ignore them) to view the location of the Print Scrn button on a standard keyboard. Can't find it? LOOK HARDER, it's there. Once you find it, all you gotta do is press it. The entire image displayed on screen at that moment will be copied to the 'clipboard'. Enter MS Paint (or any image editor), click the 'Edit' tab at the top of the screen, and select 'Paste'. Shazamm, you have a printable picture of your house as seen on google earth (or whatever).

See this article if you're having trouble doing this with your Laptop.

Freeware Photo Editors

2009-07-09T11:07:00.000-07:00

Does the word "Photoshop" send a frightened chill down your spine and into your empty wallet? Does the sound of "Adobe" make you want to pull money out of the bank and hire an armed guard to protect it? Of course they do. That's why I've put together another list of links directing you to the Internets best free open source photo editors. They may not know all the tricks of their rediculously priced bretheren, but with a little more effort on your part, these babies will sing just as good as the rest of them. So what are you waiting for? The resources to get professional Photoshop-like software are just one (or maybe like 5) deliciously free clicks away.

WINDOWS --------------------------------------------------
*Also on Mac

M ICROSOFT PAI NT -- We start off with yet another craptistic free software from Microsoft. Photo editing really doesn't get more basic than this, although you'd be surprised what it's capable of when you have enough free time. Microsoft Paint has been standard on all windows operating systems since the dawn of man, so The Cheap Blog is sure that all of you windows users will have heard of it. Click her e to download if -- somehow -- you don't have it.

*GIMP -- "Gimp is a GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed program for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. It has many capabilities. It can be used as a simple paint program, an expert quality photo retouching program, an online batch processing system, a mass production image renderer, an image format converter, etc. GIMP is expandable and extensible. It is designed to be augmented with plug-ins and extensions to do just about anything. The advanced scripting interface allows everything from the simplest task to the most complex image manipulation procedures to be easily scripted." In The Cheap Blog's opinion, free image editors don't get any better than this gem. Don't be intimidated by the steep learning curve if you're serious about Pic Editing.

IRFANVIEW -- "IrfanView is a very fast, small, compact and innovative FREEWARE (for non-commercial use) graphic viewer for Windows 9x, ME, NT, 2000, XP, 2003 , 2008, Vista, Windows 7. " This nifty little program is perfect for beginners and experts alike with a wide range of plug ins and effects. Not to mention, it takes up only a microscopic amound of HDD space. Excellent.

*INKSCAPE -- "An Open Source vector graphics editor, with capabilities similar to Adobe Illustrator, CorelDraw, or Xara X, using the W3C standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format. Inkscape supports many advanced SVG features (markers, clones, alpha blending, etc.) and great care is taken in designing a streamlined interface. It is very easy to edit nodes, perform complex path operations, trace bitmaps and much more. We also aim to maintain a thriving user and developer community by using open, community-oriented development."

P HOTOSCAPE -- "Photoscape is the fun and easy photo editing software that enables you to fix and enhance photos." The Cheap Blog is not familiar with this one, (only that it is easy to use) but it was a top pick on About.com.

IMAGEFORGE -- "ImageForge provides you with a set of powerful tools for painting and editing images, photos or other graphics."

*FOTOFLEXER -- "The world's most powerful online image editor." Good news, paranoid internet user, for this one YOU DON'T download. Instead, you upload your images to the fotoflexer website and edit them (for free) online. You can then save your edited image to your computer. TCB is sure most photobucket users have heard of this program, as it can be accessed directly through photobucket.com. Not a bad bevy of features, either. Worth checking out.

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TCB will update this list as it finds more freeware.

Freeware Video Editors

2009-07-08T12:09:00.000-07:00

Getting sick of you're crappy standard issue movie editing program? Don't have the funds to go out and buy yourself a $1000 copy of Adobe Premier? Or are you looking for a good program to compliment your fancy schmancy Sony Vegas? Whatever the case, The Cheap Blog's got a link for you.

WINDOWS
*Also on Mac

W INDOWS MO VIE MAKER -- The Cheap Blog would be willing to bet that the first thing you thought of when you saw "windows" was the delightfully craptastic Windows Movie Maker software. No? -- never mind. WMM is the most common video editor out there due to the fact that it comes standard on all modern Windows Platforms (2000/XP/Vista). It's a handy little program that will satisfy most home movie maker's needs, but video enthusiests should probably skip this one due to it's limited options and relatively poor quality. If you don't have it already, you can download it here.

WAX 2.0 -- "Wax is a high performance and flexible video compositing and special effects software. The idea for Wax is to be very general purpose and flexible in video compositing and effects, so that you can compose your dream video sequence with ease everytime." Newcomers might have a tough time learning the ropes for this program, but it's totally worth it.

*BLENDE R -- "Blender is the free open source 3D content creation suite, available for all major operating systems." Seriously, this thing does for free what Pixar spends millions on. Incredible. NOTE - Not for impatient people.

V IRTUAL D UB -- "A powerful freeware video editor with lots of features, including a choice of compression codecs, splitting, addition of audio tracks." Very good. Don't be inclined to think otherwise because the guy created it in his free time.

*JASHAKA -- "The worlds first open source, hardware accelerate editing and effects system!" Worth taking a look at.

*ZS4 VIDEO EDITOR -- "A video editing and compositing software which aims to provide media experts with a facility to combine a variety of media types (currently photos, videos and audio files) into one (or more) output file(s)."

ZWEI-STEIN 3.01 -- "A freeware non-linear, non-destructive video compositing and editing system which offers many advanced features unavailable elsewhere. With Zwei-Stein you can edit up to 256 video, audio and still image clips, each with up to 64 effects chained serially. Cropping, panning and custom effects are easy with automatic key frames."
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MAC OS X

iMOVIE -- iMovie comes with every new Mac (OS X), now called iMoveHD and it's a part of iLife package. Apple iMovie '05 is an excellent (and free) video editor for the Mac platform, with advanced video editing features and a lot of addon and plug-in support. Note that this software is only free if you buy a new Mac. You can purchase it, however, if you just want the software.

TCB will update this list as it finds new video editing programs.

About The Cheap Blog

2009-01-03T15:01:00.000-08:00

The Cheap Blog created itself in the year 2009 with the sole purpose of delivering computer freeware and helpful tips for getting free stuff to it's readers, as well as any good retail deals it tracks down.

It's most adept at sniffing out freeware.

Has a total budget of roughly $0.00.

The Cheap Blog wanted to call itself 'The Free Blog," and would have, if it wasn't for The Free Blog.

TCB also chronicles things you can do without any cash. Such as activities. And Such.

Free Software Catagories

2009-01-01T12:00:00.000-08:00

Tips/Hints

2008-01-01T12:00:00.000-08:00