In honour of the Mac's 20th anniversary and to celebrate the original 'computing for the rest of us' philosophy, this week's column is about really useful, free Mac software and stuff. It was inspired by the generosity of a website called 'dinc free fonts' (at
www.girlswhowearglasses.com) that offers new fonts for all occasions.
It is a professional site with hundreds of free fonts, each displayed graphically so as to illustrate how the font might be used. Now, there are hundreds of sites that have fonts on the internet, but dinc goes above and beyond these sites in offering fonts of the free variety.
So, what else is available for your Mac for free? Millions of things, that's what. Not all are useful but many are.
If you ever wanted to send an anonymous e-mail, check out the application Caem (Completely Anonymous EMail) at logik.accesscard.org. It allows you to remove any identification headers that could point back to you, the sender. I have no idea what you would use it for but it sounds so intriguing.
I make it a point to nag Mac students and teachers about the importance of using a good dictionary while studying. If you don't know the words, you won't understand the subject. In this vein, I recommend Dict Client, available from
www.porkrind.org/dict. This Mac app used the standard 'dict' protocol to access online dictionaries. It is a desktop icon/interface that comes set up to search
www.dict.org (and other online dictionaries). Dict.org has eight excellent references including Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, the Free On-line Dictionary of Computing, the Jargon File and WordNet.
If you like to do things precisely, check out the application Free Ruler at
www.pascal.com/software. It enables you to measure objects on your screen in pixels, inches, picas, or centimetres. Want a photo to fit precisely or a drawing to be the exact scale? This ruler comes in handy. And if your eyesight is not what it used to be, check out SubRosaSoft's Macnifier at
www.subrosasoft.com. This is a magnifying glass for your desktop, and you will be surprised how often it gets used.
When a software company makes an application that utilises plug-in architecture, people will make plug-ins for it, many of which are free. Photoshop was the first to pioneer this application-within-an-application technology, and it is a great way to get programmers to support your product. Photoshop plug-ins also work with numerous other graphics applications.