Resources

Software resources
Links to free software and resources If you’re looking for professional results, but can’t justify £1000 of your church’s budget on the latest software, here are some links to Open Source software that you can download free of charge. Let us know how you get on with these programmes, and if you know of any more programmes we should highlight. Just log on to the forum and post your thoughts there. Please note we list this programmes as a service, we haven’t tested every one and can’t say one is better than another. We can’t take any responsibility for downloads: you must ensure you have a firewall and anti-virus software working on your computer. While most websites will be fine, there is always one or two bad apples out there. Download at your own risk.
Anti-virus software It’s vital that you keep your computer updated with anti-virus software and anti-spyware tools to ensure that nasties are kept at bay. Beware that some programmes on the Internet invent problems to get you to part with your dosh. The following are free and have been used. We know they work.
	AVG Anti-virus is free for home use. IT works in the background and is perfect for most needs. http://free.grisoft.com/doc/2/lng/us/tpl/v5 AVG also offers a free anti-spyware software package http://free.grisoft.com/doc/20/lng/us/tpl/v5 Ad-Aware is an anti-spyware program from Lavasoft that detects and removes software on a user's computer that is determined to be spyware. It also detects dialers, trojans, malware, data-mining, aggressive advertising, Parasites, Browser hijackers, and tracking components. http://www.download.com/Ad-Aware-SE-Personal-Edition/3000-8022_4-10045910.html?part=dl-ad-aware&subj=dl&tag=top5 Spybot - Search & Destroy (often Spybot-S&D) is a malware, spyware and adware removal program which works on Windows 95 and later. http://www.safer-networking.org/en/home/
Word processing & Office software You don’t need to spend a fortune getting Word, PowerPoint, Excel et al when you can free download alternatives that work just as well and are compatible.
	Open Office is an entire office suite, offering Microsoft Office compatible products www.openoffice.org
Desktop publishing How do you produce professional looking newsletters and magazines if you can’t afford the software? Here’s some solutions, including QuarkXpress, the industry standard software, normally costing around £800.
	Scribus is an alternative to professional desktop publishing programme – ideal for your church newsletters and magazine. www.scribus.net Serif is the market leader for budget software. It offers older versions of its software for you to download free of charge. PagePlus is its desktop publishing software. www.freeserifsoftware.com QuarkXpress 5.0 used to be the industry standard software. The latest version – v7.0 – is now out and version 5.0 has been appearing as a cover mount on some computer magazines. We will list where it’s available in the forum, and has last been seen on PC Advisor magazine. It’s worth getting a copy if you can. You can try the industry standard software free of charge for 30 days – Adobe Creative Suite. You will need a fairly up to date computer to take advantage of this trial. Contains Indesign (DTP) Photoshop (image editing), Illustrator (drawing software) and Dreamweaver (website creation). http://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/cs2eval.html
Photo (image) editing software If you take pictures using your digital camera, you need a programme to edit them - adjust colours, brightness, contrast. Crop the pictures to size, rescale for going on the Web or into your magazine. Paint doesn’t do what you need, but these programmes will.
	The Gimp is a free open source software programme that will handle most of your photo-retouching needs for a church magazine. www.gimp.org Serif PhotoPlus is again a free older version of the photo manipulation software, you can download from www.freeserifsoftware.com
Websites Every church needs a good website. While we recommend that you use webbuilding software such as that provided by church123.com, here are some free tools that you can consider.
	Serif offers Webplus, a free webcreation tool if you want to experiment with your church’s website. www.freeserifsoftware.com/ The OpenSource WYSIWYG webtool is NVU. Have you had any experience with it? Share your experiences on the forum. http://www.nvu.com/index.php Just want to create a blog? Plenty to choose from. Log on to www.blogger.com
PDF Creators PDFs are a great way to share documents and files on any computer – and are also used to share files with printing companies. They allow anyone to see the document exacted how you created it on your screen - pictures, typefaces and layout. The industry standard software is Adobe Acrobat, and this is the best software to buy. However, a number of free PDF creating tools exist, including the following programmes
	www.cutepdf.com - the free version of a commercial PDF creation software. Windows only. www.accesspdf.com is a Linux PDF creator. Visit this website only if you use Linux instead of Windows.
Bible software We couldn’t be a Christian site if we didn’t point you in the direction of some Christian resources. Remember these are all free to use.
	www.biblegateway.org is one of the best on-line Bibles available – passage searches for lots of different translations www.Bibletime.info is a study software for Linux operation systems. Finally, a link to some free Christian software from another website (untested so ensure your anti-virus software is working!) http://www.freechristiansoftware.org/ Here you can download Scripture Memorization Software; Bible Study Tools; Screen Savers; Palm / Pocket
Podcasting Want to put your sermons on-line? Here’s some software that can help. Remember that copyright applies to music. We’ll get some information on the site soon about the necessary licenses needed.
	Audacity is free, open source software for recording and editing sounds. It is available for Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems http://audacity.sourceforge.net/