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AIA

My software: the essential and the desirable

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25th Dec 2005
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The virus that attacked my computer recently revealed just how dependent I am on it. It also made me realise just how much software I run. The idea of reloading it all was quite daunting. And being male, my mind inevitably began to sort that software into lists. There were the essential items, the amazingly useful non essential items and those I'm not sure I'd bother with again (which I'll ignore as a result).

What's essential? These are:

1. Office Professional. Enough said, I guess. I know there are alternatives, and for a home PC I'm really not sure I'd bother about Office now. It's obvious that things like Open Office could do the job most people ask for just as well, and it's free. But, like it or not, for business I think Office is where it's at still.

2. Outlook Express. I know most people like Outlook, but I find some of it quite cumbersome, and because I use a Palm I use its software for contacts, a diary etc and it all seems to work quite well. Mind you, if thee was a non Microsoft mail system that worked as well I'd be tempted, simply to reduce the virus risk.

3. I guess the Palm and its software has to come third in that case.

4. MYOB. I love it. It's cost effective. The time sheet module is good, and a useful database in its own right. I can get what I want out of it, easily. You'd have to pay me to use Sage now, and the world seems to divide between those who love and hate Quick Books. I think you can guess on which side I stand.

5. Mozilla Firefox. This is just so much better than Internet Explorer if you're not using it you'll kick yourself when you start to. The tabbed multiple window display does by itself win hands down. And it seems to be quicker, has a more intuitive favourite's function, and it's free, so you're mad not to try it.

6. Forbes Pro Tax. I used PTP software for a while and it was good but for several years was incompatible with Windows NT, which my old office ran and so I got used to Forbes. I'm sure there's prettier tax and company secretarial software. But it works and it's fairly priced, and is intuitive so I'd recommend it.

7. Fulcrum Accounts. Am I allowed to plug my own software? The fact is I couldn't live without this one. It's still the easiest way I've seen to produce tax return compatible accounts very fast, and with clear audit trails.

8. VT company accounts software. An immensely useful Excel add in which has only one annoying feature ' they will not produce an LLP template. Please, just get on and do it!

I could live with that list. But the following make life a lot better:

1. Fine Print and PDF Factory ' sold as a combined package. Fine Print sits between your software and the printer and lets you manage how many sheets you want to a page (after all, why not save paper with 2 up for a file copy?). PDF Factory makes PDF files. And I love them; especially of Excel accounts, tax returns, and other things that you really don't want the client to play with. If you only buy one of the list I recommend, make it this one.

2. Pardon. It's a dictionary. And it's sold by a Norwegian company. And it's really good and seems to take up no space, so I have it open all the time just in case I need it.

3. Solid capture. This is another simple little program which makes it really easy to copy and paste a bit of any screen into another document as an image. Effectively it's a tailored version of Print Screen ' and it's amazing how useful I've found it to be.

4. Roxio Easy Media Creator. A weird hybrid of a programme that does everything from making CDs to managing photos and scans to editing a video (not that I ever have). I'm sure there are more sophisticated versions of some of the stuff, but it suits my needs.

5. ABBYY Fine Reader. This is OCR software ' it turns scans into text, and is the most reliable I've used (and I've tried a few). Maybe other people don't share my obsession with turning solid text into editable files, but this does the job as well as I can hope for at present.

6. Serif Web Plus. Generally I don't like Serif stuff, but I did finally keep my web site reasonably up to date when I used this because it's pretty easy to do so, and I guess that has to be its merit. I've tried plenty of others, and apart from an annoying limit to page length Serif does this job quite well.

7. Recent Documents. Remembers the last 100 documents you used. Great when rebooting.

8. FileLocator Pro. I hate the search function in Windows XP. This is much better and has saved me more than enough time to justify the £10 or so it costs.

I'm sure there are more I use and haven't mentioned (Adobe Reader, for one). And if anyone knows something that does the above jobs better, please let me know.

To find any of the programs, just use a search engine (Google, by default, and do make sure you have downloaded the tool bar or set it up in Mozilla).

Richard Murphy

AccountingWEB contributing editor Richard Murphy is a sole practitioner chartered accountant. He has also been Chairman, chief executive or finance director of 10 SMEs. In addition to writing and lecturing Richard develops and markets software tools and guides to help accountants in practice systematise their operations.

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By asdesign
26th Aug 2004 12:28

alternative to outlook
We are wedded to Aladesc, whilst it does the normal email stuff well, the unique factor to us is that we can go to activities and filter which shows, in mails, out mails, appointments and activities for one customer. The number of times we have wanted to go through a we said, they said, and using cases outside party1 said have made this one a must have for ourselves.

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By AnonymousUser
23rd Aug 2004 18:07

ALternatives to Outlook
If you want a simple email interface without the full outlook functionality, try eudora. It has a small section for eudora sponsored ads (well it is free!!)and is probably less intuitive than outlook initially. However it does the job and is not MS outlook.

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By jstuckey
26th Aug 2004 20:57

Use Thunderbird not Outlook or OE
Since you are using Firefox from Mozilla, why not use Thunderbird from the same stable for all your email.

You can switch off the automatic confirmations that the site exists by not getting .gif and .jpg from the site for junk mail, as well as not giving the sender of an email his auto notification.

I have used it for 3 months now and feel it is a well designed program and does not have the same address book structure as Windows, so those nasty bugs and worms just end up as part of the trash can that gets deleted causing no harm to the system.

John

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By petermalins
20th Aug 2004 16:02

Open Office and Abbyy
I second the comment re Open Office I have it at home and on my office machine. (saved buying excel at home)

Also another fine product from ABBY is their "transformer wizard" does a good OCR job with documents scanned in as pdfs on our big office all in one and converts PDFs not password protected off the web.

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By Eddie2000
19th Aug 2004 17:22

Free Software....
I must spend hours looking for genuinly free software that works. 2 programs I will recomend... SimpleOCR from www.simpleocr.com, a very efficent OCR program that works happily with my cheap and nasty scanner & SimpleFTP, which does exactly what it says FTP's files...er... simply!

And I will recomend Open Office to anybody who needs a simple office type package, and it is probably worth installing along side Microsoft's offering. I have on my work machine and it will open files that Office wont and then allow you save the same file back in to an 'office freindly' format. So when people send you those horrid MS Works files that office wont open, OO will!

& if you dont want to pay for pdf generating software, PrimoPDF is another freebie that set's it self up like a printer & hey presto, pdf's from anything & everything. PDF output is also available directly from Open Office as well.....

Just a couple of useful, but free bits I've found as I hunt round the 'net.

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By John57
21st Jan 2010 12:13

Possible update ?

I have found this list very useful and have kept it on my PC as a reference.

However time and software have moved on - is there any chance of an updated list ?

Thanks

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