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Well sticking with my January theme about useful software titles, I've come across a title that I'm all geeked out about.  It's called Auto Gordian Knot (or AutoGK).

The background story goes like this: I have recently been asked to do a memorial website for a young lady that was murdered.  The family had a nice DVD that was made for the funeral, but as you may know there are not a lot of programs out there that will let you copy a DVD to your computer in a usable format, at least not with good quality and good price… Specifically I was trying to convert from DVD to AVI and as I'm donating a bunch of the work, I didn't want to pay much for a good tool.  Searched Google, and finally came upon this little tool.  It was free.  It was easy to install, and it did a flawless job in relatively good time.

Once I had the AVI file, I could edit it to my heart's content (and my heart IS now content with a flash version, Windows Media version and Quicktime version of the video).

Auto Gordian Knot / AutoGK

I have people ask me from time to time for a specific piece of software to convert an audio file from one format to another, or to record some noise that they just must have in digital format, or some other such audio related question.  They think that because I am a tech guy and seem to have every other tech question answered for them, that I must know something about audio…

Well I am actually a sound engineer and love doing really loud and complicated rock shows with thousands in attendance and pyrotechnics (cause I do pyro work from time to time too), but I digress.  As it turns out I know a thing or two about audio, including where to get just that special tool to do whatever your heart desires.

I found a company in Australia that has a gaggle of audio tools, some are reasonably priced and others are free, but they are all technically great.  You can find them here.

Now, if you find it all too complicated, but still need a sound result, give us a call or e-mail and we will be glad to assist.

http://www.nch.com.au/index.html

Have you ever gotten your brand new computer and been all excited to turn it on and then use it, only to discover that there was no software on your computer.  Or if you are like a lot of people, you had a computer that was working great and then *this guy* had a copy of Microsoft Office that you could use and he installed it for free, then when your computer had a virus and needed to be cleared off… THEN it came home with all of your data (if a good company cleared it for you), but didn't have the software to open the files.  THEN you couldn't find *this guy* any more and went to future shop and then ate your socks when you saw how expensive Office can be, and you only use it for a few letters and newsletter you write for your local PTA.

I HAVE A SOLUTION FOR YOU.

I've had quite a number of people recomend Open Office and so I've looked into it, and yup - its great!  The idea is that a bunch of programmers got together and made an office suite in their spare time, probably to see if they could (cause us programmers are just geeky that way).  They did and released it under a special license for free.  The license basically says that they didn't profit from making the software, so they ask you not to profit from reselling it or anything like that.

If you need a Word processor, Spread sheet, Math program, Presentation software (like Powerpoint) or even a Database program, you can go here to get it.

GO HERE TO READ MORE AND DOWNLOAD OPEN OFFICE