THE BEST THINGS IN LIFE ARE FREE:
FREEWARE FOR FAMILY HISTORY
SUMMARY HANDOUT
by Donald R. and Diane M. Snow [snowd@math.byu.edu & dmsnow34@gmail.com]
RootsTech Conference
Friday, 11 Feb 2011, 1:45 - 2:45 PM, Salt Palace, Salt Lake City, Utah
These are the programs we will be discussing in the presentation. There are many others listed in the notes in the RootsTech syllabus and in the updated notes online at http://uvtagg.org > Class Outlines > Don Snow's
Listings. This Summary Handout is also posted there. You can get to the updated notes directly at http://uvtagg.org/classes/dons/dons-fhfreeware.html .
"THE BEST THINGS IN LIFE ARE FREE"
CATEGORIES OF FREEWARE FOR FAMILY HISTORY
- Record management programs
- Other genealogy programs
- Graphics programs
- Sound programs
- Text and office programs
- Computer utilities
DEFINITIONS
- Freeware
- Shareware
- Open source
- Apps
FASTSTONE CAPTURE 5.3 (#23 on list)
- Freeware screen capture tool that allows you to capture images online
- Capture Options -- Active Window, Window/Object, Rectangle, Free Hand, Scrolling Window, Full Screen
- Capture in jpg, pdf, tif, and other formats
EVERYTHING (#51 on list)
- Freeware to find files quickly anywhere on your computer
- Very helpful for file maintenance
- Use in tandem with Explorer or Q-DIR to move files to where they belong
- Drag and drop
- Find and delete duplications
FILESEEK (#52 on list)
- Freeware to search in files for specified texts
- Can have it search entire hard drive or only specified folders
- Gives a list of which files contain those words or phrases
OURTIMELINES.COM (#15 on list)
- Free website to show a life in its historical context
- Helpful in writing a history
- Gives ideas of what records to research, e.g. wars going on during his life
JOCR (#42 on list)
- Freeware optical character recognition (OCR) program
- Requires that you have MS Word 2003 or later installed on your computer, but text is produced on the clipboard and not in Word doc format
- From the clipboard so you can paste it anywhere, e.g. into PAF sources
- Fairly good accuracy; does better when text is in larger font
PICASSA 3 (#27 on list)
- Freeware program to help organize and edit images
- Finds all images in specified folders or drives and organizes them
- Forms slide shows of photos in each folder
- Uses facial recognition on images with people
- Finds images with people and forms thumbnails of faces of each person in image
- Uses facial recognition to sort all thumbnails of an individual together
- When you name and confirm the thumbnails, it learns and finds more -- gets better as it works
- Puts all names and information in the metadata of the photo so you can search it
- Allows searches, for example, of all photos containing both Person X and Person Y
- Extremely helpful to simplify naming people in your photos and putting names and info in the metadata
- Many other features including basic photo editing
TRANSCRIPT (#43 on list)
- Freeware program to help in transcribing handwritten documents (DOESN'T read handwriting)
- Format is two panels, one to show image of document and one where you type the transcription
- Has many features such as moving the image down when you press ENTER at end of line, can convert image to negative and zoom in or out
ESSENTIAL PIM (#44 on list)
- Freeware Personal Information Manager
- Daily calendar and record
- Easy to search for any word, event, name, location
- Good for historical record and shows activities in context
CONCLUSIONS
- "The Best Things in Life Are Free"
- FreeApps installer -- http://www.freenew.net/ -- you select items and it sets up installer for you
- Further examples and websites on Freeware notes (URL given above)
- Your comments and questions