Links to Free Software Useful for Church Computing or Bible Study

ANTIVIRUS / ANTISPYWARE

AVG
AVG Antivirus and Antispyware by GRISoft come in free versions for home users. These products work great for keeping your Windows or Linux system clean and virus free!

BACKUP, DATA STORAGE, AND ARCHIVAL SOLUTIONS FOR WINDOWS SYSTEMS

Syncback
Syncback is an easy-to-use program designed for an automatic backup or synchronization of your critical data to most any type of storage media. Jobs can be customized and scheduled. Hard drives are so inexpensive nowadays it makes more sense to buy or assemble an external hard drive and back up the data from your PC to an external drive. This is a handy a free tool to help you backup or synchronize your data between PC and external disks.

Tape Backup Precautions
Some folks still use high speed high capacity tape drives to perform daily and weekly backups on their church data. If you are doing this, GREAT, but be sure that you test restoring the data from time to time. Your tape backup is not a real backup until you test restoring the files from it. I have heard several horror stories from associates in corporate America who had backup tapes on hand when a system failed only to discover that the restore process failed due to a lack of testing. Don't let this happen to you!. Test your restore process at least once. Also, be sure to save at least one set of your backup tapes at another physical location than your home or church office. It does no good to have a backup tape if you have a fire that destroys the church office, the church office computer, and the back-up tape all stored in the same location. Ask your church administrator to take at least one copy of a recent backup home with them for safety.

e-Sword
You simply won't find a finer Bible Software product than e-Sword and it's totally free. e-Sword is feature rich and user friendly. Works on PC and Mac platforms. KJV and Strong's Built-in.

Sword Project
The SWORD Project is the CrossWire Bible Society's free Bible software project. Its purpose is to create cross-platform open-source tools, covered by the GNU General Public License, that allow programmers and Bible societies to write new Bible software more quickly and easily. They also create Bible study software for all readers, students, scholars, and translators of the Bible, and have a growing collection of over 200 texts in over 50 languages. This is the place to find free Bible study software applications if you are using Linux or UNIX operating systems.

OpenOffice
You can get OpenOffice FREE from OpenOffice.org. OpenOffice gives you everything you'd expect in office software. You can create and print dynamic documents, analyze data, design presentations, produce illustrations, and open up your databases. You can publish your work in Portable Document Format (.PDF), and release your graphics in Flash (.Swf) format - without needing any additional software. OpenOffice.org 3.0 is about to be released. OpenOffice supports complex text layout (CTL) languages (such as Thai, Hindi, Arabic, and Hebrew) and vertical writing languages. If you're used to using other office suites - such as Microsoft® Office - you'll be completely at home with OpenOffice. You can continue to use your old Microsoft® Office files without any problems - and if you need to exchange files with people still using Microsoft® Office, that's no problem either. Applications in Open Office include a Word processor, spreadsheet, presentation graphics, and a desktop database.

KNOPPIX Linux
Want to try this Linux thing out before you take the plunge? Knoppix makes a free CD bootable test drive of Linux that does not mess with your hard disks or Windows or Mac OS. It boots from your bootable CD Drive an loads a full version of Debian Linux, the KDE Desktop, and OpenOffice. Download a CD ISO image, use your CD burner software to create the image, and boot it up. It's a cool way to to try out Linux to see what it does. I recommend you have high speed Internet access if you are going to try this one out.

Ubuntu Linux
Another free boot off CD and run it or install it Linux you can try before you install it. Great for beginners who want an operating system, Internet browser (Firefox), office suite (OpenOffice) and loads of community based support forums when you need help ALL FREE!

Red Hat Fedora Core
If you consider yourself to be a PC savvy person, you might want to consider the Red Hat Linux Fedora Core distribution of Linux. The advantage with RedHat is that many major software companies have made investments in high level business software for Red Hat (IBM, Oracle, mySQL, Borland, etc.) Visit http://www.redhat.com for more information about how to obtain Fedora. New versions are released approximately every 6 months. Fedora is an excellent desktop or server platform for business.

PrimoPDF
Active PDF makes a free file-to-PDF converter called PrimoPDF. PrimoPDF installs itself to look like a local printer on your computer. In other words, when you select "File-Print" from Word, Excel, Paint, or any other program you might be using, PrimoPDF is right there in your list of available local or network printers.

WEB PAGE DESIGN TOOLS

NVU
NVU is a new product for Linux, Windows, and Mac users that has much promise. NVU claims to offer the same visual design tools for Linux desktop users as does Front Page and Dreamweaver for Windows. It's better than just using a text editor, but its not quite as powerful as Dreamweaver or Front Page just yet.

Free
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FACTS About
the Word-Faith Cult
As mentioned on TV, Read Pastor Chris' Featured booklet,
The Gnostic Heresy of the Word-Faith Movement (PDF). Other Word-Faith Research is available HERE

Daily Bible Reading
Visit the
One Year Bible Online.
Read the entire Bible in one year. Several translations available.