The Internet Image has a suite of freeware and software application programs selected for an application where the primary use of the refurbished computer will be to access the internet, either via a dialup connection with a modem in the computer, or via a dialup connection accessed through a local area network and a Coyote Router (currently under development), or via a broadband modem, either connected directly to the refurbished computer, or through a wired or wireless router like Linksys.
If the computer is to be connected to the internet via a dial up connection, we highly recommend FamilyNet, Tulsa's Family Friendly Internet Service Provider (ISP). FamilyNet offers Dial Up Access for only $9.95/month ($99.50/year) which filters out pornography, and they have a Local Tulsa Office.
If the computer is to have a broadband connection to the internet, we highly recommend Cox Communications, which offers a very reliable broadband service with up to 4mb speed (much faster than DSL) for under $40 a month, and if you like the family filter that FamilyNet offers, you can even get it from them for an additional $4.95 a month.
The desktop of the Internet Image looks like:
The internet is a wild and wooly place, and any computer connected to the Internet should be protected. We have set this computer up with the free ZoneAlarm firewall. If you wish you can get an upgraded firewall from ZoneLabs, such as ZoneAlarm® Pro 5 (which I use), or you can even get their ZoneAlarm® with Antivirus (in which case you may not need the AntiVir Personal Edition we installed), or even their ZoneAlarm® Security Suite.
In addition to the ZoneAlarm Firewall, we have included AntiVir Personal Edition, Ad-Award SE Personal, and SpyBot S&D privacy software.
It is very important that any computer connected to the internet have virus protection, and that virus protection must download frequent updates so that it can recognize all of the new viruses that come out almost every day. This computer has the latest virus definitions as of mid January, 2005 when the image was first installed, but by the time you get this refurbished computer many new viruses will have been released on the internet, so make sure you keep your virus definitions and spybot definitions, and all of the other protection products updated.
You may want to replace some of these free products with commercial products, for example replacing AntiVir Personal Edition with something like Norton, McAfee, the ZoneAlarm® Security Suite mentioned above, or some other antivirus package. If so uninstall the software currently installed and install the other software, but never connect to the internet without some sort of Firewall and some sort of AntiVirus package.
We have included the 602 Office Suite, which includes 602Text, a word processor that uses the Microsoft® Word .DOC (9x/2000/XP/2003) format, and 602Tab, an Microsoft® Excel compatible spreadsheet.
We feel that the machines we receive to refurbish come ultimately from God, so we have included the four major programs from our Bible Image: FreeBible (KJV), MBible (NIV), Theopolis, and Gospel Parallels. Three of those programs have a number of very useful research tools (Easton's Bible dictionary entry and Strong's Greek or Hebrew definition for any word in the Bible by double clicking on that word, Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary, Torrey's Topical Textbook, Nave's Topical Bible, Maps of Paul's Journeys, narrated passages for Genesis 1:1 through Genesis 2:3, with a CD available for more narrated passages, clicking on a verse in one of the Gospels, and seeing the same story in the other three Gospels, etc).
In addition to the 602Photo photo editor that is a part of 602 Office Suite we have included four other graphic programs. PrintKey (a screen capture program), IrfanView file viewer, Picasa Photo Organizer and Firehand Ember. The first three are installed now. I could not install Firehand Ember because the system I built this image on did not have a powerful enough graphics card, but if you want to use it, you can install it.
I know you are saying Protection, Office Suites, Bibles, and Graphics are nice, but I thought this machine was to be used to access the internet. What have you provided for that? We have included two internet browsers: Microsoft's Internet Explorer 6, and Mozilla's Firefox, and two email clients: Microsoft's Outlook Express and Mozilla's Thunderbird which has a built-in spam filter.
Both Internet Explorer and Firefox have a number of useful websites already loaded as "Favorites" (IE) or "Bookmarks" (Firefox). Firefox supports an exciting new capability of supporting RSS Feeds called Live Bookmarks. For example in the Bookmarks Toolbar
click on the $$$ and you will get a dropdown menu:
If you slide the mouse down to MarketPulse you get a flyout menu with a number of articles
Let us pretend the one about US Airways hits $1B labor savings target sounds interesting; you can click on it and the article immediately opens up in the current browser window:
You could have even clicked on Open in Tabs and all of the articles in the menu would have opened up, each in its own window.
But let us assume none of the articles in MarketPulse interested us, we can just slide the mouse down to Stocks to Watch and the flyout would show:
and if we slid it down one more, to Internet Stories/Columns the flyout would show:
We can slowly slide the mouse down the list of RSS Feeds and see the latest articles from each feed, and whenever we find one that catches our attention we can click on it to view the article. The $$$ folder contains RSS feeds from CBS MarketWatch, Forbes Financial News, and Yahoo! Finance, as well as links to CNN/Money, CNN/Money: News, Financial News from efinancialnews.com, and MSN Money.
The News folder on the Bookmarks Toolbar contains individual links to Tulsa World, Tulsa News from Topix.net, Daily Oklahoman, links for all Oklahoma Newspapers, Newspapers Around the World, and Newspapers with RSS, plus a number of RSS feeds from USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Christian Science Monitor, Washington Post, and New York Times.
The RSS folder on the Bookmarks Toolbar contains Political Blogs which has two fairly bipartisan blogs PoliticalWire and a combined feed called Watching Washington, and it contains several for Republican and Democrat, a couple from Iraq, and a non political feed called Latest Headlines and a Blog on Skype, which is a free Internet telephony program which is also on the Internet Image, but which must be installed by the user, since he needs to signup and create a "Skype Name" for himself.
Also on the Bookmarks Toolbar are folders for Mail and Tulsa. The Mail folder contains links to websites providing email capability, like Hotmail and Yahoo Mail, which many users of these machines may need, since they may be sharing the computer with others, and thus may not have their own POP3 email account they can set Outlook Express up to access. The Tulsa folder contains a number of links of interest to Tulsa residents, including RSS feeds for Weather and Tulsa News, and there are also links for surrounding cities.
The Bookmarks Toolbar also contains links to Google and Yahoo search engines, BibleGateway.com, TV Guide, Tulsa Computer Society, and HelpingTulsa.
Additional links are available by clicking Bookmarks, including Stores, with links to weekly ads from a number of local stores, For NonProfit Organizations, with links to Government Application Forms, Grant information, and other sites of interest to NonProfit Organizations, a list of Internet Service Providers, Health information, Reference sites, lists of websites for Children, and information about Blogs and RSS.
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Internet Explorer does not currently support RSS Links, but the rest of the links are on its Links Bar or under Favorites.
There are some other programs you might want to install.
If you double click the Install icon you will get:
Juno and Netzero have free email and very limited (5 hours a month) of free internet service. If that is enough for you, feel free to install and use them. Both offer their free services in order to entice you to upgrade to their $9.95 paid service, and as we indicated above, we believe FamilyNet, Tulsa's Family Friendly Internet Service Provider (ISP) offers a better deal. FamilyNet offers Dial Up Access for only $9.95/month ($99.50/year) which filters out pornography, and they have a Local Tulsa Office.