New Harry Potter Book is Available

I am not embarrased to say that I have enjoyed every Harry Potter book so far. The latest book in the series Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is now available for pre-order from Amazon.com. I've placed my order already.

Looks like it'll ship July 16th.

Open Office - Excellent free office suite

Want to work with MS Office files but don't want to pay for MS Office?

Rather than mess around with a pirated version of MS Office, you should use Open Office from Sun Microsystems - see www.openoffice.org for details.

It includes a word processor, a spreadsheet program, a presentation package, and a basic drawing program as well.

Fully compatible with MS Office, it can open all MS Office file formats and can save files in MS Office format reasonably well. It can even create PDF files for you - no need to buy an Adobe Acrobat license.

I highly recommend it.

Free Anti-Virus software from AVG

See also: What to do if your computer has a virus

This post is sponsored by the Cottage at Mink Basin, a lovely little cottage for rent in Prince Edward Island, Canada.

If this link to the real source of AVG anti-virus is useful to you - please leave a comment to say thanks!

I always like to let people know about good free software. The AVG Anti-virus package from Grisoft (www.grisoft.com) is very good and completely free. I use it on all my home computers and it has never failed me. Here is a direct link to the free version.

Totally free for non-commercial use. Rates for commercial licenses are very reasonable. This is an important note, because I still see AVG distributors trying to sell the software for normal household use. There's no need to pay if you are using the software for home use. It's free. If you have trouble finding the correct place to download the free version on the Grisoft website, please leave a comment here and I will post detailed instructions.

Unfortunately for Grisoft, someone appears to be camping on the www.avg.com domain... That is always irritating.

Other inexpensive anti-virus options available include web-based scanners. I advise you strongly against depending on the web-based services to protect you. In a pinch, they can help you detect a virus or other malicious program, but you need something (like AVG) that provides real-time scanning and disinfection to keep your system safe. Here is a short list of web-based services.

• Housecall - from TrendMicro
• Online scan from F-Secure Removes viruses, not malcious code (aka malware)
• Don't use the Norton's Security Check. It sucks.
• McAfee FreeScan. From a recognized name. I used McAfee to disinfect the first virus I ever contracted on my 286AT... The Jerusalem B virus. Ahhh the memories.