Free Software

In an earlier post about Software I hinted at some useful items then I added some websites. I have been doing a lot more since then and though I would share some tips on Free Software.

There are options for free software whether you use Linux or the bloated and security risky Windows option. For me the important things are free, or at least cheap, and secure, as in I won't lose my work if I reinstall and accessibility, if I'm at home or on vacation, at a family history center or visiting relatives I need to have access to my research.

Fortunately with the increasing availability of wifi access life is much simpler, I used to drag a laptop around with a copy of everything on it then I could update my home system when I got there. All extra work and the risk of losing all the updates if something happened to the laptop. I needed a better solution.

Google came to the rescue, love or hate Google it does provide some good tools. First you need a Google email account, this Gmail login is the universal login to all the other tools, if you don't want to use the Gmail system you don't have to, just access it every few months to keep it active, or you could just use it for genealogy work or for all your mail and filter the genealogy stuff, it is up to you.

Next you can setup your own Google start page, you can add all sorts of gadgets to it including your Gmail access and the rest of the tools listed below, you don't need the personalized Google page but it does help with an overview, notice it uses your Gmail login.

Next on the list is Google Notebook, it is just what it says it is, as you are surfing and you find something that you may need to follow up, just select the text, right click and 'Note this' the clip is added to your notebook with the web address and is then available whenever you log in on any computer.

Goggle Docs and Spreadsheets is the online document program, you can create documents from your notes, from webpages and just by typing, once again it is always available online and all you need is your Gmail login to get to it.

All these tools can be pulled together with the Google toolbar, which gives several other options as well. I have also added Google calendar and Blogger tools so I can work from almost anywhere in the world knowing my data is secure and available.

As for the family tree itself, I am still undecided, I could host it myself on one of the spare domains I have, but that is not really free, so I have, temporarily at least, hosted it with tribalpages.com. The basic package is free (with advertising) but most important it can be password protected so only known users can access it, though it does allow other users to search for links to their tree they cannot access the data without asking for the password. I have some issues with their helpdesk and the running of the site in general, so I am still searching for the perfect solution.