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 Cenon Astrology ~ Across a web dominated by Windows, alternatives are few if you don’t want a Mac. Linux is one you could try, much praised by many, but used by only 0.25% of those who visit this site. Linux has a geeky reputation, but it’s free. Also
free is much of this software, which helps astrologers who can’t get over Mac OS-X too! |
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Hunter ~ Free astrology software produced by Dan Ciubotaru in Romania.
The slick interface pinpoints major patterns of astrological aspects,
during a specified period, between two birthcharts, or in a combination
of these. You can choose which planets are included and can modify your
aspect orbs. Highly recommended! |
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| Configuration Hunter Online ~ Dan Ciubotaru just won’t lie down. Not content with
my recommendation for his free Windows software that checks for aspects
and aspect patterns, he has now developed an online version, which as he
points out, will work regardless of your operating system and doesn’t
need any installation. What’s more, it’s still free. |
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| Desktop Wallpapers ~ I am not recommending this site for its astrology content, but rather for some of the value-added features, several of which are quite fun. These desktop wallpapers are strangely handsome and come in a range of resolutions that may work with modern monitors, if you don’t mind adjusting a few things, to help them display at their best. |
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| DistroWatch ~ Putting the fun back into computing isn’t necessarily a sentiment I’d echo, but the infinite variety of the Linux world comes as a huge surprise, to those familiar with Windows and Apple. If you know a little about computers, you can try most Linux distros for free, often in the form of a live CD or DVD, you won’t even need to install. |
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| Down For Everyone Or Just Me? ~ The last Monday in August marks a public holiday across much of the UK, but this year at Astrologywizard.com was the occasion for roughly fifteen hours of downtime. Clearly outages like this should never happen but if they do, this is one way of discovering whether the fault lies with my web host or originates far closer to home. |
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| Elements & Ephemerides: Observable Comets ~ Continuing with the buzz comets are creating currently, the Minor Planet Center has an ephemeris for each of those presently observable, that you can download to a range of popular astronomy programs to see where they are yourself. There’s nothing specifically for astrologers yet, but somebody’s working on this, surely? |
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| Facebook - Where’s The Dislike Button? ~ Following on from last week’s revelations, here is more from the Free Software Foundation on why Facebook’s user-tracking “Like” button is such a bad thing. Not convinced? Click over to the linked research paper from a doctoral candidate at Tilburg University (TILT) in the Netherlands, then come back and tell me about it… |
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| Free Windows Software ~ In reality, Microsoft actually provides plenty of Windows software for free. Here is a comprehensive list from Blake Handler and though much of it is quite technical, the programs that deal with multiple time zones are of interest to astrologers, as are some of the tools for customising your desktop wallpaper and screensaver… |
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| Google Chrome ~ I don’t often recommend software not directly connected with astrology, but this browser saves so much time on sites in languages you don’t understand, I had to mention it. At the time of writing it will recognise and translate content from 52 different regions automatically. Naturally, it is also completely free to download… |
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| Google News ~ RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. It beams the
latest news on the subject of your choice directly to your browser,
every time you go online. But if you feel you would rather decide what
to look at for yourself, you should try out this service
from Google, already set for the search terms “astrology” and “space”… |
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| Internet Addiction Test ~ Apparently this questionnaire measures mild, moderate and severe levels of Internet addiction. Questions include how often you lose sleep or neglect your household chores because you’re online and whether you check your email before doing anything else. Unfortunately there’s nothing about washing. Yup… |
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| Internet Explorer 8 ~ The newest version of this dominant Web browser was released for download on March 19, 2009 from Microsoft’s base in Redmond at 12:00 EDT (09:00 PDT). In view of my comments on the success of Windows XP and the troubles of Vista, I’d say no matter your feelings about big business you still can’t ignore this update… |
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