Free stuff (that’s actually worthwhile)

I like to enrich my life with things that entertain and educate me. Life is more than just work, sleep, eat, and pay the bills. Music, literature, art; there’s so much to life that makes me glad to be alive every day.

The Internet has been a great liberator of music, literature, and art. When I was growing up in the 1980’s and in the early to mid 1990’s, free entertainment meant turning on a radio or television and hoping that something being transmitted on some channel was something I might enjoy. The things that were really good were usually cut down, censored, and littered with commercials, so there was a price to pay. I eventually tired of this fare, and found myself at a public library. There were limitations here as well; how long I could borrow a book before returning it, assuming they had the book I wanted to read.

Things are much better today. There is an abundance of quality free stuff with which to fill my leisure time. With no further ado, I will now present to you free stuff that’s actually worthwhile.

Free Internet

There are ways I can access the Internet without paying anything for it. Most common are free wi-fi hotspots, such as those offered by McDonald’s and Tim Hortons, though these places of business generally expect me to purchase something, so it’s not really free. Some public libraries do offer truly free wi-fi, as well as access to the Internet from their own computers. There are also neighbours who leave their wireless routers unsecured, but this option usually stops becoming viable when they discover they’ve gone over their bandwidth limit and secure their access point, inevitably changing the name of their wireless LAN to something like “Dontstealthis.”

There are other initiatives. Some in my city may have access to Oshawa Free WiFi, while companies like NetZero’s 200MB 4G plan or free 10 hours of dial-up surfing might work for some very light users. Personally, I find free access plans to be too limited for my own tastes, so I turned the entire equation upside down and use competition and technology to my advantage.

I start by assuming the cost of Bell home phone,at $52.95 a month. This comes with the features I expect of a modern home phone. If I assume this as a monthly expense as a homeowner, I can now justify going with a company like Teksavvy and order their high speed DSL for $29.99 and TekTalk premium phone with even more features than Bell’s phone for $14.95. In my area, I also need to pay a “Dry Loop” fee of $10.00 per month, so I end up paying $1.99 more than I would pay with Bell’s phone service. This also requires an investment of approximately $100 in hardware. I consider the hardware cost an investment, given that the alternative is a rental fee, and the extra $1.99 a month exceptional value. Just try to get high speed internet with a 300GB cap for $1.99 a month.

Free Computer

There’s no need to spend hundreds of dollars for a new computer. People practically give them away. Seriously. Just put the word out in a local community, or browse through a local freecycle’s listings. My experience has been mixed; one can expect to receive old CRT monitors and computers that are unable to play the latest games, but are perfectly fine for e-mail and web browsing. These tend to be ridden with viruses and malware, so I tend to bring these up to date quickly and easily by wiping the hard drive clean and installing a modern free operating system like Ubuntu.

Free (worthwhile) Operating System

I recommend using Ubuntu. It’s very mature, at version 12.10 now, and it’s an operating system I like to run. Have an old computer that’s not quite running right? I’ve seen plenty of frustrating Windows XP based computers that run so slow, it makes people want to give them away. Ubuntu makes these computers run like new. It’s remarkably easy to use; easier than Windows XP in my experience. It also opens the door to all kinds of free applications, which then opens the door to all kinds of free online content, which I will get into next.

Free (worthwhile) content

I like to read books. As I get older, I derive even greater pleasure from reading the great classics. Many great classics have become public domain, and as they do, the best works end up at Project Gutenberg. When I bought my first e-Reader, it came with 100 free books that originated from this site. Their library has grown to over 40,000 free e-books.

Sometimes, I would rather have a book read to me. I discovered talking books at my local library when I had my first job that involved a commute by car. Nothing makes the aggravation of sitting in traffic go away like listening to a great story. Now we have LibriVox, which is to audiobooks what Project Guttenberg is to written texts. Its library, while considerably smaller, is still worthwhile at 6,000 titles.

When it comes to music, I’m aware of all the methods to obtain music illegally for free. What is surprising is the amount and quality of legally free music, shared by its creators under a “Creative Commons” license. Creative Commons music spans all genres. A search that includes my genre of choice followed by the words “Creative Commons” results in plenty of material to discover.

In the early 90’s, I started to listen to talk radio. Imagine if there were more programs in that genre that appealed to my specific tastes. Now this dream has come true with podcasts. There must be a podcast out there for every taste imaginable. Much like audiobooks, a good podcast can make a long drive much more interesting.

Free (worthwhile) Software

In my previous blog, I had the habit of posting my top 10 free software picks of that year at the end of the year. LibreOffice is my office suite of choice. For managing Podcasts, I like gPodder. To manage my eBook library (including news feeds), I use Calibre. Generally, I find Souceforge.net to be an excellent resource for games and software of all types. In fact, there’s so much good quality worthwhile software available, I’m going to dedicate that to another blog post.

Conclusion

There’s a lot of good things out there for free if one knows where to look. I’ve just scratched the surface here. What I discovered is that it’s easy to become overwhelmed, so I tend to discriminate when making my choices. Perhaps you know someone who would benefit from the free information I provide in this blog. Feel free to share this with them, and make their lives a little better.