ICTworks by Inveneo

There are hundreds of free software applications available available online, some more useful than others, but all are available free of charge if you are willing to put in the work to hunt them down and wade through the installers. Not always a trivial task.

I was in a situation this week where I needed to very quickly create a Windows XP image from scratch, and the image needed to have several free software packages installed. I was considering the large amount of time and web searching required to install each of these applications individually when a co-worker suggested I use Ninite.

I was not familiar with Ninite so I looked into it and ended up using it to install the majority of the required applications for the image. I highly recommend this tool as it was a huge time and sanity saver!

Ninite is a free tool that allows you to automatically install multiple popular software applications with the click of a button. On their homepage you are presented with a list of software, you simply browse through the available software, choose the ones you need, and when finished you can ‘Get Installer’ which results in a custom installer being built specifically for you based on your choices. You can download and run this installer on any machine and it will automatically install each of the applications without any further input required.

Each of the applications is installed in the background while you continue to work or even step away from the computer for a cup of coffee. When the Ninite finishes running, it presents you with a succinct list of which applications were installed successfully, and which ones could not be installed for compatibility/versioning reasons. That’s it, done!

This is a fantastic tool for three reasons:

1. It's a huge time saver. Rather than downloading and clicking through the installers for each application individually, you download one installer and it runs in the background without any user input required.
2. It saves you from inadvertently installing extra ‘add-on’ software (toolbars, widgets, etc) that often come tacked-on to freeware installers and usually end up bogging down your system.
3. The Ninite folks have done a great job of dredging through the hundreds of free software packages available and have come up with a great list of stable, highly useable, and popular software. If you don’t know what you need or want, there’s a good chance they have it.

Ninite is available for both Windows (XP, Vista, and 7) and Linux. It is free to use for personal use, no sign up is required. There is a Pro version available for a monthly fee with a few other bells and whistles but I found that the free version was perfect for what I was trying to accomplish.

I’m always looking for the next great productivity enhancer and this is it. Check it out. Good luck and enjoy!

End users of computers in the developing world often want to engage in activities that are beyond the stock software that comes with popular operating systems, especially Windows XP. But they usually lack the knowledge or bandwidth to find and download the right applications.

Making computers instantly useable

To empower these users, and reduce implementation time and costs, Inveneo has developed a Community Center Software Collection - more than 30 applications, including iTunes, Skype, QuickTime, RealPlayer, Flash, Shockwave, and solutions for typing tutors, editing photographs, audio files, and movies - that come pre-installed on request for XP-based hardware platforms.

This bundle of software and OS modifications is designed for a shared computing environment where there is little to no technical support, and has proven to be very useful for computers running Windows XP Home in rural and remote areas. Its available in English or French, however the operating system must be in the same language.

While this specific Community Center Software Collection is unique to Inveneo, its our hope that the underlying idea - appropriate, pre-installed software applications that make computers instantly useful to end users - becomes common in the developing world.

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