Some time ago it came to my attention that an organisation I worked for (like many others in both the private and comunity sectors) used a number software applications that were installed more often than their licences allowed or that you could download off the net and use for a trial period (but the trial period had long since expired).

Some friends and I did some research and found Open Source and/or free proprietry equivelants for a number of these packages, including:

• ZipCentral - a replacement for WinZip (The only person I've ever heard of registering it is my brother most people don't even realise you should pay for it).
• The Gimp - a bit like Photoshop
• Amaya - a replacement for Dreamweaver or MS FrontPage
• FileZilla - a replacement for CuteFTP
• OpenOffice - a replacement for MS Office
• For a full list see [Free proprietry software I|Free proprietry software] & [Open Source software I|Open source software]

I downloaded these packages and burnt a CD which I gave it to a friend to try out. She installed a couple of the packages and sent it off to a friend of hers in another office. Comments came back both from her and from the other office that the CD wasn't very user friendly and that no one knew what any of the apps were.

I then set out to make the CD more user-friendly. I created a web interface that told you all about all the software on the CD, but apparently that wasn't good enough to encourage people. So using the Internet Explorer's ability to launch .exe files I modified the my web page so you could install the software directly from Internet Explorer. In an effort to further improve usability I have started including How Tos to help people install and start using some of the software. At the moment I have documented installing and setting up Gaim but nothing else.

As time went on I found more applications to include on the CD. Have a look at [Free proprietry software I|Free proprietry software] & [Open Source software I|Open source software] for the full list.
If there are any applications you think should be on the list, any applications on the list that you think shouldn't be there or if you have any trouble or comments let me know.

I now use a website (with server side includes) to generate a collection of web pages with standard menus. Check it out.