Software4Students (www.software4students.co.uk) is a programme designed with Microsoft to supply low-cost software to students for home use. The licensee of the products is required to be a University, College or School student in the UK.

The software is MASSIVELY cheaper than you’ll find in retail stores (typically discounted by 80% or more). For example, Microsoft Office Professional 2010 is available for just £37.89 (it's £331.20 on Amazon). That's full versions of Word, Outlook, PowerPoint, Excel, Access, Publisher, InfoPath, Communicator, OneNote, SharePoint & Web Apps.

Other reduced price software includes:

• Adobe Creative Suite 5 (includes Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Illustrator, etc)
• Microsoft Project Professional 2010
• Windows 7 Pro and Windows 7 Ultimate Edition Upgrades
• Kaspersky Antivirus
• Dragon Speech Recognition software
• PC & Mac music programs such as Sibelius 6 and Notion 3, the list goes on.

Sounds too good to be true doesn’t it! Well, you can find Microsoft’s endorsement of Software4Students at: http://www.microsoft.com/uk/education/students/promotions/default.aspx.

Save yourself a fortune and take a look: www.software4students.co.uk

Free Parental Controls for PCs & Macs

Do you have kids using the internet? Do you have parental controls? If not, just install K9 Web Protection. It's free. Just go to their website here and fill in your details. They'll send you an activation code and a download link. Download and install the small piece of software and that's it, you're done. It's really easy to use too. You can choose which categories of website to block (eg. gambling, weapons), what times of the day you wish for the computer to block access to the internet (eg. after bed-time!), and you can monitor which websites have been accessed (or attempted to be accessed), even if your cheeky little monkey has cleverly deleted the internet history.
Parent: 1, Cheeky Little Monkey: 0.
NB. You can get more free software from our Freebies page.

TipTop Twitter

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Groupon

There's another phenomenon happening online: Groupon. For those of you who haven't heard of it Groupon is a deal-of-the-day website that is localized to major geographic markets, including the UK. It was launched in November 2008 and has amassed 35 million registered users. Each day, Groupon features a very good deal on something to do, see, eat, or buy in your city. By promising businesses a minimum number of customers, they get very large discounts. If not enough people purchase the deal, the deal doesn't go through and the purchaser does not get charged. The incentive, therefore, is to encourage your friends to use the site too. You can input your email address to be sent the daily deal direct to your inbox.
I've used it to purchase a 3-course meal for two from The Plough in Cobham for £18.50! (Sorry folks, it's no longer available!).
You can check out the current deal-of-the-day in Surrey here.

The New Mac App Store

Apple has just opened it's Mac App Store. For those of you with an iPhone, iPod or iPad you'll already be familiar with the App Store where you can download all sorts of programs such as games, utilities apps, reference apps, news apps, etc. Well, you can now do the same on your Mac computer. Just install the latest updates (you'll need Mac OS 10.6, Snow Leopard, in order to install it). Apple have wisely split the iLife programs up so now you can just download iPhoto 11 for £8.99 instead of having to buy it with iMovie & GarageBand for £46.
You'll find full details of the Mac App Store here.

Does your child have an iPhone / iTouch? THINK - Parental controls!

I was chatting on Friday to one of our customers who said how much she appreciated our Previous TechTips "Internet Dangers! Protect your Children". She said she then reviewed her own children's internet access, and realised that her 13 year old has an iTouch which she could use to access all sorts of content, and in the privacy of her own bedroom. Hence I was asked:

Could she be protected from accessing inappropriate content on her iTouch?

Well, the answer is YES! iTouch & iPhone devices with the latest software (OS3.0) include options to restrict access to programs such as... READ MORE >>

TechTips: Internet Dangers! Protect your children

The internet reflects today’s world in so many ways and needs to be treated as such. This means restricting our children from accessing objectionable content, adult themes, and inappropriate language. It also means knowing where they are (ie. which website they are on), who they’re with (ie. who they’re talking to), and what they’re doing.

Social networking websites such as Facebook, Bebo and MySpace can be fun but must be treated with caution. READ MORE >>

Dropbox – This is simply BRILLIANT

Dropbox is a program that automatically synchronizes your files and folders across multiple computers using the internet.

Perhaps you have a PC and a laptop and you'd like to be able to access your documents from each without having to manually copy files between the two using a USB stick. Well, Dropbox solves the problem, and it does it simply and inexpensively.

So, how does it work? First you go to www.getdropbox.com and sign up for a Dropbox account... READ MORE >>

Don't want to pay for Microsoft Office? Use OpenOffice 3 for FREE

Have you ever heard of OpenOffice? OpenOffice 3 was released on 13th October. Compared with Microsoft Office, it looks about the same, feels about the same, and it’s FREE...READ MORE >>

Learn to Touch Type

Is touch typing becoming a lost skill? Most kids now learn how to build a website before they learn the basics of touch typing!

There's a great (free) website which tells you which fingers should press which keys and then gives you exercises to help you practice, starting with easy combinations of letters and getting progressively harder as you become more accomplished. That website is www.sense-lang.org.