There is a great deal of free, high-quality software available on the Internet. These free applications are written by developers who want to improve their skills (rather like an internship), developers who want to make a reputation for themselves, and developers who want to make a contribution to society. There’s also plenty of low-cost (and also high-cost) software available on the Internet from developers who may have all the above motivations and who also want to make a little money.

One of the best sites to help you find this plethora of software is called simply Download.com. Download.com provides both editorial reviews and user reviews of the applications it lists, for one thing, along with very useful categories and options.

Here are some tips for downloading and installing software:

1) Create a folder called “Download” (if one doesn’t already exist) on your computer, and save all your downloaded files there. You can (and should) set this folder to be the default saved-file folder in the preferences of your browser (Firefox, IE, Safari, etc.).

2) Make sure that you have a program installed on your computer that can “unzip” or “uncompress” or “unstuff” or “extract” files. Software installation files can be very large, so they are often downloaded in compressed formats such as .zip files for Windows and .sit files for Mac. QuickZip is a good free uncompresser for Windows, while Stuffit Expander is a good uncompression program for Mac. Note that you might already have such a program on your computer, in which case you don’t need to get a different one. If you’re unsure, double-click on any compressed file and see what happens. Again, make sure that you know where the program puts the files it uncompresses; I recommend that you make sure the program puts the uncompressed files in the Download folder.

3) Once uncompressed, a software installation file for Windows will have the .exe extension. Double-click on the file and follow the instructions to install the program. Once uncompressed, a software installation file for Mac will have the .dmg or .pkg extension. Double-click on the file and follow the instructions to install the program.

Update: The above instructions refer only to client-side (i.e., desktop) software such as FileZilla, NOT to server-side software such as Omeka. Server-side software has to be uploaded to a server.