7Zip - a file-compression tool

http://www.7-zip.org/

7-Zip allows you to compress large files into smaller ones, or to place lots of files and folders into an easy to access archive. The program is highly configurable, allowing the user to balance the level of compression and speed. The interface is designed to look like the standard Windows Explorer, and is available in 40 languages.

ClamWin - anti-virus software

http://www.clamwin.com/

Clamwin is an anti-virus package for Windows 7 / Vista / XP / Me / 2000 / 98 and Windows Server 2008 and 2003.

for more details, visit http://www.clamwin.com/

Screenshots

Edubuntu - educational Linux system

http://www.edubuntu.org/

From the Edubuntu website:

Edubuntu is based on Ubuntu, a complete operating system that uses the Linux kernel and is freely available to anyone. As an education-driven operating system, Edubuntu provides a complete solution for:

• an organisation or Education Ministry that is wanting to take full advantage of the benefits that open source software offers to the educational environment;
• educators and school personnel who would like to set up Edubuntu in a networked learning environment;
• home users who would like to have a standalone computer system that focuses on education for the younger members of the household.

Edubuntu gathers together the best available free software and digital materials for education. It contains a large number of educational applications including GCompris, KDE Edutainment Suite, and Schooltool Calendar. Edubuntu is developed to enable teachers with limited technical knowledge and skills to set-up a computer lab, or establish an on-line learning environment, in an hour or less, and then administer that environment.

One of the key technologies included is the Linux Terminal Server Project (LTSP) which allows you to boot thin clients from an Edubuntu LTSP server. For educational environments, LTSP lowers hardware costs by enabling the use of older or less powerful machines as thin clients, as well as reduced administration overhead by having only to install and maintain the software on the server. When a workstation fails, it can simply be replaced without data loss or reinstallation of the operating system.

 

InfraRecorder - a CD/DVD writer

http://infrarecorder.org/

 

InfraRecorder is an open-source CD and DVD recording package for Microsoft Windows.  Use it to produce CD’s and DVD’s

For more, visit http://infrarecorder.org/

or to download direct, click here http://sourceforge.net/projects/infrarecorder/files/InfraRecorder/0.50/ir050.exe/download

Screenshots

LTSP - a Linux thin-client system

The Linux Terminal Server Project adds thin-client support to Linux servers. LTSP is a flexible, cost effective solution that is used by schools, businesses, and organizations all over the world to install and deploy desktop workstations. A growing number of Linux distributions include LTSP out-of-the-box. New thin-clients and legacy PCs alike can be used to browse the Web, send e-mail, create documents, and run other desktop applications. LTSP not only improves Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), but more importantly, provides increased value over traditional computing solutions. LTSP workstations can run applications from Linux and Windows servers. Linux thin-clients have proven to be extremely reliable because tampering and viruses are virtually non-existent.

We think that LTSP is worth considering for a range of solutions, from Cybercafes to major site wide installations.

http://ltsp.org/

Linux Netbooks

From the Open Source Schools presentation at BETT 2009, slides and commentary by Doug Belshaw, filmed by Hannah Wise of BBC Backstage, edited by Leon Cych of Learn4Life

Nagios - a network monitoring tool

Nagios is the industry standard in enterprise-class monitoring. It allows you to gain insight into your network and fix problems before customers know they even exist. It's stable, scalable, supported, and extensible. Most importantly, it works.

What does Nagios provide?

 

Comprehensive Network Monitoring

• Windows
• Linux/Unix
• Routers, Switches, Firewalls
• Printers
• Services
• Applications

Immediate Awareness and Insight

• Receive immediate notifications of problems via email, pager and cellphone
• Multi-user notification escalation capabilities
• See detailed status information through the Nagios web interface

Problem Remediation

• Acknowledge problems through the web interface
• Automatically restart failed applications, services and hosts with event handlers

Proactive Planning

• Schedule downtime for anticipated host, service, and network upgrades
• Capacity planning capabilites through usage monitoring

Reporting Options

• SLA availability reports
• Alert and notification history reports
• Trending reports through integration with Cacti and RRD-based addons

Multi-Tenant/Multi-User Capabilites

• Multiple users can access the web interface
• Each user can have their own unique, restricted view

Integration With Your Existing Applications

• Trouble ticket systems
• Wikis

Easily Extendable Architecture

• Over 200 community addons are available to enhance Nagios

Stable, Reliable, and Respected Platform

• 10 years in development
• Scales to monitor 100,000+ nodes
• Failover protection capabilities
• Winner of multiple awards
• Constant media coverage

Huge Community

• 250,000+ users worldwide
• Active mailing lists
• Extensive community website network

Customizable Code

• Open Source Software
• Full access to source code
• Released under the GPL license

http://www.nagios.org/

Thin Clients

Standard PCs have all the computing power they need inside one box, but that isn't the only way to do things. In the thin client model, a single big server computer does most of the work and holds all the applications and data. Instead of a PC on their desk, users have a “thin client”: like a small PC but without as much computing power. 

The benefit of thin clients include cost (they're cheaper than PCs), manageability (everything important is on the server so instead of installing and fixing software on twenty PCs, you only need to do it on one server) and smaller environmental footprint (a thin client typically uses less than 10 watts of electricity; PCs can use over 200 watts).

Thin clients aren't suitable for everything. PCs are normally more appropriate for multimedia applications and 3D graphics. For most other applications, including web apps, thin clients work very well.

As well as buying thin clients, it's also possible to convert old PCs into thin clients, sometimes by doing nothing more than removing their hard drives. Many schools are using this to extend the lives of their older computer hardware]

A thin client café can run Linux and a wide range of Open Source and proprietary applications. This approach gives staff and students the opportunity to try Linux and Open Source without losing the current software they're familiar with. It's also a great way of increasing the number of computers in the school without spending a fortune, and of introducing students to a wider range of operating systems and applications.

There is a current trend for personal computing to switch from PC-based applications (running locally on your machine, like Word, Outlook, Picasa) to web-based applications (for example, Google, Google Docs, Facebook, eBay, Flickr and Bebo), and students are spending more of their computer-time using the Internet or office suites (e.g. word processing, spreadsheets or presentations), all of which are well suited to a thin client café (because all that’s needed is a browser, which generally runs fine on thin clients). This approach frees up more powerful PCs to be used in settings where the power is needed (eg for multimedia applications).