Our list of recommended software and their download links.

BabelPad (free / donateware)

You can, of course, make your text (txt) files with Microsoft Notepad or similar text editor, but on occasion we have had some problems. One reason is because OLEM needs the information to be saved as utf8 unicode. You can save text files in utf8 format in later versions of Notepad - but you might forget! We strongly recommend that you use a unicode text editor. The editor of our choice is BabelPad.

We have been using BabelPad for several years - and it works just fine!

Code2000 (shareware)

OLEM is set up to work with 2 default fonts: Tahoma and Code2000. Tahoma is pre-installed on your computer and this means that you can make training in most languages that use the Latin based alphabet without the need to install a new font.

For languages such as Chinese, Japanese, Amharic, Tigrigna etc., that use a non-Latin alphabet, then our second default font - Code2000 - will most likely meet your requirements. Click on the link above to go to the Code2000 download page.

If you are working with a language that is not covered by either of these two fonts, then please contact us. Extra fonts can be added to the system if necessary.

Flowplayer - Flash Video Player for the Web (Open Source GPL version 3)

We provide you with the possibility to show FLV video files courtesy of the Flowplayer free version. FLV videos can be shown via the “Flash Holder” template. You can use the link above to get your own copy of Flowplayer or to upgrade to a commercial licence.

PHP MicroCMS (Open Source LGPL)

PHP MicroCMS (PHP MCMS) is a simple, but very powerful Content Management System that everyone can use. You can download your own original copy from this link.

IrfanView (free / donateware)

IrfanView is a very fast graphics viewer. If you don’t have your own graphic editing program to change your pictures and graphics to the jpg format that OLEM requires, then we recommend IrfanView (see Tutorial 10).

If you install the IrfanView plugIns you can work with many different file types. Another good reason for installing the plugIns is that you are able to play and listen to your swf sound files.

Easy Thumbnails (freeware)

OLEM prefers you to upload your graphics at a size of 130 x 130 pixels. If your pictures are too big or too small, then we recommend that you use Easy Thumbnails to quickly and easily adjust the size (see Tutorial 10).

Boomer Audio ($19.95)

OLEM requires that your sound files be saved in swf Flash format. The reason for this is that most computers have Flash Player already installed so your users won’t need to install any extra programs to listen to your sound recordings.

One program that we have been using to convert our wav and mp3 files to Flash is Boomer Audio. Boomer is nice and easy to use and will also convert a lot of files at the same time (batch convert). It is not too expensive either. We think that Boomer is a good choice.

Audacity is free, open source software for recording and editing sounds - and is highly recommended.

LLRec (shareware)

LLRec (Lanonet Language Recorder) is our own voice recording program. The idea is that your students can listen to the native speaker recording, then record their own voice and play it back. This gives them the opportunity to compare their own recording with the original.

WinSCP (open source)

You can upload your graphic and sound files via the Assets Manager and that works fine if you are only uploading a small number of files. If you want to upload a lot of files then this is done more quickly with an FTP program.

WinSCP is an excellent ftp client for Windows. We have been using it for many years and it just gets better! Highly recommended.

Rename (freeware)

We strongly recommend that you organise your files in a good way. For example, we have named all our images for animals anim_ and all our images for transport trans_ This makes it much easier to find the relevant graphic when it is needed. The same thing applies to the sound files.

In order to give a long list of graphics the prefix anim_ or trans_ we have used this program for renaming files.

Download ‘rename’ and try it out. We appreciate it very much!

PC Image Editor (free for home users)

This graphics editor with many of the features of a professional product and is quite suitable for our needs. We include tutorials on how to use PC Image Editor under “working with graphic files”.

WinZip (€ 29.95 + VAT)

We include a download link to WinZip for those of you who are unable to unpack the library.zip file in the way we outlined in the library tutorial.

WinZip is considered by many to be the de facto program for file management.