Information about Software

The Committee laptop on which the important data resides runs the Windows 8 Operating System. All of the software that is used is free, from the office suite that is used for a large part of running the Committee's affairs to the back-up software and cloud storage.

If you click on the icon under the "S/W" column it will take you the the webpage for that software.

Software

S/W	Name	Purpose
	LibreOffice	LibreOffice is an "office suite" that has applications that match those of Microsoft Office and that can read files created by that suite. Application Icon LibreOffice MS Office Documents Writer (.odt, .doc, ,docx) Word (.doc, .docx) Spreadsheets Calc (.ods, .xls, .xlsx) Excel (.xls, .xlsx) Presentations Impress (.odp, .ppt) PowerPoint (.ppt) Database Base (.odb, .mdb) Access (.mdb) Drawing Draw (.odg, .vsd) Visio (.vsd) Formulae Math (.odf) - none - As you can see, LibreOffice can handle MS Office documents, but not vice versa. It is preferable to save in LibreOffice formats unless you are passing the document on to someone who only has MS Office. You can always export from within LibreOffice to MS Office format. LibreOffice also allows you to “Export to PDF”, i.e. create a PDF file directly. This is used to create the draws and leaderboards that go on the website.
	Komodo Edit	Komodo Edit is a fast, powerful and free multi-language source code editor. It has all the features you would expect of a modern editor, including source code syntax checking, syntax highlighting and "intellisense" code auto-completion and suggestions. It is used mainly to develop the website. For simpler editing functions, such as changes to small text files, we use the Notepad++ editor (see below).
	Notepad++	Notepad++ is also an editor. It too has many of the features you would expect of a modern editor, but it is used mainly for simpler editing functions, such as creating and modifying small text files, that you would for example use the Windows Notepad editor for. Notepad++ could be regarded as a simple replacement for Notepad, but one that has more "bells and whistles".
	Syncbackfree	Syncbackfree is a powerul backup and synchronisation tool. It copies files from the Committee laptop to the backup locations on cloud storage (see below). It also ensures that the website and its copy on the laptop are kept up to date. There are two copies of the website: The PUBLIC version that resides on the 1and1 server in the UK and is accessed as: http://mhcommittee.elusien.co.uk The LOCAL version that resides on the Committee laptop in folder: This PC/Documents/golf/website and accessed as: http://localhost/website The websites are kept identical using Syncbackfree. A webpage is first developed on the local site and tested there, once it has been thoroughly tested Syncbackfree is used to copy it to the public site for public viewing.
	Winscp	WinSCP is a freeware SFTP (SSH File Transfer Protocol), FTP (File Transfer Protocol) and SCP (Secure Copy) client for Windows using SSH (Secure Shell). Its main function is safe copying of files between a local and a remote computer. Beyond this basic function, WinSCP manages more sophisticated actions with files and folders. Syncbackfree is the usual way to copy data from the local website to the public one. Sometimes it is necessary to delete a file on the public website, this is mainly where Winscp is used, It has a modern GUI that enables you to do things like this fairly easily. However, you need to be very careful and know what you are doing.
	Dropbox	Dropbox provides you with free storage in the cloud and a mechanism for synchronising that storage across all your devices: PCs, laptops, smart phones, tablets etc. In this case however, it is mainly used with syncbackfree to backup the Committee laptop's files safely in the cloud, so that they can be easily recovered should the laptop break, or be lost.
	Microsoft OneDrive	Like Dropbox, Microsoft OneDrive provides you with free storage in the cloud and a mechanism for synchronising that storage across all your devices. Again it is mainly used with syncbackfree to backup the Committee laptop's files safely in the cloud. Onedrive provides you with a larger amount of free storage than Dropbox and this is used to backup other files as well as the ones stored on Dropbox. Better to be safe than sorry! Another source of lots of free cloud storage is Google Drive
	KeePass2	KeyPass2 is a free open source password manager, which helps you to manage your passwords in a secure way. You can put all your passwords in one database, which is locked with one master key or a key file. So you only have to remember one single master password or select the key file to unlock the whole database. The databases are encrypted using the best and most secure encryption algorithms currently known (AES and Twofish). KeePass2 enables you to set up login credentials for various websites and the login to those sites with a simple set of keystrokes (CTRL-ALT-A) without having to remember your username/password combination.
	VeraCrypt	VeraCrypt is software for establishing and maintaining an on-the-fly-encrypted volume (data storage device). On-the-fly encryption means that data is automatically encrypted right before it is saved and decrypted right after it is loaded, without any user intervention. No data stored on an encrypted volume can be read (decrypted) without using the correct password/keyfile(s) or correct encryption keys when the volume is mounted. Only a very small amount of data needs to be kept safe from prying eyes and it is for this data that VeraCrypt is used.
	jQuery	jQuery is a fast, small, and feature-rich JavaScript library. It makes things like HTML document traversal and manipulation, event handling, animation, and Ajax much simpler with an easy-to-use API that works across a multitude of browsers. Writing javascript code to make the various webpages on the website interactive and responsive is now made comparatively simple.
	Xampp	XAMPP is the most popular PHP development environment. It is a completely free, easy to install Apache distribution. Apache is a web server and since we need one to enable us to display the local website on the Committee laptop Xampp is the way of doing this. Without an Apache server it would be extremely difficult to develop the website, much of which is written in the PHP web programming language.
	Malwarebytes	Malwarebytes (Free) is an Anti-Malware scanner that detects and removes malware like worms, Trojans, rootkits, rogues, spyware etc. A scan of the Committee laptop is run periodically to ensure it is not infected.
	Icons8	Icons8 is a complete, fully searchable, set of over 32,000 icons, some of which are used on this website.
	GIMP	GIMP is a free and open-source raster graphics editor used for image retouching and editing, free-form drawing, resizing, cropping, photo-montages, converting between different image formats, and more specialized tasks.
	Inkscape	Inkscape is an open-source vector graphics editor similar to Adobe Illustrator, Corel Draw, Freehand, or Xara X. What sets Inkscape apart is its use of Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG), an open XML-based W3C standard, as the native format. Inkscape is to vector graphics what GIMP is to raster graphics (e.g. Photos).
	Picasa	Picasa is an image organizer and image viewer for organizing and editing digital photos, plus an integrated photo-sharing website.
	WinDirStat	WinDirStat is a disk usage statistics viewer and cleanup tool for Microsoft Windows. It displays a graphical represention of the folders and files and makes it easy to see which files are using up lots of space, rather than javing to use Windows Explorer to go through all the folders.
	Google Calendar	A publicly accessible Google Calendar is used to display the Minthis Hills fixture list as well as Cyprus public holidays.