About osGuide.net

First off What is osGuide?

osGuide, short for Open Source Guide, is here to share the best open source and free software that the internet has to offer. osGuide's goal is to collect a listing of the best free and open source software from around the web, and teach people how to use this software. Members help each other by "Guideing" others to the best software and tutorials. The tutorial section is designed to help the community learn new things about the software. Even the best software is useless if you don't know how to use it.

About the Author

Well my name is Cory Mathews. I'm a 21 year old web developer and designer currently living in Texas, USA. I have been a freelance web designer since 2001 and currently work for Ensemble Group a local web development company. I decided to built osGuide because there is so much free and open source software out there that people just have not heard of. Not only can these programs save us a great deal of money, and time, they are often better then their commercial counterparts.

I enjoy hearing what others have to say about the site or web development in general. So I encourage you to contact me and share your thoughts, ideas, suggestions, or complaints about the site.

Software System

The Software System is set up in a very simple way to help everyone find the best free and open source software available. The software is broken up into categories that best fit them, and then further split into subcategories for even more specific listings. So for example if you were looking for a great replacement for Microsoft Office, and did not know the name of any alternative software you could go to the category titled 'Office' and then the subcategory 'Suites' and you will find a couple alternatives. Of course you could of also just searched for Office Suites and the results would of been similar, but it is usually better to use the directories because they are sorted by osGuides Guide System instead of relevance to the team you searched for.

Software Guide System

The guide system is setup to help people find the more popular and often "better" software. These ratings are made by the users of the site, not the site owner. These ratings save you the time of downloading many different software products before you find the one you like, or that fits your needs. I still do encourage trying other software that is not the highest rated, they might be newly listed or just not as popular, they are not always bad software.

You can view the software you have guided by viewing your account settings. You can also remove software that you have guided if you so wish to. Viewing other peoples profiles allows you to view the software they have guided.

Software Submission Guidelines

First off, you do not have to own the software to submit it to the site. However the software must fit the following criteria.

  • The software must be legally free, or open source
  • Simple stipulations such as non-commercial use are ok, but they will be listed as such
  • No timed trials
  • No unstable, or unusable software, ie alpha releases.
  • No software that contains any form of malicious code
  • No software related to pornography
  • No software related to illegal activity
  • The software must have a website (sourceforges default page does not count)
  • All software is approved by me, Cory Mathews
  • I make the ultimate decision, so get over it, and yes sometimes I make exceptions.

These submissions are how we list software, there is no way I alone could add every worthy software out there. Help everyone by submitting the software you use.

Tutorial System

The Tutorial System is pretty simple it works in almost the same fashion as the software section. This section is designed to help everyone learn the software they are able to download on the site. Software is useless if you do not know how to use it. So after downloading software that is new to you head over to the tutorials section and learn from other members of our community.

Tutorial Submission Guidelines

Anyone may submit tutorials, as long as they are the original authors. They must be about either a software Item that is listed in the Software System, or a current web technology that is free for everyone to use. For example CSS, or HTML. All tutorials must be unique to osGuide.net. Thus they may not be published anywhere else.

Tutorial Submission Incentives

Now that I have your attention authors will receive a link back to the authors website. As well as tutorial authors may submit two ads along with their tutorial to be displayed on that tutorials page(Optional). The first ad must be 234x60 also known as a half banner. This ad will be displayed at the top of the page next to the tutorials details. The second ad will be 468x60 and will be displayed at the bottom of the tutorial before any comments. These ads must also be approved by me (Cory Mathews) and must pass the following criteria:

  • Google Ads are Accepted
  • Yahoo Ads are current NOT Accepted but hopefully will be in the near future.
  • Microsoft Ads are currently NOT Accepted but may be sometime (not in the near future).
  • Commission Junction Referral Ads are Accepted.
  • Custom .jpg banners are accepted
  • No animated gifs or flash banners are accepted
  • Not sure just ask. There are far to many to list I will accept some others.

Its sad I even need to address this but any users who submit "ripped" or stolen tutorials will be banned from the site, no questions asked. Goodbye. Your not welcome here.