I've used MasterCook for many years. It has its quirks, but I still like it better than other programs I've tried. You can enter recipe ingredients and number of servings and will get a per-serving nutritional profile. I've compared with standard nutritional counts and found the results very close.

You can also enter custom foods if you have the nutritional information. (Say for a recipe that calls for an ingredient not in the database.)

The one thing I have noticed is you have to be sure to format ingredients properly (i.e. enter "onions, chopped" not "chopped onions") or the program won't recognize or calculate that ingredient. However, AFAIK, that's a problem common to all these programs.

Carol

A friend of mine wanted the same thing for his recipes. I told him to do a web search on the following: FREE RECIPE SOFTWARE. It got MANY hits and many choices he could try to see what works best. You may find the same thing. Its hard to know what info you wish to deal with, such as meal planning, proportions, or up or downsizing recipes. Doing a bit of testing and seein what features you like is always a good place to start. Many also adopt a data base standard, so the recipes are all treated in the same search and presentations.

What type of computer does she use? I was a mastercook user also, but it no longer works with Mac computers :( I am currently testing out a mac one (I forget the name, it's on my home computer) and it seems to be very similar.

Ann

Thanks for the ideas! She's using a PC, so Mastercook is an option. I was interested in free programs, but I'm a little leary of downloading anything right now. I just had to wipe out my hard drive and start over because of viruses (although downloading wasn't the problem).

Bellatrix

Anytime you're planning to try out a few different programs, I recommend using Acronis backup software. It makes a disk image of your hard drive, and when you return to a backup image, it's as if nothing happened to your computer in between. So you can make a disk image before you install a new program. If you don't like it, you can go back to the image from before you installed the program. This is cleaner than uninstalling and leaving behind traces in the registry.

You can also set up Acronis to make backups at regular intervals in case of problems.

Melissa

Viruses can only occur if there is a lack of current, effective antivirus software to prevent these issues. MY 30+ year jobs were to repair and build PC's, so I have seen hundreds of PCs per year and about 85% have at least one virus. None of these that did contain viruses had any current working antivirus programs installed. If you do download a recipe software, the antivirus software on your computer will usually scan these downloaded programs to see if they have viruses in them. If I have to remove installed software, I do go into the registry and remove any and all traces of it there too.

I concur with KenÂs assertion that most viral infections occur due to lack of current antivirus protection. That being said, your main worry with free software downloads is the risk of Trojans and spyware. Actually this type of malware is the preferred attack vector over viruses these days (web dangers have evolved from those who want to wreck as much damage as possible to those who want to rob as much money as possible).

In my experience, most mainstream antivirus packages do a very good job at detecting and blocking Trojans and spyware but, they are not 100% bulletproof new attacks are developed faster than security companies can keep up.

IF you do want to download and try "free" software then I suggest you follow Melissa and KenÂs suggestions as well as doing a quick Google that includes the software name and the words virus, Trojan and spyware. If the software you are interested in contains any of these nasty items odds are that someone has posted a complaint or warning to a forum somewhere. Not 100% assurance but it helps.

Oh yes, back to your original question. I personally use purchased copy of Living Cookbook from Radium Technologies. Link below if interested.

Bill

Here is a link that might be useful: Living Cookbook

Thanks, Melissa, for the advice on Acronis, I'll look into it.

As Bill said, antiviral software is not completely bullet-proof. I had completely up to date antiviral software and firewall and still got hit. My friend who repairs computers for a living said a bunch of people with antiviral software had the same problem when I did. Remember that emergency patch that microsoft sent out a bit ago? It had something to do with that, although I'm not sure if that started my problem or if a Trojan let something in later that exploited the weakness.

What we think happened is that I went to an unsecured webpage with a new trojan. I was trying to learn about buiding web pages and accidentally ended up at a page that offered "free" borders. A prompt came up asking me if I wanted to download. Apparently, if you hit "no" or the "x" to close the window, it still can infect your computer. He said the best thing to do is shut down explorer from the task manager. Any way, even if you think you are safe with good antiviral software, always back up your computer. I was lucky that I had everything backed up. I was able to restore my computer back to how it was when I bought it and reload everything.

Well, now this is REALLY off topic :)

Bellatrix

The US Government uses Norton. I was required to install that on every system that an Air Force contracted company worked with. They would also set up a local update for every week and it was fuly tested before it was released into the local servers. If one of the programs had problems with Norton, the whole company wouldn't be impacted suddenly. In any case, Fidelity Investments also had a special custom made virus scanner program (F Prot) that was updated every week and and sometimes even more often. If you use Windows XP, be sure to download the latest SP3. I don't use Internet Explorer 7, as I feel that version 6 is just fine. Here, I hate I.E. and actually use one of the older Netscape versions, which seem to hate a few web sites. Trojans are a bit less damaging today, if you keep up on Java Script, malware updates and the MS web site for the latest OS software patches. I avoid Vista like a plague! Many newer systems today can't even go back to XP due to the lack of support for older XP drivers and the like. When Vista arrived, it took about 4-6 months for some hardware companies (printers, video boards, etc.) to come out with proper drivers. Usually if you have a choice to 'save to disk' or run after download, you choose save to disk. Create a folder for these downloads and then scan that folder to see if the files that were downloaded are valid and have no traces of possible viruses. Believe it or not, the MAC was the first home computer to get viruses. PC problems came later, but have been much worse in recent years. Luckily, some ISP companies offer free antivirus software, like McAfee. Interesting to note, McAfee, for sveral years, has been owned by Symantec who also make Norton. Maybe someday things will settle down, but you always have to be careful, especially if you see an unfamiliar popup telling you that you have a virus and to 'click here' to find out more info. Thats a sure sign of a mean virus being allowed ont your system. Its always a good idea to make a full back up once each week, and to have at least two backups dating back more than 2 weeks. Today, a terabyte hard drive is less than $100, so many backups can be sent to a huge drive like that.

While we're on the subject, I use two other protective programs. Process Guard asks your permission before it lets any process run. For example, when you start iTunes, there are 5 or 6 processes that start up (iTunes, MobileBackup for ipod & iphone, some kind of mobile device crash reporter, etc.). You can tell Process Guard to let those programs run every time, and it won't bother you again until they change (when you install the new version of iTunes, for example). This is great to block any weird Windows things that decide to start up, because you can say no to the process and then Google it to find out what it was. Or of course any malware processes that try to run.

I also use Zone Alarm, which asks you before any program can access the internet. This one is good for programs that don't need to access the internet, such as free software to edit video or something. If you know it doesn't need access, you can block it so it can't report your personal data. It also can remember your answer until the program changes.

My software philosophy is to use as much open source software as possible. You can go to a site like Source Forge and read reviews of programs to find out which are legit, and most of the big ones have a lot of volunteer developers working to keep them free of bugs. There's just something democratic about it. I wouldn't install some random program from a small software company; I always do a lot of research and try to find a review that compares several programs from a reputable site such as PC World.

That said, I've been really unsatisfied with the open source alternatives to Excel (Calc from Open Office, Gnumeric). And my company is switching to Office 2007 next year, which is a pretty big change for users (especially since half my company is over 45), so they got all employees a great deal on Office 2007 to use at home: $20, which is 95% off the list price of $400! I hate to bloat down my computer, but I really miss Excel.

Melissa

Corel Word Perfect Office v.4 is also compatible with MS Office. MS Office also has a much cheaper student teacher version thats fully featured. It doesn't contain the database MS Access software however. Usually, the spreadsheet software should all be able to read and save each others files. Excel alone is also available but its more expensive to buy that way. Great deal on MS Office for just $20 each!

Bellatrix,

Since weÂre off topic here, you may want to check out a web browser security product called FieldForce by ZoneAlarm. It is basically a home consumer virtualization product.

In essence it wraps your browser session in a shell within windows and insulates your PC from browser based exploits such as the one you described with the prompt to download. It also has some additional security features not generally found in security suites.

I have been using it for a few months now and am happy with it. It was recently on sale for $9.99 but is now back to its regular price.

You can trial it for free. If interested, the link is below.

Bill

Here is a link that might be useful: FieldForce