Computing is something most of us do every day for home or for work. We would not, or could not afford to be without our computers and we use them for virtually everything from school work to sending out letters or other kinds of documents including even photos to family and friends.
Software, as we all know isn’t cheap by any stretch of the imagination and good office software can cost in the hundreds of dollars, while a graphics program can cost several hundred dollars for the installation and purchase.
Fortunately there are some really great software developers out there who are dedicated to something called Open Source, which means that for the most part, they develop the software free of charge and very often give it away. Many of these developers are the same ones working on the professional and very expensive software that you’re buying but are doing their own versions in their own time.
One huge misconception that the public as a whole tends to have is that if a software is free, it tends to be somehow less viable or less perfect than those which you buy for hundreds and hundreds of dollars. This is fed by the “you get what you pay for” adage, so that people will buy as opposed to even trying software that is free.
Sometimes you get a great deal more than you pay for.
Sun Microsystems, one of the largest computing companies in the world offers a free office software that is very comparable to Microsoft office, permits you to see and save the documents as .doc, allows you to make slide shows and other things that you would do in Office, as well as providing the word counts and other things that Office does.
Sun Open Office is a free product that you can use rather than purchasing a much more costly product.
In the graphics department, GIMP, Gnu Image Manipulation Program is very similar to Corel and Adobe products and offer the same image manipulation that the multi hundred dollar products do, again for nothing.
Both of these products are available for you to use in both Windows and Linux environments and both should be reviewed to see if you can save a very substantial amount of money.
Using Open source software just makes good sense and saves LOT of money.
Tags: free software, how to get free software, open source software, using free software to save money