Tip on Buying Software: Free or Huge Discounts
We use different kinds of software in our daily lives, both at work and at home. Just pick any activity that interests you and you are bound to find a software in that category. Software has become an integral part of our daily life. Legally obtained software is not CHEAP at all. Microsoft Office, the most widely used software, costs anywhere from $150/- to $600/- depending on where you buy it.
So, before buying that much needed software, there are a couple of options you need to consider before making that purchase.
1) There is a category of software called Open-Source which is essentially free software, for personal use. One good site to look for free Open-source software is Sourceforge.net.
As an example, there are numerous options to Microsoft Office, that are available for free, like OpenOffice, ajaxWrite, ajaxXLS and ajaxSketch.
This post will give you a good idea of the different kinds of free stuff available on the web.
2) If you find open-source software too difficult to use (should not be the case as they mimic traditional software very closely) and instead want to stick to traditional software, check out bargain sites like SecretPrices.com, eBay and amazon and price comparison sites like froogle.
3) Traditional software companies offer huge discounts (as much as 50 to 75%) to students. When you use this mode of purchase, you may be asked to submit proof that you are a student. Even if you take classes at your company, that counts as being a student.
Comments
I liked your site.
I have found that there are great savings to be found by buying software that is a year out of date. The upgrades did not justify the premium.
Why is there an annoying cartoon over the text in this posting?
For anyone interested in trying out some of the free software available under Linux, the idea of installing an operating system is often quite intimidating. Most people have never installed Windows and never want to. They certainly don't want to install an operating system they aren't already familiar with. I strongly recommend getting a copy of one of the Live CD distributions of Linux. There are several good ones. I have used Knoppix myself. I keep a CD of a recent version handy. I personally use Debian on my current machine. It is not the easiest Linux distribution to install, and I don't recommend it as a first-time Linux experience. However, it is very easy to maintain once it is installed. On my next machine, I'm planning to run the Ubuntu distribution, which is derived from Debian. It has a Live CD version.
For people not already familiar with the world of open source software, a word of explanation is in order. Open source is distributed under licenses that permit two things. First, they permit free redistribution. That means that you can give away copies of open source software to your friends. Most of the licenses permit you (or more often companies like Red Hat) to sell copies. What they are selling is not the license to the software. That's free for the asking. They are selling copies of the CDs, manuals, support via e-mail and phone, and convenient update services. That's why you can download copies directly from the websites of these companies and projects. The distributions are a packaging of all of the software together in an easily installable form so that you don't have to build it all yourself. Which brings me to the second condition you find in all of the open source licenses. They all require that the source code be made available too. If you aren't a programmer, you won't directly use that, but it doesn't mean you don't benefit from it. That means that the cost for talented programmers to get involved in open source projects is minimal. I've submitted bug fixes to several projects myself over the years.
One of the things to remember if you do download a Live CD distribution is that all of the programs will load more slowly than they would if you had installed them on your hard drive. Once they load, they tend to run at the same speed except when they need to access files on the CD. That's slower than accessing those same files installed on your hard drive. So if you try Linux and like the features of the applications under it, don't be discouraged if they launch slowly.
Also, many open source projects are available for Windows. One that I'm very fond of is OpenOffice. I have nothing against MS Office. I personally think that PowerPoint and Excel are excellent. I'm not so happy with Word, but that's because when I write, it tends to be on a scale that requires desktop publishing tools rather than a word processor. OpenOffice is a free, open source office suite. It is partially compatible with MS Office, in the sense that it can read and write Office files. It doesn't handle macros, and there will be minor differences in formatting. However, when you don't want to pay for a licensed copy of MS Office for the kids to do their homework assignments, OpenOffice is an excellent alternative. I use it myself as well because MS Office doesn't run under Linux.
Another good place for free software is snapfiles.com.
Also, Google Pack provides a free collection of essential software installed in a very hassle-free manner:
pack.google.com/
This is some good advice. Somebody has recently publicized a list of 450+ freeware utilities for Windows, which is a great place to start from.
Also: I often take classes at the local community college, and whenever I do I make sure to take advantage of of my student status if there's a particular piece of software I need (e.g. Photoshop).
At home and at work I use a mixture of proprietary applications and OSes, and open source applications and OSes. For my use personally, I prefer Linux as my OS and other open source applications such as Open Office, however I do run CrossOver Office for when I need to access Word, Excel, etc... from within Linux. There are certain situations where proprietary solutions are the only ones feasible, however often times there are wonderful open source solutions out there as well. I would just recommend people try and keep an open mind when exploring software.