Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Never look a gift horse in the mouth!

I try not to provide free advertising for software companies but in this case I make an exception. Many unemployed people, myself among them, are watching every penny and cutting corners where we can. If we can avoid shelling out hundreds of dollars for software by downloading high quality freeware then I am all for it.

There is a lot of free software available these days but picking the good from the bad can often be a chore. There is the ever present worry of downloading something that contains a virus or is incompatible with our computers. The products that I mention in this blog are some that I have worked with extensively and which should work with most PCs.

  1. King Kong - This nifty little tool is small but powerful. King Kong allows you to copy part or all of anything displayed on your screen to the clipboard for pasting into your documents. You can copy a photo from a web page, text from your favorite blog or take a snapshot of every open document displayed on your screen(s). Yes, King Kong copes well with dual monitors. If you have used SnagIt then King Kong will not be new to you. You can find King Kong at www.kingkongcapture.com
  2. OpenOffice - This package from Sun Microsystems contains all of the tools of MS Office. There is a wordprocessor, spreadsheet, database, drawing tool, presentation tool and a math tool. These tools are very similar in layout to their MS Office equivalents and best of all they can open and save your files in Microsoft formats (.doc, .xls etc). Also, you can create PDF files at the click of a button. Open Office is not small so be sure to read the computer requirements carefully before downloading the software. You can download Open Office at www.openoffice.org
  3. Microsoft Office Accounting Express 2009 - For those of you looking for a free alternative to Quickbooks, this is it. The look and feel is very similar. You can download the software from http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/accountingexpress/FX101729681033.aspx
  4. Free Mind - When you are trying to break a task down into smaller components do you doodle? Do you like to flowchart task components? If so, this might be the tool for you. Free Mind creates Mind Maps which are often used in business to document processes. Free Mind can be downloaded from http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
  5. Google SketchUp - This is a 3D modelling program. You can draw just about anything. Users can access the Google 3D Warehouse for many components and models created by other users and upload their own designs. Sketchup can be downloaded from http://sketchup.google.com/
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1 comment:

  1. Walter FeigensonMarch 17, 2009 at 10:43 PM

    Eileen - you might want to look at zoho.com as another MS Office alternative. They offer free word processing, spreadsheet, and lots more. Their software runs "in the cloud," so you don't even have to install anything.

    I've fooled around with their WP, SS, and CRM software, and it's all really good. In fact, I wrote about them more extensively here:

    http://feigenson.us/blog/?p=49.

    One of the best things about this wonderful company is that even though the software is free, they have great support. I was sufficiently impressed to write about that also:

    http://feigenson.us/blog/?p=62

    One more advantage: you can access your documents from anywhere. Great if you use both a laptop and a desktop computer.

    BTW, it would be nice to have a good competitor to QuickBooks, although it's hard to say which company is more predatory, Intuit or Microsoft. Intuit regularly does things that MS wouldn't even dream of.

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