Having paid ‘way too much money for software that was often frustrating to use, I was delighted to find out a few years ago about Open Source software and the whole Open Source movement. Much of the software listed below falls in that group and is free, both in the sense of no cost, but also in the sense that you can modify and redistribute it. Remember the early days of the Web and the free spirits who believed that software should be free? Although the Internet may seem dominated by business and porn, those people are still around and many are working in Open Source. You can check out the Open Source Initiative for more information about the movement.
I take no credit for any of these — just want to pass the information along to whomever might find it helpful. Here is a sampling of what I’ve found interesting and useful:
OpenOffice — a suite of programs that includes word processing, spreadsheet, presentation (slideshow) creation, database and drawing, with version for Windows and Linux, all free for download. OpenOffice applications will open and save Microsoft Office formats as well as the Open Document Format (.odf) that is proposed as a universal standard.
The GIMP — the “GNU Image Manipulation Program”; a full featured graphics program that can create complex drawings and edit digital photos. It lacks a few of the features of the expensive professional graphics programs, like Adobe PhotoShop, but it’s also a lot easier to learn.
KompoZer — a WYSIWYG (“what you see is what you get” – like FrontPage) Open Source editor that is very easy to use and does a good job of converting the user’s input into HTML without a lot of junk code.
For more Open Source software, see SourceForge.net, a huge repository of all sorts of applications. Just be aware that not all the projects are ready for prime time.
Not Open Source, but free and worth a look:
Lotus Symphony — another competitor to Microsoft Office and just released (9/18/2007) for free download by IBM. The download requires registration, supposedly for export control reasons, but anyone can register. I haven’t used this yet but it is reportedly based on OpenOffice. See the article in InformationWeek for background on why IBM is doing this.
Picasa — not Open Source, but a very capable, yet simple, photo editor that is a free download from Google. I use The Gimp, Paint Shop Pro and Photoshop Elements for complicated editing, but Picasa does a terrific job on quick cleanups, such as redeye removal, lighting adjustments and cropping.
SeaMonkey — actually a web browser with a WYSIWYG web page editor, called “Composer” built-in and accessed under the “Window” menu heading.
HTML-Kit — a text-based (not WYSIWYG) HTML editor with lots of plug-ins available. Many professional web designers prefer text editors and this one has lots of great features.
