So I just read a story that says Microsoft is about to spend anywhere from $80 to $100 million to advertise their new search engine, Bing. What that tells me is that Microsoft’s monopolistic behavior has made them richer than that rich guy from Monopoly. And that got me thinking about how many hundreds of dollars I’ve spent having to buy Office eighty seven times over the course of my computing career. Which then led me to the subject of this post.

Here’s some free, handy, open source software that will let you do almost every damn thing you want on a computer, without spending a dime:

OpenOffice: I’ve been using this for years, and while I’m sure there’s some stuff that Microsoft Office does better, but I’ve yet to find anything that OpenOffice can’t do. It has pretty much all the same bells and whistles, and a familiar interface.

GIMP: For all your PhotoShop-y needs. It’s a powerful tool, just like it’s, um inspiration. And, just like that same inspiration, it’s a little tricky to learn and use. Luckily there are lots of tutorials to make it easier. And if that’s not enough, there’s even a download that will make the GIMP interface look and behave almost identically to that of PhotoShop.

Inkscape: Make your own vector graphics for fun and profit! I haven’t used this one myself, but I’m told it’s awesome.

Kino: For all your video-editing needs.

FontForge: Lets you make your own fonts. You can even name them after yourself when you release them upon an unsuspecting world.

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1. SEO Sunday: Free Online SEO Tools
2. How close is Vancouver to being a global technology and software leader?
3. Save Your Audience From The Nightmare Of Powerpoint

Tags: FontForge, GIMP, Inkscape, Kino, OpenOffice

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