Where have you been?

Although I have never really paid for a full software package like Adobe Photoshop or Microsoft Office I know they cost a bundle. In this day and age, however, that is completely unnecessary. A student of mine recently turned me back onto open source software which is publicly developed software that is free! These Open Apps (as they are often called) are comparable to the costly "professional" versions and often operate much better. I am currently making the switch to OpenOffice and GimpShop (a Photoshop clone) and recommend both! I am looking for a good video editor as well.

Another neat (and new to me) feature of some Open Apps is their portability - you can run them from a pen drive (USB memory stick) without having to install them at all! These are (naturally) called Portable Open Apps. My portable version of OpenOffice works wonderfully and includes functionality for spreadsheets, text documents, and presentations. All for under 200megs of memory space and you never had to install anything!

OpenOffice
Portable Open Apps
Linux is open too!