Open Source

I'm not a millionare. I can't afford fancy computer programs. I don't wanna risk getting a virus when trying to download a crack or keygen for one.

There are some great computer programs out there made by big corporations that are commonly used. Microsoft has Word, PowerPoint and all that jazz. Adobe has their awesome Photoshop, Imageready, Illustrator, GoLive, and a shitload more that I love using.

The problem for users like me is... we can't afford them! This is why I decided to post a blog about it [not that many people read my blogs anyway...]. More people need to know about Open Source alternatives for those popular graphic/text/whatever editor programs.

I don't think I've ever had a registered copy of Microsoft Office on my computer since I've had one. I know others that don't as well. What do I use? OpenOffice. It's just as good and definitely gets the job(s) done. It comes with something similar to Microsoft Word, Exel, and whatever else Microsoft offers.

I've used and been in love with Adobe Photoshop and ImageReady since middle school. Unfortunately, I had to reformat my computer recently and lost all my .exe's. Thus, I downloaded The GIMP. Actually, I donwloaded GIMPshop, which is pretty much the same thing but the vocabulary changes for those who are more familiar with Adobe products. It's great. I like it.



There are also some safer open source alternatives for free commonly used products. The first two I can think of are Instant Messaging clients (like AIM and Yahoo messenger) and the oh-so-popular Internet Explorer.

Instead of Internet Explorer, I use Mozilla Firefox. A lot of people actually don't know that it's an open source program and you can edit it to your liking. You can install all these awesome plugins to it that get rid of ads, change colors and formatting of pages, and pretty much whatever you want. it even has a plugin that lets you look at a page as though you were on Internet Explorer! I installed a skin on mine called iFox. I like it much more than the default Firefox skin. It's cleaner, and looks like a Mac. =]]

For instant messaging, I use a program called Pidgin (formerly known as Gaim). You can pretty much log on to any of your IM accounts on it and more. It even tells you when you have new emails and stuff. It doesn't take up as much space as the ugly multi-messenger program known as Trillian (yuck!).

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So yeah... just thought I'd get the word out there about open source alternatives for commonly used programs and whatnot. There are a LOT more out there that I didn't write about. Movie editors, html/css editors, whatever computer program you can think of. For more information, check out osalt.com.