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Fall 2005
by Chris Powell
During the last few years, there has been a growing movement around the world to find alternatives to using often expensive mainstream computer software. One current solution, available to all users, is Open Source software. Developed by collaborating programmers and software designers around the world, Open Source is free to use and offers many, if not more, features than its expensive competitors that you find in computer stores. These Open Source programmers work for free, on their own time, to create the program's features, fix bugs that surface through testing and normal use, and often make more frequent version updates than their expensive competitors. Let's take a look at some Open Source alternatives that you can use right now on your work or home PC.
Office Productivity Software
 
Microsoft Office 2003 vs. OpenOffice
For over a decade, Microsoft's Office productivity suite has been the de facto standard in business and home use. Word processing, financial spreadsheets, presentations, and basic webpage design were all included within the Redmond-based company's package. Now there's a reasonable alternative to Microsoft's product.
Openoffice.org has an office productivity suite that contains a word processor, spreadsheet, desktop graphics publisher, and an HTML editor. The contributing programmers around the world wanted to have the look and feel of OpenOffice be similar, if not identical, to that of Microsoft Office. OpenOffice is compatible with Microsoft Office .doc, .xls, and .ppt documents, and has a one-click "Save to .PDF" built into the software, allowing a document to be viewed with the free Adobe Acrobat Reader software.
Although faculty and staff can obtain Office 2003 for free from ATUS, students will pay about $300 or buy it for a discounted license through ATUS Software Services. On the other hand, OpenOffice is a free download from their website. Keep in mind though that the program is over 100 MB in size. So if you do plan to download OpenOffice at home, a high-speed internet connection would be much easier to use than a slower dial-up modem internet connection.
Internet Browsing Software
 
Microsoft Internet Explorer vs. Mozilla Firefox
As the Internet grew into a ubiquitous part of daily life, Microsoft's Internet Explorer web browser (IE) grew into the default choice for surfing the Net. However, the growing amount of pop-up windows, spyware, and malware (malicious software) received by just simply visiting an unsecured website with IE has caused many users to look for an alternative browser. Enter Mozilla Firefox.
Firefox's creative team originated from the old Netscape web browser group, which had lost market share to IE in the late '90s. The Firefox crew set out to design a web browser that was clean in appearance, blocked annoying pop-ups, and prevented websites from automatically loading spyware on your computer. They even added a versatile search section within Firefox, where you can quickly search Google, Amazon.com, Ebay, Dictionary.com, and many other search engines.
All web browsers have security issues, so right now there is no bulletproof solution for your web browsing needs. Firefox is not a panacea, as browsing incompatibilities and security problems have occurred recently with this browser also. Both web browsers are free to download. If you want to try an alternative to Internet Explorer, give Firefox a whirl.
Digital Photo Editing Software
 
Adobe Photoshop vs. GIMP
Part of today's digital lifestyle involves using a digital camera to capture those special events with family and friends and share them on the Internet, or perhaps on a personal website. The hands-down professional choice for manipulating images is Adobe Photoshop. Armed with a staggering amount of high-end filters and plug-ins to manipulate your digital photo into anything your imagination can conceive, Photoshop is the answer for professional digital photo needs.
However, Photoshop costs nearly $100 even for campus use through ATUS. Students face the problem of paying up to $600 for Photoshop in stores. One alternative is use of Adobe Photoshop Elements, selling for around $80. This subset of Photoshop has a wealth of features geared towards the typical home user. The cheapest alternative of all is the GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP). GIMP is similar to Photoshop Elements and offers many photo enhancement options for a ridiculously low price. It's free!
GIMP is another open source application created by programmers and software engineers from around the world, with the goal of designing a program with Photoshop's capabilities, but without its steep price tag. GIMP's interface is similar to Photoshop's, and contains many similar filters and plug-ins, with more being designed every day by open source programmers. For amateur photo editing purposes, GIMP is a strong contender versus what's sometimes perceived as Photoshop's feature overkill.
Open Source software provides emerging technology designed to be an alternative to expensive applications we use for everyday computing. Although not a full-blown replacement, it's an option available for those looking to accomplish their technology tasks while saving money.
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