No, not a blog about Paul Rodgers and the great 1970’s rock band but a reminder that you really don’t have to spend any money on good, fully functioning software for your computer. Below are my 3 current top choices for some of the best free software out there.
Best Free Office Software.
This one’s easy. Open Office has been around for a long time now and provides all the essential functionality you have come to expect from Microsoft Office, be it for creating documents, spreadsheets or even presentations. Many organisations have finally realised what savings can be made and have switched to OpenOffice. Don’t worry, good old MS Word documents can be opened by OpenOffice and once you’ve finished editing you can always save in a Word format if you really want to. OpenOffice has been around for some time now and has been refined over the years into a solid, reliable piece of software. To be honest, I really can’t see why anybody would want to spend £120 for MS Office when there is a such a good alternative for free!
Download OpenOffice here
Best Free Photo Editing Software.
For anyone serious about editing and manipulating photos, Adobe Photoshop CS5 is and has been the defacto standard for a while. Its a superb piece of software with loads of advanced features which comes at a price. A very hefty price to be precise. Few people seem to know about Gimp 2.6, which is a free alternative equipped with many of Photoshop’s features and also shares a similar menu layout with it’s more illustrious rival. Gimp (which stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program) can handle virtually all the image file formats you are likely to come across. If you are looking for a fully fledged photo editing package and would rather spend your hard earned £600 plus somewhere else, give Gimp a try. Amazing value!
Best Free Backup Software.
Do you struggle with Microsoft’s built in backup software? If so, there are lots of alternatives out in the market. Many of the good ones you’ll have to pay for. Acronis True Image comes to mind as a very popular and good package that takes the strain out of creating a full image of your hard drive. However, why pay when you can get an equally good option for free? Macrium Reflect Free Edition will do virtually everything that Acronis True Image can (with the exception of backing up individual files) with an equally easy to use interface. The program also allows you to create a rescue CD which can help automate the recovery process if disaster strikes and your hard drive is rendered inaccesible. Brilliant. Good, simple software that does what is says on the tin time and time again.
Download Macrium Reflect Free Edition here
Here at My PC Surgery we use all these free products as a matter of choice. In these recession savaged times, we believe it’s important to save money wherever and whenever you can. Go on, download these applications today and try them out. You won’t regret it, and nor will your wallet!