I want to begin this blog by saying I am not a wordsmith of any sort. I m a computer geek . So bare with me as I explain to you my preferred selections of open source solutions.

What software should you use that will save you money? For every major tool out there, there is a comparable open source solution. Unfortunately for the day to day average user Microsoft has the easiest operating system out there. The most interesting windows alternative I have seen is way to alpha for day to day use but is promising ReactOS.

For most productivity software there is some really great options for you.  We will begin  with Microsoft Office; a great product but pricey.  For this I see two really great tools. First is OpenOffice.     It is pretty much a drop in replacement for MS Office. It may not have all the bells and whistles but for 99% of users out there its worth the free price. Secondly I advice my clients to use Google Apps. This is a great tool, its 100% online and if used with Google Apps for you Domain it s a great money saver with centralized storage on Google s servers. 

Email is a big issue. For a long time I have used and loved Exchange/Outlook. It s the best email solution out there from both a user and an administrative perspective.  But it s expensive. Since I found Google Apps for my Domain I have advised all my clients who want to provide email for 50 people or less to use it.  You get GMail for your own domain with Google Apps for 50 users for free!  When I moved myself away from Exchange I wanted a few things.  My phone to sync email, contacts and calendar and even though its running windows mobile it works with Google!  Again Google Apps for your Domain does not have all the bells and whistles that Exchange has but I found I could not justify the expense of upgrading my Exchange server when I could move to Google for FREE. 

As I work on web design I don t want to pay for Photoshop so instead I use GIMP. GIMP is an open source image editing software that works similarly to Photoshop. I am not a Photoshop power user so I have not found anything that GIMP does not do.

Zip files are the standard for compressing data and everyone seems to use WinZip. Why pay for WinZip when you can get 7Zip for free? 7Zip works pretty much the same as WinZip. There s no need to pay for a tool when I can get a comparable version for free that has more supported formats. 

There are a tremendous amount of options for media playing software. I have seen and used so many tools out there and as far as I m concerned there is only one you need. VLC has been the most reliable, easiest and best performing software to use for all my media play back. And it s free!

Do you use accounting software? Well I have not used it much but the one I have toyed with a little is GnuCash.  If you don t want to buy quicken or peach tree this might be a good option for you. 

Well this is my list of money saving software options for people. If you have any that you recommend please feel free to share with me.