Wahms Helper

Archive for the ‘Software’ Category

I’ve written about OpenOffice.org before — a couple of times! because I really like it. I like that it is quality, powerful, open source, software with all the features of the more expensive commercial packages. I like it because it is not a Microsoft product. And I like it because it is FREE!

But, like any good product, there is probably a significant learning curve to its use. This is often the primary reason for sticking with what you have and never moving on to something that is actually better. And I do think OpenOffice.org is better!

I’ve written about this before but it really is such a good solution for so many that I feel I need to revisit the topic.

For many years now Microsoft has dominated the office productivity software market with products like Work, Excel, Power Point, and Publisher, banishing the likes of WordPerfect, Lotus 1 2 3, SuperCalc, and so many others, to a distant memory. Productivity products like these are often bundled together into what is known as an office productivity suite. When Word, Excel, Outlook, Power Point, Publisher, and other software packages are bundled together like this it is known as Microsoft Office. And it is quite expensive; often several hundred dollars.

We’re pretty excited about the Kindle. It’s a powerful digital book reader with a great number of features, not the least of which is you can download any of some 450,000 book and periodical titles from Amazon. The Kindle is an expensive toy for some and a wonderful learning tool for others.

Just recently Amazon announced a free software version of the Kindle reader for your PC. We’ve installed it and had a look and we’re quite impressed. It is easy to use and gets the job done without a lot of fuss. You can get your own copy HERE and start reading Kindle books today.

Competing head-on with Microsoft’s Office suite, OpenOffice.org offers a full, professional, suite of office productivity programs that rivals what the software giant charges $hundreds for and they offer it for free. That’s right. FREE!

How can they do this? There must be a catch, right? Nope. It’s a thing called Open Source that makes it all work. Open Source is about serious people who get together to create great stuff and make it available for others without charge. And there’s a lot of this going around lately. Chat boards, discussion forums, word processors, games, movie viewers, music players, file transfer (FTP) programs, web browsers, whole operating systems that rival Windoze, even the software that makes this website run, are all professional-grade software packages available for free. They are not sold. They have no price. They are free to the taker.

One of the most useful utilities I’ve found for my computer is AZZ Cardfile (http://www.azzcardfile.com/). It’s like a Rolodex, scratch pad, address book, birthday list, to-do list, and general database all in one.

The website says, “Azz Cardfile incorporates many useful tools in one piece of software: simple and powerful, totally customizable organizer software without predefined fields, Recipe Software, Contacts Database, Address Book, Rolodex, Contact Management Software, Simple Database, Organizer for Notes, References or any other items.”