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Open Source

Here are a few fully featured open source source solutions to a few common software needs.

Tired of Outlook, take a look at Thunderbird.

Thunderbird gives you almost all of the features of Outlook without a lot of the cruft. You get message tagging, robust search, plugin compatibility to external mail services, spam protection, template support and a horde of other features. This is all from the people who brought us Firefox. If you have ever felt like Outlook simply does not “work” then Thunderbird is worth a look.


Media Player

Windows Media Play got you down? Try VLC.

VLC is a rock solid media player that pretty much has every format that you can dream of covered. It’s stable, quick and generally outperforms all of other media players that I have had the opportunity to play around with. If for no other reason, try VLC if you have ever been unable to open a video file. I’m almost certain that you’ll find VLC supports it.


Word Processing

Microsoft Word giving you the blues, download Open Office.

This package just keeps getting better. Now it is compatible with most other document formats that you will come across so the transfer should be pretty painless. This product is for anyone who is tired of Word’s feature creep. Though, I must say that the newest version of Office managed to solve many of the problems that I would usually recommend Open Office for.


Photo Editing

For those who are sick of Photoshop, it might be time to give The Gimp a look.

I’ve used The Gimp pretty substantially over the last few years and I have found that it is sufficiently powerful for most simple photo manipulations. I won’t lie, Photoshop has some really nice features and The Gimp is still playing catch up as far as those are concerned. However, if you are planning to touch up a photo here and there, The Gimp is a great place to start.


Other Alternatives

Here are a few more software options to help you complete your Open Source collection.

Azureus. Azureus is a great client for downloading torrents.

Audacity. For you closet audiophiles out there Audacity is a simple, easy way to mix and match sounds.

Blender. Blender is Open Source’s answer to 3D rendering, it’s a great product.

Deki Wiki - Deki Wiki is one of my favorite Wiki solutions, fantastic if you need to integrate a lot of external applications.

What’s your favorite Open Source product? How does it stand up against its closet commercial counterpart?

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