Cuppacafe

Star Office.

Actually, you can replace Microsoft OFFICE with Star Office, as there's several programs that come bundled in there besides the word processor program -- there's Calc, which is like Excel, and Draw, which is... ew... never used that one. What the hell is that? Well, you get the point. There's a PowerPoint clone in there, and a database type program in there, too.

This used to sell for $70, but now it's going for the price of FREE.

I already have used the free version, Open Office, but this is the big brother of Open Office. If I'm correct, there's a few things like licensed fonts and support that's supposed to be included(don't look at me to describe how support would work for free software)

The software was originally put together and sold by Sun, the people who make the Java software. Two years ago, Sun got together with Google to announce they'd partner up and distribute each other's software.

You don't care about the details, so I'll just tell you that now Google Pack includes Star Office in its suite of free software.

Google Pack, when you click on the link, will not include a checkmark next to Star Office. You are warned that a broadband connection is required, as Star Office is a beefy download.

As for what I'd install...

Love Google Earth

I don't use Norton, I use AVG's free virus scanner.

Google Desktop is either extremely helpful, or clunky and intrusive. I'm of the "clunky and intrusive" opinion. I would love to help refine this thing.

Firefox, yes, Google Toolbar... me, no.

Adobe Reader, no. FoxIt Reader, yes!

Skype, yes. Free and high quality if you're on broadband. Owned by Ebay. You can add money to your free account and your computer will act like a regular land line phone.

Google Toolbar for IE. Not for me.

Spyware Doctor. Haven't tried it. I may.

Picassa. Manages your images in your machine. A bit intrusive, but it's something Microsoft should have done in the first place. If you have any number of images, and you haven't tried it, you should.

Google Photo Screensaver. Haven't tried it.

Google Talk. Instant message with voice etc. option, probably stealing the same code for voice chat as Skype. I figure Skype/Ebay will eventually sue GoogleTalk over this. If you have a Gmail account, Google Talk knows when you're logged in. I use Trillian which doesn't yet wrap in Google Talk.

Real Player. I have bad memories of using Real Player. Your mileage may vary.

Obviously, businesses won't immediately switch over to a free software, because of possible compatibility issues with their existing Word documents.

But for individual users, the days of Microsoft Office are coming to an end.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 15th, 2007 at 9:32 am and is filed under Buzz, Techno Love. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.