Great Free Resources

**jficarro** · 06-16-2010, 01:00 AM

Here are some free/open source things that are very useful. Some are better than the paid equivalents, or at least have some features that are indispensable.

www.OpenOffice.org is an alternative to Microsoft Office

This includes the equivilent of Excel, Word, Powerpoint, and others...) and they are free! The other cool thing is the ability to creat pdf's with no hassles. It's integrated into the program.

Filezilla is a great free FTP software. I use it exclusively.

Gimp is an alternative for Photoshop and a robust application you can download for free to edit your images. I prefer Photoshop because I'm used to it, but if you don't have nearly $1000 to spend on graphic software, then Gimp is great.

Another great graphics program for small jobs (and even big ones) is Paint.net, a graphic's software that is light weight, easy to use, and has a lot of features.

I'm not big on templates, but here is a good open source site for thousands of free website templates.

Need to find the perfect keywords, Freekeywords Word Tracker. Of course you want to use Google tools in conjunction with this.

Hope this helps.

Bethsmall · 06-16-2010, 01:24 AM

Very cool, but how could you forget to include skype???

**TClaunch** · 06-16-2010, 08:20 AM

I've had to start using Filezilla... CuteFTP opens multiple connections that usually ends up in freezing the program itself. It can also get your IP temporarily banned because the server will automatically assume you're attempting to DDOS the server and ban your IP.

Filezilla keeps only one connection and so far, besides usability, I haven't had a single problem with it. I just don't like the user interface on it.

technista · 06-19-2010, 09:37 PM

For screen video and still capture, Jing is indispensable.

My favorite open source Content Management System is CMS Made Simple. No complicated skins, no steep learning curve. Templates are SMARTY and CSS- great for web designers.

Zen Cart is a terrific free e-commerce system with a very active community of developers. Configuration has a steep learning curve, but it is highly customizable and well worth the investment of time.