Tanner and Jessica @ theHellands.com

Every job I’ve ever had has required SOME use of a Microsoft Office product. Whether it’s graphs in Excel, or Powerpoint presentations for the management team, or writing up a timecard in Word - everyone is stuck using Microsoft Office at some point in their life.

And when you’re a student, sheesh - you may as well just tattoo MSOffice to your forehead. I spent half my time in college on SOME Office product.

Anyway, Office does a lot of things right. No doubt about that. But such functionality comes at a high price: the Standard version is $399 new, the Professional version is $499, and the cheapest version - the stripped-down Home & Student version - is $149. (All prices USD) I don’t know about you, but if I had a spare $149 lying around, I wouldn’t want to spend it on MSOffice.

Fortunately, there’s an alternative to all this!  The wonderful world of free, open-source software provides an excellent replacement for Microsoft Office.  The product?  OpenOffice.org.

(As you can probably imagine, the OpenOffice.org homepage is http://www.openoffice.org)

OpenOffice.org (or OOo) comes with 5 core programs:

Writer - Word Processor (like Microsoft Word)
Calc - Spreadsheet (like Microsoft Excel)
Impress - Presentations (like Microsoft PowerPoint)
Draw - Vector Graphics Editor/Basic Desktop Publishing program (like Microsoft Publisher or CorelDRAW)
Base - Database (like Microsoft Access)

Each of these programs is an easy switch for someone used to the MSOffice counterpart, and the best part?

THEY ARE COMPLETELY FREE.

Besides working similarly to the MSOffice products, OOo can also import and export your existing MSOffice files.  Writer can open and save Word documents, Calc can open and save Excel spreadsheets, Impress can open and save Powerpoints - so you don’t even have to lose your existing documents.

Honestly, OOo is one of the most impressive pieces of software I have ever used, paid or not.  Its uncanny similarity to MSOffice products - combined with faster load times, improved stability, and no price tag - made it a total no-brainer switch for me.  Even better, they just released version 3.0 this week, and the new features and improved performance make the switch to OOo easier than ever before.

For more information on why OOo is awesome, I’d highly recommend starting here:

http://why.openoffice.org/why_great.html

And if you find the lack of a price tag dubious, here’s an explanation of why OOo is free:

http://why.openoffice.org/why_free.html

Nine Days has been one of my favorite alternative/power-pop bands since I first heard their hit single “Absolutely (Story of a Girl)” from their 2000 album The Madding Crowd.  (I’m sure you’ve heard the song - “This is the story of a girl, who cried a river and drowned the whole world, and while she looks so sad in photographs, I absolutely love her when she smiles.”)  Nine Days is particularly unique for their use of two lead singers - and, even more surprising, both singers are good!  This is one of the few no-need-to-press-skip-repeatedly albums I own.

Anyway, I decided to look the band up to see if they’d released any other albums since The Madding Crowd in 2000.  Turns out they’ve tried, but due to disagreements and difficulties with their record label these albums have yet to come to fruition.

The silver lining to this story is that the band has posted a bunch of songs online FOR FREE.  Check out their free song selection by clicking the “Music” link at www.mr-tea.com/ND/. (In total I counted over 60 tracks available for download! Wow!)

Also, this may surprise you, but musicians have to pay bills too.  :)  If you like their free music, support Nine Days by acquiring their one completed studio album.  It’s only $6.99 new from Amazon ($8.99 as mp3 downloads).  Click on the album picture above to be linked to the album’s Amazon page.

(Fun fact: do you know where the title “The Madding Crowd” is derived from?  No?  “Far from the Madding Crowd” is a famous classical novel by Thomas Hardy.  Not coincidentally, John Hampson - one of Nine Days’ lead singers and guitarists - is a high-school English teacher.)

I like free stuff.  A lot.  In fact, the only thing better than getting free stuff is telling other people how to get free stuff.

Along those lines, I’m starting a new section of the blog called “I Like Free“.  My hope is to periodically post things that you - our faithful blog readers - can acquire for absolutely nothing.  I know, I know - it’s too awesome to describe.  Feel free to send me cash donations if you find this information useful.

(Although, I suppose that sending me cash donations in return for notifying you of free stuff would defeat the purpose of the entire project….argh.  Forget it.)

I’m starting this blog topic because I realized today that over 90% of the software I use is FOSS (”Free and Open Source Software“).  Legal, free software is one of the amazing benefits of the internet age, but I’m quickly discovering that not everyone knows about FOSS and it’s many benefits.  As such, I hope to pass along some of the cool stuff I’ve discovered, and hopefully in return you’ll be able to share this information with others that could benefit.

Disclaimer: Sorry to all you pirates out there, but I will only be sharing information on software that is LEGALLY available for free.  I strongly, absolutely, completely and unequivocally condemn all forms of software and media piracy.  Do not participate in that crap.