Too Good to Be True??

I was updating my Java the other day, and saw an ad for what seemed to be too good to be true... A free open source competitor to Microsoft Office that is compatible with all the Office file types! (I know, its exactly what you were expecting!)

I don't know how new it is, since I don't necessarily follow this stuff, but I do know that our laptop didn't come with any decent Office-type applications, and I didn't want to bootleg it, so until now we'd been using random stuff like Google Docs, WordViewer, and some cheap rich text editor do create and view documents.

Not anymore now that I found OpenOffice! Apparently Sun Microsystems bought out an Office competitor a few years back and developed it to be freely available specifically to cut into Microsoft's domination with Office. I haven't actually had to use it for anything yet, although I did try it out just to see what its like (and read reviews). It seems to be a pretty good set of programs. It comes with a version of Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc., and can open and save-as in .xls, .doc, and .ppt format if needed.

So if you've got a computer and you're too cheap to buy Office, go download a free copy of OpenOffice.org!

(end of strange unpaid advertisement)

Speaking of open source software... I've also heard there is a free open source video editing program out there called Jashaka (www.jahshaka.org) that's pretty good, though I haven't tried it... also a photoshop alternative called The GIMP (www.gimp.org).

End of amateur computer-geek post.

Here's a picture of Laina wearing my giant headphones (I was practicing some basslines for church and she wanted to wear my "hat")