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There is a lot of free software out there. Most of it is junk. These three programs, however, give you some serious bang for your click. Best part about it, they’re totally free.
Open Office
If you don't have Microsoft Office installed on your computer, head over to OpenOffice.org and download their product now. This open source application is a full (sans e-mail) MS Office “clone” that is 100% free and totally legal. It isn't perfect and not every feature of MS Office is added yet, but the casual user will barely notice the difference. As a matter of fact, this article was written using OpenOffice's “Word” component, called OpenOffice Writer. OpenOffice can save and open files in all the extensions and formats that you will need, such as .doc, .xls, and .ppt.
OpenOffice includes:
Writer – Word processor
Calc – Spreadsheet processor
Math – Formula writer
Base – Database management
Impress – Presentation and slide show editor
Draw – Edit and create drawings, charts, etc
Be sure to update your software frequently, new features are added on a consistent basis.
VLC Media Player
Media players these days can be a real pain in the ass — sometimes you don't have the codecs that you need, other times your file format just isn't supported. And if the hassle isn't enough, chances are the software cost you around $50 bucks. Enter VLC Media player by VideoLan (www.VideoLan.org). Free of cost, and free of worry. This cross platform champion plays just about any video and audio file you can find — .avi, .asf, .flac, and much more. It also plays your CDs, VCDs, and, impressively for freeware, DVDs.
Playback quality is more than acceptable, and it even has streaming functionality. For those more technically inclined, you can set up a server and output streams via UDP, RTP, HTTP and more. If you manage to find someone who is serving it, you may be able to watch free streaming cable TV on this thing.
