I’m leaving the mountains and valleys of Microsoft Land for the beautiful beaches of Mac Land.
It’s been a more gradual switch than I’ve let anyone see. First, I switched to Firefox as my internet browser. Then I made the move to Thunderbird as my email client. Both of these programs are open source and free. http://www.mozilla.com
That’s when I really got fired up about open source. If a volunteer community can develop - and continuously improve - complicated software like this, what else could they do?
Quite simply, everything!
OpenOffice is an open source suite of programs that out performs Microsoft Office. http://openoffice.org
The GIMP is a program that does everything PhotoShop can do. http://gimp.org
Audacity is an audio recording and editing program that took me one hour to begin using productively. (Of course, I’m an electrical engineer, so wave forms are part of my professional training and experience.) http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
There are so many more open source programs that I can’t list them all here. However, if you’re a project manager who’s sick and tired of MS Project or Primavera, take a look at Open Workbench. http://www.openworkbench.org/
Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with any of these products, except as a user.
All of these open source programs work on Mac OSX, too. By switching to a more stable operating system, with so many tools already built in, I’m also able to continue using the programs that I already know.
Now go and discover new lands for yourself.
Technorati Tags: Mac, Microsoft, OSX, open source, Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice, GIMP, Audacity, Open Workbench, computers, software, programs
Lui Sieh | 30-Jul-07 at 8:11 am | Permalink
I’d also like to suggest NVU as a simple “web authoring tool”. Great for simple static page stuff.
For dynamic sites, check out OpenSourceCMS.com Highly recommend Wordpress, Joomla, SimpleMachines and any hoster that uses Cpanel.
Cheers,
Diana | 30-Jul-07 at 12:51 pm | Permalink
Hi, Lui. Great to see you here!
I use Nvu as my html editor. I used to use MS FrontPage, but found that it added html code that was difficult to correct. Nvu has downloads for both PC and Mac.
I’m using WordPress for this blog/website.
I tried using Joomla, but found it incredibly difficult. Unlike so many programs, it isn’t intuitive for me to use. But I know lots of people use it successfully.
I haven’t tried OpenSourceCMS yet. Thanks for the tip!
SimpleMachines is doing an excellent job as the forum software for SdB+PM Forum, the online community for senior project managers who manage global projects.
Thanks for all the great info, Lui.
Becki Noles | 20-Nov-07 at 10:21 pm | Permalink
Another great one to add to the arsenal is InkScape (http://www.inkscape.org/). This is an open source program which is similar to Illustrator and FreeHand.
Diana Lindstrom | 20-Nov-07 at 11:00 pm | Permalink
Hi, Becki. Great to see you again!
Thanks for this addition. I haven’t used InkScape, so I’ll take a look at it soon.