The GIMP is an open source photo editing and image manipulation program.  The home page is http://www.gimp.org/  An on-line book “Grokking The GIMP” is available at http://gimp-savvy.com/BOOK/

To install GIMP on Windows you will need to down load and install two files from http://gimp-win.sourceforge.net/stable.html  The first is the GTK+ Runtime Environment, the second is “The GIMP for Windows (version 2.2.17)”

Versions of GIMP are also available for Linux and Mac.  You can support this project by purchasing their software on CD.

OpenOffice is a open source (ie. free) alternative to Microsoft Office. It includes the “Writer” word processor, “Calc” spreadsheet, and “Impress” presenter (ie. PowerPoint). It also includes a database, math equation editor, and vector graphics program (ie. Visio). You can download the latest version (for free) at http://www.openoffice.org/

It can open and save Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files. Occasionally some of the formatting is off, especially with tables, but overall it does a great job. I have been using OpenOffice as my main (95%) word processor and spreadsheet at work since the spring of 2005 and at home (100%) since the fall of 2006.

I do not find the Impress presentation program as easy to use as PowerPoint, mostly because of the lack of built-in templates, although many can be downloaded at http://ooextras.sourceforge.net

Overall OpenOffice is a great product and the price is right.

-Prof. Lehman