Welcome to the world of free software! This is a world where you can run excellent, high quality software, free of charge. In fact, when you read about and start using some of the software I cover in this book, you'll feel like you are getting paid to use these packages. You could literally save hundreds, perhaps thousands, of dollars. It is, after all, free software.
Don't be fooled by the high price tags of commercial software, or the non-existent price tag of this free software. Free software packages can provide the same level of high quality as any equivalent commercial package. Free software programmers are also professionals, sometimes working for large software companies who have chosen to make resources (of both time and money) available so that those same programmers can continue to contribute to free software projects.
I'm going to cover a lot of ground with the free software packages I tell you about in this book. There are Internet applications for surfing the Web, sending and receiving email, and chatting with your friends on Instant Messaging networks. Anyone who spends time online knows the Internet can be a dangerous place, so I'll be showing you how to protect yourself from viruses and spyware.
Back at the office, the OpenOffice.org package has everything you need for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, and easy database management. Great looking documents sometimes need a little more and that's why I've included Scribus, a great desktop publishing package. Finally, since the office (or home) telephone bill can be another expense, I'll even teach you how to make free long distance phone calls, anywhere in the world.
Let's not forget multimedia. Create digital collections of all your music, set up a free audio recording and editing studio, and create your own podcasts. Of course, you might just want to download your favorite podcasts automatically and I'll show you how to do that as well.
Once you've expressed yourself with your first podcast, you may want to try your hand at a little digital art. I'll tell you about the premier free graphical package or the open source world, the GIMP, an excellent alternative to Photoshop. With it, you can create something fresh or use it to touch up your digital photographs. If you've heard of Corel Draw or Macromedia Freehand, then you know about vector art, and you'll be thrilled to learn Inkscape, a powerful and remarkably package. What you create there might well wind up on the Website you create using NVU.
What point is all this work if you can't relax and have some fun with that computer of yours. No book on free software would be complete without some great, free, games. Race down a snow covered slope at high speed. Save the universe from alien invasion. Uncover and underwater mystery. Race other programs to the virtual death inside your computer. Fly the world. Rescue a princess.
As they say on television, but wait, there's more! The free software packages covered in this book may well be all you need.
