Given that the constant theme of this enterprise is its lack of adequate funds, has anybody made use of freeware/shareware/opensource software?

One example would be openoffice.org 2.2 (soon to be 2.3) which is a substitute for Microsoft Office. Downloadable and available on CD) at no cost it allows direct pdf export and has other features MS office doesn't have, such as a math equation editor. While MS office has significant advantages with "deeper" features such VB programs and pivot tables, its not hard to imagine that for many folks, those extra features are saturation. Other programs that could be used by a preservation-oriented person or organization:

The GIMP: an open source photo editor.
Abiword: A open source basic MS Word alterative.
MySqL: an open source database
Compiere: an opensource ERP (accounting/finance) program.
Audacity: an audio file editor.

Is anybody taking advantage of such applications?

Can note right off the bat, this board runs off phpBB, an open source bulletin board package and likely uses Mysql for the database. phpBB uses the open source PHP programming language.

OpenOffice works quite well. For a number of years, I used it when I was one of a small handfull of folks in my company that used linux for their desktops. It would open the vast majority of MS Office documents. When it failed, it was usually because the author had used the very newest version of MS Office and had used some of the very fancy features.

The linux desktop distros are coming along nicely and usually offer some nice gizmos that windows can't offer (my favorite two being multiple desktops and highlight text and right click to paste for a one-click cut-and-paste operation). Nonetheless, I tend not to recommend linux for someone without at least some unix/linux background.

Bob Bunge

I use Open office on my Windows, Linux and Mac machines.

I'm posting this using Firefox, and read my email using Mozilla Thunderbird.

Have never taken the time to learn Gimp, but used Mozilla and Apache when I used to be the webmaster at work.

Greg

Interesting...and it can handle MS file types, like .doc, .xls and such!!!

I think I have bought my last copy of MS Office! Thanks for the information.

All I tend to use is open source software on all my macs and PC's.

The majority of the time, open source stuff is actually more stable, more powerful, and totally customizable compared to closed-source equivelents.

On my mac, I have only two 'big box' programs... Roxio Toast (for burning dvd's, etc since the open source equivelents are a bit behind.), and Photoshop CS3 for my photography work. (Gimp just doesnt cut it)

Other than that, everything is opensource.

Same deal with my pc's.. On those, only photoshop and the windows OS itself is 'Big Box' software.



While on the subject of computers though, I will say that while most people rip on macs (they probably have never used one), I recently switched over, and will honestly say that I WILL NOT switch back to windows. Mac OS X is quite powerful, easy to use, looks/behaves dead sexy, and is extremely fast. Since it does not have to deal with the registry and DLL's like windows does, my Intel Core 2 Duo macbook with 2gb of ram, and a 200gb hd STARTS UP IN 12-15 SECONDS! That is from the time I press the power button, till it is ready to use. My windows PC's take nearly a minute. Waking from sleep on the mac is instant. By the time I get the lid open, it is ready for me to use. Never had a problem with it yet, and have only had one crash... When Mac OS X has a crash, only the program affected will crash. Everything runs within its own little world, unlike windows. Say if, photoshop, were to crash, it would not affect the OS or my word document open in any way.

The other nice thing is, it is UNIX based, which, being very familiar with UNIX myself, is kinda nice. I actually use the terminal to do alot of my work.

Plus, they are compatible with windows now, and you can actually natively run windows on the new intel macs.

Anyway, just wanted to state the pros of Macs. They are getting more and more popular as well, now that their past (which haunted them) is starting to fade away. I highly reccomend looking into them if any of the museums out there are looking for new machines.


One other thing, the new macbooks are TINY and powerful, and look good. Here are a couple pics of mine setting next to my old dell 5150. You can clearly see the size difference...



Showing the rather unique keyboard (which I love much more than the standard keyboards found these days.) Also shows the brightness of the screen.


Comparison size-wise, and screen quality between C2D MacBook, and Dell Inspiron 5150.


MacBook is MUCH thinner, and the pic doesnt show, but its form-factor is small too. The entire guts of the machine (minus battery, and dvd burner) is smaller than a cd case (dont ask how I know.... :) )



The trademark light-up apple

The big reasons I haven't switched over to any open source applications like the ones mentioned above (Open Office and GIMP) is simply because they require X11 to run... (at least they did when I was looking into it last year). On my machine (Mac iBook G3-700MHz, OS X 10.3.9) X11 Apps run, but the graphics handling is somewhat slow.

I've had this machine for nearly 5 years, and it has held up great. The battery is a little fried, and I have to keep it plugged in nowadays, but that's to be expected for having the original battery this long. (I'll admit that I probably haven't done everything I should to keep the battery conditioned properly.) The next computer (hopefully soon) will be a MacBook Pro Core-2 Duo 2.3-something GHZ. I love Macs. I've never had a problem wth any I've used.

Whenever I use a Windows machine, my productivity goes way down because I spend more time waiting, fixing problems, restarting crashed programs, etc. I'm just stating my experiences, I'm not trying to start a religious war between Mac and PC.

Maybe the increased processor speed will make X11 seem to run better, however I'm like a fish in water with the Adobe line of apps. When I get the new computer, I think I may give Gimp and/or Open Office another try and see what I think.

Don't get me wrong, though... I am a big supporter of the open-source movement, and to tell you the truth our website is driven by an open source product. (PM me to know more.) I'm planning an upgrade to a newer version, but the only thing vistors will notice is the appearance changes I'm making (regardless of the back-end upgrades...) Open-source is a very nice thing for those of us with backgrounds in programming and desire to go in and tweak a little here, tweak a lttle there, and customize the program or script to do exactly what we want. The other nice thing is that by making it open, a wide variety of people can develop plug-ins, add-ons, modifications-- and more importantly bug fixes and feature improvements-- without having to wait for corporate managers to give the "O.K."

NeoOffice, based on OpenOffice, does not require X11. Even better, it uses the fonts installed on the Mac, where OpenOffice only uses X11 fonts. NeoOffice only runs on the Mac.

NeoOffice is available at http://www.neooffice.org/neojava/en/index.php

If there are Microsoft applications that you really do need, be aware that qualifying 501(C)3 organizations should join TechSoup (www.techsoup.org) to get highly discounted software from a wide variety of vendors. Office 2003 for $20 a license, really. You'll have to furnish them with a copy of the IRS notification letter of your status. This is not OEM, or cloned, or overseas copied software either.

There are limitations; each organization has limits on how many copies of software they can take in a calendar year (at least from Microsoft), but you can get almost free software from many vendors.

The 'big deal' is when you can get Server 2003 and the package of 25 user licenses for $60; done that for some of my clients. Combine that with buying stripped computers from Lenovo and you can save thousands.

Contact me if you need details but I'd really recommend this. And I also use OpenOffice and Mozilla when it makes sense - there's no automatic Microsoft loyalty oath!