I have added a button to download the latest free Open Office Suite to the right column of this page. I have not and will not receive any money for doing this. So why bother? It only seems fitting since these writings were done with Open Office Writer.
Open Office is a free, user friendly alternative to Microsoft Office. Think of it as a non profit alternative to Microsoft. Any donations received go into making it better and promoting it not paying share holders. Open Office is also open source. It has been created and improved thanks to mostly volunteer efforts of some very talented people. Being open source anyone who has an idea on how to make it better can give it a try. You are even free to make your own version or submit your suggestions for consideration in the next release. In this way the software becomes the product of a worldwide community of developers and users instead of a small team of programmers. Some people get really involved. Others like me just enjoy using a program that works.
Open Office also supports the open document format. This means your documents are not tied to the program they were created on. As more and more programs support this format the freedom to switch word processors without having to worry about your existing documents not working will be a thing of the past. How many millions does Microsoft make because users feel locked into Office to ensure their old documents still work? Office is one of it's biggest cash cows. Most users are paying more for office than the processor in their new PC! Then there is the latest updates to be able to read the newest document formats. Worst yet what happens when the word processor you were using is discontinued or becomes out of date? Open Office works with Word documents, Excel Spreadsheets and Power Point presentations for all Office versions. Something not even the previous version of Office can do.
The best part is being freely available Open Office is allowing people around the world the ability to use a powerful office suite that is affordable regardless of economic circumstances. Due to it's 0 cost Open Office is being used today in various projects trying to put computers in the hands of school children in the third world. It is a nice thought that a student in Malaysia might be using the same powerful world processing program I used to write my blogs to write their assignments.
All that from one little button.
