Tritech Computer Solutions: Free software, both as in "freedom" AND "free beer!"

This is the Tritech Computer Solutions "Free Software Directory." It has been created to assist you in seeking out alternative software that will help you accomplish the same tasks as a costly piece of retail software would, without draining your wallet to do so. This list is by no means a comprehensive list, but other lists of a similar nature on the Internet seem to be somewhat out-of-date, "excessively complete" in nature, or in some other way does not match the needs of the average user. The "Linux Table of Equivalents / Replacements / Analogs of Windows Software in Linux" is over a year old, but is very comprehensive, and if you have needs not addressed in my table, you may wish to check there and E-mail Tritech to let us know that you'd like to see your needs addressed in this table.

Free Software Programs	Retail Software Equivalents	Purpose of Software	Explanation and Summary
OpenOffice.org	Microsoft Office	Integrated office suite	OpenOffice.org includes many of the types of applications expected in an office suite, including word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, database, and more.
GIMP	Adobe Photoshop, Jasc Paint Shop Pro	Professional image editor	GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) has the same general set of features found in comparable programs, including Adobe's flagship products, Photoshop and Photoshop Elements. GIMP is not an "end-all be-all Photoshop replacement," but for a completely free piece of software that is less memory-intensive as the comparable Adobe products, the flexibility and power of GIMP is staggering and can hold its own against Photoshop.
Inkscape	Adobe Illustrator	Vector graphics editor	Inkscape is a vector graphics editor. Vector graphics are images that consist of a series of drawing instructions instead of a grid of dots (called "raster" or "bitmap" graphics). The big advantage of making images as a set of drawing instructions is that the images can be scaled without loss of quality, from the size of a business card to the size of an Interstate highway billboard. Tritech's logo in the top-left corner is a raster image that was rendered from the original vector graphic. We could put our logo on the side of a box truck without it looking jagged or blocky because we created the original as a vector graphic. Having access to a free cross-platform vector graphics program like Inkscape is an invaluable resource for any graphic artist.
GnuCash	Quickbooks, Peachtree, Quicken	Financial accounting program	GnuCash is an effective replacement for both small business and personal accounting software packages, with a rich feature set and lots of documentation available to help new users get accustomed to the program. It does not completely replace a business accounting package like Quickbooks, but provides some of the same features.
FileZilla	CuteFTP, WS_FTP, console FTP clients	File transfer protocol client	[For Windows only] FileZilla sports many of the features found in CuteFTP, including access to protocols such as Secure FTP (SFTP). The interface is easy to understand and use.
Mozilla Firefox	Internet Explorer, Safari	Internet browser	While not technically the type of software you pay for, Mozilla Firefox is superior to Internet Explorer in every way, including security, usability, and extensibility. It is the browser of choice for people who are sick of getting infected so easily while browsing the Internet.
Mozilla Thunderbird	Outlook Express, Windows Mail	Internet E-mail client	Also not a "paid" category of software, Thunderbird beats Outlook Express for the same reasons that Firefox beats Internet Explorer, plus one: Thunderbird sports junk mail filtering that "learns as you go." You can have Thunderbird determine what mail seems to be junk and separate it out to a "junk" inbox to decrease the amount of garbage that ends up in your "regular" inbox. Also, the number of themes and extensions available for Thunderbird are enormous, and it supports some features that are not found in Outlook Express (but some of which are available in the paid-for MS Office Outlook) such as message tagging, search folders, and message filter rules.
Evolution \| [WinXP version]	Microsoft Outlook	Business-scalable E-mail and calendar application	Evolution has been nicknamed "the Outlook killer." Evolution is a free-software solution that serves the same purposes as Microsoft Outlook. It can connect to Microsoft Exchange and Novell GroupWise servers, supports calendars (both local and department-wide calendaring), LDAP capabilities, and much more. It is such an awesome replacement for Outlook that a lot of time and energy was put into developing a Windows XP port of Evolution, so Windows-based companies could enjoy the benefits of using Evolution as Linux-based companies have for years.
Audacity	Adobe Audition	Audio file editor	Audacity is essentially a free audio manipulation program. It supports multiple tracks and a variety of effects, as well as importing and exporting to many common audio file formats.

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