Join Early Retirement Today
Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Free Programs, Software & Education
Old 03-20-2011, 10:33 PM   #1
Full time employment: Posting here.
RetiredGypsy's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2008
Posts: 979
Free Programs, Software & Education

Don't want to spend $$$$$ on 3D software, or Microsoft Word, or Photoshop, or college courses, or or or? It always seems like there are openly and legally free alternatives. I've ran into quite a few that I've tried, and still use most of them.

A vector art program (scalable art that doesn't lose resolution as it shrinks or grows):
Inkscape. Draw Freely.

A free basic 3D program for drafting, modeling, architecture, spaceships, game design, comic books; it seems like it's found use everywhere:
Google SketchUp

An outline program that I just discovered. I'm having a lot of fun using it though:
Main Page - FreeMind

An alternative to Word:
OpenOffice.org - The Free and Open Productivity Suite

Another free 3D program (one that's responsible for this incredible looking short movie with a really stupid story yXC0oyIA):
blender.org - Home

West Texas A&M's incredibly detailed math tutorials. I lived on this site right before shipping off to nuke school as a refresher course:
WTAMU - Virtual Math Lab

It seems like at least some manage to turn their free stuff into profits or the ability to continue their work through donations, sales (like Blender), or offering professional versions over their free versions (like Sketchup).

Anyone else have any that they know about?
__________________
I'm free and I like it!
RetiredGypsy is offline   Reply With Quote
Join the #1 Early Retirement and Financial Independence Forum Today - It's Totally Free!

Are you planning to be financially independent as early as possible so you can live life on your own terms? Discuss successful investing strategies, asset allocation models, tax strategies and other related topics in our online forum community. Our members range from young folks just starting their journey to financial independence, military retirees and even multimillionaires. No matter where you fit in you'll find that Early-Retirement.org is a great community to join. Best of all it's totally FREE!

You are currently viewing our boards as a guest so you have limited access to our community. Please take the time to register and you will gain a lot of great new features including; the ability to participate in discussions, network with our members, see fewer ads, upload photographs, create a retirement blog, send private messages and so much, much more!

Old 03-21-2011, 04:30 AM   #2
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso)
Give me a forum ...
freebird5825's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: East Nowhere, 43N Latitude, NY
Posts: 9,037
We think alike ....look here for free online education links.

http://www.early-retirement.org/foru...ion-55175.html
__________________
"All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them." - Walt Disney
freebird5825 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-21-2011, 05:10 AM   #3
Full time employment: Posting here.
RetiredGypsy's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2008
Posts: 979
Well, you sure have the education part covered!
__________________
I'm free and I like it!
RetiredGypsy is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-21-2011, 06:47 AM   #4
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso)
Give me a forum ...
donheff's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: Washington, DC
Posts: 11,318
The GIMP has almost all of the features of Photoshop and Microsoft's Paint.net is also a pretty good photo editor with a bit more ease of use.

For a fork on Open Office that is not tied to Sun try Libre Office.
__________________
Idleness is fatal only to the mediocre -- Albert Camus
donheff is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-21-2011, 08:42 AM   #5
Full time employment: Posting here.
RetiredGypsy's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2008
Posts: 979
I just found these while trying to find if there were any worthwhile outlining and organizing programs available (the FreeMind program in my first post). This has some interesting stuff that I've been playing with. An e-book reader, an organizer for budding or professional writers, a tracker to keep time on projects, a few other things from a programmer and science fiction author from Australia:

Spacejock Software
__________________
I'm free and I like it!
RetiredGypsy is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-21-2011, 08:58 AM   #6
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso)
Give me a forum ...
donheff's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: Washington, DC
Posts: 11,318
Quote:
Originally Posted by RetiredGypsy View Post
This has some interesting stuff that I've been playing with. An e-book reader, an organizer...
Ray Kurzweil has a free eBook reader for Windows at Blio.com.
__________________
Idleness is fatal only to the mediocre -- Albert Camus
donheff is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-21-2011, 09:42 AM   #7
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Gotadimple's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2007
Posts: 2,605
For a Photoshop replacement, try Serif.com

This is a European company, you'll be able to download one of their earlier versions that is as full of features as Photoshop. It doesn't include the option to output as PDF, but you can compensate for that by downloading cutepdf at cutepdf.com.

Once you install cutepdf, you can output any document as a pdf file when sending it to your printer.

I use both.

-- Rita
__________________
Only got A dimple, would have preferred 2!
Gotadimple is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-21-2011, 12:10 PM   #8
Moderator Emeritus
Nords's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: Oahu
Posts: 26,856
Quote:
Originally Posted by RetiredGypsy View Post
Anyone else have any that they know about?
Well, of course there's Thunderbird for archiving my GMail on my own hard drive.

Lightning seems to be a pretty good tickler list, and the beta2 version finally has a printer feature. (Spouse and I enjoy going over the list of things we're not doing while we're dallying over a weekday restaurant lunch, so hardcopy is required.) I'm going to have to try to port over my Google Calendar file.
__________________
*

Co-author (with my daughter) of “Raising Your Money-Savvy Family For Next Generation Financial Independence.”
Author of the book written on E-R.org: "The Military Guide to Financial Independence and Retirement."

I don't spend much time here— please send a PM.
Nords is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-26-2011, 09:24 PM   #9
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
kyounge1956's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2008
Posts: 2,171
More links to free online education on Bogleheads.org—I'm linking the whole thread in case people add more links later. Disclaimer: I haven't looked at any of the links myself.
kyounge1956 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-26-2011, 11:24 PM   #10
Recycles dryer sheets
 
Join Date: Feb 2006
Posts: 86
Check out Khan Academy for a ton of really good videos on all kinds of stuff. Its the biggest collection of free teaching guides I've ever seen. Really amazing what he has done.
dgalbraith100 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-27-2011, 04:33 PM   #11
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
walkinwood's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Denver
Posts: 3,506
Alice.org is a 3D tool that can be used to create animations. It has been used to teach computer programming in schools. I have downloaded it, but never got around to trying it out.

I use mythtv as my DVR and have been very happy with it. If you peruse the forums and choose your hardware wisely, it isn't that hard to make work. mythbuntu.org has a version that is built into the Ubuntu distribution of Linux.

Audacity (audacity.sourceforge.net) is very cool sound studio for the pc.

I love most google.com tools especially picasa3

Great thread. I must try out freemind & I love Khan academy!
walkinwood is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply


Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
 
Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Trackbacks are Off
Pingbacks are Off
Refbacks are Off


Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Free Brain Food - looking for free online education freebird5825 Other topics 8 03-14-2011 10:44 PM

» Quick Links

 
All times are GMT -6. The time now is 04:17 AM.
 
Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.8 Beta 1
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.