Money Saving Tip from "The Practical Nerd"

One of the hallmarks of being a Practical Nerd is the ability to legally get the most functionality out of your computer without having to pay an arm and a leg. But there are so many people I talk to out there that have no clue about most of these options.

A few great benefits that come with using these Practical Nerd Alternatives:

• You will literally save hundreds of dollars in most cases.
• About 98% of the general public will still retain all the functionality that they need, if not more.
• You will, in most cases, be able to jump right into the program and know how to use it easily.
• All of these options are perfectly fine to use, even if you are sharing files with someone who is using a more bloated program.
• When these programs get updated with new features – you get them, without having to buy a whole new piece of software!

1. Your office program (word processing, spreadsheets, etc.).

Cooler People: Microsoft Office.

Microsoft Office is the standard-bearer in office products. Everybody has them, and they do fine work. But in 2007, Microsoft Office started messing around with what worked – they added a “ribbon” interface at the top, which looked really cool. The problem is, people who start using it have NO idea how to find anything! In addition, Microsoft Office is expensive.




Practical Nerds: OpenOffice.org

OpenOffice.org replaces your Word, Excel, Access, and PowerPoint. Functionality is simple, but loaded with plenty of features. You can use it to open Office documents – even those created in Office 2007, which Office 2003 can NOT do – and save in those same formats. So, if you need to swap files back and forth with someone using Office, there’s no problem!

... more tips from the Practical Nerd later...