Microsoft Dynamics GP is new name for Microsoft Great Plains Standard & Professional. Microsoft Dynamics GP will have its first release with Microsoft Dynamics GP 9.0. which would be the next version of Great Plains. Funny enough – Great Plains Software pioneered with Great Plains Dynamics in 1994 as the first Graphical ERP for Windows.

In our opinion, traditional approach when you select ERP/MRP system for large or mid-size company by functionality, database and hardware platform should be revised. We are convinced that new generation of Windows servers plus the reliability of relatively inexpensive database platform, such as Microsoft SQL Server, enable large corporation to decrease the cost of hardware, database and ERM software, plus have good internal support by hiring Microsoft certified professionals, available on the market in your area. In this small article we’ll give you short review of what you should expect from Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains, its implementation, customization, reporting, integration as well as web publishing and eCommerce or web ordering system for your existing customers.

• Hardware. PC Hardware and Windows server were considered as a solution for small and mid-size business, this opinion was wide spread in 1990th, when you needed to have scheduled rebooting of Windows server to deal with known issues, such as memory leaks, etc. Nowadays – Windows 2003 could be counted on.

• Database. Microsoft SQL Server 6.5, if you remember old good days required a lot of maintenance and support. When Microsoft introduced MS SQL Server 7.0 and later on 2000 – the problem of maintenance in our opinion was resolved and the database maintenance is now considered as part of data workflow side: application logic data fixes SQL queries, data feeding into SQL Server tables, data archiving and restoring.

• ERP System. In our opinion you should consider ERP as a platform for light or heavy customization to address your company unique business processes. The second approach would be purchasing the application, which would be very rich in its functionality: Oracle Financials, PeopleSoft, SAP. In this second case you "overpay" for the functionality you do not use and also pay for extended implementation and user training.

• Customization. You should consider balancing internal developers and external consultants. Internal development should be done by SQL programmers, web exposure – by VB.Net or C#.Net developers – you might need eConnect. Internal developers could also do light customization of Great Plains logic via Modifier with VBA. Consultants should help you with Great Plains business logic change, which requires Great Plains Dexterity programming and specification writing skills.

• Integration. In the past we saw a lot of Great Plains Integration Manager usage, today the trend is to deploy SQL scripts and stored procedures, including eConnect and its extensions (such as automatic transaction posting)

• User Training. In the case of large publicly traded company, you should probably dedicate internal Great Plains support person, who will be trained by consultant and then will provide training for end users. In this case you will avoid having consultant train the same common interface feature multiple time to different groups of users.

We encourage you to analyze your alternatives. You can always appeal to our help, give us a call: 1-866-528-0577 or 1-630-961-5918, help@albaspectrum.com

Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer at Alba Spectrum Technologies ( http://www.albaspectrum.com ) – Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains, Navision, Axapta MS CRM, Oracle Financials, SAP Business One and IBM Lotus Domino Partner, serving corporate customers in the following industries: Aerospace & Defense, Medical & Healthcare, Distribution & Logistics, Hospitality, Banking & Finance, Wholesale & Retail, Chemicals, Oil & Gas, Placement & Recruiting, Advertising & Publishing, Textile, Pharmaceutical, Non-Profit, Beverages, Conglomerates, Apparels, Durables, Manufacturing and having locations in multiple states and internationally. We are serving USA Nationwide: CA, IL, NY, FL, AZ, CO, TX, WI, WA, MI, MA, MO, LA, NM, MN, Europe: Germany, France, Belgium, Poland, Russia, Middle East (Egypt, Saudi Arabia, OAE, Bahrain), Asia: China, Australia, New Zealand, Oceania, South & Central America: Mexico, Peru, Brazil, Venezuela, Columbia, Ecuador, Chili, Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico

I suggest that you do not spend a lot of money on charting software as most perform very similar functions. Often the price is inflated to capitalize on the mentality that expensive is better. A software package under $1000 will perform all of the tasks required by even the most advanced traders.

The perfect charting software needs to be the most powerful technical analysis tool no matter what you are trading ….. stocks, futures or currencies.

Unfortunately, of the thousands of people why buy charting software, only a handful ever put it’s true technical analysis potential to good use.

Imagine being able to quickly and easily find high potential, lowest risk trading opportunities each day. What would it mean to your lifestyle if you could uncover what are potentially the most lucrative stock, futures or currency trades easily and quickly and then profit from this information?

Do you think your trading (and your life) would be more fun?

The following is a brief guide to some areas to consider when selecting charting software that will help you achieve this goal:

• Does the software contain the charts and indicators you require?
• What kind of database does it use, ensure there are multiple data providers out there?
• Is historical data readily available for the database format?
• How can the price data get updated and what data providers are there?
• Does the software have its own programming language?

Personally, I recommend MetaStock and I have used it for years. It contains just about every bell and whistle a trader would need. It is easy to use and allows you to scan the market looking for only those trades that exhibit your entry rules. This function alone is an invaluable tool that almost completely automates my trading system..

MetaStock has been the standard in stock analysis software for many years due to its affordable platform, advanced features and large user base. With any stock analysis, software that you settle upon, it is always helpful to know how many other people use the software. This provides a free resource for tips, tricks and general help using the application.

No matter what charting software you do decide to go with, just a word of advice. It is important to recognize that software is simply a tool that aids a trader in undertaking their business activity. There is no such thing as a software package that does everything for you. Avoid any packages that gives buy and sell recommendations. Commonly referred to as black box programs I have found, with rigorous testing, these packages simply do not work.

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Have you have found yourself lost in a software hell? You are not alone. Every magazine you pick up advertises new and improved software; your junk email, I like to call g-mail, tells you of the latest products; you see it in catalogs; and your phone rings and some vendor is pushing you to purchase their latest package. You know you need software, or newer software, and colleagues are telling you that the latest software will help your business, make you more profitable, and help your customer service experience. But how do you determine what software is good for your business?

Lab and quality managers are forced to wear several different hats when choosing software for their business. Labs that have the resource of an IT department or an employee that has some software experience get frustrated trying to sift through the software maze and give up (more often than not). They decide the only way they are going to get what they want is to build it themselves. This fix seems to be a simple solution up-front but anyone who has been through this process will tell you it is far from simple.

Classifications
Software can be classified into different functional areas. Some packages do a good job of overall functionality, but most of the “best in class” applications specialize in a few specific areas of function. General classifications of software would include bench top, management, internet, mobile, enterprise, PDA and instrument packages.

The Environment
The first evaluation that needs to be done is to review the hardware that will be used by the new system. Will it be the same hardware, new hardware, some of both? You will want to look at the oldest machine that will be used by the software and make sure it meets the specification requirements of the software. In some cases, the upgrading of the hardware can be just as expensive as the software. If the hardware being used does not meet the requirements of the software, then your first decision point has been reached: do you replace the hardware or look for different software? If the life cycle of the hardware is to expire before the life cycle of the software, then it is usually easy to determine which way to go.

The second evaluation should be your connectivity to the outside world. If the software package requires any connection to the internet you will need to understand the capabilities of your facility. Like the hardware, this too can be upgraded if required and many of the high speed cable or DSL connections are as cheap as dial-up. If your bandwidth to the internet is limited, this may hinder or stop functionality of some software products. As a general rule, each user going out to the internet will consume about 16k of bandwidth utilizing a standard browser. If the user is requesting data on a regular basis, this utilization will increase. As a general rule of thumb, divide the bandwidth by 64k to determine how many people can ‘work’ through the internet connection.

The third evaluation will be the location of work. Is all of your work done in the lab or is some done on-site? Depending upon the ratio of on site work, the ability for the software to support the on-site process may be a factor. Additionally, if work is being done on-site and the software requires an internet connection, does the facility you are working at have a connection you can use? Many companies have requirements and limitations in allowing outside users access to their system. On-site work may require the use of a laptop or other portable computer device. Make sure you understand the basic requirements of the software for performing the work onsite before purchasing or upgrading any hardware. Licensing of on-site software should also be evaluated; if the on-site license cannot be used while that technician is not on site you may be forced to purchase more licenses than you have users. Software packages that allow the license to follow the user whether on-site or in the lab can be more cost effective.

The Workflow
Before seeking a software package sit down and develop a simple work process flow chart of your facility, starting from the time you contact the customer through the time you return the equipment to the customer. Include notes about other applications being used that impact your business or any requirements that you have to export data. It is recommended once you have developed the baseline chart that staff from different areas of your business review the chart. Technicians on the bench will most certainly have a different view from the quality auditors or business managers. Get as much input as you can for the business model. This will make it easier to evaluate how your software should support your business.

Once you have developed a good work flow model then the difficult task begins analyzing each of the work processes to determine if they will fit your future business needs and how critical they are to your business model. Some software packages expect you to change your business practices to meet the needs of the software. If you are highly flexible in how you do business, this aspect of the software decision will not be too difficult. However, if your business practices are supporting other processes outside of your business model, then it is important that the software be able to adapt to support your critical processes as well as the other outside business practices.

The Platform
The next step is to determine what operating system and style platform you want to run on. Some packages can run on Windows, Unix, Linux, or Mac operating systems and do not care what data storage product you choose. Generally these packages come in one of two platforms: Browser-based or Desktop.

Asking the Right Questions
Now you have some good tools to help you evaluate each software package. If you have determined the platform and the type of application you want to use this will narrow the number of applications you need to review. Next you will need to determine what types of software you need to review.

In Summary
Do your homework and don’t be afraid to ask for some help. Remember, every product was new at one point. New software will take advantage of new technology which usually means you get more bang for the buck. Examine all the angles and trends. You want to mitigate the risk, improve your processes, create a better work place, provide better customer service, and, of course, make more money.

Brad Price is the President of One Red X Calibration Management Software, Inc. in Covington, Washington. Price has spent many years working with the Metrology industry optomizing workflow and software solutions. Brad along with the One Red X Software team have developed a product called EMX. The EMX Software is the latest, greatest software solution for Calibration Lab and Asset Management. New Improvements are constantly being made to enhance the product and by listening to our customers we are working towards the perfect solution for every lab.

Stealing company information used to be the specialty of spies and conspirators. It was something that only happened to the most powerful of corporations and branches of government.

Nowadays, stealing data is commonplace and anyone can become a victim at any time. The person standing in line behind you might be running a profitable side business stealing other peoples’ sensitive data. The reality is, however, that “inside” jobs are the most common when discussing business data theft.

Instead of looking through the crowds trying to pick out the law breakers, and instead of spending boatloads of money conducting thorough background checks on all those whom you encounter in your business, it’s easier to simply protect your data from prying eyes and malicious intentions.

Easier, yes. But protecting company data isn’t something that many small business owners do. Into their computer programs they input their products and pricing, their vendors, their EINs and TINs, their checking account numbers, email addresses of family members, their proprietary information, their marketing plans and formulas – everything goes into the computer.

What’s worse is when a business owner stores this type of information on a laptop computer, an item especially vulnerable to theft. Someone stealing laptops probably could care less about the information that is stored on them, but why take that risk. If you’re going to protect your sensitive company data, it’s all or nothing.

And protecting data is definitely your responsibility if you are an accountant or you specialize in other types of financial businesses. Your clients assume you are protecting their financial documents and their other sensitive records. But are you? Kudos to you, if you are. If you are not, you better take this issue seriously right now, before the damage occurs.

The best way to protect data is by using encryption software. Encryption means making data unreadable to everybody except those who know or understand the key or the code. When data is encrypted, it is far more secure than it is if just protected using a password.

Passwords that are required to login to a program are considered authentication methods, where the identity of the person logging in is simply authenticated, or verified. But passwords are easy to figure out and anyone capable of figuring out passwords will still have access to the data contained within.

So for data to truly be protected, you’ve got to go the extra step and encrypt it. There are many encryption programs available today. The most sophisticated of those protect our nation’s secrets.

But for the small business owner, who has minimal understanding of encryption methodologies or terminology, and wants it to stay this way, ease of use is what’s important.

Behind the scenes, all encryption software uses an algorithm or some other complex mathematical processes to scramble the data. Keys or strings of binary numbers (bits) are created and are what is used to mix up the data. The binary numbers and the data mix together and the result are data that is unreadable.

When more binary numbers are used, more encryption combinations are possible. Therefore, longer strings (more binary numbers or bits) are preferred when encrypting because this makes the code even more difficult to break. So it makes sense that 128-bit encryption software is more secure than 56-bit encryption software.

Data that is encrypted is safe from prying eyes which means that your business data is safe. To view data that has been encrypted, it must be decrypted.

Whether you need to protect your e-commerce website, your email, your business data or that of your clients, be sure you use encryption software.

Copyright © 2005 Cavyl Stewart. Get more software tips, strategies and recommendations by signing up for my Exclusive 100% free, 100% original content ecourses. Visit: http://www.find-small-business-software.com/free-ecourses.php

Our digitally networked society creates an ever increasing demand for accurate information. We regard it as an important challenge for the e-commerce to aid the user in close understanding of the information about the product presented on the site. Since comparatively recent time 3D computer technologies has become the application that delivers all the power you need today and remains competitive against these challenges. It’s intuitively obvious that 3D data enables better and faster comprehension, better retention, communication and collaboration.

Just imagine that u can easily feel yourself as if you really are in side of a house or flat you are interested in. You can come into any room, look around, zoom in and out and look up and down, examine every corner of your potential new home, move from a yard in front of the house to hall, then to leaving room, etc… This is what a 3D panorama enables you to experience. Designed specifically for the Internet, the Anything 3D Corporation has built the product to address one of the lasting web problems: how to make your product be closer to people without making your site a download nightmare.

We offer revolutionary new 3D solutions to advance your e-business processes.

Anything3D development team is happy to introduce our product - 3D Photo Builder. This universal software is produced for processing and creating 3D Images and 3D Panoramas and already has new Professional Version 2.0. Our application is based on many-years experience of imaging process and combines well professional quality of results and clear easy-to-use interface. It is equipped with a wide range of tools which allow the user to carry out pictures and store them easy and conveniently, viewing, processing, exporting and WEB publication of 3D graphics.

3D Photo Builder is extremely easy and quick way of processing pictures into 360/Partial 3D Panorama. This software chooses the right edges of first and the next picture finding the common points of the overlap and after that the process of stitching begins. Such process continues till all the pictures will be stitched.

A wide range of features of 3D Photo Builder enables you not only to create 360/Partial 3D Panorama but also to send as email or publishing to web. With 3D Photo Builder you can pan, zoom and export!

You do not have to have special programming knowledge! You can use any camera you are able just to use your luxuriant imagination.

3D Photo Builder is equipped with the simple graphics editor - SmallShop. It helps you to edit series both one-by-one and the whole series at once. Among other SmallShop can resize images, change color balance, filter images.

3D Photo Builder Panorama Stitcher is of high quality, fast and absolutely automatical, manual mode is also allowed.

3D Photo Builder 3D Images Composer helps you to fill background of rotating objects with any color or graphics.

No doubt that one of the main advantages is the developed system of export images with the wide range of formats. There is a simple Scanner Wizard in the 3D Photo Builder Professional 2.0.

There is no doubts that a picture is worth a 1,000 words, thus it goes without saying that a 3D Panorama or a 3D image is worth a 1,000 2D pictures. So taking into consideration that 3D technologies are committed to staying in the forefront of the internet solutions for e-business it is hard to underestimate the usefulness of A3D Photo Builder.

Please feel free to visit our site to learn more about the opportunities you get with our unique 3D solutions… http://anything3d.com/home

Sevilia Amir, sales manager, Anything 3D Corporation

http://anything3d.com

hotharsiph@anything3d.com

Homeland security, airport security, Internet security – these days we’re literally inundated with a need to protect ourselves and our property from the non-stop bombardment of potentially damaging attacks by unknown sources and entities lurking somewhere out there.

This is the reality of the world in which we live today. We can’t just lock ourselves up in our homes and wish the problems away. Life must go on. What we’ve got to do is fight back. And we have to protect ourselves the best way that we can.

Fortunately, security is big business these days. There really is no end to the security options that are available on the free market. And when it comes to protecting your computer system, your options are limited only by the balance in your checking account.

So much of our non-sleep time is spent on the computer. Think about your own situation. If you’re running a small business, especially when you’re just starting out, the PC often is your only other partner in the office. You entrust this partner with every crucial component of your business – your accounting, your inventory, your CRM, your communication, your vital documents, your sales and marketing information, your project management, even your on-line store.

You’re handing off quite a lot of responsibility to this partner. Granted, it’s a machine, and it’s got the internal capacity to handle such an enormous responsibility. But even the most powerful of personal computers is vulnerable if it’s not given the protection it needs to survive in this world of never-ending assault.

Viruses, hackers, SPAM, pop-ups, Trojans and more are out there lurking, waiting to bring each and every unprotected computer system to its knees.

And you might not realize this, but there are programs out there that can log your keystrokes. Don’t understand the implications of this? Well, every time you enter your login name, your passwords, your credit card numbers, loggers capture and store the keystroke sequence. If you ever find unauthorized transactions on your credit cards, your account numbers might very well have been stolen by someone using a keystroke logger.

Have you provided your business partner with the protection it needs to withstand this type of daily attack? You better hope your answer is yes. Otherwise, you’re playing a dangerous game of Russian Roulette.

A good Internet security system will keep your business and personal data safe. It will thwart viruses before they have an opportunity to wreak havoc on your computers. It will guard against unauthorized users, a.k.a. hackers and phishers – those whose sole purpose is to steal your identity. It will be able to recognize and filter out SPAM. And those annoying pop-up ads? They’ll be blocked before they even have a chance to rear their ugly heads.

When you need even more protection, it’s available, too. Encrypt your instant messages and keep Instant Messaging spam, or SPIM, at bay. Internet security software can also provide you will a listing of all web contacts, inbound as well as outbound, and will notify you of instances of unauthorized access. Plus, it can filter e-mail scripts and perform other tasks to help your computer system hide from Internet scanners.

So, if you’ve not done so already, it’s time you purchase an Internet security suite for your computer system. Register it so that you get updates the moment they are available. But don’t get too comfortable. Remember, even the most advanced Internet security suite can only guard against known enemies. And new ways of assaulting your computer are being conceived every day. And that’s the reality of the world in which we live.

Copyright © 2005 Cavyl Stewart. Get more software tips, strategies and recommendations by signing up for my Exclusive 100% free, 100% original content ecourses. Visit: http://www.find-small-business-software.com/free-ecourses.php

The process of human learning is very complex. We have the ability to turn thoughts into abstract symbols like letters of the alphabet. Letters become words, words become sentences, and sentences become complete concepts. As we absorb information, all these processes go to work in our education process until we grasp a concept well enough to turn it into something new. When machines are used to augment the abilities of people, there is also a translation which takes place on a very simple level known as binary code. Binary code is the primary building block of all computer actions, composed to represent a type of switch which is represented by a 1 for “on” and a 0 for “off.”

For many people, it is difficult to grasp how using various combinations of “on” and “off” could lead to the rich variety of computer applications available today. Most developers who write programs for computers can spend their entire career without having to descend to this most basic level of machine functionality. Moving upward on the chain of translations that take place in executing machine instructions, it is possible to create methods that can bypass some of the stages of the human creative sequence. A simple example can demonstrate this. Suppose you encounter a written question, and go searching for a written answer to the question. If you are doing this without the aid of a machine, the human mind must travel through all the stages of translating the abstract concepts of the question to understand what is being asked, then repeat the entire sequence, with some additional steps to recognize and correlate the information comprising the answer to the question.

The legacy of manually asking questions and correlating answers is what has led us to where we are today. Unfortunately, before mankind developed written languages to capture these processes, there was always the constant danger that information would be lost, and would have to be rediscovered by the next generation of people. Now that we have computers to assist us, it is easier than ever to retain massive amounts of useful information, and to recall this correlation of data without the necessity of repeating the stages previously needed to obtain it. Unlike the human process needed to connect concepts, machines do not have to be limited to the same stages of translation and correlation. A machine is able to work with storing, equating, and recalling complete concept groups. The formula for doing this is a simple equation, Question = Answer. Using this simple formula, a person can interchangeably connect with the information on either side of the equation. With this new type of connection, if a person knows the Question, they can also instantly correlate this information to its corresponding answer with the aid of machines.

When taken to a repetitive higher level, we encounter situations where there may be many different questions that lead to one answer, or one question that leads to many answers. Using technology, we have the opportunity to decrease the learning curve by storing and manipulating large amounts of information on a mechanical level. Once the processes of collecting the information and correlating it are complete, we can accomplish far more than previously realized. When the system is available, we can then fill in missing pieces in our understanding by allowing machines to help us gather the data we do not have as individuals. If we only know the question, the machines give us the predetermined answers. Benefits of this capability are enormous. If any one person has ever discovered the definitive answer to any question, everyone who follows behind the discovery can almost instantly arrive at the same conclusion without traveling through the layers of discovery, allowing them to ponder the next level of growth.

In this scenario, it is always a function of human creativity that will ultimately direct the building blocks of any knowledge base system, and the machine that will help us use it faster and better than we can do it ourselves. This mix provides the ingredients for the best possible synergy between people and their technology. It allows people to focus on their creativity, while machines manage the repetitive operations they are designed to perform. Incorporating these principles into software design can result in big dividends for the user community when applied to a wide range of uses.

Director of Software Concepts BHO Technologists - LittleTek Center HTTP://www.home.earthlink.net/~jdir. Please provide a rating for the article to help us determine future content choices.

It’s easy to understand why you might be drawn to the allure of free software. After all, it is free and free is always a good price to pay. But before you plunk down your hard-earned no money and possibly put your business at risk, consider the following.

Most of the free software that you will find is not supported. There will be no one at the other end of the software. What does this mean to you and your business? It means that if you have a technical support issue and you need help fast, that help will be hard to find, if you are able to find help at all.

Some of the more popular free software does have available user supported help groups. These are groups of users who congregate out there in Cyberspace and are sporadically available to provide assistance to others. You can always try to send an email message to the developer if you can find the developer. But because of its very nature as a FREE item, no one is under any obligation to help you with your issue, quickly or otherwise.

It’s also important that you understand the motivation behind developing free software. First, there are some programmers who just have too much time on their hands. These individuals will just create free software to give them something to do. Programmers are notorious problem-solvers, and creating software is a great way to accomplish this.

Some developers create software and offer it for free out of the goodness of their heart. Hard to believe in this day and age, but it happens. And there are other programmers who get a feeling of altruism when they create software. They offer it for free with the hopes that the masses will marvel at their creation.

Other software developers, notably in the Linux world, write and distribute free software under GNU or Open Source licenses. And some of these packages are popular, mainstream and 100% free. The workhorse, Apache Server software program, is a good example of this.

However in the case of most windows-based free software, (except for the good-hearted programmers mentioned above), there most often is an ulterior motive for giving software away for free.

Some free software packages have advertising engines which rotate banner or text ads while you are using the program and, while some of them are quite forthright and honest about this, others deliver their advertising bomb through Trojan horse back doors which sneak onto your computer without your knowledge. In most cases, this simply results in unwanted advertising that you have no idea where it came from, but in other cases you could very well end up with software that’s designed to steal your passwords, financial info or worse.

Some of the more popular free software for your business, including Open Office which, unbelievable as it may seem, is an almost complete free replacement for the MS-Office package, including a spread sheet and a word processor, has no strings attached. It’s just free.

FreeCRM.com, a web-based customer relationship management program, offers absolutely free fully-enabled accounts for small businesses. Larger businesses, with multiple employees requiring access to the system, pay just a nominal fee.

So to sum this up — here’s some free advice. If you are thinking about using a free software program for your small business, fire up your Internet, go to Google and look up the name of the free software. You will find everything you need to know, both the good points as well as the bad points, about that particular package. Then decide whether it’s right for your needs.

Copyright © 2005 Cavyl Stewart. Get more software tips, strategies and recommendations by signing up for my Exclusive 100% free, 100% original content ecourses. Visit: http://www.find-small-business-software.com/free-ecourses.php

Anyone who ever priced the Microsoft Office Suite knows it represents a significant investment.

A quick check of the CompUSA.com website shows Microsoft Office Standard costs $399 and Microsoft Office Professional will set you back $449. Now, this doesn’t discount the value of the software.

In fact, the functionality in MS Office represents the true workhorse of home and small business computing, namely: word processing (Word), spreadsheets (Excel), presentations (PowerPoint), and desktop database applications (Access).

However, with the cost for such functionality at a premium, it comes as no surprise that a viable alternative emerged to challenge Microsoft’s position atop the office application market.

OpenOffice.org offers a suite of office software applications free to download for anyone with a computer, including PC’s operating with Windows or Linux.

Open Office also offers a free version for Macintosh computers.

Open Office offers its software freely to anyone who wants to download it.

Their all-volunteer organization, sponsored in large part by Sun Microsystems, operates with the noble goal of making productivity software available worldwide in 36 languages, particularly to economies that simply can’t afford the cost of other office solutions.

The Open Office software publishes in the Open Document Format to make data universally available (instead of using proprietary file formats that, for instance, make it hard to share between Microsoft Word and Word Perfect).

Open Office contains several main components, each of which help the user with specific tasks.

Writer - This software offers a full-featured word-processing program enabling the user to type letters, brochures, faxes, even entire books. No matter what you need to type, this program lets you do it. It also offers such features as spell check, auto-correction, and thesaurus.

Calc - Calc offers a spreadsheet program enabling the user to create cells containing text or digits, execute simple and complex calculations, database functions, and more. Calc is perfect for accounting spreadsheets, inventory and more.

Impress - Impress enables the user to create "slideshow" presentations containing text and images for use in sales or group presentations. Impress also allows the user to create impressive slide transition effects and eye-catching animation.

Draw - Draw gives the user the ability to create simple to complex drawings using vector graphics. Users can create drawings by hand, or incorporate an array of existing shapes, arrows, lines and other graphics.

Though it does represent an excellent alternative to expensive office software suites, Open Office is not without a few drawbacks.

Since they make the software available free of charge, tech support for the free version only lasts 30 days. Also, by its nature, the software is a "work in progress."

As such, you will find bugs periodically that should get reported to the Open Office website so they can fix them.

However, despite these drawbacks, Open Office software rates a "must look" if you need word processing, spreadsheets and other capabilities we’ve naturally come to associate with home and small business computing.

Copyright 2005 Jim Edwards

Jim Edwards is a syndicated newspaper columnist and co-author of an amazing program that teaches you how to use free articles to quickly drive thousands of targeted visitors to your website, affiliate links, or blogs… without spending a dime on advertising! Click Here> http://www.turnwordsintotraffic.com

The vast majority of us will have, at some point, had freeware games or applications installed on our systems. If you’ve played an online Java or Flash based game, you’ve used freeware. In a very real way the Internet itself is freeware, a massive collections of scripts, information, tools and resources that are, for the most part, totally free. But what is it that motivates so many people to put so much work into a project, and then release it totally free of charge? There are a few misconceptions about freeware that I would like to clear up.

1.) “Freeware programs are loaded with spy ware and Trojan horses” – not true. While it is true that some programs contain these types of malicious software, they are a vanishingly small percentage of the whole. The type of people who release programs like this are identical to spam mailers – criminal and beneath contempt. If you are worried about this then I suggest you only download software from large, well known freeware sites. These almost always check to ensure their programs are free of any malicious code.

2.) “Freeware only works for X amount of days, or is crippled in some way”. Again, not true. Programs that work in this way are classified as Shareware, and are designed so that if you like the programs function you can pay the author for a full version. Freeware is never crippled in any way, and comes with no charge whatsoever – although donations are always appreciated!

3.) “The only reason this is freeware is because no-one in their right mind would pay money for it”. This, unfortunately, is often a valid point. There are some truly abysmal programs out there. And even if the program is a good, helpful little tool, it doesn’t mean you would be prepared to spend £10 on it in a shop. However there are some absolute gems out there, like 7-zip for example. All I can say is, again, look for the big directories where the submissions are ranked. Look especially for the sites where users can leave their own feedback on a product, for example www.gamehippo.com is a superb site for freeware games.

So what is the reason people make programs for free? The points above could explain it, to some extent. But that is not what freeware is really about. Freeware is about programmers wanting to share what they’ve created with the world at large, be it a useful tool, a kick-ass game or even a simple script. People who write freeware like to share what they’ve made, and maybe get some credit from the wider community for making something useful. So next time you find a useful piece of free software why not look through the about box to find out who made it. If they have a site then go visit, maybe leave a note in the guest book to encourage them to keep up the good work, to create more superb software. And you never know, the site may even contain that perfect piece of software you’ve been looking for.

Daniel Robson runs http://www.shock-therapy.co.nr where he offers his own freeware, as well hosting freeware for Symbian UIQ 7.0 phones, especially the Sony Ericsson Px00 series.