On a Shoestring Budget and Need Software?

If you need it free (and legal, of course), then general public license (GPL) software is for you. No budget for software? GPL software is for you. It's free and open source so it can be added to and shared.

• Probably the most famous GPL program is Open Office. Intended to be a substitute for Microsoft Office, Open Office is a completely free suite of applications Open Office isn't a total replacement, but many people find all the features they need in Open Office. You can download it from http://download.openoffice.org/.
• GIMP Photo Editor is a pretty powerful image-editing tool. It has more palettes of tools than most users ever want to learn. Download it from http://www.gimp.org/downloads/
• If the version of Microsoft Office that you have doesn't have Outlook bundled with it, then give Thunderbird a try. I use it for one of my email accounts and am happy with it. It's quite a bit different than Outlook, but the learning curve is short. Download it from http://www.mozilla.org/projects/thunderbird/
• If you don't want to register a media player, then VLC is for you. Because of the multi-lingual thing I have going on I need to be able to open practically anything from any country. So far I haven't found anything it won't open. Download VLC from http://www.videolan.org/vlc/
• I have to be honest, I have zero use for a desktop publisher, but I've installed Scribus before and it looks like a half-way decent replacement for Publisher. Download Scribus from http://www.scribus.net/canvas/Scribus

I hope you try at least one of these programs and come to love them like I do! I'm not sure if it's love for them or dislike for their competition, but I'm always willing to try something new from the open source GPL world. The price is right.  Enjoy your day.