Inspired by Aaron, I’m putting together a list of the open-source software I use, whether regularly or just on a tinkering basis. I’m trying to move towards using open-source more, but with my job requiring pretty intense Macintosh work, it’s a slow process.
(A note on the Mac thing: I grew up with Macintosh computers. I love using them. My MacBook makes me happy. But with the growth of iTunes, iPhones, iPads, iThis, iThat, I’m really wary of getting locked into a world that is defined by what Apple creates, and what Apple lets me use.)
Here’s the list. Not nearly as well-organized as Aaron’s, sorry:
- Open Office: Word processing, spreadsheets, presentations – heck, it even does databases! I use this pretty regularly at home for composing short documents and doing little budget-y spreadsheets. I’m interested in finding out how it would work with a most complex project like a long paper or book chapter. Runs on my Mac and the netbook.
- VLC: I love VLC because it can play pretty much any video or audio format you throw at it. I mostly use it for playback, though – I need to explore its editing/converting abilities more.
- WordPress: My blog’s built on it, I’ve used it for years, it’s easy and nice and free.
- Audacity: I don’t use it nearly as often as I did when I was studying in the linguistics department, but it’s a great audio editor. If we started doing podcast work at the library this would be my software of choice.
- Drupal: I barely know how to use this and am only mentioning it because I’m excited to learn more. Someday.
- Ubuntu: This is the Linux distribution I recently installed on our Acer netbook. It’s wonderful, and I find myself thinking, quite seriously, that I could probably get by now without my MacBook. It is, of course, running a whole lot of open-source software, but I won’t put that all on this list – it’s mostly the basic stuff that comes with Ubuntu.
- Gimp: This is probably the one I’ve been using the longest. I’m no pro at it but can use it to do all the basic Photoshop-type editing and graphic creation I need.
**Edit**
Forgot three!!
- Firefox: Use it regularly.
- Thunderbird: I use Thunderbird for email at work. Just looked up the URL and realized I can upgrade to 3.0. Here I go . . .
- Android: Linux-based mobile phone operating system. It runs my phone. It makes me happy.
Nice! I’ve used VLC too — it works nicely and with every format you can throw at it.
I, too, have noticed how Apple has increased its control over everything, especially with iTunes, apps, etc. I don’t use many Apple products, though. I grew up on Windows and have always been concerned by being locked into Windows.