Cheap Productivity

Can't afford Microsoft Office? No problem.

A few years ago, consumers had only a few viable options for accomplishing tasks like word processing and spreadsheet editing. Worse than the lack of options was the fact that every decent option cost money--sometimes a lot of money. Today, inexpensive options aboud, and they are much better than their price tag implies.

Free desktop alternatives to Microsoft Office
OpenOffice (www.openoffice.org) is by far the most popular desktop alternative to Microsoft Office (by desktop, I mean software that you install on your computer). It's a maturing product, but still lags behind Microsoft Office in terms of polish and ease-of-use. OpenOffice includes the functional equivalents of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, and more. Over the past few years, it has gained popularity among organizations seeking to be free of Microsoft Office licensing costs without losing the ability to remain competitive. For someone on a shoestring budget, this is a boon.

Web-based alternatives
As web technologies mature, it is becoming more feasible to replicate some of the desktop software experience in a web browser. The benefits are obvious and plentiful: 1) your applications are available from any Internet-connected PC; no need to install the application, 2) your files are available from any Internet-connected PC; no need to sync between computers, 3) collaboration is a breeze, 4) the software is continually updated. The list goes on and on. The drawbacks are just as obvious: 1) if your Internet connection goes down, so do your files, 2) the browser can't yet provide as rich of an experience as the desktop, 3) browser-based apps are less secure than desktop apps*. Drawbacks aside, the price tag for these web-based apps (free, in many cases) is too attractive for many to pass up--even if advertisements are part of the package.

Some of these web-based office applications are much less mature than OpenOffice, but they're still worth a look. I recommend taking a look at Google Docs and Spreadsheets and Zoho Virtual Office. Google's offerings are ok (as an Excel guru, I can't really get excited about Google's far-inferior spreadsheet app), and InfoWorld's Oliver Wrist raves about Zoho Virtual Office. He spent an entire week using web applications instead of his beloved Microsoft Office, and Zoho was his clear favorite. I haven't tried it myself, but I plan to, based on what Wrist had to say about it. Be sure to check out his article about his experience with web-based productivity software if you want to see other alternatives.

Affordable version of Microsoft Office
If you happen to be a student or teacher who's not flat broke, and you want to stick with Microsoft Office, you're in luck. Microsoft created the Microsoft Office Student And Teacher Edition. It includes full working versions of Word, Excel, Outlook, and PowerPoint. The price ranges from $99-$139, and you can legally install it on up to three PCs in a household. The catch? There are a few, actually: 1) you have to be a qualified academic user, 2) you can't upgrade the product. For more information about the restrictions, see this page.

Some Final Thoughts
Some people have taken a look at offerings like OpenOffice and think that competitors are starting to catch up to Microsoft. Let me tell you, after using Office 2007 Beta for the past couple of months, I can confidently say that Microsoft Office isn't about to be displaced by these free apps. But in the future, this competition will be interesting.

Of course, office productivity suites aren't the only software packages that you can get for free. A Google search for free applications can keep you busy for hours, but if you just want to glance at a collection of popular free programs, visit http://theopencd.org/programs.

* http://www.informationweek.com/hardware/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=192500179&subSection=Servers

What is Wikipedia?

I remember my early computing days in 1996, spending time watching the sparse multimedia content in Microsoft's electronic encyclopedia, Encarta. It was an interesting--albeit initially underwhelming--departure from the book-form encyclopedias.

Encarta is still around, but another form of encyclopedia has emerged. Wikipedia is a free, web-based, multilingual encyclopedia written by anybody and everybody who wants to contribute. Need to know about the American Civil War? Visit Wikipedia's article about it. Don't like the wording of the article? Change it. That's right--you can edit the encyclopedia. Today. This minute. My description was rather brief; if you want to know more about it, read Wikipedia's article about itself.

This approach has three significant advantages over other types of encyclopedias:

1. Vast amount of content. Wikipedia taps the Internet community for content; can you imagine a faster way to create new articles and add to existing ones?
2. Low cost. The Internet community is cheap labor. There are still costs associated with maintaining a web site on this scale, so Wikipedia still needs donations. But for now, the encyclopedia is free.
3. Up-to-the-minute content. The Indianapolis Colts beat the Denver Broncos a few hours ago. Somebody has already noted that on Wikipedia, and has written a summary of the game. Yes, I picked a frivolous example; but the point is, with billions of potential authors, Wikipedia is the only encyclopedia that can be up-to-date on virtually any topic that people care about.

There are some disadvantages too. For one thing, there's nothing stopping your 8-year-old from "editing" the aforementioned article about the Civil War. Also, popular opinion doesn't necessarily reflect reality. In short, Wikipedia isn't guaranteed to be accurate.

You can read plenty of opinions about Wikipedia, and the purpose of this post is not to exhaust the arguments or convince you that Wikipedia is better than all the other encyclopedias. Just keep this in your back pocket for the next time that you need free information about--virtually anything.

Cheap Comfort

As a man born and raised in Minnesota, I am supposed to embrace the cold. When I was in college in Wisconsin, one of my roomates liked sleeping with the windows open--during the winter. Somehow that was construed as manly rather than idiodic. Today, I prove that I am unworthy of such a rugged heritage because I admit...I have a heated blanket. And I love it.

Actually, the heated blanket has a purpose beyond compromising my masculinity. One purpose of the heated blanket was to serve as a gift for my wife, who loves her heated throw. (Take note, guys: a $30 heated throw makes a fantastic gift for your wife or girlfriend.) But another purpose was to save money. We live in a house without zoned climate control. If I want it to be, say, 68 degrees in our bedroom at night, I have to either heat the entire house to 68 degrees (which is a waste of money), or I have to get creative.

One option is to use a space heater. This is a perfectly fine option if it works for you, but we found that it wasn't working as well as we had hoped. So I decided to try a heated blanket, which--like the space heater--should theoretically let me turn the thermostat way down without compromising our comfort. We bought a Sunbeam dual-control unit, so we can each select the temperature we like. It costs $70 at WalMart.

We love the heated blanket; it does the job very well. It's a basic unit though, so it doesn't have automatic shut-off. No problem; I purchased a $5 outlet timer to cut the power at 7:15 am so we don't have to bother turning off the blanket in the morning.

But does it save money? Sunbeam claims that you can "Save up to 10% a year on your heating bills by turning on your Sunbeam Heated Blanket and setting your thermostat back by 10%-15% while sleeping." (That quote is from WalMart.com.) Well, I used my Kill-a-Watt unit (I'll probably dedicate another post to this gadget) to gauge the electricity usage last night, and 9 hours of continuous use at the lowest setting (on both sides of the blanket) cost 0.44 KWH, which equates to 4 cents at my current electricity rate. I suspect that dropping my thermostat level even 1 degree for the evening probably saves more than 4 cents in energy costs. I don't know how long it will take to pay for itself, but given the comfort level and the low operating cost, we're considering this a great investment.

The Internet's Couch Cushion

FatWallet should be one of the most popular sites on the web, yet when I mention it to people, they have no idea what it is. I like to think of FatWallet.com as the couch cushion of the Internet.

FatWallet.com has referral partnerships with dozens (maybe hundreds) of online retailers. When you make a purchase on a web site after "clicking through" FatWallet.com, FatWallet gets a certain percentage of the sale. Cool for them, right? But what would make you visit FatWallet.com first? Here's the great part: they split their referral money with you. That's right--by simply logging in to FatWallet.com and clicking on their own link to your online retailer, you could get cash back on your purchase.

For example, let's say you were going to buy a digital camera, and you found that Buy.com had the best price ($300). If you visit FatWallet.com first, and you click on their Buy.com link, you'll get 2% ($6) back on your purchase. Once you have a FatWallet.com account established, the amount of time it takes to do this extra step takes about 5 seconds. Sounds too simple? Ok, I'll tell you the two caveats:

1. You have to log in to FatWallet.com first. This is actually easier than it sounds, since you can have FatWallet.com remember you. I don't have to log in anymore. A visit to FatWallet.com, a hop over to Buy.com (or VisionDirect.com, or whatever), and I'm on my way to cash back.
2. Your cash back isn't available immediately; it takes about 90 days. Why? Well, I assume it's because FatWallet doesn't get any referral money if you return the merchandise. If you could get cash back immediately, what would stop you from buying thousands of dollars in merchandise and returning it, reaping the cash back profits?

FatWallet's own site does a pretty good job of explaining the process. See http://www.fatwallet.com/tmm/rewards.php. If you're interested in establishing an account and getting cash back on your purchases from here on out, just visit www.fatwallet.com.

Dual Purpose

I spend way too much time researching things. When I'm at the store, I can spend 10 minutes deciding among multiple variations of essentially the same item. If you've never pulled out your calculator to figure out which pack of toilet paper offers the best deal per square inch, you won't understand. And that's ok; my closest friends have kindly explained to me that I'm a freak, so I'm aware that you're the normal one, and that I'm the odd one. I'm learning to accept that (much to the dismay of my aforementioned friends, who have done everything short of an intervention to convince me to change).

My hope is that I can share some ideas with you that will help you save money, and help make your life easier. That's the dual purpose of this blog. And please do me a favor--even if you don't find the information useful, at least pretend that you did. I already have my friends and family telling me I'm wasting my time; if strangers start agreeing, I won't know what to do.