Back to school usually means back to your spending money on a school supplies computers, laptops, or tablets. Most of the time, the essential software or apps for these devices is sold separately and quite costly.
First thing everyone should do is check the existing software pre-installed onto their new systems because sometimes they come bundled with academic versions that might be just as good and functional as a purchased copy.
There is also a trend in the tech industry at the moment from software venders where most have now switched from selling their software outright for a high price to now offering the same software at a lower price on month-to-month basis. Microsoft and Adobe, two of the bigger software giants now have lower pay-per-month options making it affordable to more people.
For instance, Microsoft now offers it’s complete office suite called Office 365 to students at a low monthly cost of several dollars. It would include the newest versions of Word, Outlook, PowerPoint, Publisher, Excel, along with gigabytes of free cloud space to save all of your documents, images, videos, and files.
In addition, all of your files can sync’d and edited on all of your computers and devices through their ‘one drive’ system. You can find more about Office 365 at www.microsoftstore.com
With that in mind, it looks like this type of purchasing system makes very expensive software affordable to the average person and so it’s cheaper in the short run but would add up over the years. I guess you could look at it much like a monthly gym membership.
If you not one to spend any money on software then over at www.sourceforge.net you will find tons of free software (commonly called open source software) for all your needs. Source forge will have everything most standard users will need. From desktop publishing software like LibreOffice that will do most everything Microsoft Office will do to Audacity (a very popular and free multi-track audio editor) to VLC media player that will play any audio or video file you through at it. All of which are installed on my computers and used on a daily basis.
Most software from sourceforge is for windows, mac, and linux computer systems. Be that as it may, there are free options available for Windows, Apple, and Android mobile users as well. One that comes to mind is the app Evernote. This app is available to all mobile platforms and computer systems and it seamlessly syncs allow your data to all devices and computers. With Evernote, you can organize and store all of your school projects, photos, webpages, voice recordings, to-do lists, and recipes. It does offer extra features if you pay a monthly subscription but for the average user all the free options would be enough to keep you organized and very productive. You can find more information about this app at: www.evernote.com
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