Discounts on Software

I've found it sometimes gets a discount for you if you e-mail the appropriate 'sales' and 'support' functions for the software you want. Mention what competitive product if any you currently use, whether you're a student or senior, and any other demographic that well might get you an unadvertised discount.

Another good source of free commercial software is www.giveawayoftheday.com

At this web site, software vendors give away (by free download) a piece of software that is normally not free. Each program is only available for one day, and you must download and install the software that day. A different program every day. In the past, they have offered all sorts of useful utilities and tools. There is also a forum when people can ask questions and make comments on the packages, to help you decide if the download is worthwhile.

Hi Bob, You wrote, "Just make sure you are getting a fully licensed retail package, not a pirated copy burned onto a homemade CD." Um, exactly how do you do that?

Typically you pay before you get the disc, and someone dishonest enough to sell you pirated software will probably not be honest enough to give you a refund when you catch him at it, don't you think?

EDITOR'S NOTE: True, but if you buy from eBay sellers with good reputation and feedback, it should be safe.

For a totally free Office Suite, there's OpenOffice from Oracle. For details, go to: http://www.openoffice.org/

"OpenOffice.org 3 is the leading open-source office software suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and more. It is available in many languages and works on all common computers. It stores all your data in an international open standard format and can also read and write files from other common office software packages. It can be downloaded and used completely free of charge for any purpose."

Bob,
Since we are in Australia the only information we can use are the general hints - what a pity!

Why don't the majors like Microsoft and Adobe sell older versions (remaindered stock) of popular items? It simply does not make sense all older versions are exported to a giant shredder.

Because most older software is destroyed, new versions cost more-- all to compensate for unsold, destroyed inventory. Put to more effective use, instead, that older stock could generate profits from those who did not buy into latest versions.

The only conceivable objection from software publishers is they have enough trouble selling expensive new versions on the merits of just a few truly valuable features. They fear older versions would pose too much competition.

Which, of course, is why more people do not buy anything at all-- upgrades offer no real improvement, but come at a much higher price.

Be sure to check out sourceforge.net for outstanding free open source software. It's not just for developers. There are equivalents for many commercially available programs. Two of my favorites are Audacity, an excellent multi-track audio editor and recorder, and Inkscape, which rivals Adobe Illustrator.

I use a program called Gimp from www.gimp.org .

It works quite well and has a lot of great tools, rivaling Photoshop. Best of all it’s totally free. Check it out. I think you'll like it.

Regarding sales tax on Internet or catalog sales, what most people may not realize is that, even if the vendor does not collect SALES TAX from you (since they may not have "nexus", e.g., employees or a physical presence, in your state of residence that requires them to do so), you are still liable for an equivalent USE TAX to your state (if your state has a sales and use tax). Some states, like NY, even have a line on their individual income tax returns where you list that liability.

One addendum to the use of Open Office - remember to save your files as their MS Office counterpart versions (i.e. .xls, .doc, .ppt, etc) if you may be emailing the file or if it will otherwise be opened on another computer at any time, since most people are not using Open Office.

On that note, it is also convenient to save any file, be it an Open Office or MS Office file as the "97-2003" Office version, since many people did not update to MS Office 2010 when then beta expired. You may lose some fonts or formatting, but I have found that to be quite minimal and not a deal breaker.

I use retailmenot.com
It has heaps of codes for many various sites. People submit codes that they find or get and upload them to the site. All you have to do is type in the site and then the codes are all displayed.

OpenOffice.org is great place, but if you want certain popular mag. software you can check www.cheapsoftwaresonline.com. You'll be suprised at the prices.
The site is ok, I've ordered several different programs and they live up to what the advertise.

just fyi: you can purchase tons of software from Microsoft for one low price $199. Purchase a one year TechNet Standard subscription. The software is licensed for evaluation purposes only—not for use in production environments. But, if it's for your and you want to try Windows 3 or Windows 7 Enterprise or Office 2010 you can try all of it and use it on your personal PC for that one payment. And once you have the license (you get 2 licenses per software, it use to be 10) it's good even if you don't renew your subscription after that first year:
http://tinyurl.com/yv6tfq

There are various sites from where we can purchase the software at discount rates.Avid shop is offering student version at high discount rate.