FREE Photo, Illustration and Drafting Software

If you need general photo editing tools try using Google Picasa 3.6

http://picasa.google.com/ 

Free License. Free Download. Links to your online Picasa Account.

Picasa is free to download, and Picasa Web Albums provides 1 gigabyte of free storage -- that's enough space for 4,000 wallpaper-size photos. Edit to perfection. Improve almost any picture with Picasa's one-click fixes for common problems like red-eye, color, and lighting. Or, use tuning and effects to make your best photos look even better.Beautiful web albums. Show your photos at their best. View full-screen slideshows, see your pictures arranged on a global map, enjoy video playback, and more.Sharing made simple. Publish your favorite photos online with one click. Create stunning online photo albums to share with friends and family, or public albums for the world to see. Get notified when your "Favorites" post new photos.

FREE Anti-virus, Malware and Spyware Software

Anti-virus, Malware, Spyware Software

If you need McAfee, Norton or anything like it try using Microsoft Security Essentials

http://www.microsoft.com/Security_Essentials/ 

Free License. Free Download.

Microsoft Security Essentials provides real-time protection for your home PC that guards against viruses, spyware, and other malicious software. Microsoft Security Essentials is a free* download from Microsoft that is simple to install, easy to use, and always kept up to date so you can be assured your PC is protected by the latest technology. It’s easy to tell if your PC is secure — when you’re green, you’re good. It’s that simple. Microsoft Security Essentials runs quietly and efficiently in the background so that you are free to use your Windows-based PC the way you want—without interruptions or long computer wait times.

FREE Office Productivity Software

If you need Microsoft Office Suite/Microsoft Word try using Google Docs

If you need Microsoft Excel try using Google Spreadsheets

If you need Microsoft PowerPoint try using Google Presentations

www.docs.google.com 

Free License. No download necessary. Use Online. Anywhere. Anytime.

You can also install Google Gears on your computer which syncs your files for use Offline.

Create basic documents from scratch or start from a template. You can easily do all the basics, including making bulleted lists, sorting by columns, adding tables, images, comments, formulas, changing fonts and more. Upload your existing files. Google Docs accepts most popular file formats, including DOC, XLS, ODT, ODS, RTF, CSV, PPT, etc. So go ahead and upload your existing files. Familiar desktop feel makes editing a breeze. Just click the toolbar buttons to bold, underline, indent, change font or number format, change cell background color and so on. The best part of Google Docs is sharing and collaboration. Multiple people can share and edit the same document...at the same time! Great for projects. You can give your co-worker full 'edit' rights to a document and share it with a client and only allow them 'viewing' rights. You can't do that with Office unless everyone has an expensive license. Plus it's integrated with all the Google products like Blogger, Picasa Photos, Sites, Groups and Calendar.

TED2010 | Augmented-reality mapping technology.

This is truly amazing stuff.


In a demo that drew gasps at TED2010, Blaise Aguera y Arcas demos new augmented-reality mapping technology from Microsoft. Blaise Aguera y Arcas is an architect at Microsoft Live Labs, architect of Seadragon, and the co-creator of Photosynth, a monumental piece of software capable of assembling static photos into… Full bio and more links

FREE Productivity Software

FREE SOFTWARE 

Here's a list of programs that are free/open source. I have all the microsoft products on my computer and I have to say keeping up with licensing and the latest version is a pain in the ass and needless to say very expensive over time. My switch to these programs has been gradual but I have to say I am VERY happy with them and today I am Microsoft free. (Except for Windows) Plus they all are fully compatible with the paid versions so you can easily share, import and export files. NOT a problem. I don't even miss them. I'm tempted to erase everything Microsoft but I'm just not there yet...maybe next week. LOL 

Keep in mind everyone is targeting microsoft and they are doing it by offering competitive alternatives for FREE hoping you will pay for other services they offer. So take advantage. And all are compatible with MS Windows and Mac OS X computers. 

Google Sketchup

more drawings...