Hope all our friends in the USA had a great Memorial Day weekend. Brian’s Dad is a World War II vet, so it was a special day for us. He saw action mainly in the Phillippines, and contracted malaria during battle.

You may be surprised to know that malaria actually killed more U.S. soldiers than the fighting did in many areas of the Pacific combat zone, but he was fortunate enough to be able to recover and return home. We know it almost sounds like a cliche’, but never forget the sacrifices that were made so you and I could have the freedoms we enjoy today. It’s much more than just a 3-day weekend.

A few days ago, we told you about Google Docs, a free program that can be used as an alternative to the Microsoft Office suite. It’s available to anyone that signs up for a free GMail account.

However, there’s another free office suite you may find even more useful. It’s called Open Office, a downloadable program in contrast to the web-based Google Docs.

Open Office is  an open source program virtually identical to Microsoft Office, in that it has many of the same functions. You get a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation manager, and drawing program, with a user interface and feature set similar to other office suites.

What does “open source” mean? Well, without getting too detailed, it means that the software’s source code (the programming statements that are created by a programmer) is available under license.

This license allows users to use, change, and improve the software, and to redistribute it in modified or unmodified form. Think of it as user generated content.

(If you want to dig deeper into this subject, go here or here ).

So the benefit to you is that you get to use a powerful program for free that’s been modified and improved by skilled programmers on the open market.

No need to get in touch with your inner geek and figure it all out on your own :-) .

You can view the features here or download it here. In these budget-conscious days, this is a powerful freebie with everything you need for word processing, spreadsheets, and more.