Don’t Buy Software
By Andy Harris
This month’s theme is “homeschooling on a budget.” In my family, that’s the theme every month. Life is expensive enough, and this homeschooling habit we’ve all picked up can get pricey. This month I want to show you one area in which you can save real money without having to compromise quality at all.
Within the last few years, a new type of software development has been making a major impact on the computing world. In addition to traditional commercial software, teams of talented professionals often work together (sometimes with corporate sponsorship and sometimes out of pure love of creation) to build free clones of popular software packages. You may think these tools could not compete with the efforts of major corporations, but you might be surprised. The tools I recommend are extremely well designed, have been thoroughly tested, and have all the features of their commercial counterparts. They generally work on every major operating system, and they are entirely free. They do not have ads, and they will not require in-app purchases for full features.
Before you buy commercial software for your homeschool, look into these options: (more…)