I recently had a lengthy IM conversation with a reader who asked me what financial software I use to keep my finances in order. I responded with the truth: I use Microsoft Excel (I received Office as a gift – otherwise, I would use OpenOffice Calc). This launched a lengthy discussion about various software packages and why I don’t use them.

The two “big” commercial personal finance packages (Microsoft Money and Quicken) are pretty similar – don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Their interfaces are a bit different, but most of the primary functionality can easily be found in both packages: tracking expenditures, keeping track of your investments, and so forth.

However, there’s one big problem I have with both of them: they’re both the equivalent of attacking a peanut with a jackhammer. Both packages have reached a point where they’re so laden with features that they’re not intuitive to use or figure out, and the time investment required to learn the package and figure out the flow of work that works best for you is rather large.

I know very well that if I were to sit down and really invest the time to get one of these packages customized to how I want to do things that it could be very useful, but the truth is that I mostly am seeking a small number of data views to understand where I’m at: the balances of all of my debts and their interest rates, my monthly net worth calculation over time, and my active account balances. Guess what? With the exception of the account balances, these were all easy to set up in just a few minutes in Excel and I have them exactly like I want them.

I’m sure that Quicken and Money fans will respond to this post by listing a ton of features of their favorite software package that I’m missing out on, but that in itself is another problem: it takes significant time to really take advantage of those features. I’m not really interested in downloading and labeling transactions every single day (or facing a huge backlog of them after a week or so) just so I can see my current account balances – I can already see these things through online banking. I also don’t want to spend time correcting debits and credits between various accounts so that the reports on each account aren’t completely nonsensical – sure, I could “learn” the ins and outs of each system, but why not just do them in Excel?

Even worse, both mainstream packages force you to upgrade to a newer version within three years because they shut off many of the online features.

In the last month, I thought that it might be interesting to write detailed reviews of both packages and perhaps a “getting started” guide for each, so I downloaded them both and gave them a long time to prove themselves to me. I spent hours trying to use each program and figure out what’s good and bad about each of them, and all I kept facing was interfaces that took a lot of work to figure out and maintain and regular program crashes. For me, this is just not something I’m interested in dealing with just to track expenses, and I can’t honestly recommend either to my readers.

I’ve given both packages an extensive chance to prove themselves to me, and all I’ve faced are unintuitive interfaces, time investment without fruition, program crashes, and confusion. The time would have been better spent for me just to set things up how I like in Excel and move on with life – so that’s what I’ve done. I’d love to hear a truly compelling reason why I should abandon my Excel spreadsheets and move to one of these software packages – after trying each for several weeks, I certainly don’t see it.

You can try a sixty day trial of Quicken Deluxe for free if you want to give it a whirl. Similarly, Microsoft Money Deluxe has a ninety day free trial.

As I’ve become more and more interested in the open source movement, I’ve gradually replaced almost all of my closed source software with open source applications.

At first, I bought in because of the “free your money” aspect. Open source software doesn’t cost a penny – just go download it. It’s also reasonably safe, given that the source is open to the world and there are a lot of very intelligent people out there constantly improving it, particularly the more popular packages. As a personal finance blogger, this aspect is a very powerful one, but it was only the first step.

Soon, I began to really appreciate the “free your freedom” concept. I began to see the political and social ramifications of open source software: how it affects the marketplace and how the open source concept affects everything.

But after a while, the sheer creativity of some of these packages came through, packages I would have never found without the open source concept, and I began to understand the “free yourself” perspective. You see, the power of it isn’t the fact that it doesn’t cost me anything, or even the potential for social change that it has. It’s the fact that the really profound packages can transform your life. There are a lot of bright people out there producing open source software, and they often hit upon niches that commercial packages wouldn’t hit upon – but they can sure fill a niche in your life!

Here are seven open source packages that have become a part of my daily life – and enabled me to find, record, store, and analyze my own thoughts and information about the world around me in ways I would have never dreamed possible even a few years ago. These software pieces have literally transformed my life.

KeyNote
note taking / information organization
http://www.tranglos.com/free/keynote_main.html

Of all of the software I have ever tried in my life, this has been the most transformative. In terms of enabling, extending, recording, and organizing my thoughts, I have never found anything as amazing as KeyNote. Quite simply, KeyNote has made it possible for me to maintain this blog and to keep track of literally thousands of freeform ideas.

So what exactly is KeyNote? It’s not one of the “big” open source packages, so an overview is in order. KeyNote is a tool that lets you record a hierarchical series of notes in a single file. The interface for doing this takes about two minutes to learn and about two hours to really understand; once you “get” it, though, it can have a massive transformative effect on how you record your thoughts and information.

Here’s an example: I have a “default” KeyNote file. Within that file are a series of about twenty notes: To-Do, Finances, Readings, Writing Ideas, Diary, and so on. Under each one of these is a series of sub-notes, much like an outline: details on specific tasks to be done, notes on the bills to be paid and investments to review, and so on. It’s all free-form text pieces, which enables me to write three words or a thousand words, whatever I want. I also keep reviews of CDs, books, and films I enjoy, recipes I might try someday, and some general scratchpad sections for writing down things to think about later – and when I return to them, I update the note. My wife is starting to use it for student assessment notes and class attendance records. This stuff just scratches the surface of what’s possible, but they’re the tasks that I use KeyNote for on a daily basis.

WordPress
blog management software
http://www.wordpress.org/

Obviously, WordPress has made The Simple Dollar possible. It provides the backbone for writing this site, managing all of the posts, and the public display that you see. Writing this blog has had a transformative effect on my personal finances (and on other aspects of my life), and for that I have WordPress to thank.

But if it were only that simple, I wouldn’t be mentioning WordPress here. The extensibility and customizability of WordPress has enabled me to start several personally important projects with it that may or may not ever see the light of day to the public, but have enabled me to figure out and understand aspects of my own life that I didn’t understand before. I use WordPress for a highly personal blog that resides (effectively) offline, a place where I can record my innermost thoughts and tag and categorize them. For me, it’s not so much a desire to journal but a desire to figure out who I am. I used to use various diaries for this, but they never led me to greater understanding of myself; however, WordPress (and the capabilities you can add to it, such as customized fields) has made it possible for me to start tying a lot of different threads of my psyche together.

Generally, I use Keynote to keep my interactions with the world straight, but I use WordPress to understand myself better, and I feel more happy, alive, and free than I have ever felt in my life.

FreeMind
mind mapping software
http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/

Whenever I am in a meeting, you’ll likely catch me doing one of two things: making a list (i.e., what KeyNote does well) or writing a word and surrounding it with lots of other related words, then branching out from there. This second activity is exactly what FreeMind does: it lets you map connections between concepts in a very simple fashion.

I’ll use an example: let’s say I’m thinking about Milton Friedman. Around him, I might write words like “free market” and “economics.” I might then think a bit and connect “eBay” to “free market,” then start connecting stuff to eBay. Where do I go from there? Who knows, but when I look at the diagram at the end, I’ll see some interesting pairings at opposite ends, and by following the path connecting them, I’ll make some very interesting connections that, if nothing else, cause my thoughts to flow in a different fashion.

FreeMind makes this mind mapping process incredibly easy. Because of it, I’ve grown the ability to do effective mind mapping in my head on the fly and thus I now rely on FreeMind mostly just for very complex maps. In other words, regular use of FreeMind has literally changed the way I think and understand things – for the better, I believe. I now am able to make connections between disparate things that before seemed to be completely unrelated; in short, I understand the world better.

Mozilla Firefox
extensible web browsing
http://www.mozilla.com

There’s not much about Firefox as a web browser that hasn’t already been said; it’s pretty much the best one you’ll find in wide release for one big reason: it’s insanely extensible. How so? Here are ten extensions to Firefox that I use on a daily basis to keep my crazy life straight (including keeping up on the news, keeping track of my cell phone minutes, making phone calls, managing my grocery list, and so on):

• Sage is an RSS feed reader that integrates into Firefox. With one click, I get a listing of about 200 of my favorite blogs, along with the new postings for all of them. It’s completely changed the way I keep up with the blogosphere.
• Cell Minute Trackers I used to have to jump through a bunch of hoops to keep track of my wireless minutes. Now there are extensions for Firefox that let me know immediately upon firing up my browser how much talk time I have left – keeping me from overextending myself in a very expensive way. They’re available for T-Mobile, Verizon, and Cingular, with rumors of more providers on the way.
• GMail Space Firefox also acts as a backup tool for a lot of my creative writings by letting me use my GMail account as a file archiver. I just click a few times and data is archived at GMail, which I can retrieve anytime. I very rarely use a memory stick thanks to this.
• Skype Sidebar If you have broadband, this plugin will pretty much transform the way you think about telephones. Just using headphones and a little mic, I can call pretty much anyone I wish and talk as long as I want for peanuts while doing other productive stuff.
• ForecastFox I used to turn on The Weather Channel to catch the local weather on the 8s so that I could decide if planning an outdoor activity was worthwhile. Now I just fire up Firefox and look in the lower right corner and it’s done.
• del.icio.us Bookmarks One thing that used to frustrate me is that when I would change computers, all of my bookmarks would vanish, so if I wanted to find my useful resources, I had to remember them. Now Firefox integrates with del.icio.us, which allows you to have all of your bookmarks on any computer you want, even if it’s not your own, and it’s just as easy as adding bookmarks was before. This is invaluable if you travel very much.
• Answers I’m fairly literate, but sometimes when I’m reading a document, I hit a word or phrase that I don’t understand. If it’s in Firefox, I just hit “Alt” and click on the word to get a complete definition and explanation, allowing me immediately to comprehend what’s going on.
• Scrapbook When I’m reading a magazine and find an interesting article, I often load it up with scribbled notes, tear it out, and save it for later. This is exactly what Scrapbook lets me do with web pages, so I have a rather fat folder full of stuff saved for the future.
• Grocery List Generator I’m a foodie, so when I find a great recipe or concept on the internet, I tend to want to pick up the ingredients and try it. A click or two and I add it to my grocery list. I also keep my laptop open when building my grocery list on Friday evenings.
• All-In-One Gestures The final piece is a tool that lets you use quick finger gestures to do common things like switch tabs and scroll down the page and such. I have about four gestures I use over and over and over again that speeds up the surfing process greatly.

Mozilla Thunderbird
extensible email client
http://www.mozilla.com/thunderbird/

I used to be a Microsoft Outlook junkie for my personal needs, using it as an email client as well as a calendar for managing important events in my life. When Thunderbird was released, I basically yawned – it didn’t do half of the stuff that Outlook did, even though I was a bit jealous of the great spam filtering that was integrated into Thunderbird. I didn’t get on board, in fact, until I heard about a wonderful extension for Thunderbird called Lightning that turns a cool application into something completely amazing.

Lightning takes a strong email client and adds in a lightweight calendaring and to-do system that creates a suite on par with Outlook, except with strong spam filtering and fantastic email-to-task linkage. Great, you think, he’s all enthralled by an Outlook clone. Where this gets transcendent is the integration with Google Calendar, allowing me to be sitting at a conference, fire up a web browser, add an event to my Google Calendar, and then have it automatically add itself to Thunderbird when I get home. I can print off gorgeous calendars to post on the wall for my wife to let her know when I’m on the road, and perhaps best of all, I use it as a GTD manager for many aspects of my life.

Thunderbird alone has saved me hours of hassle in dealing with an address book, a datebook, a to-do list, a personal planner, a task documentation manager, and a method of keeping my wife informed of what I’m up to.

OpenOffice
word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation software
http://www.openoffice.org/

I used to get by with just the basic utilities that came with Windows for my long-form writing and calculations (namely WordPad and Calculator). I envied Microsoft Office users, but not only did the price tag keep me away, I didn’t really understand how great the productivity could be if you really understood the tools; I used them in college in computer labs, but only to do immediate tasks. Now I understand their power.

First of all, OpenOffice Writer has simply made it possible for me to write and manage lengthy documents. I’ve been working on a novel for a year now, and the internal controls offered by Writer have enabled me to keep track of the characters and the narrative flow with just a few clicks. Even better, I can export the whole thing to PDF and ship it to others to read without breaking a sweat. This program has enabled me to fit my dream of writing The Great American Novel into my busy life – and has made me a more content person.

OpenOffice Calc (i.e., an Excel replacement) has singlehandedly made the personal financial transformations I’ve described on this site possible. I use it to handle my monthly budget, do investment calculations, model what my mortgage might look like, analyze what I might do for retirement, and so on. Every time I model anything to understand how money works – usually to finish a post here at The Simple Dollar – I use Calc. Software is no longer a limitation on people understanding their finances, and this is especially true for me. Calc is literally making me money on a daily basis because it has enabled me to finally understand my own finances.

Although I don’t use the other pieces of OpenOffice, these two elements alone have had a major effect on how I live my life.

Gaim
instant messaging software
http://gaim.sourceforge.net/

This is perhaps the most “expected” item that I would list here, as most people are familiar with the power of instant messaging software. Gaim has literally made it possible for me to maintain old friendships, build new friendships, and provide the launching pad for some great life experiences. It’s basically platform agnostic, which means that I can simultaneously converse with my friend on Linux using Yahoo, another friend on a Mac using iChat, three other people in an IRC chat room, and yet another friend on Windows Messenger.

It seems so simple and commonplace, yet the human relationships I’ve maintained or built because of Gaim (as well as social networking sites) are numerous, and that alone makes this software an essential part of my life.

On the morning of October 23, 2006, Dave DeSmidt had $179,000.23 in his 401(k). He was on a business trip to China when the unthinkable happened: someone logged onto his brokerage account, registered a new checking account, and then requested a distribution into that account. By the time Dave checked his brokerage account a few days later, it was empty. Read the full story; it’s quite disheartening.

Even more worrisome is how J.P. Morgan handled the situation:

“J.P. Morgan concludes there was no external or internal breach of controls with the J.P. Morgan environment,” the report said. “Access and authentication controls established within J.P. Morgan worked appropriately.”

The report dismissed the possibility that the crime was an inside job, as the request came from outside computers and the criminal knew DeSmidt’s user name and password.

The report’s conclusion: “Investigation Status: Closed.”

An online username and password are not good substitutes for more detailed levels of authentication. J.P. Morgan’s response to this might be arguably appropriate in protecting themselves from fraud, but their behavior shows no interest in truly protecting the customer – just protecting J.P. Morgan.

As online hacking becomes more prevalent, brokerages need to become more careful in their protections. Here is a three-step protocal that J.P. Morgan should have followed that would have protected Dave DeSmidt from this nightmare.

First, the distribution should not happen unless the name on the receiving account matched the name on the brokerage account. Whenever someone performs a withdrawal from a brokerage account, it needs to be verified that the names on both accounts match. If they do not, then no transfer should happen without a number of layers of additional confirmation.

Second, before any distribution occurs, the owner of the account should be notified. This notification should occur both in writing and over the phone for the initial distribution, and any changes to the distribution plan should involve similar confirmations.

Third, brokerages should maintain an intranet contact database and should carefully confirm any contact information changes. The online information should not be used as the sole mechanism for approval; brokerages should maintain an intranet database of client contact information that is not web-accessible and is only updated directly by employees. Whenever a change to this occurs, employees should require extensive verification from clients.

These protections would not completely eliminate fraud potential, but it would set the bar very high for any type of fraud to be successful. Dave DeSmidt would still have his money, and lots of responsible people could rest easier knowing that their brokerages were protecting them.

Here’s what you can do to help your brokerage get better fraud protection: call their customer service number and ask them what their protections are. If they don’t describe a protection like the one described above and they won’t guarantee your account in the event of such a fraud, then write to the company’s management and inform them that their security policy is inadequate.

Recently, I received a fresh new laptop from Dell. Upon receiving it, I did the traditional “installation of Windows from scratch” on it to remove a lot of the garbage that is preinstalled on Dells. Then I got really busy installing tons of great software that takes care of pretty much every software need I have. Not only was all of the software free, every piece of it was open source, which means that the code is peer-reviewed; no spyware here!

What follows is a list of thirty pieces of software that are the cream of the crop of open source software for Windows. Not only is every piece of it free, almost all of them directly replace expensive software packages.

Now, if only there were an open version of The Sims 2, I might go the whole way and switch to Linux…

1. Firefox
http://www.getfirefox.com/
Replaces Internet Explorer
If you haven’t switched to Firefox for your web browsing needs, do it now. It stops annoying popups and it has tons of amazing plugins that can make surfing the web even better. I could evangelize all day about Firefox, but one thing’s for sure: the first thing I do on any new Windows machine is run Internet Explorer just long enough to download Firefox.

2. Thunderbird
http://www.mozilla.org/thunderbird/
Replaces Microsoft Outlook or Eudora
Thunderbird is an email client that has five big things going for it: it’s free, it’s full featured, it’s lightweight and runs quick, it has an unparalleled spam filter, and it protects you from those ridiculous phishing attacks by clearly indicating which emails send you to a bogus website. If you’re not already using a web-based email solution, Thunderbird should be your client.

3. Sunbird
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/sunbird/
Replaces Microsoft Outlook’s calendaring functions
Might as well get the Mozilla trifecta out of the way by mentioning Sunbird, which is the Mozilla Foundation’s calendaring program. It’s extremely easy to use (I figured out everything I needed in a minute or two) and easy to share your calendar with others. I consider a calendaring tool to be essential if you’re using a laptop, and this is no different.

4. Abiword
http://www.abisource.com/
Replaces Microsoft Word
Want a good word processor but find Microsoft Word too expensive? AbiWord is my favorite replacement for Word. It’s lightweight (meaning it runs quickly) and includes pretty much every feature that I use regularly in a word processor, plus it can save files in formats that you can exchange with Word and WordPerfect users, plus open any of their files, too.

5. OpenOffice
http://www.openoffice.org/
Replaces Microsoft Excel and Microsoft PowerPoint
If you want to replace the rest of the Office suite, your best bet is OpenOffice. It includes very nice replacements for Excel and PowerPoint (and workable replacements for Access and other Office elements). In fact, I actually prefer their Excel and PowerPoint replacements to the real thing.

6. ClamWin
http://www.clamwin.com/
Replaces Norton AntiVirus or McAfee
ClamWin is a slick anti-virus software that’s quite easy to manage and is unobtrusive while keep your system free of viruses. That’s pretty much all I want from a package, so why pay money for McAfee to keep bugging me all the time?

7. Gaim
http://gaim.sourceforge.net/
Replaces AIM, Windows Messenger, etc.
This is a very clean instant messaging program that allows you to be on AOL Instant Messenger, Windows (MSN) Messenger, and Yahoo Messenger simultaneously with one program. There are other free packages that do this, but Gaim is stable and clean and simple.

8. BitTorrent
http://www.bittorrent.com/
Original but essential
From their website, “BitTorrent is a peer-assisted, digital content delivery platform that provides the fastest, most efficient means of distributing, discovering, and consuming large, high-quality files on the Web. Our mission is simple: to deliver the content that entertains and informs the digital world.” In other words, BitTorrent allows you to download large media files and also use your bandwidth to help others download these files. Search for media files you want and download ‘em.

9. GIMPShop
http://www.gimpshop.net/
Replaces Adobe Photoshop
This is a version of the GNU Image Manipulation Program that does a pretty solid job of imitating Adobe Photoshop – a regular user of Photoshop (like me) can adapt to it quite quickly. It’s very richly featured and runs quite well – in fact, I see no reason to ever go back, even if Photoshop were free.

10. Gnucleus
http://www.gnucleus.com/Gnucleus/
Replaces LimeWire, BearShare, etc.
Sure, LimeWire and BearShare are free, but why not just get the same basic software without all of the spyware? Gnucleus is pretty much identical to those software packages – but without all that extra junk that slows down your computer.

11. VLC Media Player
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/
Replaces Windows Media Player, Quicktime, RealPlayer, etc.
If you get tired of having tons of media players on your computer, get this package that runs pretty much every media type you’ll run across without breaking a sweat.

12. Juice
http://juicereceiver.sourceforge.net/
Unique but essential
Juice lets you effortlessly subscribe to podcasts, organize them, and listen to them at your convenience. In conjunction with PodNova, I find it easier to use Juice to organize podcasts than using iTunes itself.

13. Audacity
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
Unique but essential (for some)
If you’re interested in recording your own podcast (or just want to make your own voice recordings for whatever reason), Audacity and a microphone are pretty much all you need to get the job done. I’m not much for podcasting (let’s just say I don’t have a radio voice), but I use Audacity for other voice recording purposes.

14. RSSOwl
http://www.rssowl.org/
Unique but essential
RSSOwl is one of many open source RSS readers. In other words, it enables you to use one program to keep track of the content of a lot of different blogs; if you read a lot of blogs, it’s the only way to keep tabs on all of them without devoting hours jumping from site to site. If you have a laptop, it’s preferable to using sites like Bloglines, but if you’re on a desktop, a web-based feed manager might be better.

15. Filezilla
http://filezilla.sourceforge.net/
Replaces WinFTP
Many people occasionally have a need to FTP files to other computers; if you ever have the need to transfer files in such a fashion, FileZilla will do the job slickly and quickly.

16. Keynote
http://www.tranglos.com/free/keynote.html
Unique but essential
Keynote is basically designed specifically for the task of taking notes on a laptop. If you ever find yourself in a meeting or a presentation with your laptop open and want to jot down notes and organize them just a bit, Keynote is unquestionably the program for you. It’s not good at quality word processing, but that’s not the point. In my professional work, I find myself using Keynote almost as often as any other utility.

17. MusikCube
http://www.musikcube.com/
Replaces iTunes
If you’re not already committed to downloaded music from the iTunes Music Store, then MusikCube is the best choice available for a music organizer and player. It organizes your mp3s, makes it really easy and really fast to find them, and allows you to make some incredibly clever smart playlists.

18. Handbrake
http://handbrake.m0k.org/
Unique but essential
Handbrake enables you to stick a DVD in your DVD drive and have the contents of that film stored to your hard drive in a form that can be read by pretty much any media player. I often use it to put a few movies on my laptop for travel purposes, so I don’t have to worry about keeping track of DVDs while on the road.

19. X-Chat 2
http://www.silverex.org/
Replaces mIRC
X-Chat is a free IRC client. For those unfamiliar with IRC, it’s a place for technical people (and, as my wife loves to point out, nerds) to meet and discuss topics in an open environment. I often find it very useful when piecing through difficult technical issues.

20. KeePass
http://keepass.sourceforge.net/
Unique but essential
KeePass is a program that securely stores and manages the abundance of passwords we all use on a daily basis. I have literally hundreds of usernames and passwords spread out all over the place; KeePass keeps them all for me and keeps them safe.

21. TrueCrypt
http://www.truecrypt.org/
Unique but essential
TrueCrypt enables you to convert a memory stick into a strongly encrypted data storage device, meaning that you can store personal data on it without worrying about losing it and having personal information get out and about. I use it to keep some of my most personal data off of my laptop and strongly secured, just in case.

22. PDFCreator
http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/
Replaces Adobe Acrobat
PDFCreator creates a virtual printer on your computer that, if you print a document to it from any program, creates a PDF of that document that can be read on any computer with Acrobat Reader on it. After installing PDFCreator, all you have to do is print like normal and out comes a PDF!

23. Freemind
http://freemind.sourceforge.net/
Unique but Essential
Freemind is a “mind mapping” software program. In essence, it enables you to brainstorm and link together ideas quickly, creating “maps” of concepts similar to what you might do on a whiteboard. I find it incredibly useful when putting together ideas for new posts or planning small projects or assembling the backbone of a writing project.

24. NASA Worldwind
http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/
Replaces Google Earth
WorldWind is very similar to Google Earth in that it allows you to browse the globe. While it isn’t strong for creating maps (but why not just use Google Maps for that?), it is utterly incredible for viewing three-dimensional landscapes of any place on earth.

25. Notepad2
http://www.flos-freeware.ch/notepad2.html
Replaces Notepad
Notepad2 is a replacement for the traditional Windows Notepad that just adds a few sweet little features: multiple documents; line, word, and character counts; and some highlighting of tags. In fact, I’m using Notepad2 as I draft this post (after using Freemind to organize it).

26. HealthMonitor
http://healthmonitor.zucchetti.com/
Unique but useful
HealthMonitor enables you to keep an eye on the health of your computer. It identifies slowdowns and other system issues quickly and lets you know (for example, it gives a popup if your system memory gets to a certain percentage of fullness, or if your hard drive has only 10 GB free). This can keep you out of trouble and also give you clues to problems your machine might be having.

27. Workrave
http://www.workrave.org/
Unique but useful
Sometimes late into a writing session, my wrists get sore from too much repetitive movement. Workrave basically jumps in before this happens and locks down the computer for a while, preventing me from working too much and causing repetitive stress injury. Since I’ve started using it, it hasn’t significantly hurt my productivity at all and my wrists are thanking me!

28. GanttPV
http://www.pureviolet.net/ganttpv/
Replaces Microsoft Project
If you do any project management (or have a need to dip your toes in the water), GanttPV does a brilliant job of managing the task quickly, easily, and freely. If you need to move to MS Project later, you can export from GanttPV to Project, but once you start digging into GanttPV, you’ll likely have no reason to use Project.

29. GnuCash
http://www.gnucash.org/
Replaces Microsoft Money or Quicken
GnuCash is a slimmed-down version of the bloated Microsoft Money and Quicken packages, but it contains all of the features I want for managing my money. The interfaces are incredibly simple – it functions much like a checkbook ledger on your computer – but there’s a lot of meat hidden throughout the software.

30. True Combat: Elite
http://www.truecombatelite.net/
Replaces Quake IV, Halo, etc.
After all this downloading, you’re going to need to blow off a little steam, and I’ve yet to find a more enjoyable free game than this one. It’s basically a third person combat game, but the graphics are spectacular and the game is quite engrossing.

If you’ve downloaded and installed all of these, you’ve got access to all the productivity software you’ll likely need, clean and open and best of all free.

On Friday, Wesabe was launched to the public. For those unaware, Wesabe is a community-based (meaning similar to flickr or 43things) personal finance site that allows people to track financial information and share money ideas. From their extensive FAQ:

Wesabe is a community of people who share our experiences with our money so we can help each other make better financial decisions. We do this by aggregating and analyzing our community members’ personal financial data, and showing tips — recommendations to get the most from our money. These tips and recommendations come from the collective wisdom of our entire community. When one of us figures out how to make a great decision, we all learn.

I could go on and on about the features of Wesabe, but I’d just be repeating the content of this excellent introductory post on Get Rich Slowly. If you’re more of a visual type, just visit Wesabe or watch this wonderful orientation video.

At first, I thought Wesabe was a brilliant idea: it basically utilizes the community concepts embedded in many of the best websites around (like reddit or 43things, two personal favorites of mine) and applies it to personal finance thinking. That initial rush made me feel much like Matt Haughey does about Wesabe: it really is an amazingly cool tool.

But then I played around with the site for a while and I came away with a bit of a funny taste in my mouth.

First, for a site that requests a lot of personal data from you, their privacy policy leaves a lot to be desired. From their privacy policy:

We may use personal information to provide the services you’ve requested, including services that display customized content.
We use aggregate and non-personally identifiable data to provide the broader Wesabe community with information to make better decisions.
We may share aggregate data with third parties outside of Wesabe.
When we use third parties to assist us in processing your personal information, we require that they strictly comply with our Privacy Policy and any other appropriate confidentiality and security measures.
We may also share information with third parties in limited circumstances, including when complying with legal process, preventing fraud or imminent harm, and ensuring the security of our network and services.

Read those carefully. They are essentially saying that any personal financial data you give them will be (a) used to craft a profile of your personal financial habits which will then be (b) leveraged to create advertising that targets your very specific financial habits (meaning that the ads will be more tempting because they strike directly at your real money uses), (c) sold to third parties as long as they “strictly comply with their privacy policy,” and (d) immediately handed to unspecified third parties for unclearly specified reasons. They also provide no specifications on their methods of data security.

I don’t know about you, but having my financial data bandied about in such a fashion really frightens me. The only electronic personal finance data that I keep is encrypted and behind a firewall. I have little interest in allowing unspecified third parties to have a heyday with my data.

Second, the other sections of the website are essentially reproductions of digg and (especially) 43things. Although the entire site has a personal finance bent, the actual features provided are duplicates of features from other sites with a tweak or two.

The only real novel twist also worries more than it excites me: aggregate spending data. The site is able to give aggregate data on spending over all users so that you can see what you’re spending on certain things compared to a community consensus, but all that tells you is how much more or how much less of a consumer you are than other people using the site. If you’re really interested in improving your personal finance, your time is better spent with a real budgeting tool, determining what specific areas of spending you can cut down on, not comparing your spending to other spenders and simply feeling good because you spent less on beer this month than 27% of other Wesabi users.

Third, even the non-sensitive portions require an account, unlike the other community-based sites. Non-users can’t visit some of the sections that would be interesting to the general public, like the section that lists the most popular personal finance tips. You can’t tour the site in any fashion (outside of the video above) without signing up for an account; it was that reason alone why I signed up for a test account, simply so I could explore the options.

That being said, there are many good features of Wesabe. Of particular use are the tips and goals sections; the former has a digg-like interface that allows people to contribute personal finance tips and vote up the tips of others, while the goals section is very similar to 43things: it allows you to add goals, assign goals others have created to yourself, and discuss the goals in detail, again all with a personal finance bent. These parts of the site are intriguing and don’t require you to reveal specific personal financial data. There are also many aspects to the money management portion of the site that are intriguing, but I am hesitant to explore with real data due to my concerns with privacy; I would love to dig into them with real data, but for now I’m sitting them out.

If the creators of Wesabe read this, I have a couple of suggestions that could turn this from a merely intriguing site into an essential personal finance site. First, make the privacy policy extremely detailed and comprehensive. People who are really interested in personal finance (i.e., potential leaders within the community you are trying to build) are often very concerned with data privacy. Our passion is money management and one of the basic precepts is being careful with that money; we don’t like to hand out our data without some strong assurances about what will happen with our data. This is especially true for you, as a completely new entity without a track record of data security.

Second, make it possible for people to at least browse the tips and goals sections of the site. For outsiders who want to dip their toes in, these are fantastic tools for convincing people of the power of the community, but you keep these tools hidden from non-users. Look at the approach of digg or 43things; they don’t require signup for people to enjoy the non-sensitive content of the site, and this openness has propelled both sites into the general web consciousness. Such secrecy is just preventing people from diving into the site.

Given all this, I still think Wesabe is worth a whirl if you don’t provide any real personal data to the site. It’s useful for looking at tips and goals of others and contributing your own non-specific tips and goals; the only thing hindering this from becoming very useful is a relatively small userbase, which will likely grow in the future, as they’ve got Matt Haughey extolling their virtues and he is often ahead of the curve when it comes to spotting breakout communities.

I used to be an active follower of Microsoft Office and McAfee, but the constant upgrade cycle and payments to continue getting antivirus updates got old. So I did some research and discovered free, top-notch alternatives to these money hogs for use at home.

Instead of using Microsoft Office, I’ve switched to using Open Office. These applications replace every major feature that I use Office for (Word, Excel, and PowerPoint – I don’t use Outlook thanks to Gmail and Google Calendar) and at a very agreeable price – $0. Best of all, I can save in the Office formats for when I send documents to friends and associates.

My replacement for McAfee Antivirus is Clam Win. It does everything McAfee did for me – automatic updates, regular hard drive scanning, checking my emails for viruses – without paying out the nose for updates or hogging a bunch of memory and slowing down my other programs. It’s really the best of both worlds, and it’s got a nice cost, too: $0.

In my spare time, I often set up and fix computer problems for people, and I’ve been asked if I can get free antivirus or free Office programs for people. Now, instead of telling them to burn a lot of money or else pirate software, I just set up these two programs and they have everything they need. Happy customers and happy me.

If you’re reading this, you likely have ready access to a computer with an internet connection. Most people are aware of a few ways that a personal computer can save them money, but there really are a plethora of simple, ethical ways that anyone can use a computer to make a few dollars. Here is a list of 14 ways your computer can put money in your pocket that anyone can do without ripping anyone off. Many of these ideas may have occurred to you, but I’m sure there are at least a few here that are new to you. Hopefully, something on this list will spur you on to try something new and perhaps have a little bit of extra pocket money. Please note that I am only mentioning fully legal methods for such services in this article, and I’m usually directing people towards easy-to-use services if there are a multitude of options. For example, I am aware that there are a lot of programs for playing back audio on your computer and I am aware of the ease of obtaining pirated music and video.

1. Switch your phone to VoIP. VoIP refers to the use of your home computer’s broadband connection as a telephone service. There are different programs that have various features and benefits, but they are almost universally less expensive than traditional land lines and cellular phones. Two of the most popular options are Skype (free to other Skype users, but fees for calls to non-Skype phones) and Vonage (flat monthly rate for unlimited calls in the United States and very cheap per minute internationally).

2. Utilize online-only savings accounts. In the past few years, a number of branchless, online-only, FDIC insured banks have cropped up that provide astoundingly high interest rates on a normal no minimum balance savings account. These rates tend to be eight or nine times as high as typical banks (which offer a 0.5% rate of return on average). Two of the most popular include ING Direct (currently offering 4.4% APY and very easy to sign up) and HSBC Direct (currently offering 5.05% APY). This means that investing $100 in an ING Savings account would return $4.40 in a year, or $5.05 at HSBC Direct, versus $0.50 at your typical bank. Plus, you can fully manage your account on your computer, transferring money to and from your checking account as you wish.

3. Combine your entertainment needs. A modern personal computer can replace your stereo, your television, and your video game consoles. You can move all of your music on CD to your computer using programs such as iTunes, then use your computer speakers to play back music when you want it. If you have a large monitor and a TV tuner card, you can use your monitor as a television by playing your television feed through your computer. You can also sign up for services such as GameTap to utilize your home computer as a video game console.

4. Keep an eye on your finances. I use online banking and credit card accounts to keep a daily tab on what’s in my accounts and what I’m spending my money on. This way, I know what I can afford to spend and what I can’t. Many banks and virtually all major credit card providers allow online account access, which gives you very easy control over your money. Beyond that, there are a number of excellent packages out there that enable you to manage your finances as a whole and do your own taxes, though they can be complex to set up. I use Microsoft Money, which can be downloaded for a 90 day free trial.

5. Sell your hobby. Whatever your hobby is, you can probably find a place to sell the products of that hobby. eBay is a great place to get started, though there may be better places for your specific hobby. Here’s an example: a friend of mine likes to fold simple origami pieces while doing other things, such as watching television; it’s a nervous tic for her. So she started folding lots of paper cranes. She was aware that a thousand paper cranes are often given as a gift among the Japanese, so she decided to start selling thousand crane lots on eBay. Thanks to her computer, she can sit at her rural home, watch television in the evening, and sell the numerous cranes she makes with her own hands.

6. Write about your random thoughts and interests. It is incredibly easy to get a simple blog at Blogger and put a Google AdSense bar on the side of it; Blogger walks you through the process very gently. With this, you can write anonymous random thoughts on whatever you want: your personal life, your favorite television show, whatever. You can just channel some of your own thoughts into a written form and post them. Not only does it provide an outlet for you to express yourself, it also enables you to improve your writing skill over time as painlessly as possible and you can earn a few dollars from the AdSense bar.

7. Do some comparison shopping. There are a multitude of places to shop online, and there are often many places selling the same item. For example, just for books alone, I used to check amazon, Barnes & Noble, and a few others. It’s easy to find a better price for an item than you might find in your own town. Even better, people are beginning to create software tools to make comparison shopping even easier. My favorite is Book Burro: when you view a book on a site like amazon.com using FireFox, it will pop up a little window immediately informing you of the cost of that book at various other online sites, helping you to quickly find the lowest price.

8. Throw out your reference texts. With an internet-accessible computer, there’s little need for such reference texts as a dictionary or a thesaurus or an encyclopedia. Wikipedia is a suitable replacement for an encyclopedia for general usage. Dictionary.com provides the same usage as a dictionary, and thesaurus.com is a functional thesaurus. In the modern world, there’s little need to invest in such reference texts.

9. Find a better credit card. We’ve all signed up for some pretty terrible credit card deals in the past, but the internet enables you to find a credit card offer that matches your needs much better. You can easily return 2% of your spending to yourself if you can locate a strong credit card offer. Even better, you can easily find balance transfer offers that will eliminate the interest you’re paying on a card. Obviously, a credit card is a tool that you need to be careful with, but I use one for my primary spending (groceries, etc.), keep the balance paid each month, and they literally pay me to use it. I would have never found this offer without the internet.

10. Use a computer as your cooking aid. Many people eat out because of the hassle of preparing food at home. It might not be tasty, you think, or you might mess it up. Plus, many people don’t want to invest in cookbooks or other methods of teaching themselves how to cook. Wikipedia offers extensive explanations of culinary techniques, even if you’re scared of boiling water. Plus, there are countless recipes available on the internet for dishes of all levels of complexity: RecipeZaar, for example, has thousands of recipes for beginning cooks. Not only will you learn a new skill, but you’ll quickly see how much cheaper it is to cook at home, a process aided by your computer.

11. Make your own calendars and other documents. Many people buy wall calendars for their home when a few printed pages will suffice. “But I don’t have a program that will make a calendar!” you say. Open Office is a free software suite that includes a word processing program, a spreadsheet program, and much more; even more important, it includes templates for making calendars, newsletters, and so forth. We use an old wall calendar for its pretty pictures and just tape printed pages over each month.

12. Save money when you travel. I am consistently surprised at the number of people who still choose to pay high prices by booking flights directly from the airline or through a travel agent when there are numerous easy tools online that will save you tons of money on your travel costs. Priceline, Travelocity, and Expedia all are amazingly easy to search and find the cheapest prices from your location to your destination and back – and they can sometimes save hundreds of dollars on your travel over calling a travel agent or directly calling an airline.

13. Print coupons before you shop. The internet provides unbelievably good access to coupons that you can use at your local grocery store, and a little bit of effort can transform coupons directly into cash. I check sites such as coupons.com before each shopping trip, checking to see if there are any manufacturer coupons available for items I’m going to buy, then just take them to the store with me and convert them to cash at the register.

14. Learn marketable skills. Your computer can teach you a lot, too. When I first purchased my computer, I was an atrocious touch typer, but I utilized sites like Learn2Type and TyperShark to teach myself how to type 80 words per minute. Want to know the intricacies of Word and Excel to better market yourself for a job? Microsoft offers extensive training on how to perform those tasks. You can also learn how to create web pages from scratch. Each of these skills will give you a leg up in the workplace.

The computer can be a very valuable tool – you just have to know how to use it.