If you’re running any kind of organization, a suite of office software is essential — at the very least, you need a fairly good word-processing program, a spreadsheet application, and some sort of presentation software. Feature-rich Microsoft Office has made that particular market its own for at least the past decade, but now a few strong ...

This is the third part of our series on free and open-source software and the resources to help your organization make the most of what FOSS has to offer. When you need to know the meaning of a word, you flip open a dictionary. It’s a trusted authority. It gives the information you need to use an essential tool (language) more ...

This is the second part in our series taking a closer look at free and open-source software: the real costs, the barriers, and the trade-offs; the best FOSS alternatives to “brand name” software; and the resources to help you make the most of it. One of the on-going criticisms of free or open-source software (FOSS), as a general class of ...

As more cash-strapped non-profits, businesses, and individuals turn to free or open-source software to stretch their budgets, the open-source movement is booming. There may be no better time to talk frankly about the realities of using free or open-source software in your organization. For just about any type of “brand name” software you can ...

The trick to effective mind mapping is finding the right tool for the job — whether that tool is pen and paper, as Guy Lewis used to unravel his personal life, or dedicated software, as Patrick Lynch used to explain Wild Apricot’s features to his colleagues. What is Mind Mapping? Mind mapping is a non-linear, highly visual method of ...

If your organization makes PowerPoint slideshows for special events, meetings and conferences, you've probably put a lot of time and effort into creating each one. Why not get extra mileage from those PowerPoint presentations by putting them onto your website or blog for others to see? Here are four different ways to share PowerPoint files on ...

Cross-browser compatibility has long been a frustration for website designers. What looks fine in one browser may be more or less “broken” in another, with sidebars shifted and elements overlapping... But does it really matter, how your website looks in different browsers, in the big picture of what your organization is trying to accomplish with ...

''Welcome to the age of the crowd,'' wrote Jeff Howe in The Rise of Crowdsourcing (2006). In coining the term crowdsourcing, Howe pointed to the rise of the open-source software movement; to the success of user-created Wikipedia; and to profitable businesses like MySpace and eBay ''that couldn't exist without the contribution of users.'' Howe put ...

When we caught up with educator Dave Riddell on Twitter the other day, he was looking for a new low-cost tool to create and edit PDF files — the web's default format for sharing printable documents. Here, for the benefit of other Macintosh users, he shares his picks for free open-source PDF software. PDF Tools for Mac As an educator, I ...