If your needs are not of the Rolls-Royce variety then there is quite a lot of free and inexpensive software available that does a very good job .  Of course you need to know where to look because there is also a lot of rubbish.

I firmly believe in using free and low cost software from the internet, when it can be found, and when it does the job required well enough.

To demonstrate the quality and usability of what is available I have used several examples of free internet resources in the building of this website. See the panel on the left for details.

The internet is not the only source of free software. Full products are also given away with computer magazines. These are usually the old version and are given away in the hope that you will upgrade to the new version and there is often an offer to encourage you in that direction.

You can even load the source for some of the free software. To my mind this can be a mark of quality a bit like the restaurants that have a glass wall to their kitchens so that you can see that nothing undesirable is hidden away. It also means that you can make minor tweaks.

Similar to freeware, but also different, is software distributed under a shareware concept. Shareware is software that is distributed free on a trial basis with the understanding that the user may need or want to pay for it later. Some software developers offer a shareware version of their program with a built-in expiration date (after 30 days, the user can no longer get access to the program). Other shareware (sometimes called liteware) is offered with certain capabilities disabled as an enticement to buy the complete version of the program. Even Microsoft do that in the form of Outlook Express which is a cut down version of their office product "Outlook".

I am constantly looking for free and low cost software which may be of use to my clients. I may already have what you are looking for or if not maybe I can find it for you. Give me a call or email to discuss. With my software development background, I am very much able to access the packages for quality.

This is particularly true for packages the provide source. For these I may also be able to make small tweaks if the software nearly does what you require.