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Reduce cost for software on home PC

When I first bought a Laptop my greatest concern was where do I get the software from, since I also wanted to work from home. My company did provide me an old one but once I started getting used to the speed of my personal laptop, I find that one really slow. Also here laptop means notebook for some people who wanna just be different.

Since I already used to spend (constructively pass) my time learning and knowing about open source movement, GPL, LGPL and stuffs like that I scanned, searched, googled (this should be a new word added to the English dictionary), checked out sourceforge.net and freshmeat and many other open source sites to find softwares I can use.
First when I was looking for software I categorized them into these basic categorize:

Security:
First and the most important concern. I wanted an anti-virus, that was free and had subscription. I got Symantec with the HP laptop so I am using it until the subscription expires. Then maybe I will search some anti-virus which is free for personal use. AVG is fine and there are others free for personal use.
I wanted a firewall (my XP came with one but I wanted one more, industrial strength) so I got the free personal Sygate personal firewall.
I wanted a spy-ware removal tool and I read somewhere that keeping oe is asking for trouble so I wanted a suite. So I got the Lavasoft Ad-aware, Microsoft anti-Spyware and Spyware Search &. All 3, you must be thinking that I am paranoid. But hey who doesn't want to be carefully these days. There are kids hacking and phreaking these days, even before they know what values are. Sometimes they don't know ethics being brought up in an ethically illiterate family.
Office/Word Processing:
Then I needed a office product in which I can open word, excel and powerpoint documents and edit them also. MS office is a very expensive software. So I went ahead and installed OpenOffice. Its good but it lacks the mail client. But I got that from IE because they bundle outlook express with any windows. I am writing this using OpenOffice.
Multimedia/Entertainment:
The I wanted a audio player. Yes, media player is there, but I wanted something in which I can burn. Choose itunes, guess because I am attracted to the apple look and feel. Can't afford and apple computer, so I guess I should get the looks. Also it was free. I did try winamp, but I don't why it has become slow to load and all its other problem. Also these two can play most of the formats, except maybe real , but I don't use audio or video so I guess I am safe. Anytime I need it I have the installable. But then mplayer is always there.
Also for images, I love Irfanview. I am a fan of Irfanview. Its awesome, loads fast and can open any media file if you install the plugins for it.
I use the windvd for dvd as that came with the laptop which has the dvd drive. I also am a fan of Media Center though I did try to configure the Media Portal but ran out of patience.
Once you install the codecs even media player can play dvds.

Desktop:
I love the apple dock which comes in Mac. So I got the rockedock, so that I can get to my programs without having to pop up the start menu.
I like to see the emails coming in and weather and IM, so I also installed the desktop side bar from desktopsidebar.com.
For archiving (zipping and unzipping) I use 7-zip, an open source software that can handle Unix and Linux format also. Its interface is also great and easy to handle. Winzip has a nicest interface, but I don't want to pay for anything. I have already paid the dues to the industry by buying the hardware and the OS. I wanted Linux, but it has some limitations, the one being I do less work and start hacking it around and then end up with a dead machine. So I decided, I will not play with Linux on my laptop. Don't know if I can get support from HP if something goes wrong.
I use yahoo/goocal as a place to store all my PIM data. I can sync it up with outlook and I can sync my outlook with my Xda. So I keep my outlook (to do, address book and calendar) in sync with my outlook and Palm. I use intellisync from yahoo to sync outlook and yahoo. I get reminded when on road when my treo beeps and I get remind on my laptop when my outlook reminds me.
IM/ Chat:
I am logged in almost all the IM tools. Yahoo, MSN, Google, AIM, ICQ and even some jabber servers. So i needed one (other than the one offered by them). So I use gaim and Miranda. The later as it integrates with the sidebar very nicely. Both can connect to all the services. I also have their native clients whenever I want to have a audio or video chat I use them.
Networking:
I use putty to telnet to Unix servers. Its free and open source. I have even modified the code to get the interface I wanted. Guess the many other users don't want that so I haven't sent the source to the author. The source with me and I don't distribute the binary alone anyway.
I use Filezilla for connecting to ftp server. It has an easy interface and is way faster than ws-ftp. Guys in schools use this instead of buying any other software. This can also support secure ftp.
Development:
For project management and scheduling I use Ganttproject. It can read from Microsoft project files thought still editing is a problem and Microsoft project does some crazy with the schedule which may look perfect with Ganttproject. Its written in Java so it does consumes memory, then what the heck, it no money.
For development I use Eclipse, the head of IDEs. Netbeans is also good but I haven't coded in C++ in it so I chose eclipse. It hoges memory but don't all the development tool do that. I have eclipse configured with JDT (for Java development), checklipse, CDT ( for C/C++ tools), ME, webdav tools, CVS, SVS and ftp plugins. I keep adding and removing plugins whenever released. I love this IDE, its simple and I also wanted a database plugin. I would love if the people of Squirrel can have a plugin for this. Then I don't have to run eclipse and sql client.
For database as I have already hinted I use Squirrel sql client. It can connect to any RDBMS that can provide you a JDBC driver. You can fire sql with code complete so you don't have to remember the table names. It can also draw you ER diagram of existing tables and their relationships. Whats missing is database modeling. I guess that can be added as this tools also support plugins.
For conversion of video file, there is no other software than mediacoder from sourceforge. Awesome, easy and quick. I like my Core 2 Duos to do and this software makes sure they get the crunching to do.

I hope this helps people who want to do what they can do in office, at home and that also in the no. I am aware of all the things about IP and patents but come on there are many stupid patents granted for non-intellectual stuffs that I had to use my intellect to get around it. I found open source software as a very good alternative. Think about the fact if all the great scientist on whose work our life depends on. They never were able to see what great things they have made. If they wanted they could have kept it closed.