Free Software: Your Best Freelance Resources
Working freelance from home does not come cheap. Basically, you would have to pay for everything that you require to work freelance from home. Just some of the things that you would need is atleast spartan office furniture, a computer, a file cabinet, a telephone or even a fax machine and several other objects that come quite down the list. Considering all these costs and then thinking about the insane cost of software, you would think that you are starting up a small business - which is true - but that does not mean that you have to pay through your nose for software for your computer. Here are some of the best resources that you could use for work from home.
Free Internet Browsers:
Firefox: A browser that had grown consistently and rampantly since the past few years. The browser is known to be one of the first pieces of software that came from the then ambiguous 'Open Source' clan and was widely appreciated and accepted by mainstream people. Would you not like to become friends with this champion of the underdog, Firefox? If you do, it is quite simple, and free! Just download a copy from the Net and you are on for the ride.
Opera: Opera is another browser that yin and yangs between being the best browser and being the pits. However, it silences all its critics with the next release, every time, and that next release launch timeframe is quite short. Definitely a check worthy software if you are one who 'doesn't want what everyone has'.
There are several more Internet browsers that are available and free. You could always check the various types and find out which browser looks good for you. I personally use Firefox and Opera.
Free Word Processing Software:
Open Office: The war between Microsoft and Open Source has been epic, and Microsoft has been losing all the battles, though it still came out trumps in the great war with Windows 7. Anyway, one battle that Microsoft is slowly losing is the Word Processing domain, that Microsoft basically owned with MS Office. However, some five years ago there cam options for all Microsoft products, and so did one come for Word Processing - Open Office.
When Open Office was launched, it was quite like MS Word, and was actually a good software if you could learn how to operate it with the ease that you could operate a Microsoft product. It took some time for it to offer .doc support, but all that is a thing of the past today,with Open Office slowly creeping up against its old time rival.
Open Office was definitely a work in progress when I first saw it, some three years ago, but I am sure that it has come a long way from that. It has to, because of the next entry in this tab.
Google Docs: Think about Google and you wonder what aspect of the Internet and computers is it enhancing next, and if you are thinking whether it has come to changing the way we handle our online documentation, the answer is yes. Google Docs can be considered to be a word processing software along with some social sharing aspects, but I am not a tech geek, and I do not know whether I used to right term there. But Google Docs allows you to share your document, online, and then share with any person who has a gmail account, and both of you can work and edit the document in real time. Isn't that sweet? - Yes, it is.
Free Online Billing Software:
Curdbee: Curdbee is a cute and nifty little free online billing tool that makes your invoices to your clients seem more snazzy than the typical Excel or Word document. Play with the software a bit and you will understand that it is the best thing to happen since sliced bread, not the software, but the idea of free online billing software.
Billing Boss: Another free online billing software, the working of this and Curdbee is almost the same, with the user creating an account and then adding their clients to their account. This software basically snazzies up your invoice.
Invoicera: Invoicera is another software that basically makes your online billing software free. All you have to do is to create a profile on the site, add your clients, determine the type of payments that you would like to go with and you can send your clients a request for your payment right from within the site.
