Office[edit | edit source]
- OpenOffice.org or LibreOffice (Very similar - forked projects in late 2010, it will become clear later which is the more actively developed project.) Although OpenOffice has its own formats, you can import/export/save files in multiple formats.
- Microsoft format. You can set your default format to Microsoft Office if you are dealing with users who use that product frequently
- Where presentation is most important, perhaps the best choice is to export your files to a PDF. This ensures your formatting will be preserved & that the document will look exactly like you created it. Your recipients can view it with many different PDF readers available for free.
- Where the recipient will expect to edit and reuse the content of the document, avoid PDF and use one of the document formats (OpenDocument or Microsoft). This is especially true if the formatting is important.
Personal information management[edit | edit source]
- Simple text editors such as gedit can be useful for simple tasks. Use a consistent naming pattern and/or use of folders (directories) to enable finding the right file quickly.
- gwrite allows navigation by header, using a left side panel.
- gwrite also allows rich text editing, using HTML format - useful for businesses doing a lot of web work, as it enables cleaner rich text than a word processor. (Currently accepts rich text and retains formatting, but when pasting from gwrite into a web application such as a blog editor, formatting is lost. This may be fixed in future; in the meantime, you can access and edit the source code via View > Source (or Ctrl-U).
Communication[edit | edit source]
- Status.Net microblogging. Has a number of advantages over Twitter, including permanence of posts, groups, sophisticated "in context" threading, and the option of a private network. Useful for staying informed of colleagues' activity and sharing ideas and questions. Unlike Twitter your Status.net instance can promote your organization(ie, the website is yourorganization.status.net or yourorganization.org/status).
- Hosting options include: maintained on your own server, maintained at a hosted site, free cloud instance (upto 100 users), or premium support from Status.net for a monthly fee.
- Messages can be posted via: web, desktop client, mobile client, SMS, email, or IM.
- Status.net can also integrate with twitter as an option
- Email: Usable email programs exist; however these do not have the features of Gmail (which is free-gratis, though not free-as-in-freedom). This is a case where compromises are often made. As Gmail is a cloud solution, regular backups are recommended.
Calendar and scheduling[edit | edit source]
- As with Gmail, Google Calendar may be a more practical option than the open source options, and can easily sync with smart phones; however some calendar programs will sync with Google Calendar, for offline use (especially valuable for areas with unreliable internet).
- Mozilla Lightning is a calendar add on for the popular Thunderbird email program. It works on Linux/Windows/MacOS platforms. It's available in over 30 languages.
Finance[edit | edit source]
Choices will depend on the needs of the organization and the bookkeeping standards of the country. Examples include:
- kmymoney - designed for KDE, but can run with any version of Linux with the required dependencies. (Don't be surprised if it's a 100-200 MB installation on a non-KDE system - however these dependency files are not all used in running the program, so it is not necessarily very demanding of RAM.)
- SQL-Ledger is a more robust enterprise accounting solution. It is open source and platform independent. Data is stored on a database server, and remote access is allowed.
- GNUCash - accounting software program with a double-entry bookkeeping system.
