"Our Business is making your business better!"
Office Suite: Ashampoo Office Suite: I paid $9.99 for this and it is very compatible with Office with much lower resource usage than MS or Open Office. This suite contains a word processor, spreadsheet, & presentation software. I like it because it loads fast, creates both text and image frames and exports to PDF. Although it doesn't include a database component, it does have a built in mailing list/address book feature.
Desktop Publishing: PagePlus X3 by Serif. $19.99 (including PDF Export & Import) A lot of the features of the high end DTP software but at a fraction of the cost.
Movie Making: AVS Video Editor: (includes a great audio editor) $59.00 Better than Photo Shop Premiere with more features at half the price.
Disc Burning: StarBurn- like I said previously, will do most of what you want, just disable the default toolbar & homepage settings while installing
Website Design: Wysiwyg Web Builder 6: $39 Excellent website software. What You See is What You Get interface. Built in navigation menus, buttons, forms, etc. You can easily add html scripts, directly add .Swf files and has a built in site manager and ftp capabilities.
Photo Editing: PhotoPlus 8 $9.99 Contains a lot of the features of Photo Shop at a small
fraction of the cost.
E-mail: Mozilla Thunderbird Free Multiple e-mail accounts, multiple address books with Lists
(Groups)
E-mail: Poppeeper Free-More than an e-mail notifier, also check your inbox before downloading
Ok, so I was off by a little. If you don't need a movie maker & chances are you don't, or can get by with Windows Movie Maker, then I was way under $100!
Desktop Publishing: PagePlus X3 by Serif. $19.99 (including PDF Export & Import) A lot of the features of the high end DTP software but at a fraction of the cost.
Movie Making: AVS Video Editor: (includes a great audio editor) $59.00 Better than Photo Shop Premiere with more features at half the price.
Disc Burning: StarBurn- like I said previously, will do most of what you want, just disable the default toolbar & homepage settings while installing
Website Design: Wysiwyg Web Builder 6: $39 Excellent website software. What You See is What You Get interface. Built in navigation menus, buttons, forms, etc. You can easily add html scripts, directly add .Swf files and has a built in site manager and ftp capabilities.
Photo Editing: PhotoPlus 8 $9.99 Contains a lot of the features of Photo Shop at a small
fraction of the cost.
E-mail: Mozilla Thunderbird Free Multiple e-mail accounts, multiple address books with Lists
(Groups)
E-mail: Poppeeper Free-More than an e-mail notifier, also check your inbox before downloading
Ok, so I was off by a little. If you don't need a movie maker & chances are you don't, or can get by with Windows Movie Maker, then I was way under $100!
We have a very small husband/wife business here in Northern Michigan. Since our business is so small, our profit margin is slim, so we have to keep expenses to a minimum. We feel that Microsoft, Adobe, & the like offer quality but over priced and needlessly bloated software. You do not have to pay a high price to get quality software.
Here is the software Rainy River Consulting Uses for Business Purposes:
Here is the software Rainy River Consulting Uses for Business Purposes:
Our Office
Both Serif and Ashampoo require registration with e-mail to use their software. You will get offers and newsletters from them, however you will not get any 3rd party spam as a result of their registration process. You can easily opt out from their mailing lists. However, through their e-mails is how I managed to get some real bargains on their software!