I believe that it isn''t quite fair to charge hundreds of dollars for high-tech programs - especially since once they are made the cost to the developers is essentially zero. So how can you avoid paying top-dollar and still get the same functionality? The answer is simple: Programmers love what they do. They think it''s incredibly fun to make software - so fun that some of them are willing to do it for free. I know I''m one of them. It''s called Free/Open Source software. The problem is that many people don''t know what it is or where to get it or which ones are user-friendly. So to spare you the research I''ve made a list of my favorite replacement programs for really expensive software - with a short description of each of them. Enough of my needlessly long introduction...