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Open source solutions

The idea of using Open Source software to replace commercial solutions is now pretty common. It still seems that open source is reserved for the more technical savvy user, slowly but surely more and more people are begining to turn to open source as a real alternative to the big commercial products.

Where do you start?

If you're anything like me you'll like to try before you buy. My general way of dealing with any administration issue or a workflow problem that I'm trying to overcome is to search online for a solution. Try several keyword combinations of what your looking for, i.e. 'project management', 'free project management', 'php project management', and you'll get a good idea from the search listings which products are available. Viewing the website of the products find out what is offer, whether it's free, commercial or may have a 30 day trial.

Once I've found the products that interest me I'll begin to look at the screenshot of the product, try out a demo and view any chat forums to find out what people say about the products.

The only other thing left to do is test it out for yourself in the environment that you will use it in.

It's only really after using the product that you'll actually get a feel for whether it will suit your needs or not.

Sometimes it can come down to a matter of taste. Whether it's open source or commercial, if it has a steep learning curve, or it just doesn't work in the way that suits you.

Here's my list of Open Source favourites:

• Open office - Desktop publishing, Microsoft Office replacement
• Collabtive - Project Management solution
• Thunderbird - Email Client

If you're interested in trying before you buy you test a multitude of open source solutions at www.opensourceCMS.com. There's a whole range of free web based products to test out.

About the author

Robert studied graphic design and then interactive design at college and university. Initally finding his feet in the world of work creating graphics for television idents, before turning his hand to creating the company website. This began his love affair with the web. Rob loves to get stuck up to his eye balls in photoshop layers and occasionally likes to frazzle his brain with PHP and Javascript.