I think we’ve been taking for granted the amount of quality free software out there that’s powering our lives now. Google will be the best known name, and then there’s Picasa, iTunes, flickr, Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, YouTube, Open Office etc, not to mention WordPress, which is powering this blog here. In my mind, these free softwares are amazing, for their quality and the empowering tools they provide me.
Paying for software has hence become something strange, something we shouldn’t do, because all the best things in life are free. I guess I’m asking now if these free softwares are really free…
I know all these free programs will try to earn the money somehow. Google is famous for its Google ads. iTunes for its music. What about all the other free softwares out there? How are they making their money?
Instead of really analysing this question, I’ve recently intentionally purchased 2 softwares, something I haven’t done for a while – most of the softwares are either free, comes with the PC or come from “friends”. I’ve recently purchased Toodledo on iPhone, and The Journal.
I use a todo list often and after trawling over numerous other iphone apps, I’ve finally settled on Toodledo. I find it has the best balance of simplicity and complexity. In fact, i’ve actually switched off most of the complexity on the iPhone app, and try to keep it to the minimum, so that I can see exactly what needs to be done without other distractions. Just for your information, I’ve compared Things, WhatTasks, Remember The Milk, EasyTask Manager, OmniFocus and other not so famous ones like ZenBe List, Nlist, Done, CheckOff, Tree Task and WhatTasks.
The Journal has been tugging at me for a few years now. I didn’t go for it because of its price. Hey, after all, a journal is just a text document. You can type it anywhere. But I come to realise the importance of having a software to get out of the way of writing the journal itself. So, it has to be as bare as possible, and yet allows quick entries and powerful searches.
An internet blogging solution works, but I have doubts about security and connectivity sometimes can be a distraction as well. I now journal offline so that I won’t suddenly check out a link, check my email, view a clip and after a while, i’m not very far down the road of journaling.
So is paying for software worth it? For those things that are really important to you, definitely, provided you can’t find a cheaper alternative of course. 
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7 Comments
whoa, whoa, whoa.. iPhone? Where’s your blurb about this!?!! I’m actually in the market and thought about an iPhone, but now leaning more towards either a blackberry curve or blackberry bold due to not being fond of the virtual keyboard.
Regarding internet blogging, I do all of my blogging from a blog client (windows live writer), so it’s bare and distraction free. Security *can* be an issue, and while I am generally overly paranoid, the likelihood of someone wanting to *really* check out my private wordpress thoughts is probably quite low. I mean, who cares what I think about fish or cats, right?
What has helped me in terms of productivity and such is doing the big rocks first (bills, tasks, meditation, journaling, etc) before I succumb to the potential black whole of the internet. However, you’re carrying one of the most alluring devices of offtrack searching in the palm of your hand
Are you forced to keep an active unlimited data plan? For me, this is more of a distraction as I have learned to compartmentalize my internet time.
I admit to being a technology follower, even if I’m in the business. Wouldn’t it be more straightforward to take a piece of paper and just make a cotton picking list?
@wujimon: The virtual keyboard took a bit of getting used to, but now, I could type much faster than a physical one. and yes, I do have a mobile broadband, but so far, i’ve only been using 1/30th of the capacity (30 GB plan). i just check my emails/facebook and read the papers. I also use the ipod function to listen to economist. so i only carry one now. i think that’s the major advantage to me. the organising bit is still not as good as Palm, but i’m making do. u might want to consider Palm Pre?
@Rick: I used to have plenty of bits of paper. Now I have all these bits on my phone.
You can try voo2do.com, it’s got quite a simple and elegant to do list, and it’s FREE
it’s only available online. I need an offline version.
And google has just added a free Tasks for iPhone. i suppose the offline version will come pretty soon. sigh…
Maybe there’s something of interest here:
http://collaboration360.blogspot.com/2009/02/best-practices-of-desktop-strategists-2_04.html
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