We decided to buy a laptop for Christmas. We were given some money for a family present by hubby's parents, some more from my brother, and we put in some, and found a decent laptop for a very good price. It came with Vista, but, being a Toshiba, we were able to upgrade to Windows 7 for about $30. Can I say - I'm in love! It works so much better than our other, second-hand, slow computers! I can sit in the recliner, with the laptop on my lap and fiddle with my pictures, write fanfic, and blog. ('Cause I'm back - honest!)
Anyway, along with the laptop, you also need programs. I like writing, amongst other stuff, and so need an office suite. Rather than pay more money than I have for Windows, I use Open Office. To be honest, I now prefer Open Office to Windows. For my photos, I use Picasa. I did get the Creative Memories program, but have gone back to Picasa. For me, Picasa is easier, especially since I use my photos for blogging, adding to Flickr, and other stuff. I don't do digital scrapbooking, so I don't need that functionality. And I just prefer the look of Picasa.
When I need to do more with a photo that Picasa can do, I use Gimp. This is a free Photoshop alternative. I don't have a lot of experience with it, and certainly can't justify the cost of buying Photoshop just to touch up some photos. I really can't compare it with Photoshop since I've never used the other program, but it appears to have similar functionalities.
So, anyway, I'm now a very happy camper, playing with my photos, writing my stories, and doing other stuff without huge lumps of money going to other people. Very happy :D And hopefully my experiences can help some others.
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