Free Alternatives to Pricey Computer Software

By Ryan Lynch  |  wisebread.com  |  June 25, 2014

So you just forked over a boatload of cash for a shiny new PC, but before you can really do anything other than watch YouTube videos and make crude Microsoft Paint drawings, you have to shell out even more to get the software. With today's leading applications costing hundreds of dollars, editing your photos or managing your finances can leave your wallet feeling substantially lighter. But fret not, for the Internet is your bank account's salvation from pricey PC programs! (See also: The Most Underrated Software You May Already Own)

A Quick Word on Free/Open Source Programs

Software that is developed as "freeware" will almost always have certain limitations compared to the paid apps that they seek to emulate. As such, one simply cannot expect these free programs to offer the same range of features and/or functionality present in their costlier counterparts. That being said, many free or open source alternatives can get the job done without you having to spend a fortune.
Microsoft Office vs. LibreOffice

The Office suite by Microsoft is hands down the number one application that people spend money on. Whether by accident or by design, Microsoft Office is the tool virtually every business, school, and casual user uses to compose their digital documents. As Microsoft continues their market domination of office software, they offer a dizzying number of products and payment options, from subscription based services to one time license fees.

If paying $100+ to write your Twilight fan fiction sounds unreasonable, you're not alone. A non-profit organization, The Document Foundation, developed LibreOffice in 2010, an office suite including (but not limited to) programs similar to Microsoft Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Visio, and Access. The programs resemble the layouts of their Microsoft counterparts, and are generally compatible with Microsoft file types. Of course, LibreOffice has its pros and cons.

Pay Yourself First: The Habit That Can Help You Build Wealth

By Marisa Torrieri  |  learnvest.com  |  July 21, 2014

You always say that you'll up your retirement contributions (next pay period, you promise!) or stash a little extra in your emergency fund, but somehow another month passes and you still haven’t done it.

The problem is likely that by the time you’ve paid for everything else—rent, groceries, utilities and maybe even a few dinners out—you often don’t have enough left to add to savings … at least not until your next paycheck. And so the cycle goes.

If this sounds familiar, it could mean you’re not in the habit of paying yourself first, which isn’t the same as spending money on yourself. “Paying yourself first means saving before you do anything else,” says David Blaylock, CFP® with LearnVest Planning Services. “Try and set aside a certain portion of your income the day you get paid beforeyou spend any discretionary money. Most people wait and only save what’s left over—that’s paying yourself last.”

In other words, the goal of paying yourself first is to help make sure your future self’s key financial goals are covered, including building up an emergency fund, contributing to retirement and saving for any other long-term goals, like a down payment on a new home. Bottom line: It’s important to have these bases coveredbefore you spend any portion of your paycheck on, say, a happy hour with friends.

Of course, this means you need to get into the mind-set of paying yourself first—and that can be a challenge for even the most money-savvy among us.

Political Cartoon

Decisions have consequences - Dixon

By Eric Allie  |  townhall.com  |  July 25, 2014

Man in road rage incident run over by own truck

Staff Report  |  The Gainsville Sun  |  July 22, 2014

A man who police say had been drinking was involved in a road rage incident during a downpour Tuesday evening and was injured when he was run over by his own pickup truck.

Joseph H. Carl, 48, 1012 NE 15th Place, drove his truck into the rear of a vehicle in front of him that was stopped at a traffic light at 2500 NW 43rd St. around 6:50 p.m., according to a Gainesville Police Department report.

Carl then jumped out and began banging on the driver's window and yelling at the woman inside, apparently neglecting to put his pickup into park.

The driver of the other vehicle was frightened and drove away, leaving nothing to hold back Carl's Dodge 1500 truck.

The truck began to roll, and Carl, standing in front of the vehicle, put out his arms and tried to stop it, but it ran over him, the report said.

Obama Abandons Israel at the U.N. Security Council

The United States Lowers Israel's Diplomatic Shield at the United Nations

By Colum Lynch  |  Foreign Policy  |  July 28, 2014

Despite a history of rocky relations between U.S. President Barack Obama and
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Obama administration could
largely be counted on to watch Israel's back in the U.N. Security Council, where it
succeeded for more than five years in blocking successive efforts by the

Palestinians to gain more of the trappings of an independent state and to get the
world body to formally censure Israeli settlement policies.

That changed after the stroke of midnight Sunday when, in the early minutes of
Monday, July 28, the U.N. Security Council, with the backing of the United States,
issued a formal "presidential statement" demanding that Israel and Hamas
implement an "immediate and unconditional" cease-fire to end fighting that has
left more than 1,000 Palestinians and 43 Israelis dead. The Palestinians say they
will continue to seek Security Council support for a legally enforceable resolution
demanding that Israel halt its military offensive in Gaza.

The latest U.N. diplomacy comes during a period of deepening tensions between
the United States and Israel over the course of Israel's military operation in Gaza,
which Obama maintains needs to stop now, but which Netanyahu insists must be
allowed to continue in order to destroy Hamas's network of subterranean tunnels
used for raids on Israel. "I understand that Israel can't have a cease-fire in which
they are not able to -- that somehow the tunnels are never going to be dealt with.The tunnels have to be dealt with. We understand that; we're working at that,"

A Florida Widow Sued A Tobacco Company And Won $23.6 Billion

By Jim Dalrymple II  |  BuzzFeed  |  July 20,  2014

A Florida jury handed down a massive $23.6 billion judgment Friday against R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., the second largest cigarette producer in the U.S.

The damages were awarded to Cynthia Robinson, who sued Reynolds on behalf of her husband Michael Johnson Sr., a longtime smoker. Johnson died of lung cancer in 1996, the Associated Press reports. Robinson filed her lawsuit in 2008 and Friday’s award comes at the conclusion of a four-week trial.

The jury also awarded Robinson $16.8 million in compensatory damages.

Robinson’s lawyers said their goal was to stop tobacco companies from targeting children.

This weak and timid President talks big... and does nothing: A devastating attack on Obama by a top Washington insider

By Clarke S. Judge  |  The Daily Mail  |  July 19, 2014

At a political event in Wilmington, Delaware, on Thursday, President Obama devoted only 40 seconds to the shooting down of the Malaysian airline, his first statement to the world following the news.

His emotionless reference to the attack as ‘a terrible tragedy’ seemed disconnected from the horrific moment, particularly as he immediately reverted to script to praise his administration and criticise Republicans.

It was a far cry from President Reagan’s 1983 fierce denunciation of the Soviet shooting down of a Korean airliner as a ‘crime against humanity’.

But it only confirmed the chaos into which US foreign policy has descended since the summer of 2012 when reporters at a White House briefing asked Mr Obama about the security of chemical weapons in the Syrian stockpile.

The commander in chief went beyond safety and said: ‘We have been very clear to the Assad regime … that a red line for us is [when] we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilised.’

Man who escaped death TWICE

Man who escaped death TWICE: Cyclist was scheduled to fly on both MH17 and MH370... but changed his mind at the last minute

By Shejana Farberov  |  The Daily Mail  |  July 19, 2014

Dutch cyclist Maarten de Jonge is one very lucky man, having cheated death twice in the past four months. 

De Jonge was scheduled to fly aboard Flight MH370, which vanished without a trace in March, and he also had a ticket for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17, which was downed by a missile this week over the Ukraine - but he changed his travel arrangements at the last minute in both cases. 

On Friday, the 29-year-old professional athlete issued a statement on his official site confirming that he was supposed to take the doomed MH17 flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur Thursday, but he pushed back his departure by several days.

'What has happened is terrible, so many victims, that's a horrible thing,' de Jonge wrote in a statement translated from Dutch. 

De Jonge told the Netherlands station RTV Oost that despite his second brush with death, he plans to take another Malaysia Airlines plane this week and has no concerns for his safety. 

‘I have been lucky twice, that's the third time as well,’ de Jonge reportedly said. 

Of Horses, Politicians, and Fences

By Robert Charles  |  American Thinker  |  July 19. 2014

Unbridled horses tend to think they are wild. For that reason, fences were made. Politicians unbounded by law -- or who think themselves unbounded by law -- tend toward running wild, toward the commission of deeper and wider intrusions on personal liberty. As Americans, we are now living thorough a consequential moment. Like it or not, we are witness to accelerating executive abuse.  

Lack of legal fencing, or an unwillingness to use legal fencing that exists, leads inexorably to runaway behavior. Uncorrected and deterred, small breaches of accountability accelerate. We all know this. We know this of our everyday lives, even as we know this of political leadership. Lord Acton noted that "power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." The corollary is this: Incremental and tolerated abuse of public trust produces larger and more frequent abuses of power.

Do you doubt the basic principle? Just go to a bookshelf – or google – any of the thousands of pages written by James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, our fourth and third presidents respectively, Father of the Bill of Rights and writer of the Declaration of Independence. Or flip open Plato's Republic, in which Socrates describes a "democracy" which cannot unify and hold leaders accountable as destined for "tyranny." Not my words, nothing Democratic or Republican, just Plato's candid assessment, written over a millennium ago.

If you prefer, look to history. Take King George III, whose abuses built on each other, small oppressions, larger regulations, unjust taxes, until they triggered a movement -- the American Democracy.  Once unified, democratic disposition and love of individual freedom is hard to suppress. Out of George III's abuses, we got the world's most successful, open, pluralistic, limited and stable republican government.

Q and A: Keep your browsing secret

By Kim Kamando  |  USA Today  |  July 14, 2014

Q. I'm getting really tired of ad companies tracking what I do online so they can send me more annoying ads. What can I do to get rid of them?

A. Every major Web browser – Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Opera – has private, or incognito, browsing. Turning this on means your browser will ignore cookies – including ad-tracking cookies – and won't record your browsing history. It's almost like you weren't online.

To fire up private browsing, just hit CTRL+SHIFT+P (CTRL+OPTION+P on Macs). This works in every browser except Chrome. In Chrome, the shortcut is CTRL+SHIFT+N (OPTION+SHIFT+N on Macs). You can also enable private browsing mode from your browser's main menu.

When your browser is in private browsing mode, it will show a special icon. If you don't see a purple mask in Firefox, the spy in Chrome or the "InPrivate" in IE, then you aren't secure.