OpenOffice: Free Open Source Replacement for MS Office Suite

 A friend told me about this a while back, and I forgot about it. Re-discovered it this evening. Very cool.

OpenOffice.org is a multiplatform and multilingual office suite and an open-source project. Compatible with all other major office suites, the product is free to download, use, and distribute…OpenOffice.org the product is a multi-platform office productivity suite. It includes the key desktop applications, such as a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation manager, and drawing program, with a user interface and feature set similar to other office suites. Sophisticated and flexible, OpenOffice.org also works transparently with a variety of file formats, including those of Microsoft Office, and the vendor-neutral OpenDocument standard from OASIS.

http://www.openoffice.org/ 

No frills, no bull, ad-free dictionary for quick lookup

You just type in the word, hit enter, and the definition appears below. I tested a number of fairly obscure words on it, including “imbroglio” and “syzygy.”

http://www.dictionary.hm

Physics drawing/falling/sliding/colliding game

This game is fun. You draw an object, or a line segement, and after you release your mouse button it turns into an object which falls, and eventually comes to rest on a flat surface. Subsequent objects fall and collide with previous objects, and they go bonk-bonk on each other until all the forces settle down.

http://www.enigmasand.com/games/nphys/