Top tips to save money on tech

by Tim Danton , David Fearon , Steve Cassidy , David Bayon , Barry Collins , Darien Graham-Smith , Jonathan Bray , Zara Baxter , Matthew Sparkes , Mike Jennings on Nov 11, 2008

Tags: More | bang | for | your | buck

Free Games
There’s no need to spend $90 on the latest titles, the internet has loads of fantastic free games. TrackMania Nations Forever is a free online arcade racing game with leaderboards full of thousands of players and is horrendously addictive.

Action fans shouldn’t feel left out, either: try America’s Army and Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, both professional-quality first-person shooter titles. For addictive flash games, see www.popcap.com for Peggle, and www.kongregate.com for plenty more. See our top 10 Flash games.

Save: Around $40 to $70 per game

TAKE ADVANTAGE OF DISCOUNT LICENCES
Before stumping up the full retail price for software, check you don’t qualify for a discount-licensing scheme. There are massive savings to be made for people who are in, or who have children in, full-time education. Adobe CS3 Design Premium Student Edition costs $419 on www.citysoftware.com.au, for example, while the full version is a stonking $2265. Don’t be tempted to cheat, though – Adobe requires proof of student ID before dishing out the licence key, and it can’t be used for commercial purposes.

Manufacturers also offer enormous incentives for repeat custom via upgrades. Professional design software AutoCAD LT 2009 costs $2190 from www.pressdigital.com.au, while the upgrade costs $960.

Some upgrade versions of consumer software are less enticing – McAfee Internet Security Suite 2008 is no cheaper than the full version. And remember, such software usually comes with three licences, so you don’t buy new versions for every PC you own.

There is also the thorny issue of OEM software. It’s intended for system builders, and Microsoft officially discourages end users installing it, but such software is freely available. The Vista Ultimate SP1 32-bit OEM version costs $235 on www.itsky.com.au, while the full retail software costs $379.

Save: Up to $1850, by buying the student licence of CS3

USE WINE 1.0

WINE is an application that can ease the transition to Linux if you’ve decided to save money by abandoning paid-for Microsoft operating systems. Standing for “WINE Is Not an Emulator”, it allows you to run Windows applications on a Linux system.

Now’s a good time to start using WINE since, after being in development (and common use) for around 15 years, version 1.0 was finally released in June. The drawback is that most Windows applications have some problems running on WINE. Microsoft Office 2007, for instance, is on WINE’s “silver” list for application compatibility – it runs with “minor issues that do not affect typical usage”. But if you use Photoshop CS2, you’re in luck: it’s rated as platinum – it runs flawlessly.

Save: $349, if you run your Windows apps on Linux rather than buying a copy of Vista Home Premium

SIGN UP FOR MICROSOFT’S ACTION PACK

For IT professionals, the $699 Microsoft Action Pack is seriously good value. It includes regularly updated copies of most of its professional software, including Office 2007, Vista Ultimate, Exchange Server 2007 and Server 2008.

There are provisos: the software can only be used within your business, and you’ll need to take an online training and assessment program to ascertain your suitability for the pack. This is intended for bona fide professionals, after all. Full details at https://partner.microsoft.com/australia/program/managemembership/actionpack

Save: With Windows Server 2008 costing $1979, Vista Ultimate weighing in at $499 and Office 2007 Professional priced at $758, you would save more than $2500 on those three alone

USE ONLINE ALTERNATIVES
Although we’d rather use Microsoft Office than Google Docs (http://docs.google.com), it’s difficult to justify the price. Google’s offering covers the basic features that casual users will need, and with Google Gears in beta testing you can use it like a desktop app.

And, just to prove online apps aren’t only here for the boring things in life, give Adobe Photoshop Express a whirl. This innovative free program takes many of the best features from Photoshop Elements (which costs around $170), so you can quickly enhance pictures by cropping, removing red-eye and adjusting settings such as saturation. Where it falls flat is when you try to make advanced changes, for example to levels and curves, as Express simply doesn’t offer such features.

You can also edit your videos online: head to Jumpcut to
save $150 on Adobe Premiere Elements.

Save: Up to $500 for Microsoft Office Home and Student Edition, Photoshop Express and Premiere Elements alone

Shop around before buying direct
Downloading software directly from the manufacturers’ websites often costs the same as a boxed copy or, sometimes, may even cost more (we’re looking at you, Adobe). You’ll often find better prices if you look at wholesale retailers such as www.shoppingsquare.com.au. For example, at the time of writing Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007 cost $179 from Microsoft, but just $117 from www.itsupply.com.au; while Vista Home Premium was $294, down from Microsoft’s $349.

Save: $55 off the cost of Windows Vista Home Premium

Become a beta tester
Becoming a beta tester not only gives you access to the latest software, but can prove financially rewarding as well.

Manufacturers provide beta software free of charge as quid pro quo for roadtesting their software and reporting bugs. Admittedly, most beta software will eventually time out, but there are perks. Microsoft, for example, gave every beta tester who filed at least one bug report a free copy of Vista Ultimate, saving them $499. Others, including Symantec and Quicken, have reportedly done likewise.

Microsoft’s MSDN Evaluation Center will be the place to find the early betas of Windows 7, Office 14 or any of the software giant’s forthcoming products. You can sign up to become an Adobe beta tester .

Save: More than $499 on a free copy of Vista Ultimate

Update your office phone system to VOIP
Businesses of all sizes are starting to replace rusting analogue PBX boxes in favour of all-digital systems, and the motives are obvious: they already own servers that can do the job, so updating to a VoIP system is as 'simple' as installing appropriate software (much of it free) and buying suitable phones. But its real power lies in its scalability. To demonstrate the timeliness of the idea, contributing editor Jon Honeyball talks about his experiences with 3CX in Advanced Windows.

Save: Hundreds less than an eight-user analogue PBX system
Fly to the United States to buy software
It may seem drastic to fly to the US for your software, but while companies such as Adobe and Microsoft persist in charging us Aussies twice as much, it can make financial sense. Especially with Virgin’s new V Australia starting a price war with Qantas from October onwards.

Consider: a November flight to Los Angeles, with three nights at a four-star hotel, costs around $2100 per head. Office 2007 Professional costs $759 in Australia and $500 in the US. Adobe Creative Suite 3 Design Premium costs $3205 in Australia and $1800 in the US. Let’s say you buy two copies of both: it adds up to $7928 in Australia and, at today’s exchange rates, $5000 from the US. Find a fellow traveler, and you’ll get the retail boxed versions of the software in your suitcase with some spending money left over. Of course, it may prove simpler to persuade a jet-setting friend to purchase software for you, but where’s the fun in that?

Save: $700 in our example, including flights and hotel

This article appeared in the November, 2008 issue of PC Authority.