But don’t worry, there’s always freeware alternative for you (err…at least for non-commercial use). I’m going to list out several categories here, and in each category I’ll list out its potential freeware replacement(s) with some quality. The list is NOT intended to list out ALL the alternatives but merely my personal pick.

• Antivirus – I’ve to agree that Kaspersky Antivirus and Nod32 are great antivirus, but there are a few decent FREE alternatives of Antivirus for non-commercial use for you to pick – namely AOL AVS (which I’m using now, it’s running on Kaspersky engine), Avira Antivir Personal Edition, Free Avast and Grisoft AVG Free Edition

• Spyware scanner - Microsoft AntiSpyware is my favourite (of course you need a genuine copy of WinXP), but Bazooka, Ad-aware and Spybot S&D are not too bad for free anti-spyware tool.

• Compression tool - WinRAR is admittedly a very good compression tool with complete functionality, but in case you are not ready to pay for a compression tool, 7-zip does equally well (although it doesn’t look as good, 7z has a much better compression rate compare to the rar format)

• Audio tool - Adobe Premiere and and Sound Forge are the de facto standard for audio-editing software, they are definitely NOT cheap. If you’re only looking for a simpler audio editing tool, the open source Audacity is good enough for you.

• CD/DVD Burning software – Nero Burning ROM is the most popular burning software but if you’re looking for something free CDBurnerXP Pro is not THAT bad.

• Office Suite – It’s indeed hard to find replacement for Microsoft Office (mainly because of the compatibility issue), but if the high license fee is a concern for you, you can give Open Office a try.

• PDF Utilities – if you want to convert DOC file to PDF, you don’t need Adobe Acrobat Professional. Instead you can try PDF Creator. They are also alternatives like PDF995, Primo PDF but they are ad-supported.

• Graphic editing tool – Adobe Photoshop is so popular that it has become a verb already (OMG I photoshopped the pic!), but it’s not something that normal home users can afford. The nearest free alternative to Photoshop is GIMPShop (which is based on GIMP). If you are looking for enhanced version of Microsoft Paint, Paint.NET is not a bad choice.

That’s all for now. Feel free to add in anything here, and if you’re looking for a full list, I’d suggest you to visit the below sites:

• Neowin’s Freeware Alternative List
• LYN Common Software Links (freeware unless stated otherwise)

Creative Commons is basically a site created by Lawrence Lessig (a prominent law professor) which essentially simplifies copyright law, modernises it, and gives a creator full control of their rights. A full description of what it is about is available here.

We’ve opted to regulate our site under Creative Commons because it is simple and understandable by anyone. We’ve retained certain rights, such as that of attribution. We’ve relinquished other rights, such as that of reproducing our works on another site – you’re free to do it. If we hadn’t done so, you would have infringed our copyright by copying and pasting our works onto your site. Technically (exceptions might apply) anyway.

A full list of the different licenses available under the Creative Commons project is available here. For spherebox, we’ve chosen to retain our rights to attribution, non-commercial, and the ‘share-alike’ right. The first two are self-explanatory. Basically, when you take our works, you have to attribute us as the authors. That is simply enough done – you basically stick a link with the words ‘original article at ryan.spherebox.com by Ryan Ratilal’. The non-commercial stipulation means you can’t take our work and sell it for a profit, which is commonsense since we ourselves aren’t making money from this.

Share-alike is less obvious. What we’ve opted to take is to stipulate that should you take our works, you have to license it under similar conditions. For example, if you reproduce this article on your site, it too has to have the right of attribution, the non-commercial stipulation and the ‘share-alike’ right. We have also opted not to use the ‘No Derivative Works’ license because we want our works to be taken, improved upon, and republished! It means you’re free to edit our articles, add to it, remove the wrong bits, make it all shiny and humorous and add it to your site.

I’ve included a magazine article I found from the IEEE magazine which featured an interview with Lawrence Lessig and he talks about the Creative Commons project and what it is about, what it means and why its important. Download it from here.

If you haven’t already done so, head over to Creative Commons and choose a license for your site!