If you liked my previous post Start a blog with 0 cash you will surely like this.

I’m an Ubuntu user and a Linux fan. I will point out several reasons why you should opt in for Ubuntu on your machine. The main reason: EVERYTHING IS FREE

Image editing

Everybody knows that most of the Windows products are not free (the main reason for piracy).
If you own a blog you surely are editing some images before you post them right ?

Let’s see … for Windows a good photo editing software is Adobe Photoshop. Yes, it’s good and many people use it … but how much does it cost ? If you don’t know … lemme tell you: $649 for the new CS3.
Not many of us can afford this, right ?

If you use Ubuntu you get GIMP already installed. What are you thinking … it’s something new … it might take time for me to learn to use it. Well … NO. I first learned to edit images with Photoshop and it’s the same in GIMP.
Hope I made my point so far.
Ubuntu – 0$
Windows – $649

Video editing

Windows comes with Windows Movie Maker. You could say it’s free … but it isn’t. Didn’t you already buy the Windows CD ? I assure you … the price includes the cash for Windows Movie Maker to.
If you use a better application for editing movies you surely need to pay cash to get the full version. I’d say at least $40 for the application.

Under Ubuntu you can record and edit videos with these tools for free.
And after you finish editing the movie and you are ready to post it to your blog … you might wanna convert it to a smaller size video format for faster loading and viewing.
I recommend WinFF. It works great.

Windows + $40
Ubuntu + $0

Managing your files

There are a lot of FTP manager applications out there. One of the most known is CuteFTP. How much does it cost ? If you take a look on their website is says: Starting at $39.99

gFTP is my choice for Ubuntu. Simple, lightweight and free and I guess that I said enough … again.

Windows + $39.99
Ubuntu + $0

Using other devices

I like to write stuff when I’m on the go on my PDA (which is always in my pocket). When you get back home you surely won’t like to write that stuff again while reading from your PDA. You need to transfer the files to your work computer.
The best for mobile device synchronizing under Windows is Microsoft Active Sync. You already paid for it when you bought Windows.

On Ubuntu you can synchronize your mobile device with Evolution (email client).

Let’s sum it up.

Windows: $199.95 (Windows Vista) + $649 (Adobe Photoshop) + $40 (Video editing software) + $39.99 (CuteFTP) = $928.94

Ubuntu: $0 + $0 + $0 + $0 + $0 + … + 0 = $0 (Hope I got it right).

I’m not sure about you … but I surely would use Ubuntu.