For web design I have been using Seamonkey [www.seamonkey-project.org]. It is free and easy to use. I originally bought Microsoft's Front Page for about $150. It was not all that easy to use and then Microsoft stopped supporting it a few years ago.

Instead of AutoCad I bought TurboCad [www.turbocad.com] it is pretty easy to use but lacks a couple of features available in AutoCad. They may be available but I have not figured out how to access them yet.

Am still using the 1997 version of MS Office. Downloaded Apache Open Office and tried for a while but had some problems with huge, fairly sophisticated Excel spread sheets.

For programming finally tried Microsoft's Visual Basic. Had a pretty steep learning curve but once I figured it out it works well.

"The Stone Age did not end for lack of stone, and the Oil Age will end long before the world runs out of oil"

-- Sheikh Zaki Yamani