Laptop Tax Deductions

There seems to be quite a number of families purchasing laptops to take advantage of the education related tax deductions.

When it comes to the software to put on these laptops, there is a range of very very good free software that is available which will help in keeping costs down. We have a range of this free software installed on all of our computers at school which means that the students work will be compatible with our systems. Here is a list with the website where you can get more information and download it from


Open Office
An excellent office package with word processor, spreadsheet, presentation tool (powerpoint) and graphics editing. It will read and write Microsoft Office files
http://www.openoffice.org/

GIMP
Photoshop like program – powerful graphics editing
http://www.gimp.org/

Paint.Net
Excellent general purpose graphics editing
http://www.getpaint.net/index.html

Photofiltre
Excellent general purpose graphics editing
http://photofiltre.free.fr/download_en.htm

Irfanview
Great graphics tool for tasks like resizing or converting lots of images at once
http://www.irfanview.com/

Inkscape
A powerful vector graphics tool lilke Adobe Illustrator
http://www.inkscape.org/

Blender
3D Graphics and animation – complex
http://www.blender.org/

Google Sketchup
Powerful and simple to use 3D Graphics
http://sketchup.google.com/

Audacity
Recording and editing sound for music or orals etc
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Kompozer
For making websites like Frontpage
http://kompozer.net/

Mozilla Firefox
Web browser
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/

Mozilla Thunderbird
Email client
http://www.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/thunderbird/

Scratch
A fantastic multimedia programming language.
http://scratch.mit.edu



Well, we also have the steak knives because the DECS license for McAfee antivirus allows us to give students this antivirus software from school to install on their laptops and home computers. It is available on our CD’s drive (t:\mcafee\McafeeHomeUse.exe).

This software is allowed to be installed on home computers that students are using and we will be insisting that it is installed on any laptop that is used at school and accessing our network.

Student Laptops can be brought to Clinton or myself for setting up for use on our network so that they can access the internet at school, print and also use drives H: and S:

We hope that this helps and if you need more information please contact me at the school or via email – ruwoldtp@granths.sa.edu.au