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This might sound strange, but Corel Wordperfect Office X7 is still a pretty good piece of software with excellent MS Office compatability.

http://www.amazon.com/WordPerfect-Office-X7-Home-Student/dp/B00JC5Y6YA

I've had templates be formatted wrong in Libreoffice that formatted perfectly in WordPerfect X7. At $30 for a lifetime license, it's a great deal and Reveal Codes are still as awesome as ever.

As others have said, LibreOffice is far and away the best totally free choice.

I Would recommend Magix Movie Edit Pro it's really great and is easy to learn, although you can achieve really great things with it. The built in DVD maker (Tutorial) is also really good you can customise everything you want. The are some good templates included btw.

I would suggest you buy an older version of it though, I still use 2013 and it works perfectly. They don't change much every year and the price always drops a lot as soon as the new one releases.

If you need any help using it, message me.

That's probably the cause, win10 try to do too much stuff at once and the system lose responsiveness waiting for the hdd. I had the same problems with a brand new Nuc with a powerful i5. You can try to disable telemetry, indexes, cortana, delay the antivirus etc... but they will return after any major windows update. Upgrading to a ssd is probably the thing that can grant you the most benefit. Duplicating your old hdd is quite easy on a software level. Install some utility like Backupper, and with a few clicks the new SSD will be a bootable copy of your old HDD.

On an hardware level, it depends on your case, your motherboard and your psu. You must open the case and plug the new SSD to the motherboard and the PSU, so you may need some extra cables if they did not come with the SSD/psu/motherboard.

Most ssd use sata interface , while the older hdd still have pata, you should first check if your motherboard support sata for the ssd, but it is quite common since a decade or more.

You can even duplicate it using an USB adapter for the ssd like this , without the need to open the case.

After that you have to decide if replace the hdd or still use it as data drive.

In the first case, just unplug the cables from the HDD and plug them to the sdd, win10 should be able to start like nothing has changed. If you want to use both but boot from the ssd, you may have to tinker with the bios (something on the motherboard that start before windows) and manually choose the ssd as booting disk instead of the hdd.

If its ok to spend 28$ you have this hardware ( https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B018FTE87S/ref=mp_s_a_1_11?ie=UTF8&qid=1518249157&sr=8-11&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65 ) wich clones hard disks on standalone mode and also you can connect It to an USB port like an external hard Drive.
This is how It works: https://youtu.be/xcDEw05_XPA

I have one and, as the IT guy, this little thing has saved me a lot of work

Edit: not sure why the downvotes. OP said spending some money would be ok and this solution seems to fit better than having to purchase multiple software for each operating system and also serves as an external hard drive. On the other hand, I gave a solution that I've tried for a long time and I now it works. I'm not tiered in anyway with this brand/product and of course OP is free to purchase whatever solution he/she wants.

I know you said free, but if you've got $30 to spare and can order on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/Corel-VSPRX9ULMLMBAM-VideoStudio-Ultimate-X9/dp/B01AC3ZAHW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1484539923&sr=8-1&keywords=videostudio

This is $70 on the Corel site, and I think it's usually more than that. I picked it up on a holiday sale... was my first video editor, and found it was pretty easy to learn. Haven't tried the overlay feature though.

Most of this convo is TL;DR but form skimming, I think I get the idea.

Two ideas:

1. More customizations don't necessarily make software better. They make make it more aesthetic to you but most of the big companies are focused on making a product that works well for everyone and probably don't give much thought to individual users but instead the overall experience. They are solving a greater problem. I would actually counter your argument to say that if Windows Media Player had all the options of VLC that there would be someone else who would come along and say 'Options?! Screw options! We just make a player that plays stuff.' See book: The Design of Everyday Things and other design books. Simplicity is often overlooked.
   
   
2. Freeware has more customizations because there are less users. Open source lends itself to someone who wants the feature to add it. Essentially, for a large company, the ROI is not worth it and the complexity could jeopardize their hold on consumers who are not as tech savvy. Customizations and freeflow can greatly increase the codebase and the complexity of the software scales with the square of the codebase (ie. more options make the software less maintainable. More tests. More bugs).

You can find used speakers on craigslist. Look for a 2.1 system that include a sub and plug directly into the wall. You can also test them out with your phone if you got to check them out. Speakers that dont plug directly into the depend on the electrical current of the 3.5mm jack to drive them not making them loud enough. In terms of headphones you should save and get a nice pair with high impedance and a dac/amp. Audio Technicas m50x/m40x are great headphones and if your audio device cant drive them hard enough look into getting a dac/amp like this one https://www.amazon.com/FiiO-E10K-Headphone-Amplifier-Black/dp/B00LP3AMC2/ref=pd_lpo_vtph_23_bs_t_1?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=5FDQ5J5D3XQQ4E4TZC4P

Well this mouse is awesome. It already has the perfect functionality on openSUSE, it's just on Windows that I had problems (which are now solved). The hardware is great, it was a software deficiency.

Office home and student from ms store : http://products.office.com/en/home-and-student (2013)

2010 from amazon : http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00532UT7Y/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?qid=1422207664&sr=8-3&dpPl=1&dpID=31mksJ82zVL&ref=plSrch&pi=AC_SY200_QL40

That is a discless version that includes a code to get the installer online at the ms website.

I don't see why you'd want to buy 2010 now though. The reason its so hard to find is the same as not finding a retail version of windows vista. Newer version out. If enough market share want the old one you'll be able to find it (see win 7). But with office that I sent the case.

You could just store the installer on USB key or burn it onto a CD. (Or download again from ms) if you are keen on 2010 instead of 2013

You didn't mention specifics so I assume this is a laptop running a version of Windows? I saw comments mentioning routing via the router you're connecting to wirelessly. One way to take care of this issue is simply to be connected to both WiFi networks at once via 2 wireless cards on your laptop and prioritizing the client's default route in one WiFi card over the other.

Depending on your laptop model, it may have an extra miniPCIe or M.2 slot inside that can take an additional WiFi card. Many Dell laptops have an extra one. If that's not the case with your laptop then there are cheap and tiny USB wifi dongles which you can stick one into your laptop as the second WiFi card. Here's an example of one. Plug that in, install drivers as needed, and have your primary WiFi card connect to your main wireless network, and have the USB WiFi connect to your backup wireless network. You can then have these both connected to different wireless networks at the same time.

The next step is setting the routing metric for each device. Windows typically does this automatically - for example if your computer is connected to WiFi as well as connected via wired LAN, it will automatically use the wired LAN connection as the default network route since it's typically faster when you try to access something on the internet, or anything outside of the local network. With 2 WiFi cards I recommend manually setting this up. Here's the link from microsoft.com explaining how it works. Down on the bottom ( where it says "To configure the Automatic Metric feature:") it explains how to go into network settings for the network device and uncheck the "Automatic metric" checkbox and set a number for the device. The lower the number is, the higher the priority. If you decide to do this, I would recommend also setting this for your wired LAN card to make sure it is at the top of the priority regardless if it's in use or not. Since you're manually controlling these settings instead of letting Windows decide, you should cover every device.

Example: set Wired Ethernet's metric to 5, set primary WiFi card's metric to 10, set secondary WiFi card's metric to 15

Now, when you're running Windows, both wireless cards will be connected to different wireless networks at the same time, which (from what I understand as you explained it) are two separate internet connections. It will use your primary WiFi card's internet connection by default instead of your secondary WiFi card's internet connection when you try to access the internet. When that disconnects, Windows will then use your secondary WiFi (usb, if that's what you end up using) as the internet connection instead. When your primary WiFi reconnects it should switch back to that for its internet access as it was doing before the disconnect.

I haven't used it for a while but try Netcam Studio, its free (for 2 video sources). But scan for malware nonetheless.

Also if you have some money you could invest in those standalone camera's like this one, the advantages include motion detection and online viewing of the camera, also it can record the video to an SD card on the camera or online so even if the camera is stolen you still have the footage, plus you don't need a PC running all the time to use it. Some are as cheap as $50 so it might be worth your money.

Or pick up one of these and a wireless 360 controller. That 10 dollar receiver works so darn well I'm amazed, and it supports 4 controllers as well. I've heard some people say the driver didn't install right away, or correctly, but in my experience it's flawless on every Windows or Linux machine I've tried it on. Plug it in, connect a controller, and bob's your uncle.

> Fortran

ALL CAPS! FORmula TRANslation. Yeah, me and Bill Gates started coding around the same time. He was more successful than me. ;)

I'd question C# as your next big thing to learn. Python! This book might be right up your alley.

This might be your best option for something like that

I think your best bet is just getting a super-cheap $30 tablet like this one, root/unlock it, and that way you get a lot more functionality too. Get a used one even cheaper.

edit: your your

When a perfectly functioning laptop begins to slow down, it's almost always the hard drive. They are the most affected by heat and laptops don't have good heat circulation. My advice would be to replace the internal hard drive with a solid state drive like this. But this means you'll either have to fresh install Windows, or use a PC to transfer data from old drive to new one.

@Steve132 is completely correct. It sounds like you're trying to use an output-only as an input.

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To achieve HDMI input into a PC, you'll need what's called a "Capture Card". The brand name "Elgato" is a favorite amongst many YouTube and Twitch streamers. Search "Elgato Capture Card" on Amazon, or see here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01DRWCOGA

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Note that while Elgato is more expensive than its competitors, it beats them outright on simplicity of use regarding its software package. Many other capture cards will leave it up to the end-user to figure out how to make intricate video issues 'just work'.

and ofc real monitors (there is no way to make a mp3 file sould better then a aiff or wma without going in and editing/master it, at at this point you're better off just buying a better quality file.)

You want one of these: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003JLPWAK/ref=oh_o06_s00_i00_details

It's awesome. You hook it up to your wireless network, then tell it when to monitor (either all the time or specific dates & times). When it detects motion, it can:
email you pictures every few seconds
upload pictures and video to a ftp

It also switch to infrared mode so it can be used as night vision.

If you can afford $324, an Epson GT-S50 with the built-in Image Capture app on OS X (no drivers even needed) can easily handle hundreds of photos an hour.

Those scanners are fantastic, and don't lose resale value, so you could just ebay it when you're done (add another few hours to archive all the remaining paper in your house first!).