FreeMind helps you to visualize your thoughts by creating and editing a mind map. You can easily copy nodes or the style of nodes and paste texts from sources such as HTML, RTF, and mails. The mind maps can be exported into various formats, such as HTML and XML. For more information, refer to http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page.

GnuCash is a software tool to control both your personal and business finances. Learn more about GnuCash at http://www.gnucash.org.

Gnumeric is a spreadsheet solution for the GNOME desktop environment. Find more information about Gnumeric at http://www.gnumeric.org.

Gnuplot is a very powerful and portable command line–controlled data plotting software. It is also available for MacOS and Windows platforms. Plots created by Gnuplot can be exported to various formats, such as PostScript, PDF, and SVG, allowing you to process these plots easily. Find more information about Gnuplot at http://www.gnuplot.info/index.html.

Grace is a very mature 2D plotting tool for almost all flavors of Unix including Linux. Create and edit plots with a graphical user interface. Grace supports an unlimited number of graphs per plot. Its export formats include JPEG, PNG, SVG, PDF, PS, and EPS. Find more information at http://plasma-gate.weizmann.ac.il/Grace/.

Kdissert is an application for structuring ideas and concepts, mostly aimed at students but also helpful for teachers, decision makers, engineers, and businessmen. Ideas are first laid down on a canvas then associated into a tree. You can generate various outputs from the mind map, such as PDF files, text documents (also for OpenOffice.org Writer), and HTML files. Find more information at http://freehackers.org/~tnagy/kdissert/.

See KOffice .

KMyMoney is a personal finance manager for KDE. It enables users of open source operating systems to keep track of their personal finances by providing a broad array of financial features and tools. Learn more about KMyMoney at http://kmymoney2.sourceforge.net.

KOffice is an integrated office suite for the KDE desktop. It comes with various modules like word processing (KWord), spreadsheets (KSpread), presentations (KPresenter), several image processing applications (Kivio, Karbon14, Krita), a database front-end (Kexi), and many more. Find more information about KOffice at http://www.koffice.org/.

See KOffice .

Kst is a KDE application for real-time data viewing and plotting with basic data analysis functionality. Kst contains many powerful built-in features, such as robust plotting of live streaming data, and is expandable with plug-ins and extensions. Find more about Kst at http://kst.kde.org/.

See KOffice .

LabPlot is a program for creating and managing two or three-dimensional data plots. Graphs can be produced both from data and functions and one plot might include multiple graphs. It also offers various data analysis methods. Find more information about LabPlot at http://labplot.sourceforge.net/.

Mergeant is a database front-end for the GNOME desktop. Find more information at http://www.gnome-db.org.

OpenOffice.org is the open source equivalent of Microsoft Office. It is a very powerful office suite including a word processor (Write), a spreadsheet (Calc), a database manager (Base), a presentation manager (Impress), a drawing program (Draw), and a formula editor for generating mathematical equations and formulas (Math). Users familiar with the Microsoft Office family of applications find a very similar application interface and all the functionality to which they are accustomed. Because OpenOffice.org is capable of importing data from Microsoft Office applications, the transition from one office suite to the other is very smooth. A Windows version of OpenOffice.org even exists, enabling Windows users to switch to an open source alternative while still using Windows. Find more information about OpenOffice.org at http://www.openoffice.org/ and read our OpenOffice.org chapter for a short introduction to the office suite.

Planner is a project management tool for the GNOME desktop aiming to provide functionality similar to the project management tools used under Windows. Among its various features are Gantt charting abilities and different kinds of views of tasks and resources. Find more information about Planner at http://www.imendio.com/projects/planner/.

PostgreSQL is an object-relational database management system that supports an extended subset of the SQL standard, including transactions, foreign keys, subqueries, triggers, and user-defined types and functions. Find more information about PostgreSQL at http://www.postgresql.org/.

Rekall is a tool for manipulating databases. Supported databases include MySQL, PostgreSQL, XBase with XBSQL, IBM DB2, and ODBC. Use Rekall to generate different sorts of reports and forms, design database queries, or import and export data to various formats. Find more information about Rekall at http://www.thekompany.com/products/rekall/.

StarOffice is a proprietary version of OpenOffice.org and is distributed by Sun Microsystems. It is available on multiple platforms including Windows and Solaris. It includes certain advanced features not available with the free version (OpenOffice.org). Find more information about StarOffice at http://www.sun.com/software/star/staroffice/.

Taskjuggler is a lean, but very powerful project management software. Take control of your projects using the Gantt charting features or by generating all kinds of reports (in XML, HTML, or CSV format). Those users who are not comfortable with controlling applications from the command line can use a graphical front-end to Taskjuggler. Find more information about Taskjuggler at http://www.taskjuggler.org.

VYM is a software for visualizing your thoughts by creating and manipulating mind maps. Most manipulations do not require more than one mouse click. Branches can be inserted, deleted, and reordered very easily. VYM also offers a set of flags allowing you to mark certain parts of the map (important, time critical, etc.). Links, notes, and images can be added to a mind map as well. VYM mind maps use an XML format, allowing you to export your mind maps to HTML easily. Find more information about VYM at http://www.insilmaril.de/vym.