I’ll be out of the office here this weekend, taking part in the first-ever WordCamp Chicago.

I’m looking forward to meeting a few WordPress people. The event has sold out all 200 seats, which is great! Huge thanks to Lisa Sabin-Wilson for not only coordinating the conference itself (with Brian Gardner), but also managing the ticket cancellation and resale process to help get tickets into the hands of people who thought they weren’t going to make it this year (this means me, among others). If you don’t own her WordPress For Dummies book, by the way, you really should go out and buy it.

And just in case you don’t know what a WordCamp even is:

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It is free software, and there are several ways to get it. Ubuntu is also available in a variety of flavors, from the educational Edubuntu version, to the KDE-enabled Kubuntu version, to Xubuntu for those that like a sparser looking/feeling desktop interface, to their very popular Ubuntu Server Edition (which is really great for LAMP installs, among other things).

The normal image download of Ubuntu is also a LiveCD, which allows you to boot off of the CD and give Ubuntu a try, without worrying about damaging or altering your existing OS/setup. It does run a bit slower in this mode, since it’s not actually installed but instead running directly off the CD in RAM only, but it should otherwise be a working version of Ubuntu you can kick the tires on and try out before you commit to it. Pretty powerful stuff.

You can also download an “alternate desktop CD” version; it does not include the Live CD functionality, instead it uses a text-based installer, and is a slightly smaller download. I recommend you skip this version, unless you know you specifically need it.

Who should try Ubuntu? Well, the LiveCD will allow anyone to simply pop in a disc and try it out, so I think everyone should, at least once. You’ve got nothing to lose but a some time downloading and burning it to CD, and again, it’s totally free.

And yes, it’s probably a bit different from what you may be used to, but it’s really the same in most of the ways that matter to a typical PC user. Will Windows users love it? That depends on how stuck you are on the familiarity of Windows. Most of the things the average person does with Windows can be easily accomplished for free using a Linux distro like Ubuntu, which already includes–out of the ‘box’–Firefox, OpenOffice.org’s office suite, and tons of other useful “everyday” software most people want and need. We use it here, daily–both the Desktop and Server editions–and love it.

If you have questions or want to get even more into it, feel free to contact us to set up a demo, give a presentation, or arrange some training. Ubuntu offers both free and paid support and paid training as well.

Ubuntu 7.10 “Gutsy Gibbon” can be downloaded here, or from a large number of download mirror sites. Enjoy!

(Image from Ubuntu.com)

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Plenty of college campuses have done deals with Microsoft as well, offering Office and other MS products for ridiculously low prices (realizing, of course, that student tuition and fees are subsidizing that to some degree). $10 copies of Windows, $20 copies of Office, etc weren’t unheard of.

Microsoft is trying something new; it may or may not be for you, though (keep reading).

Starting today, they’re offering Office Ultimate 2007 for $60. Early word is it will be download-only. The program goes live later today (around 1pm US-Central time, although the site’s countdown clock has been a little wonky), and runs through April of next year. The website for it is here:

[LINK: theultimatesteal.com]

The exact licensing terms are still unavailable. I strongly recommend you review the license terms (once the site goes live and those terms are posted), of course. In the cases of university programs that have offered MS software in the past, sometimes students were granted perpetual licenses for any software they still owned at graduation time. Other agreements called for license suspension at graduation, or terminated licenses if you never graduated at all. Pricing has also varied wildly. No idea yet if the installation will be limited to a single PC or allow a few installs (as other “student” editions have in the past) so you end up with the home PC, the laptop, etc, all covered.

Bottom line, though: for the money, even if the license expires upon graduation, $60 through this new program is a pretty darn good deal. The suite has a retail value of $679.

ALL THAT SAID, you should still check with your university (probably your campus bookstore) and see what they’re offering. You may well get a better deal from them than this one, still.

ArsTechnica has more details on MS’ TheUltimateSteal program here:

[LINK: arstechnica.com]

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