Norton is a system pig and their subscription rates are, well I wouldn't pay them. When I use any virus protection at all (rarely) I use Avast. The personal addition is free. You will get a license good for one year. When it expires go back to their website and get a new license. No subscription costs. And its a good reliable product. However. I work with computers ALL DAY. This is my job, and its what I do for fun when I get home. I run NO virus protection at home (other than an occasional check scan). I have had a grand total of 2 virii infections in the 11 years I've had/used a personal computer. TWO. And the first of those came from an infected MS DOS install disk (way to go MS!) Avoiding virii is NOT hard folks. Don't use MS Outlook OR Internet Explorer for ANYTHING. Period. Don't open email attachments unless you have specifically requested the said attachment. Don't follow links from random forwarded email ("click on this to see a cute kitten!" yeah right.) Don't download screen savers/etc advertised in flashing images on websites. And for the love of little green apples run FIREFOX with adblock and java script stopping enabled. There getting off my soap box. So. Avast if you must but know that a constantly running virus protection package is NOT strictly required. You can avoid 99.9% of virii by simply using some common sense. Remember ALL virus protection is out of date. By the time these security companies discover a virus in the wild and update their databases to protect you against its already been running loose for hours, days, maybe even weeks. NO amount of virus protection is 100% effective, you MUST protect yourself as well. (You wouldn't wander around alone in downtown Detroit at 2AM just because you had a bottle of mace in your purse, right? Same idea.)

I know a lot of people who trust their expensive equipment to the free software these days. I don't, have been a Norton user 10 yrs now but partly because I understand once starting with it, getting all of it out to replace with another isn't necessarily for the faint hearted :) I think Avast free version is one often suggested on the computer help forum - might depend on which operating system you are using though because I see free Microsoft Security Essentials mentioned more too. You might ask there, tell them your computer age and if you have XP, Vista, Windows 7...They could tell you if the program is enough standing alone or if you should add anything like a malware or spyware program too. Nice people there. Here is a link that might be useful: Computer Help

Star Office 5.2 (the last free version) is still floating around out there. Search for it on google: +download +free +"Star office 5.2" Star office comes with a spreadsheet program, then you make categories for all your expenses, and track your budgeted amount for each category, vs the actual amount spent. Or get Open Office, always free. It also has a spreadsheet which is Excel compatible. Or look on Freezone Freeware. It has a section called "Suites" which is Word Processor, Spreadsheet and sometimes Database all in one. You can download the Freezone Freeware website at http://www.geocities.com/csroberts/index.html. MS Works also comes bundled with many new PCs and it also has a spreadsheet. I use MS Money, which also came free with my PC. You can flag categories as being tax deductible so at tax time, you print their "Tax report" which prints out all the tax deductible categories for you to transfer to your tax forms.

I used a free interactive graph paper. Tom Maitland. I then save the outline in paint and add stuff. I've bought various programs but I found them cumbersome and not custom enough. Some people love Sketchup but it was very hard for me to learn so I gave up on it.