If you're like me, your home computer is probably not equipped with all the same productivity software as your office computer. Full-featured licenses of Microsoft Office and other software can get pretty expensive. Fortunately, there are a number of free options out there that provide much of the same functionality.  They may not suffice for business use, but they can handle many personal tasks.

Need Microsoft Word, Excel, or PowerPoint, try Google Documents or OpenOffice.Org.  Both of these programs are free.  They can read and edit Microsoft Office files or create new documents.  Google Docs is hosted on the internet and you can easily share documents when you have to collaborate with others.  Most new computers come with either Norton or McAfee anti-virus and spyware.  These programs tend to be memory hogs causing your computer to slow down, and once the free trial runs out, they're expensive.  AVG Free or Avast are two free alternatives that in some cases, use less of your computer's resources. 

There are numerous other examples out there for free productivity software.  I hear about many of them at CPA technology conferences, but other places to check include www.cnet.com or www.komando.com.