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I love "Open Source" and you should too. And if you don't know what "Open Source" means...(placing my hand on your shoulder) its about time that I shared an internet secret with you.
If you didn't know, there are a group of developers who develop products under the GNU General Public License (GPL). They allow people like myself access to thousands of products free of charge for non-commercial personal or professional use. Some popular GPL developments are Linux, Eclipse, WordPress, Mozilla Firefox and even soda called OpenCola!
Whether you use Open Source tools or not, if you manage your on web pages...
You NEED to have an image and html editor to manage your content.
And two of my favorite open source tools that really get the job done are (DRUM ROLL PLEASE)....
G.I.M.P
GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) is the image editor that you must have if you want to create or modify the images on your web site. Here are just some of the things you can do with this tool and it is TOTALLY free to use...no strings attached.
- Create or modify graphics quickly and save them in popular formats such as GIF, JPG and/or PNG.
- Create image fonts without using plugins.
- Design a logo for your company
- Create your own clipart for your pages
So if you have been "stealing" images off of the net (lol) then you don't have to do that anymore. We don't want you to get arrested (lol). Now you can download GIMP and make your own. Its really simple to use and the documentation is easy to understand. Need a starting point?
KompoZer
Last but certainly not least we have KompoZer (pronounced Com-po-ser), another awesome open source tool you can use to edit your pages/HTML. Many of you I bet are either modifying your pages inside your content managers and are not saving copies to your PC. Please stop doing this. Every page that you have on your site, you should have a back-up copy stored on your hard drive and then your site should be backed up at least weekly by your host.
With KompoZer, you don't have to worry about editors stripping your code and making your life a living hell. You create the page as you would like it to be viewed in KompoZer and you just copy and paste this code into your online web editors.
As before this is another tool that is simple to use once you get the hang of it. If you have been using third-party HTML editors? Please stop (lol). Download KompoZer and if you need it, read the documentation and take control of your content and save yourself some time and headaches.
What do I use to design & develop websites?
The pages and images that you now only modify with KompoZer and GIMP have to first be designed and developed by a web developer. Open Source is great but people are paying me to show them something special and I have to pull out the big guns to get things done. At first I thought the end all was Adobe Web Premium CS5...until I met Coda. Oh...mygoodness! I fell completely and totally in 
with Coda. With Coda it can pretty much do everything except turn the coffee pot on in the morning (lol). I develop using Coda and every now and again I may open up Dreamweaver. I design in Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop and Fireworks. I use GIMP and KompoZer when I don't have access to my development area to modify my code and images on the fly.
Good luck you guys and if you have any questions or comments please leave them below.
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WordPress User? If you are having issues with WordPress stripping your HTML then you want to always view your code via the "HTML" tab in WordPress. Once you change it to "Visual" it may strip out some of your tags and when you click save your page will be distorted.
Joomla User? Although its rare, if you are having problems with the web editor stripping your HTML, make your default editor Code Mirror (Site->Profile->Editor). In my opinion, Joomla has much better HTML editors than WordPress but I have noticed that most of them strip your code, even if you change settings to tell it not to (Turning off text filters and modifying the plugin settings doesn't fully work.). Code Mirror is the only one that does not do this. However, you will not be able to see your page visually online, but this doesn't matter because you are using KompoZer to modify your pages...RIGHT? ;-).