Hello all,

I would just like to call your attention to the mapping
functionality that is built into Microsoft Excel. This does
not fall within your definitions of "Free Software" but I
believe it is in the same spirit of your Website. I
recently discovered that the mapping functions in Excel
are very useful for Novice users to represent data in a
spreadsheet spatially. My job is to mainstream GIS and
for me this means getting people to use spatial data as
frequently as possible. Excel mapping functions  allow
dynamic tabular data to be represented in a map. This
is a feature that is not present in any free GIS software
that I am aware of (please respond if you know of one)
but is one of the strongest points of GIS software. The
drawbacks of Excel mapping are the limited spatial
layers available to users. (Lots of USA...some UK and
little of the rest of the world) If your area of interest is
The Horn of Africa, you are in luck, because the Data
Exchange Platform for the Horn Of Africa (DEPHA)
initiative has Excel compatible data on the web for
downloads at: www.hornofafricadata.org  You will also
find a How-To manual to help you along. While you are
there check out the GeoDepot section for per-country
spatial data layers at various scales. 

Enjoy,

Andrew