Pointer
I’m having a good week with my computer. It so rarely happens, but everything has been running like a well oiled machine…
Don’t put oil in your computer, it doesn’t help. Unless it’s a Mac, in which case feel free to give it a go.
The best thing is that my little box of circuits is being productive – I can’t take any credit for anything other than pointing.
Using only open source tools, I have been able to start work on a new typesetting job and another animation.
If you’re wondering, here’s what I’ve been using:
Typesetting
OpenOffice – It’s like Microsoft office, but you know, free plus it works well with the other software.
Scribus – A really good open source desktop publishing program.
GIMPshop – So you don’t have to use a pirated version of Photoshop.
Inkscape – So you don’t have to use a pirated version of Illustrator.
Animation
Synfig – A 2D animation program, similar to Flash.
Blender – A 3D animation program, for when things need a third dimension.
Jashaka – Video editing for polishing everything up.
These are not just pale imitations of their commercial counterparts, they are better than that. If software could have a soul, they do, and the next time I re-format I’ll be sending them all along to heaven.
…and by using these programs, and I urge you to at least try them, you’ll be helping change the direction of where computers and software are heading. Rather than programs being seen like objects, such as cars or fish tanks, things that can be bought and sold, open source defines them as similar to maths or physics, something that can be learned, shared and constantly improved upon as a collective conscience.
I owe you a big thanks for your software recommendations. I got introduced to GIMP (the regular) through you and Inkscape. I can’t remember my life before them. Now going to download the rest of your suggestions.
No need to thank me, I just use the programs. Thanks must go to all the talented geeks out there making these things and making them well.
Thanks to the geeks, as well! I was talking to my dad (a computer programmer) last night about some of the software I’ve downloaded and now he’s all excited thinking I’ve shown an interest in programming.
I rebelled against technology for the longest time because I was sick of hearing about computers and tripping over robot parts.
On that note, here are my open-source recommendations for areas you didn’t cover:
Programmers’ Text Editors:
- SciTE (A simple, lightweight, feature-rich editor for programmers of all types)
- Cream (a gVim configuration for the rest of us)
Video Players with built-in codecs (eg. for FLV and DivX/XviD):
- VLC (VideoLAN Client)
- SMPlayer (MPlayer plus a graphical interface)
- MPUI (MPlayer plus an alternative graphical interface)
Multimedia Editing:
- AVIDemux (Simple video-splicing and transcoding tool)
- Audacity (Open-source audio file editor)
Alternatives to OpenOffice:
- AbiWord (Lightweight word processor)
- Gnumeric (Lightweight spreadsheet application)
- LyX (“What You See Is What You Mean” word processor which does the typesetting for you)
Leftover miscellany:
- GQView for Win32 (Lightweight, yet well-designed image-viewing tool)
- HTTrack (Tool for saving websites (or portions thereof) to disk for offline viewing or archival)
- FreeMind (Free mind-mapping tool. Excellent quality.)
Keep in mind that these are just the Windows-compatible ones. Most of these have superior alternatives which only work on UNIX-like operating systems. (Linux, OSX, etc.) Keep an eye out for the planned Windows versions of Filelight, BasKet Note Pads, and Okular.
I prefer KMPlayer for videos. I got fed up with Media Player Classic (which is mostly a great program but for some reason I can never get it to seek in files) so I tried three or four different ones, VLC included, and KMPlayer was the winner (particularly its seeking works for me).
I use Audacity for all my recordings, though. Fantastic program, that.
I also use KMPlayer, but in my case, it’s because I can embed the KPart in Konqueror for multi-format tabbed file browsing and playback. I’d probably consider SMPlayer for its “Remember my place” feature otherwise.
The other major Unixy things I use for which I haven’t heard of Windows-porting plans are Audacious Media Player (for the far-reaching format support), Comix (best comic viewer I’ve ever seen… but not Windows-compatible), and Yakuake. (Quake-style drop-down terminal emulator using the Konsole KPart)
Ooh, thanks, I’ve been looking for something like Synfig. What kind of files does it make? I can’t find docs on that on their website.
Audacity is great for smaller scale audio editing but Ardour is a fully fledged pro quality DAW. Need plugins? Here, and they work with both Audacity and Ardour. And with lots of other free audio tools too.
Natively it creates .sif files when you save, however, you can output your animation to mpegs, flv (flash) and avi files… Indeed I also have a program that will convert videos between file formats… but I can’t remember the name right now… I’ll be back soon with that.
Yeah. I’d have mentioned Ardour, but as I said, I was limiting myself to things which are also available for Windows.
Open source software is that which is good in life. Of course I might be just the teensiest bit biased about that…
You know, I’ve never used Open Office, but my wife is bugging her to get MS Office installed. Do you think I could just use that instead?
It’s certainly worth a try, being free to download means, so long as you are able, that you can download it and give it a whirl.
For a while I had both OO and microsoft office installed together, just in case, but I’ve found that I can just remove the microsoft one now since I really don’t use it.
Open Office can read Microsoft Word documents, but will not save to that file type… Instead you can save to open document format (which can be opened inn Word). There are some nice tutorials on the site for how to deal with the changeover.
Similarly, the spreadsheet and presentation programs will open office equivalents too.
Wait… the version of Open Office I’m running for the mac saves as .doc files, I’m pretty sure. *Goes to check*
You’re right, the latest version does just that… another reason to try it…
I never did manage to get GIMP to run on my Mac. Maybe it needed some oil.
This Blender looks interesting. I have knowledge of Maya, will it be tough to cross into the open-source world of 3D?
Blender’s interface is a bit different from 3DSMax and Maya, so it may take a little getting used to, but it’s different in a good way. The original author felt that, at a fundamental level, the familiar interface of 3DSMax and Maya and so on was holding him back as a 3D artist, so it was worth the pain of unfamiliar UI elements to change it.
Hopefully Adam won’t mind me straying slightly away from the original topic, but my new(ish) laptop came preloaded with Vista and I hate it with the fire of a thousand suns. I was planning on just replacing it with an older version of Windows but if anyone has any better suggestions, I’d love to hear them (and appreciate the input).
Everything is ‘on-topic’ here… if we outlawed tangents we’d all be in trouble.
It depends upon how brave you are feeling. I quite like Unbuntu:
http://www.ubuntu.com/
I installed it on a (very) old desktop machine and had some great results with it… until the machine died a rather undignified death.
Why is bravery required? Did the OS kill the computer or did it die of natural causes?
Well, Ubuntu is for the slightly brave, just because it isn’t Windows and there is a small amount of fiddling required – though if you’re happy formatting a hard drive and installing an OS you should be more than fine.
More bravery is required for some of the other distributions as you need to rummage around in the operating system, setting everything up yourself.
I say undignified death because one of my memory sticks became corrupted… this led to my machine suffering from digital Alzheimers – it would lose stuff, crash and behave quite oddly.
This in turn really messed up the operating system and quite a few of my files… until the whole mess degenerated into a lifeless brick. It was entirely the machine’s fault.
…and that’s when I canabilised as much as I could for my new machine.
Unbuntu is what I use at home, as well. It’s nice.
You know, I find it funny that this strip came out on the same day that Spore premiered in stores.
The more cynical amongst you might believe that was search engineering… the truth is I’m mostly unaware of that sort of thing these days, I writes what I’m thinking about rather than thinking about what I writes.
Just out of interest, has anyone else seen the reviews on Amazon for Spore… I think EA messed up a bit there getting too heavy on the DRM issue. As one reviewer said, and many repeated, it’s like you rent the game from them now.
I saw that. There’s almost 2,000 one star reviews on Spore. People aren’t happy.
Awww, so sad. I’ve been waiting for that game, and after reading those reviews… I think I’ll skip.
I’ve played the DS version… not too shabby, and as far as I’m aware it lets you play it on other people’s DSs more than thrice.
I’m a bit disappointed that there is no concept of evolution…
It’s not a game, but Framsticks might do the trick for the geekier person.
http://www.framsticks.com/
I think Framsticks and I are going to be spending a lot of time together in the future.
I called my dad to tell him about it, and mentioned where I found out about it, and he now wants to marry you, Adam (in a heterosexual way). So if middle aged, balding totally blind computer programmers are your thing, it will be a match made in heaven.
*imagines the situation would be rather similar to the Pryor/Wilder comedy ‘Hear No Evil, See No Evil’*
Framsticks is a remarkably in-depth tool, but I think if you’re that way inclined it is also rather fun. I know a whole bunch of scientists, geeks, artists and engineers that use that program for various reasons.
There is another similar, but far simpler simulation called Darwin Pond – http://www.ventrella.com/Darwin/darwin.html – although I found it quite fun, it misses an awful lot of features.
Please tell your father that I’m rather flattered.
I’ll let him know about your flattery. I installed Framsticks but unfortunately don’t have the time at the moment to properly play with it. Furthest I got was creating a centipede like creature.
I heard about the reviews after buying it, but before it arrived.
Damned if I’m gunking up my PC with SecuROM… my solution is to download the cracked version (no DRM included) and give it my perfectly legitimate and paid for serial number so it can go online.
I would return it, but I’ve wanted to play this thing since forever ago when the early demos came out. To be honest from what I’ve seen since then the game’s not what the early videos made it out to be… the graphics have taken a cartoony turn and certain other features have been cut.
Sounds like the stages are somewhat disconnected too – building up a surplus of one stage’s currency doesn’t carry over into the next stage… I was imagining seamless increase in scale, but it was not to be… so much potential there that was never realised.
But anyhow, I’ll see what it’s like when my torrent’s done downloading.
You’ll have to let me know what you think.
I’ve always been a sucker for god games, they suit my complex.
That said, I have so often been let down by them. Black & White being my biggest disappointment. The creature AI was laughable, and some of the balancing was way off… all I heard, despite every effort, were villagers screaming ‘Wood, we need wood’. Before too long I was embarking on a massive forestry project and wondering,’ Am I not supposed to be these peoples’ god?’.
I kinda liked black and white… although your gripes are very true – the creatures was as dumb as a sack of rocks and the villagers were an unruly gang of ingrates (What? You need food brought to you, by the divine hand of god no less, while worshipping to my glory? Why the hell can’t you guys work a simple shift system?)
My strategy for expansion was normally to torch a town/city until there was no-one left alive (yeah, my hand was all veiny and purple and evil looking and my temple’s spikes curved so far they were almost pointing back inwards), then send in a couple of missionaries. Didn’t do wonders for the size of my influence area around that town, but it helped solve the overpopulation in my base town… just bring them over to the new colony and all is well.
Eventually I got stuck while attempting to take over a town that had one guy who was away worshipping… that one dude meant I couldn’t make the town neutral, there weren’t enough inhabitants (they were all dead) for miracles to do anything, and that town was the only one I had within my sphere of influence. I tried a few long-shot fireballs towards his temple to see if I could score a lucky kill on that one guy, but to no avail…
I’ll let you know about Spore… although actually it’s quite likely I’ll forget… post a comic a week from now that’s on a related subject to remind me
Sorry, Stephan, you’re quite right. The honest truth is that partly that I’d genuinely forgotten about the lack of WIndows port for Ardour (though it does run on OSX) since it is not an issue that concerns me, and that I kind of wanted to mention Ardour anyway, even if it doesn’t run on Windows. Having just re-read up on the issues around the Windows port – which people have tried – it looks like the thing is that Ardour is built from the ground up to take technical advantage of systems that provide POSIX compliance so as to provide top audio quality (ie results for you the user) even under severe hammering. Being as Windows doesn’t provide POSIX compliance, it’s really hard to make a Windows port that works. On the other hand, in terms of cost at least – it’s worth dual-booting for.
No argument. Heck, even if I weren’t addicted to KDE as a desktop environment that can adapt to my needs, I’d still be at least dual-booting for the other tools like Comix, Konqueror as a file browser and tabbed KPart harness, FileLight, BasKet, and so on.
As it is, I’m running pure Linux. I haven’t had a Windows install on my systems in a little over 5 years and I love it. Not only that, my mother loves the Kubuntu setup I gave her and my two younger brothers are now at the point where they boot into Windows so rarely that they’ve given me the OK to drop windows file sharing if I find a file sharing setup that’ll be less hassle for me to administer.
You’ve raised a good point there…
When trying to make something for free – guerilla contentent creation – a dual boot system, or if you are lucky, two different systems, can be extremely useful. It gives you that little bit more flexibility when assembling a tool kit.
these days though, it seems like Windows is the least useful OS in terms of open production.