It's back to school time, yet again. In the spirit of the season, I decided to gather together the best tools, websites, and advice I know of to help make
They're free, but that doesn't mean these apps aren't powerful. Created by folks who welcome help and improvements to their work, many of these programs are superior to packaged software.
By Mark O'Neill As a big fan of Firefox, I am always interested in any other projects that Mozilla might be dabbling in. Yesterday I began testing Songbird
Inkscape, An Open-Source Vector Drawing Program is THE GUIDE to the Inkscape program. The web-based version is linked directly to under the program's Help menu. This book is both an introduction and reference for the Inkscape drawing program. With Inkscape, one can produce a wide variety of art, from photo-realistic drawings to organizational charts. Inkscape uses SVG, a powerful vector based drawing language and W3C web standard, as its native format. SVG drawings can be directly viewed by web browsers such as Firefox and Opera. A subset of SVG has been adopted by the mobile phone market. Inkscape is available free for Windows, Macintosh, Linux, and Solaris operating systems. The first third of the book is devoted to eight tutorials that progress in difficulty from very basic to very complex (three additional tutorials were written explicitly for the PDF version). The remainder of the book covers each facet of Inkscape in detail. Advance topics covered include the use of Inkscape's powerful tiling tool, built-in bitmap tracing, and SVG use on the web. The book includes plenty of tips (and warnings) about the use of Inkscape and SVG.
Windows only: Freeware app Wippien wraps VPN and instant messaging together into one chat client. Wippien is a full featured instant messaging client that supports most major chat protocols, including AIM, MSN, Yahoo!, GTalk, Jabber, and ICQ.
Computers make us more productive. Yeah, right. Lifehacker recommends the software downloads and web sites that actually save time. Don't live to geek; geek to live.
These bloggers tackle the Microsoft OS from all angles, including ramping up to Windows Vista and tips and tricks on how to solve today's problems on Windows XP.
A conversation has cropped up since the recent publication of a paper scrutinizing how Windows handles digital rights management, especially for HD video. I've since looped back with Dave Marsh, a Lead Program Manager responsible for Windows' handling
MuvEnum Address Bar is a replacement address bar for the missing Start Menu toolbar in XP SP3. If you have come to rely on the default address bar and were disappointed to see that it was removed in XP Service Pack 3, the MuvEnum Address Bar is your answer. It supports all the major features of the original address bar including auto completion for all system sources, such as urls (Web addresses), typed history, your local file system, and network shares as well as opening any typed url in you
PowerToys are additional programs that developers work on after a product has been released to manufacturing. Find out about PowerToys for Windows XP Professional here.
These bloggers tackle the Microsoft OS from all angles, including ramping up to Windows Vista and tips and tricks on how to solve today's problems on Windows XP.
Windows only: Screen Marker is a simple, tiny utility that lets you freehand draw on the current screen. Say, for instance, you're remote-controlling Mom's PC or doing a presentation and you want to circle an area of the screen - Screen Marker's for you.
You've been talking to (or screaming at) your Windows PC for years, but unless you were willing to shell out hundreds of dollars on pricey software, chances are it