The Consumer’s Corner

GIMP is a (free) open source software program that gives you most of the functionality of PhotoShop, without the gigantic price tag. Cool, huh?

To preface this review, I’m not a professional artist, or editor, or anything like that. I am simply a hobbyist that enjoys touching up or occasionally manipulating a photo. A few of my friends appreciate these talents when they need something done to a picture, and I’m really not too bad at doing the small things. The simple tool set is all I really need to do the things that I do. And those simple tasks are what I’m basing the review on.

All of the really cool stuff? Well, I haven’t totally figured all that out yet. Probably could if I put the time and effort into it, but the need for that knowledge hasn’t presented itself yet. GIMP is very capable of doing all kinds of things though, I’ve seen beautiful examples from some very talented digital artists. With the base program, and then taking advantage of the large library of plug-ins built around it, I’m sure you could replicate just about anything PhotoShop can do. For free. God, I love that ‘f’ word.

GIMP is a staple in the open source software community, coming bundled with most of the major Linux distributions. Don’t let that word ‘Linux’ scare you though, and make you think you’ve gotten excited about this awesome (free!) program for nothing; Windows and Mac OSX versions are available (and well supported) as well. Even works with Vista! That’s a miracle all it’s own.

I say give this a shot, even if it’s just to kill a little time one day. It’s very addicting once you figure out all the little widgets. GIMP has a learning curve, but anything worth using always does. Comment back with links to some of your creations!

Official Site

–Jeremy Hobbs

software, digital art, open source, photoshop

If you are not aware of what an ID3 tag is in an .mp3 file, woe be unto you when you plug in your very first iPod (or other digital audio player) and transfer all your files over. Those darn things need to be properly and very accurately organized to display titles, pictures, and other information correctly on your digital audio player of choice. The trouble is, it’s a really, really, really^4 big pain in the ass to do it by hand.

I experienced this little dilemma a couple years back, and actually wept at the thought of manually changing all 1,500+ of those tags. Never really paid much attention to them before; I had been organizing all my music by the file name. Worked well enough for me! But my mp3 player (R.I.P. Rio) saw things very differently. Many of those songs had been, um, acquired one track at a time, and the whole catalog’s ID3 system was just a mess. It had to be fixed for my player to work correctly. Tossing in the towel, I sat down one month… err…. day to do it, worked about 15 minutes, and turned into a drunk sailor. I was swearing like no one should ever swear, cursing the day I had ever heard of an mp3 file.

Did some research, and came across a free program named ‘The Godfather’. They should really call this program ‘The Godsend.’ No lie; it’s a bit difficult to use, but trust me, taking the hour or so to figure out the basic features you actually need is time very well spent compared to the alternative. There used to be a forum for support, but the site appears to be closed now. It is/was also open source, should my memory not be failing me. The program can still be found in many places, just Google ‘Godfather ID3.’

My favorite features are auto tag replace, where it looks through an online database to find the album you’re currently working on, and replaces the tags for you automatically. Auto file rename uses your (now correct) tag information to rename your files any way you wish. Direct link to Amazon.com to find album art is nice, too.

This program is must have in my opinion. Makes organizing your tunes so much easier, and it’s free! How much better can you get? If anyone has any info on whether or not the project is still ‘alive,’ please drop a comment.

–Jeremy Hobbs

ipod, mp3, id3, software, freeware, open source, music

Any and everything that Microsoft can do for an outrageous amount of money, the open source software community can do better, and not charge the end user a dime. Nothing really illustrates that fact quite as clearly in my mind as the software suite known as OpenOffice, a free alternative to Microsoft Office (or any other ‘Office’ suite’).

By downloading the suite, you are downloading five programs that can meet or beat nearly all the programs brought to you by Microsoft’s effort. ‘Writer’ would be the equivalent to ‘Word.’ ‘Impress’ replicates ‘PowerPoint.’ Those are honestly the only two I use, but ‘Calc’ will do your spreadsheets, and works with writing mathematical equations. ‘Base’ is database oriented, and ‘Draw’ even let’s you create nifty Flash (.swf) files. The last three are honestly a little over my head, and I personally have no current use for them, but if you use the Microsoft equivalents, I’m sure you you’ll be able to get comfortable with them rather quickly.

This review is going to be short, but there’s really no sense in dragging it out. If you’re Office Suite is out of date, believe me when I say that there is no need to spend the hundreds of dollars it requires to upgrade. All of your old files will easily import into OpenOffice just fine, and you’ll be gaining functionality. For free. I’m not sure how it works if you’re a business owner (as far as cost) and you wish to convert your office over, but I do know it will be cheaper than MS’s options, and there will be plenty of support people available to answer your questions.

The short of it, this suite has done everything I’ve ever asked it to do. Extreme power users may find limits, and you can feel free to voice those critiques in my comments to let others know (I’d be interested in seeing them myself), but for average consumers OpenOffice will more than meet your needs. Windows/Mac/Linux capable.

Official Site

–Jeremy Hobbs

office, open source, productivity, freeware, software

Are you an internet junkie like me? Do you start having withdrawal symptoms if you have to go more than a few hours without being able to at least check your email? Like me, are you too cheap to buy a decent data plan for your phone, so you can accomplish this task quickly and easily? Are you looking for a simple service that allows you to stay connected for just pennies a day, or less? Well, I found it for you. Welcome to Flurry!

Funny story. I upgraded my phone around a year and a half ago (Walkman w600i, don’t buy it), and I proceeded to play around with it, like I do all my new gadgets. Just one of my favorite past times. Anyways, I came across the preloaded Yahoo! Mail application, and thought I’d give it a quick try. Anyone that knows me well knows I’m not completely ignorant (if you think I’m ignorant, what does that make you, you’re reading my blog?); I knew that there was going to be some data charges. But in my mind I thought ‘Hey, it’s just text files, it can’t possibly cost that much!’ By about the second time I checked my messages wirelessly, I had became addicted quicker than a crack head and started doing it all the time. Long story short, my Cingular (now the new ATT!) bill was damn near close to triple what I was used to, and that Yahoo! Mail appication got deleted so fast I made lightning look slow.

That did not cure my addiction though, so I started searching. ‘There has to be a better way,’ I thought. And of course there was. What I found was Flurry, an amazing little java application for java enabled cell phones. So easy to set up, all you have to do is register for an account, and they’ll text message you the installer in an attachment. You can also transfer it yourself if your phone can connect with your PC, and that is of course much cheaper (free) if you have no data plan.

As a warning, upon setting up your account, your eyebrows will be raised. They ask you for your email address(es) that you wish to keep tabs on, and the passwords to those precious accounts. Now here’s how desperate I was; despite my long standing policy of never giving anyone my password, and my anality when it comes to security, I simply caved like a house of cards and handed over my information just as quickly as I could type it.

They seem to have been true to their word though, since that time (a year or so ago) I have not once noticed anything fishy going on within my accounts. They say your passwords are encrypted, and even they cannot read them. I somewhat doubt the last part, but even if they can, they have not opened my stuff so far as I can tell.

Flurry works by their servers opening, copying, and compressing your emails (only text, no html). That compression part is the big secret, it cuts way down on the amount of raw data that has to be transfered to your phone. By ‘way down,’ I mean that $50 data charge turned into a mere 75 CENTS! I’ve been able to read a whole day’s worth of email for around $0.02, at $0.01 per kilobyte on my ‘pay per use’ plan. Those numbers just speak for themselves, so there is nothing else I need to say about that.

The software itself is very simple to use, and should work on just about every phone still in operation. Flurry is able to check mail from nearly all of the big email services, and works with all the major cell phone operators. Other options they provide are things like texting you when you have a new message, but I just prefer to check manually. Those text thingies cost money, too (just ask Jill and her bff)! There are other toys to play around with like RSS feeds (hey, you can read this on your phone! Subscribe now!), and more. You’ll have to check them all out and get back to me, because I’m happy sticking with the basics for now. Oh, yeah, Flurry is ad-free freeware; the only money you’ll be paying is to your cell service provider. Now where’s my phone?

Official Site

–Jeremy Hobbs

cell phones, software, java, electronics, freeware

What would happen if Firefox and iTunes were to hook up at a party, and make a handsome little baby? You’d get the open source media player called Songbird. And yes, it is a baby; the program is still in early beta testing, so download and use it at your own risk.

Songbird combines just about every feature I can think of (and definitely everyone that I actually use) from iTunes with a Mozilla/Firefox based web browser. It doesn’t accomplish either as well as the original, but it’s off to a great start.

Songbird recognizes iPod devices, and also claims to be able to sync with them, but I love my iPod too much to try that part out. If it bricked it, I think I’d simply die. It did recognize that my precious was hooked up though, and was able to access and play music off of it’s drive. It did it very well, too. All of the tag information was correct, and it even registered my playlists. I think that’s important; since this software is of the open source variety, it is just one user-created plug-in away from being able to use iPods to (easily) transfer music from one computer to another , using the iPod as a medium. Record labels will not like that at all, no sir.

The Bird also recognizes, and allows you to sync with/to, other usb based media players. I don’t have any other mp3 players, so I couldn’t test this feature, but I’m sure they’ll get it right with time if it’s not perfect already. It will be awesome for folks that have multiple brands of players; lets say a Zune and an iPod, and be able to update them from one single, consolidated library. Much less of a hassle than trying to keep multiple programs up-to-date with the latest additions to your music collections.

As far as the interface goes, it leans way more towards iTunes than it does, say, a Winamp. If fact, if you’re proficient in using iTunes at all, you’re going to feel very much at home when using Songbird for the first time. Songbird though, unlike iTunes, is skinable. The developers try to get cute and call their skins ‘feathers,’ but whatever. Everything is very basic and minimalist, and I think that’s a good thing; I want to listen to music, not spend twenty minutes having to navigate a confusing interface.

Songbird plays every media file under the sun it would seem, even iTunes store tracks. Videos as well, at least the few I had sitting on my drive. I would only expect the support for various file types to increase in the future, as they inch towards a version 1.0 release.

The web browser is, well, just a web browser. Only difference is, if a site has some type of media that can be played, Songbird will hunt it down, list it, and let you play it without you having to bother opening other programs. It’s nice, and convenient, but on the whole it did not ‘wow’ me. Maybe it’s something you acquire a taste for (I was slow to adapt to tabbed browsing, but now can’t live without it).

Download it if you dare, it is in beta. If it messes anything up, don’t blame them or me, you’ve been duly warned. It’s cross platform across Windows/Mac/Linux, so no one needs to feel left out. This project shows a lot of potential, and I really look forward to seeing where it ends up. Thumbs up for now!

Official Site

–Jeremy Hobbs

songbird, mozilla. open source

Like a lot of people, I use my computer as a complete multimedia center; books, music, movies, you name it. The different types of media by themselves take up system resources just to play, so you really don’t need a fancied up media player contributing to the problems, do you?

Skins, visual effects, and all those other pretty things are really cool things to look at, but completely unnecessary. If you’re using a notebook, and running it off the battery, all the extra junk that is used by Windows Media Player and iTunes (and others) can make you lose your juice that much quicker. There are solutions out there though, and Media Player Classic is one of the very best.

Designed to look and behave like the Windows Media Player of old (awe, the good ol’ days), it’s very simple to operate. You tell it to open a file; it plays it. No screwing around with libraries, just follow your file tree. The basic controls are right there at your finger tips. Combined with a good codec pack, there is very little Media Player Classic will not play. Very light on resources as well.

There are tons of more advanced features available for you power users, but there isn’t much sense in me getting into all that; if you’re a power user you’re already using this (or VLC). This is getting a big recommendation from me, I don’t think any of you will be disappointed with it; in fact I’d wager you wouldn’t want a computer without it after you get used to it. Oh yeah, it’s free!

No Official Site, Just Google It

–Jeremy Hobbs

media player classic, open source, software

I like to try to keep things simple. You might have noticed that trend by some of the products I’ve reviewed (on this or other sites), or maybe you haven’t, but the I’m of the belief that the less clutter on my computer the better. Same is true with individual pieces of software; I don’t need every feature geek-kind ever thought of, especially with something as seemingly simple as a word processor. I love OpenOffice, and it’s incredible software for when I really need to do some complicated work and need it’s advanced features, but it is a bit cumbersome for doing simple things like spell checking this article.

So I bring you AbiWord. AbiWord is just a very plain, simple, no frills, easy to use word processor. That’s it. I type things, it tells me when I spell something wrong, and will count my words for me when I’m done. It uses a minuscule amount of system resources, creates files that can be opened and modified in another office suite should the document need some extra tweaking later on, and it can be installed on all kinds of operating systems, some of which I’ve never even heard of. Also, like most software I’ll review, it’s open source and completely free of charge.

AbiWord is an absolute no-brainer to recommend; it does what it’s supposed to do, does it very well, and does it for free. Think of this as a replacement for WordPad; it loads almost as fast, and has spell checking abilities. Give it a try, I think you’ll like it!

Official Site

–Jeremy Hobbs

abiword, word processing, open source, freeware, software