Celestia is a free and open source space simulator that allows you to explore space right from your computer. Celestia is available for download on Windows, Mac OS X, and even Linux. Celestia has many very cool features, including an eclipse finder.
Not only does the eclipse finder allow you to find solar and lunar eclipses on Earth, but you can seek eclipses on other planets as well. I found out something really cool when checking out eclipses on Jupiter - because Jupiter is very large and has many moons, solar eclipses are very common.
Previously, Abhijeet has highlighted three awesome sites where you can create your own social network easily. However, if you are one of those who wants more control of the site, including the branding, the domain name, the features, the design, the community rule, or even the database, the best way is to install and run a social networking software on your server.
While there are plenty of scripts (both free and paid) that you can use to run your own social network, there are only a few that are stable, good and easy to use.
Do you have kids? Do you love Linux? If you answered “yes” to both of those questions then you are officially a Penguin Parent. Like any good parent you want your kids to have everything they need, like plenty of fish, love, happiness, and loads of video games.
Well maybe video games aren’t so important, but I hear a lot of kids really enjoy those newfangled thingymagigs. So below you will find a list of ten family-friendly Linux games that are perfect for those lazy afternoons. Every one of these games has Windows and Mac versions too, so kids who have uncool, non-penguin parents can join in on the fun.
xVideoServiceThief is an open source online video downloader designed specifically for just downloading videos from Youtube and alike video sharing websites.
I know there are dozens if not more Youtube downloaders out there but this one is really different. Let’s quickly go over some of its features.
The program is available for Windows (both XP and Vista), Mac and Linux PCs. So it can be installed pretty much everywhere.
As you would expect from any other download manager it can download several files simultaneously. In the screenshot below you can see that I was downloading 4 videos at the same time.
We’ve previously covered Songbird on Make Use Of when Mark wrote about it as an iTunes killer back in January. I then wrote my own article six months later presenting my own favourite Songbird extensions.
Since then I’ve been following the development of Songbird with a great deal of interest and was excited when Songbird 0.7 was released a few weeks ago.
This release introduced a great new UI, more features and significant performance improvements, all very welcome additions.
September has just begun and, in my part of the world, it brings with it the first autumn winds and the grumblings of students as they head back to school. For my part though I can’t help you with your exams or your math homework (I’m only one humble blogger after all).
I can however introduce you to a few programs that may ease your burden and make those hours of studying a little easier. First on the agenda is a nifty little Linux note-taking program for KDE called BasKet Note Pads.
My mother and I have a tradition. Every year, she sends me a DVD recording of the Edinburgh Military Tattoo which is shown on BBC television every August. I have quite a few years worth of Tattoo recordings now - mostly Scottish bagpipe music so when I get a bit homesick, I turn it on, crank up the volume and start dancing round the room!
The other day I decided to merge some of the “avi” video files into one big “avi” file so they can be played continuously. Video file merging can be done easily and quickly with a piece of free open source software called VirtualDub.
Micro-blogging is all the rage nowadays, though if you don’t know what it is you might want to check out Twitter Explained for a little tutorial. The default way to handle micro-blogging and updates is to keep refreshing a page in your browser over and over, but since that can be a bit of a pain, having a desktop client to poll for updates is very handy.
I have way too much stuff - so much in fact that it’s often difficult to keep track of it all. Rather than get rid of some of it though, I’ve done what any self-respecting person who calls himself a geek and a collector would do: I turned to the internet.
In the process I managed to find four open source programs that all call themselves “collection managers.” That is, they all claim to make it easy to catalog and keep track of your collections of things like books, movies, and CDs.
I am a lifelong fan of Adobe PDF files but I am unwilling to pay a minimum $300 for Adobe Acrobat. I would much rather look around for free open-source alternatives and today I found a nice little software tool that allows you to take a PDF file and split it up into lots of little PDF files as well as merge lots of PDF files together. It’s called PDF Split and Merge. Just what I was looking for!
Plus if you’re willing to donate a minimum of $1 to the developer, he’ll throw in the enhanced version of the software which will give you the ability to encrypt your files as well.
Frets on Fire is a free and open source game for Windows, Mac and Linux that comes with the goal of picking up your keyboard and trying to rock out just like the first guys on the keytar. Frets on Fire will definitely remind you of Guitar Hero, because the gameplay is very similar. If you have always wanted to test out the new music games, but didn’t have the cash, read on to find out how you can still rock out in style.
This is truly a good piece of software if you are concerned about the gamut of occupational diseases that abound in all who use the computer. From spondylitis to carpal tunnel syndrome, chronic occupational ailments are the bane of those who sit staring at electronic screens.
Workrave is a handy free software application that can be used to prevent those intentional bad habits. The program alerts the user at certain intervals to take momentary pauses, rest breaks and restricts the user to a daily computer usage limit.
Shiira is an open source browser for Mac OS X that is based off Web Kit and written in Cocoa so it runs at native speeds on a Mac. Shiira has been in development since 2004 so it has been in development for about 4 years. Because Shiira is based on Web Kit it uses the same rendering as Safari so when looking at web pages in Shiira and Safari they will look identical.
Shiira Mini is a slimmed down version of Shiira for the Dashboard which can come in useful if you’re wanting to do a little bit of searching when working on something without having to open an actual browser up.
This week on the show I take a look at the new iTunes app store, ways to raise money online, how to install Windows on your Mac for free — sort of, how to work well with others online and how to schedule and manage messages. My guest this week is Make Use Of author Abhijeet Mukherjee and we chat a bit about some of his posts on Make Use Of and his own blog, Jeetblog.com
I’d love to hear from you. Send me your MP3 files containing comments about the show, reviews of your favourite websites or just general chitchat. I’ll choose a few to play on the show each week. Send them to podcast [at] makeuseof [dot] com.
Do you remember back in the days of Web 1.0 before Google was really a verb and before Flickr lost the ‘e’? That was back when static web pages plagued the web. FrontPage and Dreamweaver were the common tools of webmasters all over. However, the world has changed. Programs are more so on the internet these days than they are on your computer. Sites like Facebook and MySpace try to add the most functionality to your online world making actual pieces of local software less and less appealing.
Adobe Creative Suite is a collection of applications for people who are, lets see….creative? Yes. Its a whole suite of applications that can be used to edit, enhance, beautify photos, create vector art, create vector animation, desktop publishing, website design, video editing, DVD menu designs and so on.
Sounds like tasks you can or want to do? Go ahead, the Adobe Creative Suite is for you.
Did I hear you asking about the cost? Well it can be a couple of thousand dollars or so depending upon the version you choose.
Increasingly, more and more people are turning to internet-based solutions to consume their content. Many of them are switching to solutions that hook up to televisions. I find the best solution with the most control is a Media Center PC. Some people, however, do not turn to this option due to the lack of flexibility in the Windows Media Center software. I am going to tell you about some of the best FREE Windows Media Center alternatives that I have found.
MediaPortal – MediaPortal is an open source alternative to the Windows-based Media Center software.
Why would you want to have Open Source software on your computer? Let’s consider a few reasons:
| (1) First reason that every one thinks of is that Open Source software is free of cost, well it certainly is about 95% of the time but it can be paid too although the license will be less restrictive. Nevertheless it can save you hundreds of dollars. |
(2) Another often overlooked aspect is that you can have full access to the source code of the software. This is a great blessing for someone who needs the ultimate customization.
Photographs are little gems and just like with shaping a rough diamond it requires a lot of work as well as skill to reveal the true and full beauty of a simple snapshot. And there are a thousand different ways to get there. Here are ten image editing programs that may come in handy one way or the other.
1. GIMP
The GNU Image Manipulation Program is a powerful and free piece of software that can handle all basic image editing tasks and much more beyond that. The fact that it’s open source and available for UNIX platforms, Mac and Windows makes it extremely flexible.
Pidgin (formerly GAIM) is a good multi protocol instant messaging client. I won’t say it’s the best out there, but it’s still good and worth using. If you frequently hang out on multiple instant messengers, dispose them all and start using Pidgin. Here are some tips for those who’re using Pidgin already and those who’ve just downloaded it:
Plugins
Ah! Most Open Source applications allow you to install plugins to add additional features, and Pidgin is no exception. It comes with a set of plugins that are deactivated by default. You can go to Tools >> Plugins to configure them.
Back in November, I wrote about essential programs for your computer. But there is actually a better program out there that bundles together all of the best software for your everyday needs.
Using the free French-based WinLibre, you can now download and install multiple programs with a single click :
All of the programs are free and includes gems such as Firefox, Thunderbird, GIMP and Open Office. You just have to choose what programs you want by ticking their boxes and WinLibre will download and install them on your computer for you.
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 which is Mozilla’s open-source version of Apple’s iTunes music player.
Songbird has the same basic design as iTunes but it’s black (default skin) and with added functionality. As with iTunes, you can import your music, subscribe to podcasts, create playlists, rate each song, synchronise your playlists with your computer files and so on.
But let’s take a look at what makes Songbird different from iTunes.
To be fully productive on your computer only 2 to 3 years ago you had to purchase software anywhere from $19.99 to $500+ depending on the program. Previously, I’ve covered how I converted all of my main programs to freeware and open source programs. Now, I’m here to praise the works of MakeUseOf and fellow free web and open source applications directories for pushing the word out. These directories are now your one stop shop to never having to purchase another program after you purchase your computer.
Previously known as OpenOffice.org Premium, OxygenOffice.org Professional (OOOP) is a modified source of Open Office 2.3 that contains all the “extras” you would find in a standard Microsoft Office suite and more. The simple extras include everything from a rich clip art gallery to variety of standard document templates (CV, greeting cards, etc.).
However, OOOP goes well beyond just the 3,400 graphic clip art gallery and templates… The developers have included over 90 text fonts, OOOWikipedia (an integrated Wikipedia Search Tools), ability to run Visual Basic for Applications from Calc (the OpenOffice alternative to “Excel”), ability to import Office Open XML (Microsoft Office 2007), and option to export (save as) documents to PDF, LaTex and MediWiki. To top it all off, OOOP has been able to integrate importing of Works and WordPerfect documents.
RSS Bandit version 1.5.0.17 is truly an impressive open source desktop feed reader. Unfortunately I had only learned about this recently, because I paid to use Feed Demon by NewsGator.
Feed Demon was totally worth the money to me, because you could synchronize your feeds with NewsGator Online, so whether I was at Home, Work, PDA or the Web all my feeds were there with only items I hadn’t read yet.
Well, apparently RSS Bandit now does the exact same thing, with not only an option to sync to NewsGator Online, but also via WebDAV, FTP or a file share.
SourceForge is an incredible and possibly the ultimate source for Open Source (which means free) software. The main reason SourceForge is so great is that they are a centralized resource for hosting Open Source projects… According to the website they are now over 100,000 projects.
Below are some of my favorites which I use on a semi-daily basis. Of course, since MakeUseOf is a free applications directory there have been several projects already discussed. These will be linked accordingly.
Today’s recommended tool is one which I have been using for only a week but I am already hooked because it is a tool which I have been looking for for a long time and it works extremely well. I was convinced for a long time that such a tool was out there somewhere and I finally found it, courtesy of the great StumbleUpon.
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