An open source version of FreeHand?
Despite Adobe’s best efforts to entice artists to its Illustrator vector graphics program, there is a hard core that refuses to give up on FreeHand.
A new website called Free FreeHand has sprung up to encourage FreeHand users to band together in an effort to breathe new life into the app. Among the options they’re looking at is the release of FreeHand code and licensing to the open source community. If that doesn’t work, they’re considering a lawsuit.
As of this writing, 1,398 people have already signed up for the group’s newsletter.
For many years, FreeHand competed with Illustrator until Adobe acquired its parent company, Macromedia, in 2005. Read the full story at Wikipedia.
Meanwhile, development continues on Inkscape, a vector graphics program that has long been open source.
Posted Tuesday, September 8, 2009 in Open-source
A freeware wiki
It seems there is no end to the number of Mac freeware sites out there, but here’s one that’s a little different — a wiki. Downloadpedia has a number of categories listing software for all platforms. In the Mac section, there is best open source and best free. I haven’t tried it, but presumably you could join up and add your own apps. So far, the selection looks quite good — there’s none of the junk that plagues so many freeware sites.
Posted Tuesday, June 23, 2009 in Open-source
FreeSMUG CD available
FreeSMUG has released a “CD with the most useful free open source applications packaged for Mac OS X.” As far as we can tell, though, there is no actual physical CD involved — just a 694.5 MB download. You could, presumably, burn the apps onto a CD once they’re downloaded. In any case, the programs are all listed with links to their sites, so you can pick and choose which ones you want. And by the way, we agree that this is indeed some of the most useful free stuff you’ll find for your Mac.
Posted Saturday, June 6, 2009 in Open-source
Put GIMP to work
GIMP is your best bet as a free alternative to Photoshop, but — like any powerful program — it has a steep learning curve. Fortunately, there is strong support in the open source community. An example of this is a comprehensive article in Smashing Magazine that outlines ways to tweak GIMP so that it comes closer to being a true replacement for Photoshop. Good stuff.
Posted Friday, April 3, 2009 in Open-source
Miro 2.0
This has to be one of the slickest open source programs around. At its most basic, Miro offers a way of subscribing to video feeds so that they automatically download for your viewing convenience. But it’s much more than that.
Miro has featured feeds such as videos from the spoof news website, The Onion. Or you can browse popular feeds ranging from Monty Python skits to the NBC Nightly News to Mac Tips and Tricks. A search function allows you to find videos on virtually any subject imaginable. In addition, there are numerous other ways to discover videos.
What makes Miro different from watching a video at a website is that you actually download before watching. The video sits in the Miro library, where it can be played as often as you like. It will automatically expire after five days, but you can change this by clicking a Keep button. Another button allows you to remove it altogether.
With Internet videos increasing in popularity, Miro is a great way to keep track of what’s available and ensure you don’t miss your favourites. It has an active fan base and good support for your inevitable questions.
Posted Thursday, February 12, 2009 in Open-source
Open vs. Neo vs. Plus?
Adding a twist to the OpenOffice vs. NeoOffice debate is the announcement that PlusOffice is coming out with a Mac version in January. PlusOffice builds on the code for OpenOffice to add features such as full support for Open Document Format (ODF) version 1.2 and the ability to open documents in Microsoft Office Open XML. It is free, but you have to pay $34.95 for support.
Posted Friday, December 12, 2008 in Open-source
Three million downloads for OpenOffice
After hitting version 3 — and adding native support for OS X to boot — OpenOffice has been downloaded more than three million times. That’s a phenomenal number that shows a real hunger out there for a Microsoft Office alternative. We have a copy sitting in the Applications folder here at thriftmac headquarters, but haven’t had a chance to use it much. One little surprise is that we can now open the PowerPoint attachments that occasionally come by e-mail.
Meall Dubh has a chart showing the download figures, including a breakdown by platform. Not surprisingly, most downloads are for Windows, but Mac and Linux hold their own.
Posted Tuesday, October 28, 2008 in Open-source
iSquint lives on as PunyVid
When Techspansion closed its doors, it discontinued the popular freeware video converter iSquint, along with the shareware VisualHub. But all is not lost. Both are back as open source projects with new names: PunyVid and FilmRedux.
Posted Sunday, October 19, 2008 in Open-source
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