On the 4th day of Blogity: Geeky Friday

I know, a little late on this one. The weekend is my busy time. If you're not busy this weekend, be sure to go buy String Theory stuff at the Rock N' Roll Craft Show! More on that in another post. Get your mouse clicking finger ready, it's Geeky Friday(in spirit)...

You guys know I design websites, all my own graphics, and single handedly manage Strange Folk from 7 lbs of soon-to-be scrap metal. Incidentally, a lot of big name software is "required" to render these things. Did you know I should be forking out around $2100, and hundreds more every few years for upgrades? I don't, and I'm not a pirate, but I like to say, "Arrhhhhgg!!!"

What's my secret? Open source.
It saves me even more money than dancing lizards can on car insurance.

All these projects are undertaken and developed by programing gurus that network around the world! It is made available to us, the end-user, for free on the principle that "One should not only get the source code but also have the right to use it."*

Open Office (openoffice.org)- Lets start with Open Office, because if you've never heard of it you're not going to believe it. We all know Corel sucks, and who wants to shell out $600 for MS Office so they can write a letter and spell-check it? Open Office is one of the biggest open source collaboratives in the world, and one of the most useful. If you want to give big business and proprietary software the finger, start by downloading this. You'll find that unless you require very advanced Excel features, this suite will fill about all your needs and more. You can open, edit, and save any files in familiar MS format. You can export any document to PDF!!! It's awesome, and FREE...need I say more?


GIMP 2.4 (gimp.org)- I acquired a copy of Adobe Photoshop 10 years ago, and taught myself the ropes through online tutorials and books. When I said bye to my clunker desktop, Photoshop went with it. There was no back-up cd, and it was 4.0 anyways. Enter The GNU Image Manipulation Program, a.k.a. GIMP. I was surprised to find that it had every feature I utilized in PS, save for a few favorite plug-in filters.

I use GIMP for editing photos, creating web graphics, desktop publishing...everything! Every ad, poster, flyer, blog button, or graphic for Strange Folk, String Theory or otherwise was the end product of at least some, if not all, editing in GIMP. I highly recommend you give it a go, even if you are a beginner. Install is a cinch now that they have packaged it as an executable with the runtime files. There is also a fabulous handbook available for download on their site to get you started.


Inkscape (inkscape.org)- This program mimics the capabilities of Adobe Illustrator. It's relatively new to my collection, but I'm already finding it indispensable. Many elements of the new look for Strange Folk are the direct result of tinkering with Inkscape. I'm very excited about utilizing the SVG (scalable vector graphics)file format in my work. Basically, objects are saved based on their proportions rather than the contents of pixels...which is why if you blow up jpegs, they look so grainy, er "pixelated". If I need the resolution high enough to have something printed large scale, this'll do it. It's not a program you would use for photographs, but absolutely amazing for type and line art creation. I love importing my drawings and converting the lines to "paths". One can smooth out jagged edges and manipulate curves and angles. Then it's generally off to GIMP for further editing. World-Class combo if you ask me :)


Drupal 4.7(drupal.org) - Content management systems are a relatively new way of creating and coordinating a website. You install the base files on your server, locate a suitable CSS template, or build your own. Maybe some other tweakies if your geeky. From then on, all your pages are created through the website itself, in a WYSIWYG format, an environment much like that of posting on a message board or blog. That means anyone you give permission to can add content that will be dynamically added to the correct link and menu areas you specify. Trust me, it's really great!
If you make web pages, even casually, Drupal is a CMS worth learning to develop around. After trying a few others, such as Joomla, I found this to be superior by all accounts. You'll need some knowledge of CSS, HTML, PHP, and MySQL to manipulate the back-end, but installing it on your server is such a breeze, and you can start creating content right away. Once you get the lingo down (modules and blocks and nodes, oh my!) The documentation is vast, and easy to understand. I think a gajillion plug-ins are available for this . I'm especially fond of the RSS aggregator, FCK editor, and SMF database bridge that I triumphantly implemented on EtsyLou.

I have so many other great programs to tell you about. My next installment of Geeky Friday (er, Geeky Whatever Weekend Day I Get To It) will focus on freeware (yes, there is a difference from open source!), and internet based apps, if I have room. So, go try out some of these amazing programs! If you find them really useful, and they have the option, consider making a small donation to help them stay afloat. To learn more about the many other open source projects out there, be sure to take a gander at Sourceforge.net. Also, if you have any questions you know where to find me, for the next 8 days at least :)

*quote from Wikipedia's Open source page