7-zip is a free file compression program. It can compress/decompress many compression formats, and also comes with its own format.
My company gave me a licensed WinRAR. Let's see hot 7-zip compared to commercial product.
First I tried to compress the whole "My Documents" folder. It contained a lot of text and binary files, including a few MP3 and JPG pictures (which is already compressed).
Then I try to compress the whole cygwin directory, contain mostly binary files. Most of the files are not compressed.
It's been a while since the first release of OpenSolaris was out, and the new release is coming. Codename Jericho, and will be officially called OpenSolaris 2008.11 once released, is reviewed by folks at Photonix. Go see what changed and what not.
Audacity is an open source audio editing program. While it can be used by professionals to create an awfully good sounding stuff, normal folks like us can use it to cut part of you sound file, including MP3, to create your own ringtones. Audacity can read MP3 but it could not create a MP3 file since it doesn't ship with MP3 encoder. You will need Lame mp3 encoder for that. So download Lame first, unzip it into any directory, but do remember where you keep it. You will need it later.
Now open your sound file. Select the section you want to make a ringtone. Play the selected section until you get it right.
When you like what you hear, copy the section by pressing Ctrl-C or go to menu edit->copy. Then create a new project, and paste a sound clip you just copied into it. Play it one more time to make sure it's what you expect.
Finally, go to menu File->Export As MP3. If this is the first time you do this, Audacity will ask for the location of Lame. Just browse to where you unziped Lame (you do remember it right?). It will take a few moments to export to MP3. Once done, transfer that MP3 to your phone. Done.
By the way, there are some fun effects to try out like removing singer voice, reduce noise, fading, etc. Try them under Effect menu.
If Octave is more-or-less a free replacement for Mathlab, then R does the same to S-Plus. After all, both R and S-plus share the same ancestor. I mean, if you wanted to make a better version of a statistic program called 'R', what would you call that new program of yours? 'S' of course. What about a name after you have improved 'S' overtime? Well, S-Plus seems a good choice. Anyway, I'm not good at statistic at all, but you can learn more at R website
(image (C) R Foundation, from http://www.r-project.org)
Octave understands Mathlab language, but there are some statements not yet supported. Anyway, many Mathlab can be used with Octave without any modification. I used to use Mathlab in collage and I found that I could run most of my scripts in Octave. I needed to modify some scripts that have some plotting commands tho.
The graph above was from this script. I got this script when I was learning it a few years ago so I don't remember where I got it from.
>> [x,y] = meshgrid([-12 : 1/2 : +12]); >> z = sin(sqrt(x .* x + y .* y)) ./ sqrt(x .* x + y .* y); >> mesh(x,y,z);
Inkscape is a vector-based graphic editor similar to Illustrator or Coral Draw. Among very useful features is bitmap tracing that will turn your bitmap graphic into a vector graphic. I used to use similar feature on Coral Draw 3 and I would say that this technology has come a long way. The image crated by Coral Draw 3 was barely usable. What I got from Inkscape on another hand is awesome.
Firstly you obviously have to open your bitmap file. It can be a JPG, PNG, etc.
The bitmap tracing is hidden in menu "Path".
Tracing dialog pops up. There are several tracing methods. You will need to click "update" to see the preview tho. Once satisfied, click "OK". Tracing will take some time. When it's done, you can close this dialog. Your traced image will already be placed in the worksheet.
When you close the dialog, the traced image will be exactly on top of your original bitmap image. Move it out.
Now you can work on it. You can un-group it, change color, rotate, scale, and whatnot. Have fun.
When you visit SSL-enabled websites with Firefox 2 the address bar will display the URL on yellow background. Firefox 3 no longer uses that yellow background, instead it shows a blue or green background around favion arrea. Why?
Well, FF3 release note has this to say: "yellow was judged to no longer be a good color as Internet Explorer 7 uses it to mean a suspected phishing website". Kinda make sense but somehow I don't feel like it's a good enough reason to make this change. I could live with it tho. What about those green and blue then?
well, the blue background is for the website that uses old SSL cert.
You can click on it to get information on that cert.
If a website is using new-style SSL cert, which contains even more details, you will see a green background. Click on it will again show details.
Being a good Windows user, you defrag your harddrive one in a while. Windows itself comes with its own defrag tool, which is OK, unless your disk is really mess up. I once have a drive that was, as reported by Windows Defrag, >40% defrag. To make it worse, the drive was nearly full. Windows Defrag asked my to free up some space so it can work. I didn't want to delete any files so I searched around and found JKDefrag.
JKDefrag can not only work on tight space, but it also offers a few defrag optimizing methods which could speed the drive up even more. To enable those optimizer, you will have to run JKDefrag from a command line
JkDefrag.exe -a 7 c:
The "-a 7" thing simply tells JKDefrag I want to enable defrag optimizer number 7. Here are some optimizing methods that you can use:
1 = Analyze, do not defragment and do not optimize. 2 = Defragment only, do not optimize. 3 = Defragment and fast optimize [recommended]. 5 = Force together. 6 = Move to end of disk. 7 = Optimize by sorting all files by name (folder + filename). 8 = Optimize by sorting all files by size (smallest first). 9 = Optimize by sorting all files by last access (newest first). 10 = Optimize by sorting all files by last change (oldest first). 11 = Optimize by sorting all files by creation time (oldest first).
If you drive is like mine (low space, heavily fragmented), it could take a very long time to defrag it the first time, but it worth it. It will be a lot faster next time you run a program. You can also run JKDefrag as your screen-saver so it will start rearrange your files when your computer is idle.
Google SketchUp (download) SketchUp is an easy to use free 3D modeling program. It was around $400 before Google took over the company the developed it (Google still offers a pro version for about $450 tho..). Unlike other 3D program, you create an object in SketchUp on a plane within a 3D environment, resulted in a 2d shape. Then you just 'pull' that shape into an 3D object. Let's see an example.
Kerkythea (download) Kerkythea is a physically acculate materials and lights renderer. That is, it is capable of producing photo-realistic images (but of course depend largely on person who using it). Anyway, if you want to use it with SketchUp, you will need an exporter, SU4KT (download). SU4KT would export your SketchUp models into an xml file Kerkythea expects. You can then adjust materials and lighting in Kerkythea and render your images. Read more...for steps I took to create this house.
For this house, I started by adding a few boxes together, adjusting them until the whole thing look close to what I've planed. I didn't really care about fine details at this point. Just want to get dimension right.
see, a few boxes. Some thick some thin. Nothing fancy here.
Once I satisfied with overall dimensions, I started adding details.
Windows and doors were now added. In SketchUp, you can create semi-transparent material, which is understood by SU4KT but you will have to refine its properties in Kerkythea for best results.
Even more details. I like some big windowsm but with something blocking some light so my windows are not too exposed.
Assign materials to each part of our models. When you export your models to Kerkythea, objects with the same material will be grouped together. If you don't want that, you have to assign objects you want separated with different materials (just copy an existing material and give it a different name).
Adjust your camera. It's a lot easier to do it in SketchUp than in Kerkythea. Do it here and leave Kerkythea camera alone.
Go to 'plusins' menu, you will find SU4KT exporter there. Export models, lights, camera. (If you have selected some objects in SketchUp, deselect them first by pressing Ctrl-T). You will have to wait a little while models are being exported. Once done, you will be asked if you want to open Kerkythea. Open it.
Once inside kerkythea, you can add more models and adjust camera if you really want to. I used instance brush to add some grass so the whole image would look a bit more realistic.
Add sky. There are plenty of good stuff for download at Kerkythea website. This sky came from there too.
Now the all-important material editor. Your image will look realistic or look like crap depends largely on how good your materials are. Read Kerkythea Getting Start is a good idea. Really.
By the way, there are also ready-made materials for download on Kerkythea website. Check them out.
Now go render and wait. You might want to use a simpler render algorithm, with smaller output size. If things look good, then you can use better algorithm and create a larger image.
