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Try Paint.Net - a great free alternative to Photoshop. I use it alongside Photoshop CS because it saves Jpegs much more accurately with a smaller filesize than photoshop. http://www.eecs.wsu.edu/paint.net/index.html

Cheers for the link, I too have tried and failed with the GIMP. After hearing rave reviews about it, I recently downloaded a copy to give it a whirl.

My first task was to crop a bitmap image, and do some minor touching up. Pretty simple, it would have taken about 1 minute in even Paint, or some other hateful program.

However, in trying to figure out the GIMP's godawful interface, it took me over half an hour, and then I gave up. It goes well beyond kludgy, it's plain counter-intuitive.

Instead I downloaded a copy of Paint.NET, which is also free, and a damn sight more straightforward. Problem solved!

The right to perform or play a song in public is one of the exclusive rights of the copyright holder. You will need to get permission or a license if you play music in public unless the music is in the Public Domain or the use of the music qualifies as fair use. But the line between what is private and what is public is complicated. Prior to the Music Licensing Act in 19982, some court cases have drawn the line and declared public uses of music to be copyright infringement unless licensed, as follows:

• Radio stations, bars, night clubs, and juke box operators;
• Hotels that play the radio for guests through speakers or headphones;
• Restaurants;
• Stores;
• Telephone intercom systems that play music while callers are on hold.

What does organization charts have to do with music?

Or did you mean voila ?

Clichés are especially prone to scrambling because they become meaningless through overuse. In this case an expression which originally meant "it would be impossible for me to care less than I do because I do not care at all" is rendered senseless by being transformed into the now-common "I could care less." Think about it: if you could care less, that means you care some. The original already drips sarcasm, so it's pointless to argue that the newer version is "ironic." People who misuse this phrase are just being careless.

You need to spend your time surfing the Internet just waiting to "correct" someone who, in your mind, misuses a particular part of speech?

We've already been offered certain QoS guarantees for privately routed networks. You'd have to separate QoS for private from QoS for public in any such regulation.

BTW...

While I realize that 'begging the question' is supposed to be a logical fallacy, I have never heard it used any other way than to mean 'raises the question.' And while I realize that my experiences and its use on TV and in movies are not the gold standard of the English language, at some point the language evolves.

Just think of all those English teachers in school that railed against ending sentences with prepositions. This particular 'grammatical error' was actually common to some of English's greatest writers, then went out of fashion in the 17th century, only to become accepted again more recently. Some people make it a point of pride to be uber-conscious of grammar, and cling to these little arbitrary rules to make themselves feel cultured or intelligent or something, but the point of language is to communicate something. If the person understands a phrase to mean X, and everyone generally understands that phrase to mean X as well, then the phrase means X. The fact that you understood 'begs the question' to mean what the submitter intended just shows what it really has come to mean. You can pretend that you are part of an exclusive group in the know ("Most of us won't say anything"), but the fact is that you are wasting valuable time nitpicking a grammatical non-issue to demonstrate your supposed superior intellect instead of doing something useful like selling your WoW character or compiling something for Gentoo.

For those that are curious, you can read more about ending your sentences with prepositions here and here. Also, a very interesting compilation of english grammatical issues can be found here.

"but it still begs the question why there's no..."

No it doesn't. It raises the question.

So you're point is about foreign and national companies.

Let's clear the terminology up. I understand "national" companies to be companies that are partly controlled by the state. Given that we are talking about trade between countries, I used the word "local" to talk about companies owned by citizens of the country in question. I am not differentiating between different areas of the same country.

I'm saying that, all other things being equal, open-source software allows governments to get software work done in such a way that the profit is earned by people residing in that particular country. Proprietary software, on the other hand, forces at least some part of that profit to go to the shareholders of the company that holds the copyright to the software, which - for most governments of the world - means that the government is giving money away to other countries.

You see, if a government spends money in such a way that the money goes to the people in that country, the country doesn't get any poorer. But if it spends money in such a way that the money goes to the people in another country, it does get poorer. Buying proprietary software services makes a country poorer if that software is imported. Buying open-source software services does not make a country poorer because there's no need to use foreign companies.

for products from foreign companies "control" of the code is an issue and should be considered above and beyond money.

Well yes, I should hope that software required for a country's infrastructure should come with buildable source code, but that's not at all what I was saying, and it's unrelated to open-source. Open source doesn't just mean access to the source code..

Are you worried about your state or city govenment "giving control" of some vital infrastructure software to Redmond or Silicon Valley?

Certainly. Why wouldn't I? Are you assuming I'm from the USA?

PS: To make yourself appear more intelligent.

There only foreign if you live outside the US.

Erm, yes. What's your point? You do realise that most people live outside the USA? And that when the article talks about governments around the world, they aren't just referring to the USA?

Following that logic shouldn't the US governments be supporting their own US economy and buying more software from the big boys?

I don't see why. I identified an advantage that open-source has for most governments. If the advantage does not apply to a particular government, that doesn't mean the proprietary alternative is automatically better, it just means that they are equal in this respect. Think about it - it would be reduced to a choice between local companies (open-source) and local companies (proprietary).

PS: To make yourself appear more intelligent.

It doesn't beg anything. It raises the question.

http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/begs.html

What the heck? It's "ridiculous"? Their kidding me!

http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/flaunt.html ("To flaunt is to show off: you flaunt your new necklace by wearing it to work. "Flout" has a more negative connotation; it means to treat with contempt some rule or standard. The cliché is "to flout convention." Flaunting may be in bad taste because it's ostentatious, but it is not a violation of standards.") (That is all.)

Guess who said it?

Ummmm, nobody? .

Productivity
- Dirkey - Free small utility that enables you to place invisible bookmarks on folders and go back to these bookmarked folders with shortcut key. It runs on startup and can be set to be invisible in your system tray. Works in Explorer and also Open/Save dialogue windows.
- ObjectDock - Free OSX-style dock for your PC!
- Windows Blinds - Skin your OS
- MS Alt-tab Powertoy - Alt-tab across open applications with an thumbnail preview of the open application.

Graphics
- Paint.Net - Free image editing program

Utilities (spam, anti-virus, FTP etc)
- Avast Antivirus - Free and better than AVG

On the Windows front I've been using Paint .Net since Beta and am pretty pleased with it. Granted, it lacks some of the advanced features of Adobe PS and the like, but for Joe Photo Editor it does the job just fine.

http://www.eecs.wsu.edu/paint.net/

Cheers,
Dave

Remember this is the admin spying on vegans and Quakers. And to think the right used to scream about Clinton and the UN. *headshake* With the Dominionsist that hang arround this bunch it is getty a little to close to the "Handmaids Tale" for my liking.

Wal-Mart has shown in the past that its not adverse to hiring illegals

http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/its.html
http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/adverse.html

Wal-Mart has shown in the past that its not adverse to hiring illegals

http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/its.html
http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/adverse.html

The funny thing is that I think that grammar error (that's serious too; it's not exactly just missing an apostrophe) suddenly became relatively common during a few years. Along with "I should of thought of that...", "I would of done that if I knew...", and so on. I can't even understand how people can make these mistakes in the first place, and then these are often Americans and I'm a Swede! :-S

especially given that Paint.NET already exists (and was sponsored by MS).

so, I ask again, what's *new*?

Mr Dada posts his little "I have a dream" post every chance he can. The problem as you all have demonstrated is that it fails several litmus tests. Assholes is only one of the problems his scheme has to overcome. Economics is the other.

"This is not true, actually. First of all, transmitters sending more than a minimal signal are costly -- a 50,000 watt transmitter on one frequency would costs thousands a day in power. To broadcast over a wide range of frequencies would cost millions."

He can't even get this right. While there may be a given cost for a given power, all frequencies aren't equal. Two as already pointed out, one doesn't need lots of power to get a message (or even noise) across.

"Secondly, I promote the idea of freq-hopping software radios that utilize technology designed to avoid interference. In my own neighborhood there are about 20 WiFi access points I can see, and I still get great wireless networking at my home. We're sharing bandwidth here, and while there may be some problems, the situation is getting better in an minimally regulated spectrum. Open up the entire spectrum the FCC monopolizes and you'll see much less interference, not more."

Technofaith is cute especially when the faithful has no understanding of the physics behind it. One and two can be taken care of by mass marketing. Three however is just plain physics, and gets worse as more people are added. Oh and did I mention, all frequencies aren't equal (neither are antennas).

"Thirdly, I believe in the power of the market -- the current need to design better freq-hopping transceivers is not very high due to the regulations out there. Over time, though, I believe we'll see more deregulation of various frequencies as the need for more wireless transmissions goes up. I can only hope it happens sooner rather than later."

Well setting aside his "faith" in the market, his argument about the need not being very high because of regulations is false. The need isn't being driven by regulation but by the same force that has always driven development. Economics.

"Look at all the wasted bandwidth right now. We have digital and analog TV, digital and analog radio, cell phones, FRS, and dozens of other "regulated" bandwidths. This is all data -- and digital data is more efficient -- so why not work to slowly deregulate more and more bandwidth so more and more people can take advantage of it?"

Digital faith rears it's head. digital isn't always the best solution to a problem. Plus as I'm certain some of you have witnessed. Analog degrades gracefully. Digital can use FEC, but FEC isn't a "free of cost" solution and takes away from the message.

"Do we NEED analog and digital TV frequencies anymore? Cable and satellite have replaced MOST people's needs for broadcast media, yet BitTorrent is starting to hurt the old media companies, too. Why not use it all for whatever data the user and the sender both need?"

The faithful are often noted for living in their own little world. One cable or satellitle isn't always a solution for everybody. The reasons range from can't get, all the way to can't afford (the same issues Mr Dada's solution will have to face). Two MOST don't have (or can get) broadband (you know...that thing that powers every slashdot business model).

In short DaDa is long on hyperbole, and short on reality.

Also, check out Paint.Net http://www.eecs.wsu.edu/paint.net/ It wouldn't surprise me they use something this in the final release of Vista. It almost takes on Fireworks, Photoshop, etc and it's free.

http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/than.html

Jeez, kids, this ain't no third grade book report! /grammar nazi mode = off

Indeed. In fact, if they bundled Paint.NET in with Windows, then this would be perfectly adequate for the vast majority of people. It is that good.

I'm not sure how well Paint.NET stacks up in terms of features against the GIMP. My own personal experience was that it was easier to use, the UI was logical and I was productive with it in a matter of minutes - whereas GIMP just had me getting frustrated and going nowhere quickly.

Who cares about Gimp? Paint.net is all that most non-professionals or uber-hobby folk would ever need. And it is free (as in non-alcoholic beer).

You're right, but where I come from, then and than sound as different as bin/ban, fin/fan, and people still get it wrong. This is on the list of "Common Errors in English" ( http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~brians/errors/errors.html )

If they want to really shake things up, teach them the values that made America be able to unify and work together to become an industrial power.

The values that made America be able to unify came out of centuries of darkness in Europe, followed by something called the Enlightenment. Without that movement, the ideas of natural law, the rule of law, and limited government could not have taken root. That's not quite putting it right, but it's close enough.

We are unified, to the extent that we are, by a cultural viewpoint drawn from that historical context. Africans, by and large, see themselves not as displaced Europeans but as the indigenous people working to undo the wrongs done by European colonialism. At any rate, they mostly don't have that historical and cultural context.

Personally, I hope the world never gets along. It would take about six minutes for someone to take the over the whole thing, without so much as a [air quote] giant laser [/air quote].

but it really begs the question: what the hell is Rendezvous and what does it do?

No it doesn't. It raises the question.

Ctrl-E. Wow, that was so difficult.

No, pressing Ctrl+E is not difficult... but intuitavely discovering that, given GIMP's interface, is.

I'm no graphics artist, but I've been using GIMP for years on my photos... for a time it was the best free graphics program you could get for Windows... or was, until I discovered another great open-source program, Paint.NET. For my needs the difference is like night and day. Interfaces DO matter, and Paint.NET's is just more intuitive (proof of that is that I haven't felt the need yet to read any of their documentation... if they even have any!).

Personally I don't care much about bees, but they are cold blooded anyways and they are way too small to fit anything inside it after all...

As for being too small, here's a link to a report about them killing attacking hornets by surrounding them and raising the temperature to around 45 C (that's 113 in bee degrees, which coincidentally happens to be the same as degrees F).

Communism is the word being thrown around. It is held as an example of a country were communism works. I think the reason it works there is as you state, It isn't very communist.

This page goes to show that they have moved away from communism a little. I think it is still considered by most in politics as communist though. I don't know if it is a result of international pressure, internal pressure, or the government just knowing changes needed to be made.Anyhow, it is interesting that we commonly belive it to be somehting it isn't. It makes you think a little about how different they actualy are from other parts of the wold.

I've owned a Tavern for over 20 years now and those scum-sucking bastards have been trying to get me to buy a license in order to "legally" play the radio in my joint.

As I tell them ever year when they show up at my doorstep with a "bill", threatening to take me to court: "Blow Me"

The songs are sent out over the radio for free. If they don't want me using the radio, then they had better come here with a bigger gun than the one I have, or stop broadcasting their songs over the free airwaves.

Or they can blow me.

In any case, nothing has happened in 20 years. The license thing is a bloody joke.

US law provides for certain exemptions to licensing:

the Music Licensing Act [Copyright Term Extension and Music Licensing Act 17 USC 110] draws the line between private and public in terms of the type of public establishment, the size, and the stereo equipment used. Restaurants and bars under 3,750 square feet or retail establishments under 2,000 square feet are exempt from paying fees for playing radio or TV broadcasts for their customers. Public places of any size that play radio or TV broadcasts are exempt from paying fees if they use no more than six external speakers (not more than four speakers in each room) for playing music. Public places that play CDs or hire live musicians (that play cover songs or copy songs) are still subject to being licensed for fees.

From http://publishing.wsu.edu/copyright/music_copyrigh t/

Picasa is nice, but doesn't hold a candle to the free paint.net - the most powerful non-GIMP free image editor I've seen that is amazingly easy to use and intuitive - IIRC you can even extend it with plugins (not that many out (yet?)).

So not only was the food free, it was also "complementary". If a Slashdot post is saved from redundancy by a spelling mistake, is it still a horribly-composed post? Yes. Yes it is.

Also: "were showed" and "there was ... food and drinks". If I can learn Perl, then surely someone at the Slashdot editors' bunker can learn English!

Agreed.

But, why has it remained that way? Inkscape and Blender were both developed along a similar vein and also weren't very good at first, and are now swiftly catching up to their commercial equivalents.

The only thing to improve in the GIMP has been the UI (in which minor, but significant strides were made in Version 2.0). The whole program just feels daunting and old-fashioned to use.

Along the same lines, I think it's time for photoshop to get some serious competition. Portions of the program feel *very* outdated, and many of the newer features are resource-hogs (Bridge, RAW Support, Vanishing Point, Photomerge, etc.). On the other hand, some of the newer photo 'healing' tools are top-rate, and feel like magic. Spot healing is a dream come true for many photographers and designers.

For a good portion of my workflow nowindays, I use a RAW conversion tool du-jour to perform all of my basic image manipulations (much better than any of the old PS tools could have done with just a JPG). I then throw it into Paint.Net to perform any additional processing as necessary that the RAW program I am using will not do. Photoshop is a last resort of sorts. There's no avoiding the fact that it's a huge memory hog.

Which brings me to the point that Paint.Net is an excellent open-source application with a very clear purpose in mind. While retaining an extremely simple interface, it has grown to be a very powerful image manipulation program in a very short amount of time. The GIMP just seems like it's trying too hard to achieve a goal it will never be able to meet. With that also in mind, has anyone else noticed that applications developed specifically for one platform are almost always superior? Quicktime/iTunes for windows sucks. Office for Mac leaves much to be desired in terms of the interface. Mozilla/Firefox does a bad job blending into the surrounding OS, and the Openoffice looks awful on any platform.

Definately good news, but if it's not the default browser the impact will likely be limited. Most people will use whatever's the default.

good point I assumed by "shipping with Firefox" defaultness was implied but if they ship with firefox and not have it as default then it begs the question (to turn the phrase) "What's the point?"

Microsoft is always talking about how they're such a big and dominant browser because IE is so great. Let's see what happens if IE is suddenly not the default browswer see how many people switch.

According to http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/hum_303/enlightenment.h tml, the Enlightment occured before the founding of the country. Considering the U.S. forefathers were heavily influenced by the Enlightenment, I suspect they probably meant a separation of separation of church and state. You might want to see James Madison's view, http://www.jmu.edu/madison/center/main_pages/madis on_archives/constit_confed/rights/epilogue/epilogu e.htm, or, perhaps, the view of Thomas Jefforson on Church and State, http://www.unf.edu/~dschwam/danbury.htm.

What about Paint.Net? Sure, it's win32 only, but in its (very) short existance, so far it's almost caught up to the GIMP from a user's perspective.

Granted, it still lacks a number of more advanced features, but at the same time is elegant in its simplicity and power, and is a pleasure to use --- the UI is clean and responsive, and doesn't attempt to do a half-assed job of copying photoshop.

Oh, and it's also Open Source. The executable is tiny, and the program loads in about 5 seoconds on my rather humble computer, and is very conseravitive with RAM usage. I find that I use it more often than photoshop for my a lot of my simpler work. If they can clone photoshop's healing brush, I think I could probably ditch photoshop completely.

from this page: http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~brians/hum_303/enlightenm ent.html

The Enlightenment

          Although the intellectual movement called "The Enlightenment" is usually associated with the 18th century, its roots in fact go back much further. But before we explore those roots, we need to define the term. This is one of those rare historical movements which in fact named itself. Certain thinkers and writers, primarily in London and Paris, believed that they were more enlightened than their compatriots and set out to enlighten them.

As someone who has seen a newborn die from braininjuries from up close(my little niece*), i salute the effort in this line of research. Since TFA mentions that this treatment does not use the embryotic (sp?) stemcells, i fail to see why this would become one of those ethical debates. Like with C. Reeves, i just wish they had developed this sooner :(


* = a common spelling mistake

... use the phrase "begs the question" properly.

http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/begs.html

... use the phrase "begs the question" properly.

http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/begs.html

How to spell "lose"

Microsoft .NET Framework Version 2.0 Redistributable Package (x86) 23 MB, 2-4 minutes to download, assumming a broadband connection.

if you're developing consumer Windows application with .NET v2.0...well, mod yourself down.

... depending on the writing guidelines one follows, one does use an apostrophe to denote plurals in the case of acronyms.

http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/acronyms.html

I believe the theft of ideas to be as great a sin as the theft of physical property, and should be punished accordingly. See Hammurabi's Code for details on how to punish copyright theft... For those of you too lazy to look through all 283 laws, here it is: "If a journalist copys and pastes information from a webblog, he shall pay one mina of gold to the blogger for each verbatin paragraph and shall be fired"