Free Commercial Software, Update on Online Courses

First off, I would like to thank whoever just commented on my AP Courses post, pointing out www.courserepository.org which has a bunch more free material for a variety of online classes. If anyone else has any other similar sites they like I would love to hear about them, please comment on my original post.

Second, I have been reading a lot about a new site called Giveaway of the Day over the last couple weeks. Giveaway of the Day gives away a free commercial software package every day (fully licensed) . I'm really not sure how the economics of this are supposed to work, but they do occasionally give away interesting software. There is also a Game specific page. You can read a little more about it here, but I'm still not sure what the catch is. It at least might be worth looking into. I'll let you know how it works if I ever happen to notice they have something I want while it's still free.

Windows based Debian Installer

For people who have been wanting to try to install Linux for awhile but haven't known how to start or don't have a bootable CD drive, etc Debian has a Windows based installer. All you have to do is go to goodby-microsoft.com and run the Windows executable. The installer then downloads what you need and sets you up with the main Debian installer. Apparently, there is also a similar program for Ubuntu.
I haven't tried either of these yet, but it seems like a good idea. Great for an old Windows machine without a CD burner (last time I checked a Debian disc set was a couple DVDs or half a dozen CDs).

I would recommend you start with knoppix or some other livecd (Internet Freedom Disc if you prefer) first, to get used to Linux though.

Misc. News

I don't have too much for you tonight, just a couple news items.

First off: Gaim2-beta6 is out Get it here. The Xfire plugin has also been updated.

Lifehacker linked an excellent looking book that teaches the open source 3D drawing/animation program Blender (mentioned here a number of times). I used an older version to learn the basics quite awhile ago and it was fairly well written. Get the book here. (pdf here)

A couple weeks ago, Daily Cup of Tech released a tool kit for fixing Windows computers that fits on a 32M flash drive. Might be handy. UBCD is also great for doing repairs.

GIMP vs. Photoshop

It's been awhile, sorry (stupid midyear stuff).

Anyway, just a quick post to mention this article comparing the GIMP to Photoshop (Thanks Lifehacker).
I've been a long time GIMP user, and it works very well for most things (particularly the most recent versions). The article states that RAW formats aren't supported, if you want RAW support in the GIMP I suggest you check out UFRaw. UFRaw works well with most brands of camera (I have had very good luck with Nikon's RAW format).

Happy GIMPing ;-)

New PBS Science show

Thanks to Slashdot to pointing out that PBS has pilot episodes of three possible new Science shows up on their website. I'm all for any sort of interesting new science programming (even the beloved Mythbusters has been going downhill a bit lately with more theatrics and less science). The Wired Science was decent, though didn't contain anything particularly new to me anyway. I haven't had a chance to look at the others yet. At any rate, if you have the time head over to pbs, watch the shows and give them some feedback. Hopefully we will see one or more of the shows on broadcast tv sometime (though I wouldn't mind seeing them stay on the net either, our tv seems to always be on the food channel). You will need Quicktime or Windows Media Player (Totem and mplayerplug-in seem to work also).

On a completely different note, if you are looking for a little light amusement, this clip has been the topic of the day among my friends today and just needs mentioning.

Template Tweaks

If any of you use blogger, you may have noticed that they are trying to get us to use a new format for the site "template". The new way is easier to edit with no knowledge of the underlaying technology but messes up a lot of existing templates. I finally took the plunge today, so let me know if you notice any problems. I will be putting all the missing widgets back shortly.

Edit1: Anyone else using Feedburner may find the second post in this thread helpful.

Online AP Courses

If your in high school anticipating college (or just plain bored) you may know that the College Board offers tests that act as transfer credit at many colleges. Unfortunately many schools don't offer the classes associated with these tests. This doesn't mean you can't take the tests. I came across a bunch of flash based AP lessons on archive.org the other day, which seem really good (at least the physics one I did). So if anyone else is taking AP tests without the class (or just needs some extra help) look here.

It looks like they are done by the Monterey Institute of Tech & Education. (Anyone heard of them before?).

In addition to physics, they have calculus, US history, US Gov. and environmental science.