CBT Cafe, for those who learn visually. I was scouting around looking for Flash tutorials and stumbled on this site. The gimmick: they don't just teach you the code/effect/design, they actually walk you through it with a narrated Quicktime movie.
Currently serving Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Flash, Photoshop, Cleaner, Quicktime, EBay, and the MacOS.
posted by jragon
on Mar 17, 2002 -
2 comments
Dig through the Glass Engine. A truly cool little app that indexes Mp3 samples of over 60 compositions by Philip Glass. Play with the buttons or drag the blue bar at the top of the screen to browse by year (with or without a filter thrown on to get just film scores, opera, etc.). Drag the second series of blue bars to get presented with other selections with more or less joy, sorrow, intensity, density and velocity. Even if you don't care for Glass, think how you could use something like this elsewhere. (via
Jerry Kindall)
posted by maudlin
on Mar 1, 2002 -
26 comments
Does anyone care that nobody needs to sing well anymore? Spot-on piece about the way that digital music tools aren't just making rotten singers sound OK (with software that shifts their pitch upwards), but good singers lazy ("hey that's fine, just copy'n'paste it into the next chorus").
And removing the excitement from studio performance. Is the only honest response to this electro-fakery to go all
Daft Punk? Or am I just an old Stevie'n'Retha'n'Marvin nostalgist?
posted by theplayethic
on Feb 14, 2002 -
53 comments
Mileage Run! Not sitting at the front of the Airbus? Then maybe you need to pack a light bag, book a tight itinerary and rack up those miles. Here's a nice
tool for finding efficient flights. Otherwise the terrorists have already won.. ha!.
posted by Real9
on Jan 31, 2002 -
2 comments
Search-indexing video footage? Dremedia's software can analyze video footage -- either raw or edited -- and not only identify nearly every word spoken but also differentiate between speakers and even understand when a scene changes. And who said the gee-whiz startup was dead? Well, it is, but
Futureboy still has rent to pay, I s'pose.
posted by scarabic
on Jan 4, 2002 -
4 comments
A New Year's Idea: Pay For Some So, slashdot says A Great New Year's Idea is to Pay For Some Freedom, eg.
BSD,
EFF or
MozillaZine to name just a few, but what else can we do?
Metafilter,
OddTodd,
IMDB [Aren't they already owned by Amazon?], lots of good places to spread the holiday cheer.
Seems like there is no
shortage of Folks who
are looking for something.
I like the idea of
Getting Something In Return, not sure if that makes me greedy, or scroogey.
Seems like the web has really given us a new list of worthy causes...
posted by Blake
on Dec 27, 2001 -
5 comments
[re]distributions is a collection of art software and essays centering on PDAs and information appliances. Glad I cleaned out my Jornada at work today. Most of the artists have various other projects at their own sites, if you follow their links.
posted by Su
on Dec 12, 2001 -
1 comment
AirSnort. The dangerous app with the unlikely name allows users to snatch data being passed over wireless networks, eventually capturing passwords to the network.
posted by o2b
on Nov 29, 2001 -
7 comments
WE ARE WATCHING YOU. "The FBI added that its research is 'always mindful of constitutional, privacy and commercial equities,' and that its use of new technology can be challenged in court and in Congress." No really, go ahead, try and stop us if you don't like it. That's your (snicker, snicker) right.
posted by rushmc
on Nov 24, 2001 -
12 comments
Software projects are notorious for time and budget overruns (examples that come to mind include
Mozilla and the
Denver Airport baggage system). There are a large number of design methods, development processes, and programming methodologies that claim or hint at objective estimation of development schedules, project complexity, and programmer productivity. Unfortunately,
they're all bunk.
"The creation of genuinely new software has far more in common with developing a new theory of physics than it does with producing cars or watches on an assembly line."
Programmers, try telling that one to your next customer.
posted by lagado
on Nov 21, 2001 -
21 comments
$100 million in fake software seized .The copies of Windows Millenium and Windows 2000 Professional were indistinguishable from the real thing except for their failure to crash every 15 minutes(I made that up).Ever burn a copy for friends? Is that wrong?
posted by Mack Twain
on Nov 17, 2001 -
31 comments
iTunes installer débâcle Backups are insufficiently sexy: “This time Apple deserves the lion’s share of the blame for creating an operating system that can’t be backed up and restored reliably many months after the initial release. For this reason alone, Mac OS X cannot be considered acceptable for serious use in many situations”
posted by joeclark
on Nov 13, 2001 -
10 comments
iTunes 2 was released recently. Some poor OS X users
lost all their data after installing this seemingly innocuous software. (about a third of the way down)
Is being on the bleeding edge worth it? What responsibility does a software manufacturer have to prevent from damaging your data? Any other horror stories from installing just released software? Not bashing Apple, as I'm using a Mac myself.
posted by the biscuit man
on Nov 5, 2001 -
25 comments
Let's stop wasting US$ 78 billion a year. Is software development really this inefficient? Aside from the main theme, there is also an interesting statement from a CIO towards the end of the article. "Those folks [involved in the open-source movement] are very knowledgeable, very good at what they do, and they're producing really great code," [...]
posted by HeikoH
on Oct 20, 2001 -
5 comments
What OS is Micro$oft running? A poll of what OS' run in Microsoft's netblock, and their rank by uptime. Besides the fact that Hotmail was on FreeBSD for awhile [before M$ took them over], this was surprising.
posted by plemeljr
on Oct 17, 2001 -
18 comments
Staroffice 6.0b is a great, free alternative to microsoft office for people who can't afford the suite or for those that would rather not use microsoft products. Staroffice has completely integrated XML support and full featured word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, and drawing applications.
posted by mcsweetie
on Oct 8, 2001 -
25 comments
The W3C's RAND Patent Policy commenting deadline has been extended. At first glance, the new policies seem to encourage software patents, but after reading the whole thing and the W3C's response to current comments, it looks, to my admittedly naive eyes, as though the W3C is trying to make it so that companies using proprietary software are going to
have to make it available to other people for licensing. Why is this new structure potentially a bad thing?
posted by cCranium
on Oct 2, 2001 -
8 comments
Striking back at hackers
"LaBrea" is a free, open-source tool that deters worms and other hack attacks by transforming unused network resources into decoy-computers that appear and act just like normal machines on a network. But when malicious hackers or mindless worms such as Nimda or Code Red attempt to connect with a LaBrea-equipped system, they get sucked into a virtual tarpit that grabs their computer's connection -- and doesn't release it.
Is this an ethical use of network resources, or just vigilante justice? What other methods have you used to strike back at hostile software?
posted by TheChump
on Sep 20, 2001 -
9 comments
Instant Design at the touch of a button More good news for designers -- not only has the ad market bottomed out, now this software from
move design spits out instant layouts. Just add the text you want, choose the style, and hit Ctrl-G. The results are surprisingly tasteful. Is this the end of design as we know it, or just a toy for generating new ideas? Would you like fries with that?
posted by fellorwaspushed
on Sep 10, 2001 -
23 comments
Fighting feeping creaturism. Following in the wake of "abandonware" sites, here's a chance to perform that much-needed downgrade in order to escape bloat/adware/etc. What's your favourite software relic?
posted by holgate
on Aug 31, 2001 -
34 comments
Fight back against sneaky scumware like TopText and Surf+, with this Javascript code by Gary Rosenzweig of CleverMedia. The code detects the scumware's presence, pops up a message letting the user know they're carrying a parasite, and then surveys the user to find out if they knew about it. In the first day of operation on his site, he discovered that 3.67% of his visitors had either TopText or Surf+ installed, and more than 90% of these visitors did not know until they were told. (Link to the Javascript code is at the bottom of the article.)
posted by cfj
on Aug 31, 2001 -
7 comments
Rude Software Installation I clicked on a link that needed Shockwave 8.5 installed. Silly me, I said okay. After the download, the installation program nicely closed all of my open IE windows without first asking, creating a splendid loss of work for me!! Thanks Macromedia!! I'm now going to be on the lookout... What other software programs act rudely, creating defaults, shutting down your browser windows, or assigning themselves to extensions without first asking?
posted by yarf
on Aug 29, 2001 -
36 comments
Software Libre! Local and national governments around the world are legislating in favor of open source, in a challenge to US corporate (read Microsoft) dominance. A liberating movement, or too much government intrusion?
posted by liam
on Aug 29, 2001 -
11 comments
I think I just melted my irony meter. The radically innovative new plan at VA Linux is to reach profitability by selling proprietary software.
(Larry Augustin has invented Microsoft!) But not just any software; they're going to sell the software which operates SourceForge, one of the largest repositories of open source software in the world. And this is now going to become the core business; they may even change the company name. I can't wait to see what the folks on SlashDot think of this! (VA Linux also operates SlashDot.)
posted by Steven Den Beste
on Aug 23, 2001 -
18 comments
Yet Another Artist Link , this time i'm showcasing an artist/skinner who not only does great work, but believes in usability (for all those 'hey i've been using winamp for 6 months now, and i still need the buttons plainly labeled' whiners). just kidding folks. check out the wallpapers too while you're there.
posted by jcterminal
on Aug 4, 2001 -
5 comments
Anti-rip CD system bypassed. heh. nice try, boyos. i've never understood how people can believe something digitized can possibly be protected in such a manner as to be foolproof. what one process can scramble, another can undo. [via
/.]
posted by fuzzygeek
on Aug 1, 2001 -
5 comments
B&O goes virtual : Beoplayer 1.0 is a Windows application that sits on your desktop and, like everything Bang, works in a sleek, elegant, unintuitive manner (until you learn what the icons and doodads do, then you can show it off for all your friends). Guaranteed you've never seen a music player like this one.
posted by honkzilla
on Jul 31, 2001 -
14 comments
