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Open Source Tuesday – “Linux”
Intro
After thinking of what to blog about today, I decided to do a theme for Tuesday’s and make it Open Source Tuesdays. If you do not know what Open Source is and would like to know more about it go to Opensource.org. Basically Open Source are free programs developed by a group of people that think all software should be open to the public. One of (if not) the largest community that makes and develops Open Source software is the Linux community. So I figured I would first talk about Linux, and what is it? how do you use it? and is it right for me?
Linux – What is it?
Honestly I could write all about it and what it does and how its made but other people have done that a ton of times so here are a couple of links.
That should be all you really would want to know about linux. But in a nut shell Linux is mainly used as a replacement OS (Operating System) for windows or mac. So instead of using Windows XP or Mac, you could use a Distro of Linux. What is a Distro? A distro is like a Brand or Flavor. Some people like chocolate ice cream some people like vanilla. Personally I like Kubuntu, its very easy and user friendly. Kubuntu is part of the Ubuntu family. The K and Kubuntu stands for KDE which is a desktop environment. I know your probably thinking what is that!?!? Its basically how your windows look, and how your menus are setup.
Bustaname – Best domain name tool Ever!
Over the past year I have been using this wonderful tool to find and create domain names. Today I thought I would blog about it and show how it works.
What is it? and How does it work?
Bustaname.com is basically a tool used to find domain names that are still available for purchase. An example of this is: Your company name is Happy Joe’s Pancake House and your looking for a domain name that is best suited for your company.
Your search would look something like this:
as you can see it takes all the different words and tries the different combination’s of them, some will not make sense and that is probably why they are still available. If you do a three word search you will find that JoesPancakes.com is available and that would probably be the best fit. So you click Buy and you can either buy it on the site with a number of different registrars or use one that you like.
Adrive – 50GB of Storage Online Free
ADrive.com – 50GB of Free Online Storage! Sound Good? I think so.
To be honest I have never heard of this company before today, I just saw some one else talking about it on the web and thought I would give it a try. They offer 50GB of storage for free, but only you can access the files. I has an option to share files but I have not tested that yet. From what I have seen so far, the free account would be great for students that dont want to lose their stuff or for people that would just like to have a backup of files in a different place (not a bad idea.)
What I have seen so far
So far it looks great, its all ajax driven for a nice sleek 2.0 feel, seems a bit sluggish on some refreshes but that could be my Internet connection (WiFi.) Files are not sent over https but over http, but it does ask for you to accept a cert, so dont really know how secure the Uploading is. They allow subfolders and allow multi-select, so you can click browse and select 5+ files at a time, very cool.
Other Plans they offer
They offer a few different plans that cost money but for online storage its a great price. The $7/month plan offers a couple of nice additions, SSL for security, 24/7 support, no ads, diverse backups and some other things. Though its still only 50GB, still not bad, 100GB starts at $13.95/month and you can go all the way to 1TB for $131.95
So for now if anyone else would like to give it a try I would suggest it. I’ll keep you up to date on how my trail of it goes.
Technorati Tags: adrive, online storage, useful sites
Scribefire – Blog client for Firefox
First off I would like to tell you all that, if your not using Firefox your missing out on one of the best Internet browsers ever!
That being said, Firefox has the ability to use add-ons that will help with doing everyday tasks. One task (well not really a task) that I like to do is work on websites and blogs. That’s where Scribefire comes in.
ScribeFire
Scribefire is a nice tool for editing blogs with in firefox. You can browse the web, look up site and still have scribefire at the bottom so when you find what your looking for, you can write what you need to or pull the pictures you want with out switching windows (I love that!)
HDRi (High dynamic range imaging)
Over the past week I have been learning about HDR Imaging (High dynamic range imaging) and find that the effects are great. There are many different tools that you can use to do this. The one that I prefer is photomatix, its about $100 but works awesome.
What is an HDR Image?
HDR Imaging is a way to take multiple exposures and combined them to make a more dynamic image. Couple of examples of before and afters
As you can see the change in the picture is very extreme.
This image shows that you take a number of shots at different lighting and use a program to combined them.
You can find out more at wikipedia
