PC Stuff

A collection of usefull, interesting, cool or just plain required PC progs, apps, and info.

"The GIMP" is a GNU Image Manipulation Program - that is, essentially freeware, with freely distributable code.  Creativity-wise, it kicks butt (95% of the graphics and titles you see on this site were created with the GIMP)

The GIMP has sometimes been called a PhotoShop clone, which isn't entirely accurate, but the basic concepts are the same, and it can definitely do virtually everything PhotoShop can, plus some more.  Two of the main advantages of the GIMP are its very cool text-rendering filters, and the fact that it has a lot of built-in filters, whereas PhotoShop relies heavily on plug-ins.  So compare - PhotoShop for about a $grand, or The GIMP for zip... not really worth thinking about, is it?

Original the GIMP was a Linux app.  But now it's being "ported" to most other OSs, ie. Windows and MacOS X.  I usually use the Win32 port.  I do have it on Linux, but unfortunately I still need to use Windows for a lot of stuff, so it's nice to have a GIMP for every occasion!

If you want to do cool looking graphics, then the GIMP is the program for you - and it's free!
(Plus the download is only around 7MB, and comes with virtually everything you need!)

Tor Lillqvist's Win32 port of the GIMP can be found here
The official GIMP home is here

  Here's my script-fu for rotoscoping lightsabre blades. Just pop it in your "scripts" directory in your GIMP folder, and run it on a selected blade.

Here's my guide to using it - GIMPing a LighSabre!
Download Blade-Roto Script-fu Version1.3 (new corona colour added 1/6/03)

• AMD Athlon XP2400, Albatron KX18D ProII motherboard (nForce2), 512MB Geil Dual-Channel DDRAM (2x256MB), black case, 128MB Albatron FX5200 Video Card running DualView twin 17" monitors, 200GB and 20GB 7.2Krpm ATA100 HardDrives, DVD-burner.
  Currently single-boot XP Pro, plan multi-boot with Fedora Core and DamnSmallLinux
• Compaq Presario V4221TU 1.5GHz laptop, 15.4" widescreen, 512MB RAM, 60GB HardDrive, DVD-burner, wireless network.
  Dual-boot, XP and DamnSmallLinux
• Compaq Armada 1592DT P233 laptop, 64MB RAM, 4GB HardDrive, PCMCIA network.  Docking station for MIDI output.
  Dual-boot, WinME and DamnSmallLinux
• AMD K6-2+ 450, Aopen AX59Pro Super7 motherboard, custom-sprayed ATX case, 384MB PC133 SDRAM, 32MB TNT2 Vanta 3D Video Card, SB AWE64 soundcard, 10/100 ethernet, no harddrive at present. Going to become dedicated Linux machine.
• Toshiba T4700CS DX50 laptop, 8MB RAM, 200MB HardDrive, built-in soundcard, custom sprayed, DeskStation IV docking station with SB Vibra16 installed (for MIDI output), battery stuffed
• Compaq Deskpro DX50, 8MB RAM, 200MB HardDrive (potential MIDI contoller / virtual synth)

• D-Link DSL-504G ADSL Modem / Firewall / 100Mb 4port switch
• Netgear FM114P Firewall / 100Mb 4port switch / Wireless Access Point
• SMC SMC2662W USB Wireless Network adapter
• Cannon S400 1440x720dpi inkjet printer
• Lexmark 4039 10R Plus 600dpi Black and White laser printer
• Hewlett Packard HP J2600A 10Mbit 12port hub

My (old) setup; custom-sprayed PCs, MIDI keyboards,
50W stereo amp & 12" woofers,
and velvet chair!

OpenOffice:  Forget spending a fortune on M$ Office - Open Office does everything M$ Office does, plus more, all for FREE.  OO is an extremely impressive package, and has so far opened every single M$ Office file that I have thrown at it, including files made with the very latest versions of M$ Office.
OpenOffice home

ModPlug Tracker:  A very good, free, MOD tracker - find some good samples, whack 'em in the pattern editor, and you're on your way to creating some cool (maybe) songs.
ModPlug.com home

JAZZ Sequencer:  One of the top MIDI sequencers, Jazz has now gone under the GNU license, meaning it is now "basically" freeware.
Jazz Home

AudioSim Virtual Synth:  Extremely cool virtual synth that will run on virtually any machine, as long as it has an original Creative Sound Blaster sound-card (ie. clones don't work - apparently uses the hardware specific to SBs only).
Full realtime MIDI control (NO LAG!!!) means it can make for a very cheap Virtual Analog synthesiser replacement (only monophony though).  Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be available anymore - I may post the demo (works, but doesn't allow saving) here in the near future.

Sim Synth:  Cool virtual synthesiser, needs a pretty fast processer though.
SimSynth Home

WinAmp:  THE mp3 player, great quality, tons of skins and plugins available, basically all you could want in an mp3 player!
WinAmp Home
Skinz.org - thousands of skinz for WinAmp, plus virtually every other skinable app!

AudioGrabber:  This (now) freeware CD-Ripper will grab the audio off discs digitally in a fraction of the time it would take to record normally.  Also has an mp3 encoding front-end - I use LAME (below), set to 160kb/s, Joint Stereo, for good quality, small file-size mp3s.
AudioGrabber Home

LAME:  A high quality free mp3 encoder.  Is available as a stand-alone encoder, or a dll that plugs into Audio Crusher
LAME download

Shareaza:  The best of the current Peer-to-Peer file-share programs, can connect to multiple popular networks as well as BitTorrents.
Shareaza Home

ID3 Master:  Cool little freeware program for automatically adding ID3 tags to your ripped mp3s from the file name - eg., you can convert the filename "Cold -02- Suffocate.mp3" to an ID3 tag of "Artist=Cold Track#=02 Title=Suffocate"
ID3 Master Home

The GIMP:  Extremely cool graphics program, similar to PhotoShop but FREE! - see [The GIMP] above.

Paint Shop Pro:  Very good shareware prog when it comes to resizing, cut/paste/edit, basic image creation, etc.  I use this for pre- and post-creation editing from the GIMP, as, for simple editing of pics, it's just about the best there is (ie. I'll set up an image using PSP, do the creative stuff on it using the GIMP, then do the resizing / clarifying / cutting up /etc. using PSP again)
Jasc Software Home

Ultimate Paint:  Basic freeware graphics program, but with some great plug-in filters that make it more than worth-while!
Ulimate Paint Home

MS GIF Animator:  Shock horror, a FREE Micro$oft product!!  ; )
Very simple and effective gif animator - just paste the images in the sequence you want, fiddle the settings, then save!
Download Here

ACDSee:  THE prog to use if you want to browse through graphics directories - fast thumbnailing views, drag-'n'-drop, slideshow, renaming, everything you need for quick and easy browsing / organising of your graphics files.
ACDSee Home

XnView:  Freeware thumbnail program similar to ACDSee.
XnView Home

VirtualDub:  Freeware video editor. Lets you capture video, convert file types, recompress using different codecs, apply filtering...
VirtualDub Home

DVD Shrink:  Freeware DVD re-compressor, ideal for fitting dual-layer DVDs onto burnable single-layer discs.
DVD Shrink Home

DivX:  Not a program, but a video compression codec.  Extremely good for compressing large videos to smaller ones, while still retaining quality.
DivX Home

MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator):  Remember going down to the local take-away shop to play the arcade machines?  Well, MAME lets you play 'em all again!  It ain't clones, these are the real game!!
MAME Home

WS-FTP LE:  Extremely good freeware FTP program, if you need an FTP program to upload your pages, this is the one!
Download from: www.ipswitch.com

SciTE:  My new favourite text/code editor, SciTE (the Scintilla Text Editor) is available on practically every platform, and can be found as a stand-alone file you can pop on your USB drive and take wherever you may need to do some coding/editing!  With line numbers, colour-coding, multiple file opening, HTML/HTM opening/saving, search and replace, drag and drop, etc...
Scintilla Home

NotePad+:  Ideal for hand-coding your pages, NotePad+ replaces the standard Windows Notepad with one that allows multiple file opening, HTML/HTM opening/saving, search and replace, drag and drop, and heaps more.
NotePad+ Home

NetMeter:  Freeware Download/Upload Meter that keeps tabe on how much traffic has been coming and going through your internet connection.  Great for if your ISP has a download limit.
NetMeter Home

Browser Safe Color Selector:  Cool little freeware program that lets you pick web-safe text colours, displaying them on the fly.  Ideal for finding colours that work with your backgrounds, which can otherwise be a real pain...
Color-Selector Home

WellStyled.com Colour Scheme Generator:  This online tool is great for coming up with ideas for site colour schemes.
Colour Scheme Generator

DaFont - awesome site giving a full display of every character inside the fontsets.  And they're all free!

AcidCool Fonts - tons of free fonts!

Fonts For Freaks - the title says it all!

1001 Fonts - what the name says. Well indexed.