GIMP - A bit fiddly but very powerful

It sometimes comes as a bit of a shock to people who don't give a lot of thought to computers to find that the ferocity of the Mac versus Windows debate rivals the controversy over the religious principles in the Reformation. You read some forums and breathe a sigh of relief that it is no longer legal to burn people at the stake. Even if you are au fait with the passions aroused by these different platforms, you may not be aware that there is a similar war going on between aficionados of Photoshop and the GIMP. Photoshop is the best selling graphics package and the GIMP, or the Graphic Image Manipulation Programme is its leading open source rival. Luckily, I don't have to come down on one side or the other because as only the GIMP is free I only have to consider its merits in absolute terms. Photoshop may or may not be a much better option for the seeker after serious graphic gratification - I don't know because I have never had a go on it. What I can say is that for the ocaissional dabbler in graphics, the GIMP is very capable but does not make it easy for the novice to get the most out of it. I suspect that if you have a pretty good idea of what you are doing that it is a very useable piece of software. But its bewildering array of features and its very, how we shall we put it, original configuration don't lend themselves to its use for a quick bit of image tarting up. Pressing the wrong buttons can also get you into a frustrating cycle of futile clicking. Nonetheless the fact that it is free, that it supports a huge range of file types and that it almost certainly does actually do whatever it is you want to do justifies downloading it and devoting a modest bit of your hard disc to it. It comes in versions for Windows, Mac and Linux, and all are very similar to one another so it is a good choice for platform tarts or people who need to work on the same files at home and on a different system at work. I'll post a couple of step by step guides to how to do speficic things with the GIMP.

Using Google Docs as a Blog Editor

Using Google Docs as a Blog Editor

If you are an enthusiastic blogger and a bit of a perfectionist, an off-line blog editor like Microsoft Live Writer or the truly awesome Ecto are well worth investigating. But if you just want to knock up a quick blog post, or you have an old document that you have decided you want to share on the web then it might be worth bearing in mind that you can use Google Docs as a rough and ready blog editor.

Write the post as you would any other, then save and close the document. Go to the main Docs window and tick the document. Pick the More Actions option and select publish.

If you haven't carried out this process before you need to go to the bottom of the page and fill in your blog settings - so you will need to remember your password. If you run more than one blog you need to make sure that it is set up for the blog you are working on.

Then just press post to blog and you are done.

Windows Live Writer - An excellent blog editor

Sometimes you come across something that you didn't realise even existed and within a few days you can't understand how you lived without it.

This is what I have found with Windows Live Writer. I got it free with the CD that came with a webcam I have just bought - but it turns out that it is a free download in any case.

What does it do? It is basically a sort of blog specific word processor enabling you to keep track of a range of blogs and edit them offline. It has a whole lot of handy tools. The most impressive feature is that it can handle accounts in multiple platforms, so I can manage both my Blogger and my Wordpress blogs.

And the best thing is that when you are happy with your piece of work, you simply press the button and it is published to your blog. I haven't quite got my brain round exactly how it works but it has already saved me a stack of time.

Probably the biggest time saver is incorporating pictures. You insert them from a menu and you can then quickly set up how you want the picture to be displayed. Compared to the Byzantine complexity of the Wordpress media handler it is simplicity itself. It is a sight easier than Blogger as well.
The funkiest feature is probably the least useful in real productivity savings, and doesn't even work consistently, but on some blogs Live Writer can download your blogs theme so when you edit it , you can see how it will look on screen.

Highly recommended.

Why use free software?

The obvious answer to this is because it is free. This is the wrong answer. Time is money. Free software that costs you time is expensive. Paid for software that saves you time is cheap. If you use software for something that is critical to your life you should not bat an eyelid at paying for it unless you are so broke that you literally can't afford anything. If this is my philosophy, why have I started a blog on free software? The reason is that there are times when you need some software to do a quick job, or a job that you do infrequently, or a job that you would just like to do but which isn't really that important. And for this situation it is likely that there is a free option around. The classic case is Photoshop. If you are a serious graphic artist you are going to want to have the up to date version of Photoshop to help you create the images that are important to you. If you want to fiddle around a bit and come up with something to brighten up a community newsletter, you don't. In fact you won't even need 90% of the functions of Gimp. But as you don't need to pay for Gimp, in this case it is clearly a better option. It so happens that I am often in the position of wanting to do something as a one off and I have a bit of a weakness for trying out new bits of software. On this blog I intend to share some of my experiences with free software from the point of view of someone who just wants to quickly fiddle with something. I hope you find it useful.