Kalamaf Drackonsbane » Software

Websites

kalamaf — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 23:36:23 +0000

Lately I’ve been turning a lot of the websites I own into blogs. They’re easy to update this way and information can be sorted into categories or by tags, and entire blogs are very easy to search through. Changing the entire look is simply a matter of downloading a new theme and in seconds you can have a fresh new layout.

In some cases though it’s still best to keep a regular website, and for cases like that I keep my skills brushed up by reading web design blogs on a semi-regular basis. A lot has changed over the years when it comes to coding a webpage; javascript, java and flash have largely taken over where basic HTML used to reign supreme.

Stylish Design is a new and growing resource containing useful information on designing web pages, setting up and maintaining server software and much more.

AVG Version 8 now Available

kalamaf — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 04:41:44 +0000

I’ve been using the free version 7.5 of AVG for quite some time now, it works well and doesn’t get in the way. So many scanners I’ve tested in the past were just horrible. They’d hog resources, slow the computer down and constantly annoy me with popups asking if this or that is ok. I’ll admit though that AVG Free isn’t the best protection available, just a few weeks ago an MSN virus slipped through and infected one of our computers, but 20 minutes later everything was fixed and back to normal.

Yesterday I was trying to help a friend with a particularly nasty virus problem that AVG just couldn’t seem to handle. I saw on the main website that version 8 was now out but only for subscribers and for the trial users. AVG free is still limited to version 7.5. I downloaded the trial for 8.0 and installed it on the guys computer, it found nearly 200 infections/spyware/viruses that AVG, spybot, adaware and a squared hadn’t picked up on. You really do get what you pay for and as soon as I have a few extra bucks I’ll be upgrading to a 2 year paid version for myself.

Free Photoshop Brushes

kalamaf — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 17:53:19 +0000

I’m an old dog when it comes to graphic editing, I’m still using PSP 4.14 which has gotta be about 12 years old by now. Sooner or later I’ll have to upgrade to something newer and better though, and seeing things like free Photoshop Brushes and patterns is a good incentive. It’s great to get some freebies once in a while to add new functionality to existing software. Check out Brusheezy for some other cool stuff as well.

Fotofix

kalamaf — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 17:43:51 +0000

Ever notice how great all the models and stars look in pictures, but then if you get a glimpse of them in real life, or in regular pictures they don’t look quite the same? It’s all due to the benefits of photo retouching. Magazines do it, websites do it and it’s even done in the movies these days.

Now everyone can have stunning looking photos thanks to Fotofix. It’s quick, easy and affordable photo enhancements performed by a team of expert photographers and artists. If your pictures are digital you can just upload them directly to the Fotofix guys, explain what you’d like done to the picture, and within a matter of hours they’ll be returned to you all done and ready to go.

Popular touch ups include complexion smoothing, wrinkle removal, teeth whitening and so on. It’s the type of thing you can do with Photoshop but it requires a lot of practice to get it looking just right. Not to mention that Photoshop costs several hundred dollars to buy. It’s easy to mangle a picture, but making it look better and still real requires a professionals touch.

Even if you don’t want the people in the picture touched up, sometimes it’s the background that needs fixing. A background that is too bright or too dark can make the focus of the picture appear dim or washed out and these are problems that can also be Fotofixed.

Netsimplicity

kalamaf — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 05:20:05 +0000

Managing a business is no easy task. With that in mind, Netsimplicity has created an excellent scheduling software package that will let you keep track of employees, meetings, equipment and nearly everything else business related. Find out instantly who has the conference room booked for next Thursday, which caterer they’ll be using and whether they’re going to be using the projector for a presentation. Managing your business could be a whole lot easier with the help of Netsimplicity.