Software

I’ve just been trying out MeeGo (Intel/Nokia) on my EeePC 901. It runs very very fast, has a lovely snappy UI… but is just a little bit too cutesy for me. They should have called it Katamari OS. Other than being just a little too simple (which will probably be a plus for tablets and in-car computers), I had a lot of trouble keeping a connection to my home WiFi OR my wired LAN. And frankly, I’m still not having a lot of fun using Chrome.

MeeGo is an open source, Linux project which brings together the Moblin project, headed up by Intel, and Maemo, by Nokia, into a single open source activity. MeeGo currently targets platforms such as netbooks/entry-level desktops, handheld computing and communications devices, in-vehicle infotainment devices, connected TVs, and media phones.

Other than the overly cutesy factor, and my personal WiFi problems, MeeGo is probably worth trying. The MeeGo website has very simple instructions on doing a ‘byte-exact copy’ of the img file to an SD card – so you can easily try it out ‘live’ without screwing with your current OS.

Personally, I’m sticking with Mint.

I recently came across some wonderful freeware called doPDF – it allows you to print just about anything to a PDF. It’s free, and it works. Get it here.

doPDF is a free PDF converter for both personal and commercial use. Using doPDF you can create PDF files by selecting the “Print” command from virtually any application. With one click you can convert your Microsoft Excel, Word or PowerPoint documents or your emails and favorite web sites to PDF files.

I’ve been using PSPad for a few years now – but lately I’ve been using it more and more, almost to the point that it has eclipsed Dreamweaver (which has always been my primary HTML and PHP editor). It’s got everything I need from a code editor:

• Built in FTP client
• Coloured syntax highlighting
• File comparison/text difference with colour coded highlighting
• Spell checker with user defined dictionaries
• Matching bracket highlighting

But best of all, it’s free, and it can run from a PortableApps/USB stick. Get it here.

If you want something smaller and lighter than Photoshop to use on your subnotebook (e.g Eee PC), or on your PortableApps USB stick, then you’ve probably already tried GIMP. It’s open source, extremely powerful, and in my opinion, has one of the worst GUIs I’ve ever seen – which is made even worse if you’re working on a 9 inch (or smaller) screen. Which is why I’ve been using PhotoFiltre instead.
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I’ve just fixed a few minor bugs in TWP Auctions, and have bumped it up to version 3.0 RC2. This is probably as far as the free version is going to go, so please… if you find anything wrong with it, let me know!

More info here.

It’s taken a while, but TWP Auctions 3.0 is finally ready. Download it, install it, play with it, and tell me what’s wrong (or right) with it.

More info here.