July 07, 2004

• Hrm. I'm not sure how I feel about this. Expression seems like an attempt at category killing (but screw that, I'm sticking with CorelDRAW). And I've about given up with wrangling with Visual Studio, though I know many who love it. Other free alternatives to Visual Studio are Mono and #develop, which just recently came out with v1.0. On the other hand, as dng pointed out, it's free, and much as MS pisses me off, that's a huge help to low-money monkeys.
• That should be Mono that's in v1.0.
• Looks neat - I wish had I had the skills required to make use of these programs.
• Looks neat - I wish had I had the skills required to make use of these programs.
• I'm a moron. I apologize.
• I like how there's really no differentiation in description for the four languages in vs 05 "...enables you to create Windows Forms- and console-based applications as well as class libraries." you'll create forms and and console apps! you'll fight crime!
• Tons and tons of open source, free as in free speech, software. Not to sound trollish or anything, but when has Microsoft given anything away except in an attempt to hurt competition?
• GIMP for Windows! Getcher GIMP for Windows! Photoshop for free, as it were.
• I downloaded and installed Expression 3 a couple of weeks ago. I love it. I have the POWER! Seriously, it's incredible the power this app has, I just wish I had a tablet to draw with instead of just a mouse. In just a few minutes I was drawing caricatures just like I knew how :) I'm still experimenting with it yet, so far it's not gonna replace PSP 8, but it does give me a good start on things I can't do in other graphics programs.
• Looks neat - I wish had I had the skills required to make use of these programs. Sorry. I just *had* to.
• Tablets are fantastic. Even if you dont draw, its worth having, it instantly changes the way you think about using a computer. I have tried to install expression a couple times, but it wont run on either my work or home machine. Work is japanese, home is english with japanese input installed (but i almost never use it). It fails and says it cant run with the current language. Which seems really stupid because Japanese supports english. MS released their compiler a few weeks back, and its cool that they are giving out their IDE as well.This article explains some of the motivations behind it. GIMP is impressive, but it is not photoshop. It is more than enough for most people, though. I think the open source movement is an incredible thing, and I have no doubts that it will become the dominant a bit OS further down the road. Knoppix is a good demonstration of an all around useful version of Linux that is compact and portable (its a bootable CD that creates a ramdisk and runs everything off of the CD, nothing to install, and most everything autoconfigures). With one disk, there is more than enough for most people, compilers, IDEs, browsers, open office, the GIMP (please change the name), a few lame games, and quite a bit more. The best thing is that it is really absolutely no-work and no-commitment, which is I think part of what scares people away from Linux (myself included). Next month I will probably be switching a few of my families computers over, but I will have to partly stay on Windows for the Macromedia products, and the ability to play a few games here and there. I dont especially like windows, but I have a pathological hatred for Macs (and yes, I have used them quite extensively, from the Mac Plus on, and I still have to use 9.1 and OSX occasionally at work), and the Open Source movement is something worth looking into regardless of ones level of technical expertise. The fact that microsoft is giving this stuff away is a sign that larger forces are at work. People are starting to move away from windows, and Microsoft is trying to get its hooks into people early for longhorn. They would love to charge people for this, but they need developers in the long-term, not an extra couple bucks in the short term. Outside of high performance games and media apps, most things can be done with lightweight scripting languages, either through a Java-style VM, or through web-apps. Generally, it is easier and faster to make apps this way without having to bother with the mess of the windows API and the arcane dangers of C/C++. This is another reason why Internet Explorer has floundered, MS has nothing invested keeping up with the power of web browsers, because it means that people will have the choice of using apps on any platform, not theirs. So, yeah, its cool this MS stuff is free, but all it will do is keep you dependant on windows. Holy Crap, why do my responses end up so long?
• I downloaded and installed Visual Basic 2005 and Visual Web Developer 2005 a couple of nights ago. Haven't had much time to play with them yet but I had a quick fiddle just now and I likee muchly. They're simple to use -- even for someone like me -- and has a nice WYSIWYG thing going on. And since I'm doing a Visual Basic course next year, this looks damn near perfect to start learning on now. The web developer also has a pretty stylesheet editor, incidentally. *turns MoFi puce*
• Oh, and I have Mandrake Linux and Windows, as well as an iBook, and although I adore OpenOffice, I found the GIMP frustrating to use compared with PSP/PhotoShop. Like lkc says, I mostly keep Windows for games, and as I get bored with one OS I'll switch to using the other for a few months, then back again. So for now I'm quite impressed with Visual Blah-de-Blah.
• Free software from Micro$oft? You've got to be kidding! You've already paid for it over and over and over, so Bill will throw you a few crumbs now and then, but I won't bother.
• Expression is a pretty nifty little program - I played around with it a couple of years ago when it was owned by Creature House. It's not really a Corel killer - it fits the niche of the illustrator who needs a natural look without much effort. Illustrator is the Corel killer (long live Illustrator!), as well as Freehand. As for the GIMP and Photoshop - I don't think they really compare. Try more on the order of Fireworks. Neither GIMP or Fireworks are designed for doing serious work in print. Photoshop may not have the hackability that GIMP does, but there's a very clear demarcation line between the two. GIMP has got a long, hard row to how before it supplants Photoshop as the industry standard.
• Yeah, didnt you all see anti-trust? Thats blood software, he kills programmers for code!
• Could someone tell me how Espression stacks up w/ Photoshop? I've used PS for years; I use version 7 now; and I have never used Espression. TIA.
• these aren't crumbs, steveno. they get thousands of free beta testers by doing this.
• OOoh, happy day! I've been wanting to mess around with Expression ever since I first learned about it--however, by that time, MS had already gobbled the company up. There was scuttlebut around the Flash community a while back that this was going to be a Flash Killer, as it's a vector-based drawing program, and it was expected that similar capabilities would be integrated into Longhorn. No need to distribute a plug-in when the interpretor is native (and nothing like proprietary shiny blinkenlights for a few more gratuitous platform lock-in points). I think the code name was Sparkle. A few reviews of version 2.
• Thanks for the links, I went ahead and got me some. Here's something else a lot of you may find useful: Free Linux collection from Suse. Supposedly it comes with a Suse Professional 9.1 installation DVD.
• Apparently I've forgotton how to use HTML. Here it is again.
  http://www.novell.com/community/linux/order.php